Rhythmic Patterns

In this article, we will examine many common rhythmic patterns in simple and duple meters. Knowing these patterns will come in handy for dictation, where you'll be required to dictate the melodies you hear, and sight-singing, where you'll need to sing a melody you haven't seen before.

Common Rhythmic Patterns in Simple Meter

There are many possible rhythmic patterns that you could see in a dictation setting. Here are some of the most common:

These are the three most common rhythms in simple meter. The half note simply lasts two beats, the quarter note one beat, and the eighth note half a beat.

Here are four more rhythms, these ones involving 16th notes. Clap these rhythms out loud, then check your answers with this writer.

Here are five more rhythms that you could see. Clap these ones, too, then check your answers.

Common Rhythmic Patterns in Compound Meter

There are even more common rhythms that appear in compound meter. Here are the most common:

Here are some of the most common building blocks of compound time.

Here are some more common rhythms in 6/8. Clap these ones out and check your work online.Continue to derive more rhythms in compound meters.

Dictating Rhythms

When dictating rhythms, care should be taken to sequence rhythmic values and draw beams so the location of beats is most clearly visible. In other words, every beat should be the start of a new beam, as in the examples above. There should not be any beaming across the half-bar (e.g., across beats 2 and 3 in quadruple meter). Notes, rests, ties, and beams that obscure the beat structure of a measure are difficult for the performer to interpret and considered wrong. See the examples above and ensure they fit these rules.

Practice

For each melody in this playlist, notate only the rhythm: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD1Aar3W8Px-kcT4dY_LA9Zl4nqQhM1jh&si=5owdn5SI2QyULve3

For sight-reading rhythms, see: https://www.teoria.com/en/exercises/rr.php

Other Rhythmic Styles

In some styles of music, the way rhythms are played is altered. For example, in swing music, offbeats are pushed further back, and occur later than they would ordinarily. You can think of these two figures as being the same:

To mark a passage as having this property, just mark the music 'swing.'

Otherwise, except for musical styles that allow for improvisation and ornamentation, performed rhythms should not deviate from the score.

Practice

The score is printed correctly below. Listen to the following audio track and identify the three errors in rhythm.

The score is printed correctly below. Listen to the following audio track and identify the errors in rhythm (there is at least one).

Here is what was played:

For the first question, work out what you hear at the piano and compare the answer to the given score