Rhythm

Chords tell you what is sounding. Rhythm tells you when, and it is the half of music that gets a quarter of the attention. Every term here is a pattern you can hear in the drum engine within a second of arriving.

Start here

The backbeat first.

Snare on 2 and 4. Feel that and you feel pop music. Swing and syncopation make sense afterward and not before.

Jump straight inPress the triangle to hear it, the name to read it

The beat

The feel

The beat

meter and pulse

Pulse, Tempo and MeterDrag the tempo and hear the same groove at 60, 100 and 140 BPM. Tap along to find the pulse, then hear how it groups into a meter.
Time SignaturesPlay 4/4, 3/4, 6/8 and 7/8 back to back and hear where the accent lands. Tap the pulse with each one and learn to name a meter by ear.
Note Values and RestsPlay a whole note, then halve it down to a sixteenth and hear the split. Add dots, ties and triplets and hear what each does to the length.
HypermeterCount one number per bar and hear where the song turns. Play a four bar hypermeasure, then hear what happens when a band drops a bar.

The feel

what turns a pattern into a groove

Keep going

The other sections

Everything on this site sits in one of these, in the order they are meant to be learned.

The building blocks

How music works

In practice