You may already have a good idea of what rhythm is — it's the way music moves and grooves. To convey a more formal definition of rhythm, let's familiarize ourselves with a few concepts:

• The beatThe pulse in a piece of music. is the pulse we feel in the music.

TempoA term that refers to how quickly the beats pass in a piece of music. refers to the speed of the beat, i.e., how fast the beats pass.

• A note is an actual musical sound, consisting of pitch but also durationA term referring to how long a note is sounded. (i.e., how long the note is sounded).

RhythmIn a piece of music, the series of articulated durations from one note to the next. is created by the notes we hear. Think of a tune — it is a succession of notes. We primarily associate a note with its pitch, but for purposes of understanding rhythm, let's focus on the note's duration. Rhythm is the succession of articulated durations from one note to the next.

Our bodies and brains make sense of the rhythms we hear because we feel the beat in the background behind the music. In other words, the beat provides the context that allows us to make sense of the rhythm.

Not only do we feel the beat, we also sense how the beats are grouped because the first beat in each group is emphasized. The way the beats are grouped speaks to the next concept that we'll cover, meterThe grouping of beats in a piece of music.

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