Rhythm

Rhythm is a core fundamental in music, a way of measuring time with sound. It's also a core fundamental of life. The persistent repetition of sound can signal life through the sound of an object in motion. Rhythm is a felt understanding of what’s happening within us and around us. It becomes both esoteric and obvious the more you practice. Outside of life or death scenarios, there is no such thing as a person having good or bad rhythm. There is only rhythm and your practice of it. Pulse is the first idea in rhythm. Our heart’s ability to pulse is a signal of life and the rhythm we know most intimately. Pulse can be the repetition of sounds, events, movements, feelings, and so much more. Developing a practiced sensitivity to pulse on many levels allows for a freedom to create and express in many environments. Pulse is the base. It’s the underlying motion. Beat is the other core idea in rhythm. It’s often used interchangeably with pulse, but I think of it differently. Beat is the measured and often repetitive experience of a pulse over time. Feeling the beat is that practiced sense of pulse. It’s highly individual. People feel beats differently, and that’s a good thing. It’s important to distinguish between feeling a beat and counting. Some people are excellent at counting but still struggle to feel certain beats. Others might seem right on the counts, yet they never actually count. They’re keeping the pulse in their body the whole time. The words beat and pulse have meant many things to many people over time, and that’s part of their richness. People have always used these words loosely. That looseness is a feature, not a flaw. Don't get hung up on defining them too tightly. Even the word beat is sometimes used to describe many disparate pulses happening in a repetitive manner. Music has been around a long time. Some things overlap. I once read a reflection on rhythm, paraphrasing something Stravinsky explored in his own work: that rhythm lives in the events happening between two moments in time. That sensibility shaped how he thought about music, and it’s one reason his compositions have resonated so deeply in dance. There’s a paradox here, and musicians in dance live in it every day. The ability to hold precise, measured beats over time is just as important as the ability to feel time without the harness of traditional notation. Both are valid. Both are necessary. Pulse and beat are old, foundational ideas that shape how rhythm is felt and understood. And there's nothing new you need to learn to go deeper.