ABSTRACT
Picture yourself standing in front of a large kettle drum holding a mallet, and playing a three-onset, four-pulse rhythm with adjacent inter-onset durational pattern [2-2-4]. While playing this rhythm, observe the motion of your mallet as it travels through space. In particular, focus on the distance between your hand and the drum, as a function of time. Chances are that this distance function looks something like the curve shown in Figure 27.1, which illustrates two cycles of the rhythm, and shows the time points (pulses) at which your mallet strikes the instrument, namely zero, two, four, zero, two, four, and zero. e numbering here repeats every eight pulses because the period of this cyclic rhythm consists of eight pulses.
