Additive rhythm and divisive rhythm

In music, the terms additive and divisive are used to distinguish two types of both rhythm and meter:

  • A divisive (or, alternately, multiplicative) rhythm is a rhythm in which a larger period of time is divided into smaller rhythmic units or, conversely, some integer unit is regularly multiplied into larger, equal units.
  • This can be contrasted with additive rhythm, in which larger periods of time are constructed by concatenating (joining end to end) a series of units into larger units of unequal length, such as a 5
    8
    meter produced by the regular alternation of 2
    8
    and 3
    8
    (London 2001, §I.8).

When applied to meters, the terms perfect and imperfect are sometimes used as the equivalents of divisive and additive, respectively (Read 1969, 150).

Additive and divisive meters.

For example, 4 may be evenly divided by 2 or reached by adding 2 + 2. In contrast, 5 is only evenly divisible by 5 and 1 and may be reached by adding 2 or 3. Thus, 4
8
(or, more commonly, 2
4
) is divisive while 5
8
is additive.

Source: Additive rhythm and divisive rhythm – Wikipedia

Additive rhythm and divisive rhythm was last modified: February 18th, 2019 by Jovan Stosic

Leave a Reply