Rhythm
Your first objective in discussing rhythm should be to identify the beat, or regular pulsation of the music. Popular music typically has a recognizable beat, although the absence of a consistent pulse (known as free rhythm) is frequently found in folk and classical music. In popular music genres, a percussion instrument, such as a kick drum and snare combination, will often sound the music’s basic beat. In Western classical music, percussion is frequently absent, so the conductor articulates the basic beat by waving a baton. After identifying the beat, the next feature to recognize is the meter. Meter can be difficult to discern for the non-musician, but, fortunately, most popular music uses groups of two, three, or four beats. Those groupings of two or four are described as having a duple (divisible by two) meter, whereas those with three have a triple (divisible by three) meter. Of course, sometimes the meter groups the beats into numbers divisible by either (e.g., six beats) or neither (e.g., seven beats) two or three, but this happens infrequently in popular music compared to duple- and triple-metered music. Tempo refers to the relative rate of speed between beats. Tempo can indicate a mood of a musical performance, with faster tempos often suggesting happy or lively feelings and slower tempos frequently indicating a sad or calm expression. Other times, tempo is merely a musical feature used to present contrast within a performance or to reinforce aspects of the overall form.