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In music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
, a pulse or tactus is beat (a series of identical, yet distinct periodic
Periodicity

Periodicity is the quality of occurring at regular intervals or periods and can occur in different contexts:In timing devices:* A clock marks time at periodic intervals....
 short-duration stimuli
Stimulus (physiology)

In physiology, a stimulus is a detectable change in the internal or external environment. When a stimulus is applied to a sensory receptor, it elicits or influences a Reflex action via Transduction ....
 perceived as points in time
Time

Time is a component of the measurement used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify the motions of objects....
 
This pulse is typically what listeners entrain to as they tap their foot or dance along with a piece of music (Handel, 1989), and is also colloquially termed the 'beat,' or more technically the 'tactus' (Lerdahl & Jackendoff, 1983).
Ideally, this is opposed to a series of identical but aperiodically occurring stimuli, a series of periodically occurring yet otherwise differentiated stimuli, or an uninterrupted stream of sound (such as a drone
Drone (music)

In music, a drone is a harmony or monophony effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout much or all of a piece, sustain or repetition , and most often establishing a tonality upon which the rest of the piece is built....
).






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In music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
, a pulse or tactus is beat (a series of identical, yet distinct periodic
Periodicity

Periodicity is the quality of occurring at regular intervals or periods and can occur in different contexts:In timing devices:* A clock marks time at periodic intervals....
 short-duration stimuli
Stimulus (physiology)

In physiology, a stimulus is a detectable change in the internal or external environment. When a stimulus is applied to a sensory receptor, it elicits or influences a Reflex action via Transduction ....
 perceived as points in time
Time

Time is a component of the measurement used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify the motions of objects....
 
This pulse is typically what listeners entrain to as they tap their foot or dance along with a piece of music (Handel, 1989), and is also colloquially termed the 'beat,' or more technically the 'tactus' (Lerdahl & Jackendoff, 1983).
Ideally, this is opposed to a series of identical but aperiodically occurring stimuli, a series of periodically occurring yet otherwise differentiated stimuli, or an uninterrupted stream of sound (such as a drone
Drone (music)

In music, a drone is a harmony or monophony effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout much or all of a piece, sustain or repetition , and most often establishing a tonality upon which the rest of the piece is built....
). A pulse may be an unheard event underlining a piece or metric
Metre (music)

Meter or metre is a concept related to an underlying division of time characteristic of western music. The concept provides that the pattern, is usually 2, 3, or 4 beats long, , and each beat may be normally divided into 2 or 3 basic subdivisions ....
 level, thus the tempo
Tempo

In musical terminology, 'tempo' is the speed or pace of a given musical piece. It is an extremely crucial element of composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece....
 of the piece is how fast the pulse is running, implied by the performer or listener based on context or past experience, or audible such as in Terry Riley
Terry Riley

Terry Riley is an American composer associated with the minimalism school....
's In C
In C

In C is a semi-aleatoric music musical piece composed by Terry Riley in 1964 for any number of people, although he suggests "a group of about 35 is desired if possible but smaller or larger groups will work"....
.)

Non-ideal pulses varied according to strength or accents
Accent (music)

In music, an accent is an emphasis placed on a particular note , either as a result of its context or specifically indicated by an accent mark....
, which produce two- or three-pulse pulse groups (anything larger being a combination), strong-weak and strong-weak-weak . In fact, given an ideal pulse, the most probable reaction for one to have is to perceptually group or differentiate the beats. A pulse which became too fast would become a drone, a pulse that is too slow becomes isolated sounds. A pulse that is regularly accented is a meter
Metre (music)

Meter or metre is a concept related to an underlying division of time characteristic of western music. The concept provides that the pattern, is usually 2, 3, or 4 beats long, , and each beat may be normally divided into 2 or 3 basic subdivisions ....
. An isochronal or equally spaced pulse on one level that uses varied pulse groups (rather than just one pulse group the whole piece) create a pulse on the (slower) multiple level that is non-isochronal (a stream of 2+3... at the eighth note level would create a pulse of a quarter note+dotted quarter note as its multiple level).

Pulse groups may further be distinguished as synchronous, if all pulses on slower levels coincide with those on faster levels, and nonsynchronous, if not.

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