Rhythm

pp. 381-402

in: Rolf Bader, Nonlinearities and synchronization in musical acoustics and music psychology, Berlin, Springer, 2013

Abstract

The rhythms found in the music of the world are either divisive or additive. A divisive example is Western notation of Classical, Rock, or Pop music. In a 4/4 meter, one bar is divided into four quarters which again are split into two quavers or four semi-quavers etc., showing a hierarchical structure. An additive example is the aksak rhythm of Balkan folk music (Fracile 2003), which spreads wide and is also played and even termed aksak in the Chinese Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) by the Uyghur people (Harris 2008), or time-lines in African music. Here short and long beats are attached one to another and repeated in a cycle.