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Music vocabulary · Rhythm, Meter and Tempo

Rhythm

Meaning in music, with examples

/ˈrɪðəm/nounCore term

In music, rhythm means: The pattern of long and short sounds and silences in music, and how they are placed in time against the beat.

In Turkish: ritim

How it is used

Used for both written patterns and the feel of a performance. You clap, keep, read or play a rhythm; a player can have 'good rhythm' or be 'out of rhythm'. Drummers and bass players form the rhythm section.

Example sentences

  1. Clap the rhythm first, then play it on one note.

  2. The rhythm of the chorus is tricky because it starts just before the beat.

Common collocations

  • keep the rhythm
  • clap a rhythm
  • rhythm pattern
  • sense of rhythm
  • rhythm section
  • beatThe steady pulse that you tap your foot to in a piece of music. Beats are grouped into bars, and their speed is the tempo.
  • tempoThe speed of a piece of music, usually measured in beats per minute (BPM) or shown with Italian words such as allegro (fast) or adagio (slow).
  • time signatureThe two numbers at the start of a piece that show how many beats are in each bar and which note value gets one beat, for example 3/4 or 6/8.
  • syncopationPlacing accents on weak beats or between beats instead of on the strong beats, which makes a rhythm feel surprising and lively.
  • grooveThe rhythmic feel of a piece that makes people want to move, created mainly by the drums and bass locking together.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Rhythm, Meter and Tempo

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