10/18/25: Analysis Series #3: The Need-To-Know About Rhythm

john koenig
Oct 18
3 min read

Rhythm is perhaps the most fundamental, the most human of all the musical elements. If we were able to take a time machine trip back to hear the 2,000-Year-Old Man give a recital at the Rock Conservatory, it would have probably consisted of music that was purely rhythmic in nature. So then why is rhythm often so deeply misunderstood when it is understood at all? Beats me (ha ha ha).

There is a rich, complex, and interesting history of rhythmic notation, but it is all largely want to know, not need to know. For now, all we need to understand about rhythm is that it is counted in units called beats. This “beat” (sometimes also called a pulse…but sometimes people disagree vehemently about the difference between beat and pulse…oh to have the time to debate such things….) can be divided in two ways: into two units or into three units. Most of the earliest music used beats divided into three units since three represented the Trinity and was therefore perfect. As secular culture arose, a preference for musical beats divided in two also arose. This issue between beats divided in two and three still exists today; music that uses duple beat divisions is called “simple” while music that uses triple divisions is called “compound,” implying that one is easier to understand than the other. It’s not. One is divided in two, the other is divided in three, that’s it.

T here is a whole system of time signatures that some claim help us understand rhythmic divisions. They do not. All time signatures do is tell us how many of each kind of note are in a musical measure before we need a bar line, a line of division in musical notation. For example, the time signature 4/4 simply tells us that there are 4 quarter notes (1/4) in every musical measure. Likewise, 5/8 tells us that there are 5 eighth notes (1/8) in every bar. This latter example, 5/8, necessitates that one beat of a bar is divided in 3 eighth notes while the other beat is divided in 2 (3+2=5, doctor brain coming in handy), which creates a lopsided, sort of limping-sounding music. The joy of 5/8 is that is can sometimes be 3+2 and other times 2+3, and the pattern can change bar by bar. But it is still just 2s and 3s.

Past that, the only other thing one needs to know about rhythm is how all the notes relate to each other. I’ve put a rhythmic tree at the bottom of this post so you can see it. But generally any time we change something about a note, we cut its durational value in half. So, take the whole note, basically an open circle. When I add a stem to it, creating a half note, it is now worth half of the whole note. When I fill the half note in, I get a quarter note, worth half of the half note. Add a flag and we get an eighth note, two of which fit inside a quarter note, add another flag and the pattern continues.

These divisions are all in twos. However, there is a way to create notes that are divided into threes. Back in days of yore, they would add a dot of perfection to a note to make it worth three of something. Back then three was perfect because of the Trinity, and the Church controlled basically everything back then. We use the dot for the same thing today. Any time you see a dot next to a note, it is worth three of the note the next level down on the rhythmic tree. So, a dotted whole note equals three half notes, a dotted half equals three quarters, and so on. And that’s it. Just twos and threes.

Rhythm is often explained in a way that is overly complicated, but it really doesn’t need to be that scary. Basically, music has beats, and the way notes looks help us understand how they fit in a structure of musical beats. This beat can be divided, broadly, into two units or three. The notes break down according to the rhythmic tree, see below. And that’s it. Pretty much everything else about rhythm can be discussed in the context of music itself, so that’s all you need to know for now!