Counter-Rhythm

@ted

These rhythmical features or counter-rhythms in much Baroque music give the music a kind of dynamic, energetic flavour. It is as if, instead of being content with lazily trudging on in always the same dull rhythm, the musicians have too much energy which they cannot refrain from letting burst out on regular intervals by throwing in a rhythmical somersault, after each of which they simply fall back with a straight face into the old rhythm as if nothing strange had happened. [...]

These things therefore intruduce a temporary or ‘local’ deviation from the normal rhythm — temporarily, a ‘counter-rhythm’ is used.

Most often, these temporary ‘counter-rhythms’ occur periodically and regularly themselves, throughout the piece of Baroque music. That is, the changes in rhythm periodically repeat, and therefore there is incorporated in the music a pattern of rhythm which repeats over and over throughout the piece.


- END -

ASSOCIATED CONTENT @TMBCHR (Auto-Generated)

3 Comments

  1. Posted November 16, 2008 at 10:43 pm | Permalink

    That is a great description of the process, and a beautiful metaphor as well.

  2. Ted
    Posted November 18, 2008 at 11:11 am | Permalink

    I am dumbfounded!

  3. Posted November 18, 2008 at 12:47 pm | Permalink

    By what?

Public Domain Where Applicable, Copy Left Where Not, Universal Free Realms Everyware Else for 2009 and for forever.*tim boucher says. No rights reserved.