Abstract
Rhythm is the most important factor that characterizes popular music styles. Certain styles-such as rock, jazz, Latin, etc., which have uniquely characteristic rhythm patterns-are often fused to produce contemporary pop rhythms. The objective of this study is to systematize rhythms used in popular music by analyzing and classifying various rhythm patterns played on drum and percussion instruments.
A rhythm pattern can conceivably consist of an infinite number of combinations of points, accents, and instruments played. By analyzing these combinations across their styles, we may discover new rhythm styles. First, thirteen hundred rhythm patterns-such as rock, Latin, and African drumming patterns-from textbooks for drum and percussion were encoded into a computer. Then the similarities among them were estimated. And lastly according to the estimated data, the encoded patterns were classified. In this manner, we could appreciate the established rhythm categories anew.
