Music- Why Divisions of the Beat Are Important

Music is an artform that combines multiple modes of thinking. It is limitlessly both subtle and expressive while at the same time exact and mathematical. Today’s topic of rhythm comes from the mathematical side of music.

Rhythms come from combining shorter notes into longer sounds and dividing longer notes into shorter divisions. If you remember from earlier posts, the beat is the underlying pulse of a piece of music. Fitting within that beat we can have longer notes that take up several beats or smaller divisions that are just a fraction of one beat.

The easiest example (and most common time signature) is based around 4 beats per measure. The largest note would be the whole note that takes up all 4 beats. As one can understand, only one whole note can fit within a measure of 4. When we divide the whole note into two equal parts we get two half notes (notice the math connection). If the whole note is 4 beats, each half note gets 2 beats. Dividing each half note equally again provides 4 quarter notes. Each quarter note would then receive 1 beat.

It is with these quarter notes that you can start to see how important these smaller divisions are to the overall sense of the beat. Counting each measure as 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4 is a lot easier to follow than counting as whole notes 1---, 1---. Without the divisions, it is very difficult to feel a steady pulse.

Of course, quarter notes can be divided into 8 eighth notes in a measure of 4 beats. Smaller still would be 16 sixteenth notes in a measure of 4 beats. With the possibility of these small divisions, comes the necessity to use them to keep the beat. If a measure includes eighth or sixteenth notes, simply counting 1-2-3-4 gives us less of a chance of playing a rhythm accurately than if we were to count 1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and (eighth notes) or 1-e-and-a-2-e-and-a-3-e-and-a-4-e-and-a (sixteenth notes).

When writing music, we find that smaller divisions of the overall beat can help to propel the music forward and give it a sense of movement. Even if a song is based upon 4 beats per measure, the drummer dividing the beat into 8 eighth notes or 16 sixteenth notes on the cymbal helps to keep the music exciting. Also think about how 8 eighth notes or 16 sixteenth notes in a measure allows the player that many more opportunities to vary the dynamics (volume) for each note.

Next time you play or listen to music, I encourage you to try to hear and feel the divisions of the overall beats and think about how it changes your perception of the music.