Rhythm in Post-Tonal Music: Preliminary Questions of Duration and Motion
Christopher F. Hasty · Journal of Music Theory · 1981
The initial difficulty confronting any investigation of musical lies in deciding what rhythm is to mean. The term has acquired an extraordinary range of reference which divides roughly into three categories of interest: 1) specific observations concerning proportions of quantitative duration, patterns of pulse and meter, and groupings of accented and unaccented beats; 2) the unfolding of musical form; and 3) the general nature of temporal organization in music. Most studies which seek to present a theory of through detailed analyses of particular works tend to interpret according to our first classification. They tend to either ignore or to be less specific in their treatment of the remaining issues since this level of abstraction deals with quantities which are susceptible to measurement and comparison or patterns of qualities which can be labeled in accordance with a taxonomy. When it is attempted, the transition from this treatment of to discussion of as form is usually carried out by