Musical Time
by rachMiel

“Time is the canvas on which we composers paint our pieces. It is our medium, our home. And as such, it deserves our undivided attention.

Pulse is the grid of musical time, the metronomic sequence of impulses underlying the beat. Tempo, a richly expressive component of musical time that is often ignored in contemporary electronica, is the spacing between grid pulses. Metre is the pattern of pulse accents within the grid: 3/4, 4/4, 5/8, 15/16.

Beat is the sequence of notes within the grid. Groove is the pattern of beats (loops, measures). Flow is how the groove develops and evolves. And form, the highest-level manifestation of musical time, is the shape of the entire piece, from beginning, through development, to end.

As a composer, you have the sacred duty to explore deeply each of these parameters of musical time. To ask yourself questions and answer them in your pieces. Can music exist without an underlying pulse grid? Can tempo be fluid, ever-changing, instead of fixed? What would a metre-less song sound like? Can there be a beat, something you can snap your fingers and dance to, without a grid? Can a piece be rhythmically compelling without using grooves? How might a piece's flow benefit from tempo and metre changes? And so on.

I encourage you to expand your notion of musical time, to move from the metronomic and mechanical to the fluid and expressive. You and your music will grow from the experience.