The term "rhythm", taken from the Greek "ῥυθμός" - "rhythmos",
designates any kind of regular and recurrent symmetrical motion. It
could also be described as an orderly succession of regulated movements,
of both weak and strong elements. Many cyclical natural phenomena can
be said to possess this kind of general time and recurrence pattern.
Starting from microseconds to millions of years, most anything can be
measured by periodicity or frequency.
Rhythm occurs of course in the performance arts. There, it represents
the way events are timed on our human scale. Musical sounds and silences
are also timed by rhythm, as well as the steps of a certain dance or
the meters of poetry or mostly any kind of spoken language. Visual
presentation can be referred to by rhythm as a sort of time-measured
space movement. Many scholars have recently initiated researches on the
subject of rhythm and musical meter. In this respect, we could mention
books written by Maury Yeston, Jonathan Kramer, Christopher Hasty,
William Rothstein, Joel Lester, Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff.
In his well-known work entitled "Arbeit und Rhythmus", Bücher writes
about his having reached the conclusion "that while in the first stages
of their development labor, music and poetry were usually blended, labor
was the predominant element, the others being only of secondary
importance." He also explains that labor is actually the true origin of
poetry. Indeed, if we consider the sounds and breathing exercises
primitive people made as they worked, we could say that labor indeed may
have represented a primitive form of singing and dancing.
However, rhythm could not possibly be enough to explain the complexity
of music and dance. Rhythm is likely to provide the framework, the
articulation, the connecting principle. Nonetheless, rhythm needs to
give shape to a certain sensorial matter. Rhythm can turn the musical
phrase into something unified and individual, it may confer value and
importance to the succession of sounds. In a way, we may say that rhythm
is actually the string that bears the diversely-colored, shaped and
sized beads. Indeed, rhythm needs to assemble all these sensitive
values.
Rhythm is a deep function that governs all our forms of perception and
movement. Some say that there isn't any such thing as a musical rhythm.
However, there isn't any rhythm that could not actually be part of a
musical form. That is why rhythm has so much power. Rhythm introduces in
music the very life of psychological states of mind. Both
intellectually and affectively, rhythm introduces the entire rich
variety full of nuances of the emotions and intellectual moods; it is in
fact the diverse order of thinking and feelings.
The chief conductor imposes his rhythm to his orchestra. According to
Henri Delacroix, a conductor can invest time with rhythm. He is at the
same time the mime and the dancer of the music performed at his very own
command. A conductor's entire body actually reproduces rhythm. With one
hand, he reproduces time and strength; with the other hand, the traits
of grace and mildness; in his muscles various spirits spread out which
within music are mixed and agitated. The conductor imposes his text upon
his instrument players, and at the same time translates this text to
the great audience, which can follow the movement of his arms and of his
shoulders. So the conductor has the task to direct both his listeners
and his musicians towards the musical realm.
Howard Goodall explains in his series entitled How Music Works Howard
Goodall, certain theories according to which human rhythm actually
reminds us of the mother's heartbeat heard in the womb, or of the
regular steps we take as we walk. Also, London says that musical meter
is related to our initial perception as well as to the following
anticipation of some beats that we get abstracted from the music's
rhythm surface as it displays itself in time. According to neurologist
Oliver Sacks, chimpanzees or other animals are not endowed with this
sense of rhythm. However, in the case of humans this sense is
fundamental, and can by no means be lost by accident. He also adds that
the human rhythmical performance arts could have their roots in some
ancient courtship rituals.
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