Musical Time: Rhythm, Meter, and Tempo

Abstract “It’s got a good beat—you can dance to it!” This was for a long time seemingly the first, foremost, and perhaps only consideration useful in judging the value of a pop song, if the frequency with which the phrase was uttered in late-1950s and early-1960s amateur record reviewing (a regular feature in television shows such as American Bandstand [U.S.] and Juke Box Jury [U.K.]) is any indication. “Beat” here most likely refers to a repeated rhythmic pattern in a particular meter at a certain tempo; the terminology may be universally abused by rock fans, but the most direct appeal of so many favorite songs is correctly understood by them as being related to their rhythmic properties. It is the goal of this chapter to clarify just what makes that “beat,” and many other rhythmic events and relationships, so infectious, driving, and danceable. We’ll see how various rhythmic patterns, heard against an unchanging grid of beats grouped into regular meters that proceed at a tempo that’s fast, slow, or in between, can mark time at the surface level of a song. At deeper levels, we’ll judge how many bars make a phrase, and how phrases of various lengths group together to make sections of various lengths, all producing rhythms against longer time spans. Each in their own way, these and other considerations (At what rates do chords change? What proportions relate one section of a song to the Whole? what position does a song take within the album that contains it?) concern the articulation of time in music. But we’ll also come to appreciate that this is all that rhythm can accomplish, and that the world of pitch is crucial for bringing individuality to every song. Who, for instance, has ever noticed that the melodies sung in Cat Stevens’s “Morning Has Broken” and John Denver’s “Annie’s Song” are practically identical in surface rhythm, meter, and tempo? The differences in pitch construction between the two songs are great enough to keep the rhythmic similarities from rising to most listeners’ awareness. Add to this the fact that scale degrees—whether expressed in melodic or harmonic domains—carry differing accentual weights, as do changes in dynamic stress, instrumentation, and other textural markers, and as do changes in perceptions of formal function, and rhythm can be a far more nuanced domain than one that simply permits dancing to a repetitive beat.