Editing Rhythm (section)

== Counter rhythm ==
From 1927 and forward the recognized definition of "Counter Rhythm<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Counter-Rhythm: Oxford English Dictionary |url=https://www.oed.com/dictionary/counter-rhythm_n?tab=meaning_and_use#8096096}}</ref>" is "A subordinate rhythm acting as a counterbalance to the main rhythm" (OED<ref name=":0" />). Counter Rhythm is not a common word or phrase in the English Language, appearing approximately 0.01 times per million words in modern written English. Counter Rhythm has been on a steady decrease in usage since its conception, with the exception of a spike in usage in the 1970s. Previous definitions that have been phased out include, "The musical counter-rhythms which Marlowe introduced" and "Splashes of counter-rhythms, flashing tremolos" (OED<ref name=":0" />).  

===African music===
[[File:Diffa Niger Griot DSC 0177.jpg|thumb|right|upright|A Griot performs at Diffa, Niger, West Africa. The Griot is playing a Ngoni or Xalam.]]
In the [[Griot]] tradition of Africa everything related to music has been passed on orally. [[Babatunde Olatunji]] (1927–2003) developed a simple series of spoken sounds for teaching the rhythms of the hand-drum, using six vocal sounds, "Goon, Doon, Go, Do, Pa, Ta", for three basic sounds on the drum, each played with either the left or the right hand.{{Citation needed|date=September 2016}} The debate about the appropriateness of staff notation for African music is a subject of particular interest to outsiders while African scholars from Kyagambiddwa to Kongo have, for the most part, accepted the conventions and limitations of staff notation, and produced transcriptions to inform and enable discussion and debate.{{sfn|Agawu|2003|p=52}}

John Miller{{sfn|Chernoff|1979}} has argued that West African music is based on the tension between rhythms, [[polyrhythm]]s created by the simultaneous sounding of two or more different rhythms, generally one dominant rhythm interacting with one or more independent competing rhythms. These often oppose or complement each other and the dominant rhythm. Moral values underpin a musical system based on repetition of relatively simple patterns that meet at distant [[Cross-beat|cross-rhythmic]] intervals and on [[Call and response (music)|call-and-response form]]. Collective utterances such as proverbs or lineages appear either in phrases translated into "drum talk" or in the words of songs. People expect musicians to stimulate participation by reacting to people dancing. Appreciation of musicians is related to the effectiveness of their upholding community values.{{sfn|Chernoff|1979|p={{Page needed|date=July 2014}}}}

===Indian music===
{{See also|Bol (music)}}
Indian music has also been passed on orally. Tabla players would learn to speak complex rhythm patterns and phrases before attempting to play them. [[Sheila Chandra]], an English pop singer of Indian descent, made performances based on her singing these patterns. In [[Indian classical music]], the [[Tala (music)|Tala]] of a composition is the rhythmic pattern over which the whole piece is structured.

===Western music===
In the 20th century, composers like [[Igor Stravinsky]], [[Béla Bartók]], [[Philip Glass]], and [[Steve Reich]] wrote more rhythmically complex music using [[List of works in unusual time signatures|odd meters]], and techniques such as [[Phasing (music)|phasing]] and [[additive rhythm]]. At the same time, modernists such as [[Olivier Messiaen]] and his pupils used increased complexity to disrupt the sense of a regular beat, leading eventually to the widespread use of [[irrational rhythm]]s in [[New Complexity]]. This use may be explained by a comment of [[John Cage]]'s where he notes that regular rhythms cause sounds to be heard as a group rather than individually; the irregular rhythms highlight the rapidly changing pitch relationships that would otherwise be subsumed into irrelevant rhythmic groupings.{{sfn|Sandow|2004|p=257}} [[La Monte Young]] also wrote music in which the sense of a regular beat is absent because the music consists only of long sustained tones ([[drone (music)|drones]]). In the 1930s, [[Henry Cowell]] wrote music involving multiple simultaneous periodic rhythms and collaborated with [[Leon Theremin]] to invent the [[rhythmicon]], the first electronic [[Drum machine|rhythm machine]], in order to perform them. Similarly, [[Conlon Nancarrow]] wrote for the [[player piano]].