To begin building our theoretical understanding of music, let's posit a set of regularly spaced tick marks, like so:
To start developing our understanding of rhythm, let’s start by imagining we have a set of evenly spaced lines like so:
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Our first task will be to tap on a flat surface such as a table, desk, etc…
As we tap we want to keep our taps evenly spaced:
After this, the next step will be to sing an unbroken note while tapping:
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l
This act of tapping a rhythm while singing a note, is the most basic musical act, because it encompasses the two aspects of music in the most fundamental way: singing a pitch while tapping a rhythm. Pitch and rhythm are the two underlying components of music itself. Without rhythm and pitch, music does not exist.
To see a video example of this, click on the following YouTube link:
Our First step will be to gently strike a solid surface, such as a table or desk, in a repetitive manner, over and over again. The one rule is that our strikes will be evenly spaced. This act of striking a surface in an evenly spaced way is the physical realization of what the ticks represent. This act of producing regularly spaced attacks in this manner is called ‘pulse’. Pulse is the most fundamental part of rhythm. Understanding pulse is the where the concept of rhythm becomes something we can act on.