Beat

The basic unit of time in music — the regular pulse a listener feels

About Beat

The beat is the steady pulse underlying all music. It is what you tap your foot to.

One or more notes that precede the first full bar of a piece, functioning as an upbeat or pickup.

A rhythmic device in which two bars of triple time are made to sound like three bars of duple time, or vice versa.

The simultaneous use of two or more conflicting rhythmic patterns

A note lasting half a beat in common time, equivalent to an eighth note in American terminology.

A notational convention indicating how many beats are in each bar and which note value gets one beat