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Rhythm

How music works: rhythm
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Introduction

Introduction
Image of drummer, headphones and Note Canvas tool

Organising sounds in time is rhythm. Rhythm is music's heart beat and pulse. Rhythm is a driving force in almost all music.

On this page, there are three groups of articles for finding out about rhythm:

  • Use interactive tools to create your own rhythms and compare them to rhythms in other music
  • Find out about many different uses of rhythm in three particular pieces: Moving Away (African), Emerging Dances (orchestral), and Where will it take you (Jazz)
  • Explore different aspects of rhythm from different genres from across SoundJunction

Articles

Articles
Image of Note Canvas tool

Note Canvas tool

Make your own music by drawing notes and playing around with sounds, on the Note Canvas tool

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Image of Note Canvas tool

What is syncopation?

Make your own syncopated rhythms and listen to examples of syncopated music

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Articles

Articles
Eugene playing the udu

Rhythm in Moving Away

Discover how composer Tunde Jegede uses rhythm in his song Moving Away

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David Hockings playing the vibraphone

Rhythm in Emerging Dances

Find out how David Horne manipulates and plays with rhythm in the piece Emerging Dances.

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Seb Rochford

Rhythm in Where will it take you?

Find out how rhythm is used in Where will it take you?

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Seeds

Using the seed rhythm

Discover the different ways in which SoundJunction's seed rhythm has been used

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Articles

Articles
Cowbells and marimba

Games: find the rhythm!

In this game, see if you can find where a composer has used a particular rhythm by sliding the rhythm around in time to where it fits...

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Tunde Jegde is playing Kora

Kora 2: sharing rhythms

How does the music for the kora in 'Moving Away' combine two rhythms from different places?

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Close-up of the chorus singers

Moving Away: rhythms of speech in the chorus

A look at the initial chorus of 'Moving Away' and the close relationship between the sung rhythm in the chorus parts and the actual spoken rhythm of the words.

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Promise Land: making things fit

Making all the parts fit together is a real challenge – how does Dennis Rollins get around this?

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Eugene playing the udu

Tiriba and kuku rhythms on the udu in Moving Away

At the end of 'Moving Away', the udu part rises to a double-speed climax, combining rhythmic patterns with different timings and time signatures.

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Using click tracks in Where Will You Go?

What are click tracks and why are they important? Colin Emmanuel explains reveals all

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Where there were 8, now there are 7

David Horne takes the regular four-square seed rhythm and turns it into seven-note patterns in this passage from 'Emerging Dances'.

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