Alternation and repetition

Rhythm is marked by the regulated succession of opposite elements, the dynamics of

the strong and weak beat, the played beat and the inaudible but implied rest beat,
the long and short note. As well as perceiving rhythm humans must be able to
anticipate it. This depends on repetition of a pattern that is short enough to
memorize.

The alternation of the strong and weak beat is fundamental to the ancient language
of poetry, dance and music. The common poetic term "foot" refers, as in dance, to
the lifting and tapping of the foot in time. In a similar way musicians speak of an
upbeat and a downbeat and of the "on" and "off" beat. These contrasts naturally
facilitate a dual hierarchy of rhythm and depend on repeating patterns of duration,
accent and rest forming a "pulse-group" that corresponds to the poetic foot.
Normally such pulse-groups are defined by taking the most accented beat as the
first and counting the pulses until the next accent (MacPherson 1930, 5; Scholes
1977b). A rhythm that accents another beat and de-emphasises the downbeat as
established or assumed from the melody or from a preceding rhythm is called
syncopated rhythm.

Normally, even the most complex of meters may be broken down into a chain of duple
and triple pulses (MacPherson 1930, 5; Scholes 1977b) either by addition or
division. According to Pierre Boulez, beat structures beyond four, in western
music, are "simply not natural" (Slatkin n.d., at 5:05).

Tempo and duration

Further information: Tempo and Duration (music)
The tempo of the piece is the speed or frequency of the tactus, a measure of how
quickly the beat flows. This is often measured in 'beats per minute' (bpm): 60 bpm
means a speed of one beat per second, a frequency of 1 Hz. A rhythmic unit is a
durational pattern that has a period equivalent to a pulse or several pulses
(Winold 1975, 237). The duration of any such unit is inversely related to its
tempo.

Musical sound may be analyzed on five different time scales, which Moravscik has
arranged in order of increasing duration (Moravcsik 2002, 114).

Supershort: a single cycle of an audible wave, approximately ?1/30�?1/10,000 second

(30�10,000 Hz or more than 1,800 bpm). These, though rhythmic in nature, are not
perceived as separate events but as continuous musical pitch.
Short: of the order of one second (1 Hz, 60 bpm, 10�100,000 audio cycles). Musical
tempo is generally specified in the range 40 to 240 beats per minute. A continuous
pulse cannot be perceived as a musical beat if it is faster than 8�10 per second
(8�10 Hz, 480�600 bpm) or slower than 1 per 1.5�2 seconds (0.6�0.5 Hz, 40�30 bpm).
Too fast a beat becomes a drone, too slow a succession of sounds seems unconnected
(Fraisse 1956[page needed]; Woodrow 1951[page needed], both quoted in Covaciu-
Pogorilowski n.d.). This time-frame roughly corresponds to the human heart rate and
to the duration of a single step, syllable or rhythmic gesture.
Medium: = few seconds, This median durational level "defines rhythm in music"
(Moravcsik 2002, 114) as it allows the definition of a rhythmic unit, the
arrangement of an entire sequence of accented, unaccented and silent or "rest"
pulses into the cells of a measure that may give rise to the "briefest intelligible
and self-existent musical unit" (Scholes 1977c), a motif or figure. This may be
further organized, by repetition and variation, into a definite phrase that may
characterise an entire genre of music, dance or poetry and that may be regarded as
the fundamental formal unit of music (MacPherson 1930,[page needed]).
Long: = many seconds or a minute, corresponding to a durational unit that "consists
of musical phrases" (Moravcsik 2002, 114)�which may make up a melody, a formal
section, a poetic stanza or a characteristic sequence of dance moves and steps.
Thus the temporal regularity of musical organisation includes the most elementary
levels of musical form (MacPherson 1930, 3).
Very long: = minutes or many hours, musical compositions or subdivisions of
compositions.
Curtis Roads (Roads 2001) takes a wider view by distinguishing nine-time scales,
this time in order of decreasing duration. The first two, the infinite and the
supra musical, encompass natural periodicities of months, years, decades,
centuries, and greater, while the last three, the sample and subsample, which take
account of digital and electronic rates "too brief to be properly recorded or
perceived", measured in millionths of seconds (microseconds), and finally the
infinitesimal or infinitely brief, are again in the extra-musical domain. Roads'
Macro level, encompassing "overall musical architecture or form" roughly
corresponds to Moravcsik's "very long" division while his Meso level, the level of
"divisions of form" including movements, sections, phrases taking seconds or
minutes, is likewise similar to Moravcsik's "long" category. Roads' Sound object
(Schaeffer 1959; Schaeffer 1977): "a basic unit of musical structure" and a
generalization of note (Xenakis' mini structural time scale); fraction of a second
to several seconds, and his Microsound (see granular synthesis) down to the
threshold of audible perception; thousands to millionths of seconds, are similarly
comparable to Moravcsik's "s