Actual RhythmsSame rhythm, different notation
Michael Jackson plays a Chinese folk song.
The bass line of Off the Wall has the rhythm of Mai wawa, a folk song from Shaanxi, note for note: the record bars it in 4/4, the song in 2/4. Only one other piece in the corpus has it, another Chinese folk song. Actual Rhythms finds matches like this across all 11,900 pieces, so every excerpt can show you its twins.
5,658 rhythms in the corpus are written more than one way; 4,984 of them in more than one time signature.
Same notes, another meter
Identical on the page, a different time signature.
Nothing changes but the meter. In 2/2 the beat is the half note; in 4/4 it is the quarter. Read both and feel where the pulse moves.
Bach, Joplin and Gershwin
The bass of a Bach chorale is a line Gershwin wrote for They All Laughed. Joplin has it too, at half the values.
Dizzy Gillespie, a Welsh tune and a folk song from Shanxi
Bebop, Wales and China, note for note: the Welsh tune in 2/2, the trumpet solo and the Chinese song in 4/4.
Toto, an Irish tune and a Tyrolean song
The dotted figure under Africa is an Irish tune from O'Neill's collection, note for note, and a Tyrolean song that writes it as four bars of 2/4.
Charlie Parker and an Irish reel
Bebop triplets and a fiddler's ornament triplets land in the same places. Only the meter differs.
Gerry Rafferty, Clifford Brown and Haydn
A 1978 hit, a bebop solo and an early Haydn quartet, which writes it as four bars of 2/4. Parker's Leap Frog has it too.
Cannonball Adderley, Beethoven and a folk song from Shanxi
Three continents and three meters: Zawinul's tune in 4/4, Beethoven's viola in 2/2, and the folk song in 2/4 at half the values.
Half or double the note values
Same rhythm, different note values.
Halve every note and a bar of 4/4 becomes a bar of 2/4. Double them and two bars become four. The rhythm doesn't change; only how busy it looks.
Charlie Parker and Jingle Bells
The riff of Now's the Time is Jingle Bells at half the note values. Mozart's "Hunt" Quartet, Beethoven and three folk songs from Germany, Austria and the Baltic have it too: seven pieces in four spellings.
Scott Joplin, a South Indian krti and Walter Donaldson
A Carnatic composition in 4/4, a rag that writes it in sixteenths, and a 1930 song that writes it at twice the values over four bars of 2/2.
Miles Davis and Beethoven's Grosse Fuge
A trumpet line from Bitches Brew is a viola line from Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, written in sixteenths. His Op. 59 No. 1 has it too.
Scott Joplin and a folk song from Liaoning
A march from 1896 and a Chinese folk song, the march in 4/4 and the song in 2/4 at half the values.
Coltrane and Beethoven
Coltrane's 3/4 on My Favorite Things is Beethoven's 3/8, note for note at half the values.
Coltrane and Monteverdi
A phrase from Impressions is a line from a Venetian madrigal at twice the note values.
Charlie Parker and Monteverdi
A syncopated bebop phrase and a tenor line from a Venetian madrigal. Monteverdi writes it at twice the note values, over four bars, more than 350 years earlier.
Earth, Wind & Fire, Beethoven and Monteverdi
A piano part from After the Love Has Gone, Beethoven in four bars of 2/4, and Monteverdi at twice the values.
Empire of the Sun and Beethoven
The bass line of Walking on a Dream is a Beethoven viola part at half the values, two centuries earlier.
Ties and beats
The same durations, grouped another way.
A tie or a single note, three beats or two: writers split the same durations differently, often to show where the beat falls. The sound doesn't change.
Wayne Shorter and Beethoven
Shorter's chain of tied eighths in 3/4 is Beethoven's quarters across the beat in 6/8. A good pair for teaching three against two.
The Carpenters and an Irish tune
One tie apart: where the bass plays a quarter, the tune writes two eighths tied together.
Scott Joplin and a folk song from Taiwan
Joplin's Heliotrope Bouquet ties into the last eighth where the song holds a dotted quarter. His Reflection Rag has the song's rhythm exactly.
Beethoven and a song from Hawaii
A late Beethoven quartet and a 1933 hapa haole song, one tie apart: a dotted half against a half tied to a quarter.
How matches are found
Proportions, not symbols.
For every excerpt, the app notes where each attack and each rest begins, as a fraction of the whole excerpt, with tied notes merged into one. Two excerpts with the same fractions are the same rhythm, whatever the time signature, the note values or the number of bars.
In the app, the source card under each excerpt counts the other pieces that write its rhythm another way, and names their time signatures. One tap shows every one of them side by side.
- 5,658 rhythms are written more than one way in the corpus.
- 4,984 of them appear in more than one time signature.
- 7 pieces share the Now's the Time rhythm, in four spellings: Parker, Jingle Bells, Mozart, Beethoven and three folk songs.
- 3 pieces have the Off the Wall bass rhythm: Michael Jackson's record and two Chinese folk songs.
Learn the rhythm, not just the spelling.
Read it in 2/4, then in 4/4, then in 6/8. Every excerpt is real music.