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The Pulse
📖 Learning Objectives:
By the end of this lesson, you will understand what pulse is in music, recognize identical regularly occurring sounds, and experience how the brain naturally groups pulses into patterns.
The Pulse in Music
In order to understand the beat and meter, we first need to understand pulse.
The pulse is a series of identical, regularly occurring sounds.
Think of the ticking of a clock or an old fashioned mechanical metronome - every sound identical and all happening at a predictable interval of time.
Exercise 1: Clap Along to the Pulse
Listen to Exercise 1 Audio. This demonstrates a series of pulses. Clap in time to the pulse.
Instructions:
Click the play button and clap along in time to the pulse
Repeat as often as you need to in order to clap in time
Patterns in the Pulse
As the brain is a pattern-seeking mechanism, it is difficult to perceive this series of identical pulses without hearing them in groups - pairs, or groups of four, for example.
The brain has a tendency to impose a pattern when none exists.
💡 Try This:
Say these words in time to the pulse audio: one-two, one-two. Do you feel this paired grouping even when you stop speaking?
Now try saying one-two-three, one-two-three in time to the pulse audio. Do you then feel the pulses grouped in threes?
Example 1: The Pulse on the Musical Score
The pulse can be represented on the musical score as a series of notes as shown below:
It would be very difficult for a musician to read a series of notes written like this without getting lost. This is because there is no auditory or visual way to distinguish one pulse from another or to distinguish groups of pulses.
📝 Activity: Try listening to the audio again and follow the written notes from left to right.
Fortunately, music has various ways of grouping pulses and notes making the music easier to read. This will be examined in the next lesson.
✅ Lesson Complete
What You've Learned:
Pulse is a series of identical, regularly occurring sounds
Examples of pulse include clock ticking and metronome clicks
The brain naturally seeks patterns and groups pulses together
We can perceive pulses in groups of twos, threes, fours, etc.
Pulse can be represented on the musical score as a series of notes
Music needs visual and auditory ways to group pulses for easier reading
Next Steps:
Complete the quiz for this lesson
Click the Mark as Complete button
You can revisit this lesson and quiz at any time
Move on to the next lesson to learn about the beat and meter
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