Pulse (music)

In music theory, the pulse is a series of uniformly spaced beats—either audible or implied that
sets the tempo and is the scaffolding for the rhythm. By contrast, rhythm is always audible and
can depart from the pulse. So the rhythm may become too difficult for an untrained listener to
fully match—nearly any listener instinctively matches the pulse by simply tapping uniformly,
despite rhythmic variations in timing of sounds atop the pulse.[1][2] A performance may leave
certain beats silent, not literally sounded, but the pulse remains as an abstraction. For example,
even after a silent passage in a piece, the piece typically resumes on beat, as it were, by
referencing the implied pulse, established before the silence.

Contents
Definitions
Pulse groups
See also
Sources

Definitions

Simple quadruple drum pattern, rock

Metric levels: beat level shown in middle
with division levels above and multiple
levels below.
drum kit. Despite the presence of
eighth notes, there is a quarter note
beat. Play

The pulse may be audible or implied. The tempo of the piece is the speed of the pulse. If a pulse
becomes too fast it would become a drone; one that is too slow would be perceived as
unconnected sounds.[3] When the period of any continuous beat is faster than 8–10 per second
or slower than 1 per 1.5–2 seconds, it cannot be perceived as such.[3] "Musical" pulses are
generally specified in the range 40 to 240 beats per minute. The pulse is not necessarily the
fastest or the slowest component of the rhythm but the one that is perceived as basic. This is
currently most often designated as a crotchet or quarter note when written (see time signature).

Pulse is related to and distinguished from rhythm (grouping), beats, and meter:
 A pulse is one of a series of regularly recurring, precisely equivalent
["undifferentiated"] stimuli. Like the tick of a metronome or a watch, pulses mark
off equal units in the temporal continuum.... A sense of regular pulses, once
established, tends to be continued in the mind and musculature of the listener, even
though the sound has stopped.... The human mind tends to impose some sort of
organization upon such equal pulses. ...

[Pulse is] an important part of musical experience. Not only is pulse necessary for
the existence of meter ["there can be no meter without an underlying pulse to
establish the units of measurement"], but it generally, though not always, underlies
and reinforces rhythmic experience.

Meter is the measurement of the number of pulses between more or less regularly
recurring accents. Therefore, in order for meter to exist, some of the pulses in a
series must be accented—marked for consciousness—relative to others. When pulses
are thus counted within a metric context, they are referred to as beats.

— Leonard B. Meyer and Cooper (1960)[4]

Pulse groups
While ideal pulses are identical, when pulses are
variously accented, this produces two- or three-pulse
pulse groups such as strong-weak and strong-weak-
weak[5] and any longer group may be broken into such
groups of two and three. In fact there is a natural Clear quarter note pulse in 4
4 at a tempo of
tendency to perceptually group or differentiate an ideal =120 Play . At =600 the pulse
pulse in this way. A repetitive, regularly accented pulse- becomes a drone Play , while at =30
group is called a metre. the pulse becomes disconnected sounds
Play .

Pulses can occur at multiple metric levels - see figure.

Pulse groups may be distinguished as synchronous, if all
pulses on slower levels coincide with those on faster
levels, and nonsynchronous, if not.
Varied pulse groups equals non-isochronal
multiple level Play . An isochronal or equally spaced pulse on one level that
uses varied pulse groups (rather than just one pulse
group the whole piece) create a pulse on the (slower)
multiple level that is non-isochronal (a stream of 2+3... at the eighth note level would create a
pulse of a quarter note+dotted quarter note as its multiple level).

See also
Composite rhythm
Metre (hymn)
Metre (poetry)
Triple metre
 Duple and quadruple metre
Sextuple metre
Counting (music)

Sources
1. Fitch, W. Tecumseh and Rosenfeld, Andrew J. (2007). "Perception and Production of
Syncopated Rhythms", p.44, Music Perception, Vol. 25, Issue 1, pp. 43–58, ISSN 0730-
7829.
2. Benward, Bruce and Saker, Marilyn (2003). Music: In Theory and Practice, Vol. I, p.9. 7th
edition. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-294262-2.
3. P. Fraisse, Les Structures Rhythmiques, Erasme Paris 1956, H Woodrow Time Perception
in "A Handbook of Experimental Psychology", ed. S.S. Stevens, Wiley, NY 1951, both
quoted at http://www.zeuxilogy.home.ro/media/manifesto.pdf Archived (https://web.archive.o
rg/web/20110722182251/http://www.zeuxilogy.home.ro/media/manifesto.pdf) 2011-07-22 at
the Wayback Machine (zeuxilogy.home.ro (http://www.zeuxilogy.home.ro/) Archived (https://
web.archive.org/web/20120306194958/http://www.zeuxilogy.home.ro/) 2012-03-06 at the
Wayback Machine)
4. Cooper, Grosvenor and Meyer, Leonard B. Meyer (1960). The Rhythmic Structure of Music,
p.3-4. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-11521-6/ISBN 0-226-11522-4.
5. Winold, Allen (1975). "Rhythm in Twentieth-Century Music", Aspects of Twentieth-Century
Music. Wittlich, Gary (ed.). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-049346-
5.

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