Musical Pulse

Musical Pulse

by Rick Modlin

Sometime in my early musical education, a teacher apparently encouraged me to tap my foot to “the beat.” It seems likely that I must have suffered from the same affliction as many beginning musicians—I wasn’t maintaining a particularly consistent tempo.

Fast forward a few decades. With both of my children involved in ballroom dancing, I hear about various dance partners being evaluated— favorably or unfavorably—on their “sense of rhythm.”

In both these instances—tapping to the “beat” and dancing to the “rhythm”—there’s a bit of a vocabulary problem. “Beat” suggests some kind of sound, but there are many times in music where no sound is happening. And in dance music, so many rhythms coincide among the various instruments, how does one dance to “the rhythm”? Which rhythm? The bass rhythm? Vocal rhythm? Percussion rhythm?

Regardless of the word being used, what musicians and dancers are referring to is one’s sense of the underlying pulse of the music. Music is a temporal art form. Unlike a painting or piece of sculpture, the whole of a piece of music cannot exist in a single point in time. It can only exist relative to the passing of some period of time, and our sense of the relation between the music and the passing of time is what creates “pulse.” Important as it is, pulse is difficult to describe. It is an abstract concept, so to better understand it, and its importance, some examples of what it is and is not may be useful.

Pulse is different from rhythm

These two bars of music have obviously different rhythms, but they are subject to the same underlying pulse.

When someone says, “you’re rushing!” or “don’t drag!”—how do they know? The rhythm you are playing may be accurate according to the note values, but if it speeds up or slows down relative to the underlying pulse, then rushing or dragging is the result.

Further, a soloist will often stretch rhythms against the backdrop of pulse, holding some notes a little longer than would be precisely accurate, shortening others, delaying entrances slightly, etc. If one were to listen to the soloist’s performance alone, this stretching of rhythms may or may not be apparent, but heard against the backdrop of pulse, it creates a kind of tension, musically.

Pulse is closely related to tempo, but not identical

A faster tempo generally coincides with a faster pulse, and a slower tempo, a slower pulse. Yet when tempo is sped up, the pulse can suddenly become slower. Imagine a piece that begins as a very slow waltz, notated in 3/4. If the tempo is steadily increased, it will reach a point where it no longer seems in three, but in one—wherein the underlying pulse is each bar, rather than each quarter note. The fact that people will hear differently where that transition from three to one happens is a clue to the abstract nature of pulse.

Pulse continues when there is no sound.

This is an area where many young musicians trip up. In their haste to get to the next note, rests are often rushed through.

Beethoven was a master of implying pulse with no sound. The famous opening of the Fifth Symphony begins with a pulse coinciding with the eighth rest that all the musicians must sense before anyone plays a note:

For piano students familiar with Beethoven’s famous “Pathetique” sonata, there is a section late in the first movement where an entire musical gesture is implied, but not stated:

The exact notes he implied are debatable, but what is certain is that the musical pulse continues during those rests, even when absolutely nothing is being played. And to perform it convincingly, one must have a sense of that underlying pulse.

Fine for Beethoven, but what about liturgical music? Pulse of course exists in any kind of music, and music for Sunday Mass is no exception. Your success playing or singing with an ensemble will depend in part upon how refined your sense of pulse is.

Take this song for example: Are there six pulses per measure, as the time signature might suggest? Or are there only two? Everyone must feel the same pulse for it to gel musically. What about chant? Does it have pulse? Chant is meterless, so one might at first assume that it has no underlying pulse. Indeed, as “elevated speech,” it tends to follow the natural flow of the words rather than a “beat.” And yet if the words are poetic, then they have an internal rhythm and cadence, which in turn provides a sense of pulse. The pulse then provides a foundation for the poetic rhythm. Pulse and rhythm constantly affect each other in all music, chant included. Ways to develop your sense of pulse • Because pulse is closely related to tempo, one way to become aware of pulse is by using a metronome. Playing or singing a melody of many different durations of notes against the metronome will help develop your sense of where the notes fall in relationship to the metronome clicks. When you then silence the metronome, it is your sense of pulse that allows you to continue placing rhythms accurately against the backdrop of time. • Work with other musicians, especially those whom you know to have a great sense of pulse. Metronomes are designed to keep tempo for you, and not to vary. But music “breathes”—tempo is often fluid, and the ability to “feel” the pulse of the music with other musicians is a critical skill. • If you are an accompanist (on organ, piano, or guitar) who improvises, you can experiment with how little you can play while still providing to the listener a sense of pulse. Though the written accompaniment may be full of eighth-note motion, you may be able to provide a satisfactory sense of pulse merely playing whole notes. It certainly changes the character of the music, and is worth trying. Best to experiment during rehearsal, though—directors and cantors don’t generally appreciate those kinds of surprises! • Practice the skill of “hearing” music in your head. I was stunned once when a non-musician told me that he couldn’t hear music in his head. In fact, he thought I was crazy for even suggesting such an idea! If you can “hear” music mentally, you can develop the skill of hearing it better. Play a recording of a section or a few bars of music, then stop the recording and mentally play it back to yourself several times through, each time “hearing” something different in the music. What was that string line? How many individual voices in the choir can you pick out? How much of the music can you write out on paper without playing the recording again? This type of mental “practice” has many benefits, one of which is to refine your sense of pulse—you are placing the music (mentally) against the backdrop of passing time, even when there is no sound whatsoever. In what other ways do you sense musical pulse? © 2012 OCP. All rights reserved.