1. Rhythm, Accent, and Meter

2. Time in Music
Like a film, play, or speech, a musical work has a beginning, middle, and end. What happens in any given moment of a composition depends on four related music fundamentals:
Beat
Rhythm
Accent
Meter

3. Beat
This is a unit of musical time. Like a heartbeat, we usually feel the beat as a steady, recurring pulse.

4. Rhythm
Rhythm is the way music paces itself and moves through time. Music can flow rapidly or forcefully, smoothly or roughly. It can be rapid or slow, deliberate or intensive.

5. Accents
We can identify an accent by the emphasis placed on a musical sound. Accents can happen anywhere in music. Sometimes they occur on steady beats. At other times, accents can be on just a portion of a beat or sustained over one beat.

6. Meter
This is the aural aspect of music in which a certain number of beats are grouped together. Meter in music commonly refers to groups of either two or three beats. Usually the first beat in each group is accented. Hearing the accent helps us establish the meter.
2 or 4 beat meter: beat meter:

7. Coordination in Music
Everyone rub their stomach with one hand while patting your head with the other. If you can do this successfully, then turn to your neighbor while doing this and have a conversation about the weather. Can you do all of that?
-In music, coordination involves keeping more than one rhythm going at one time.
-While musicians keep a steady beat, they often perform one or more complex rhythms at the same time. Ex.- pianists, organists, percussionist, etc.
-Let’s try to be drummers/percussionists for a minute…*HINT* It’s kind of hard…
Read:
-Discuss: Does anyone play a musical instrument? If so how have you needed to demonstrate coordination?
-Do you think different coordination skills are required to play different instruments? Why or why not?
- What performer have you seen who has shown a special ability to coordinate more than one rhythmic pattern?
– organ
– drum kit
- piano