# Is your sense of rhythm all in your brain? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 3, 2012, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137 "2012-07-03T20:52:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/1 "2012-07-03T20:52:48Z")
Is your sense of rhythm all in your brain, or does it rely on other parts such as for example the stability of your heartbeat? If the latter, then if you had a terrible sense of rhythm but then stabalized the heartbeat would your sense of rhythm improve? ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/2 "2012-07-03T20:57:53Z")
One’s sense of rhythm is kept in one’s ass, booty, moneymaker, thang, etc. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/3 "2012-07-03T20:58:05Z")
What an odd concept. For what it’s worth, my heartbeat has become irregular lately, yet my sense of rhythm hasn’t suffered. ---
**Author:** ![greenslime1951](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@greenslime1951](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greenslime1951)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/4 "2012-07-03T21:01:54Z")
Our sense of rhythm is imparted by the structures of our inner ear and how they are constructed to respond to harmonic frequencies. There are certain elements of music that are appealing because they mimic the rhythm of the heart at rest, during exercise, etc. For example, waltz music pretty much imitates the heartbeat of a waltzing person in terms of beats/minute (your mileage may vary). ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/5 "2012-07-03T22:22:28Z")
> [@greenslime1951](#): > > Our sense of rhythm is imparted by the structures of our inner ear and how they are constructed to respond to harmonic frequencies. You are confusing rhythm with pitch and timbre. > [@greenslime1951](#): > > There are certain elements of music that are appealing because they mimic the rhythm of the heart at rest, during exercise, etc. I think this is true, but it contradicts your initial statement. > [@greenslime1951](#): > > For example, waltz music pretty much imitates the heartbeat of a waltzing person in terms of beats/minute (your mileage may vary). Your heart had better _not_ beat in 3/4 (waltz) time! ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/6 "2012-07-03T22:40:42Z")
How the human brain measures time is not extremely well understood (well, not by me anyway) but there have been some studies of it. I can’t cite a particular article but I have read about this in Scientific American Mind. It’s in the brain, not other organs. As noted above, people have an affinity for tempos that remind them of heartbeats, but that’s not how we measure time. A musician can keep rhythm regardless of what his heart rate is doing. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/7 "2012-07-03T22:42:30Z")
Appropos of nothing, but neat anyhow…I once heard a techno tune which used the sound of a fetal Doppler heartbeat in the rhythm line. WHOOSHwhooshWHOOSHwhooshWHOOSHwhooshWHOOSHwhoosh… it actually made me gasp and then get teary. None of the men in the club seemed to notice, but some of the women started looking around like WTF? ---
**Author:** ![greenslime1951](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@greenslime1951](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greenslime1951)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/8 "2012-07-03T23:57:27Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > You are confusing rhythm with pitch and timbre. > I think this is true, but it contradicts your initial statement. > Your heart had better _not_ beat in 3/4 (waltz) time! No, it wasn’t a contradiction; it was another reason why rhythm is appealing. The heart’s beating forms a rhythm with waltz time, not a synchronization. ONE-two-three One-two-three forms the “ONE” approximately as often as the heart beats. Of course, this varies from person to person. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/9 "2012-07-04T00:04:33Z")
Do you mean what we call in drum circles “filling in the beats”? I don’t know what the proper musical term for it is, if there is one, but if someone’s beating, say, a simple downbeat in common time (which is about all _I_ can handle, to be honest!), other beats on other drums will sort of mix with it to make a more interesting and complex rhythm overall. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/10 "2012-07-04T01:09:33Z")
An article about related research: [Neural rhythms drive physical movement](http://machineslikeus.com/news/neural-rhythms-drive-physical-movement/page/0/2) ---
**Author:** ![Sinisterniik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/51bf81/32.png) [@Sinisterniik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinisterniik)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/11 "2012-07-04T02:23:57Z")
Related, with all of the science in the last couple paragraphs: > **[Meet Snowball, the cockatoo born to boogie! Parrots have rhythm, just like...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1175669/Meet-Snowball-cockatoo-born-boogie-Parrots-rhythm-just-like-humans.html)** > > His musical taste may be more than a little questionable. But as Snowball bobs, shakes and taps his feet along to American boyband The Backstreet Boys, his talent as a dancer is without doubt. Even more related: > **[Rhythm | Anthropology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm#Anthropology)** > > In his television series How Music Works, Howard Goodall presents theories that human rhythm recalls the regularity with which we walk and the heartbeat. Other research suggests that it does not relate to the heartbeat directly, but rather the speed of emotional affect, which also influences heartbeat. Yet other researchers suggest that since certain features of human music are widespread, it is "reasonable to suspect that beat-based rhythmic processing has ancient evolutionary roots". Ju Joseph ... The only other things I can add to the thread: 1. Not everyone has the same sense of musical meter (and I can only extrapolate rhythm as well). Some or more sensitive than others, similar to hearing pitch. 2. Critically acclaimed bassist Christian McBride once addressed a clinic I was at claiming that some people have “perfect time” in the same way as it’s possible to have “perfect pitch”. 3. Along the same lines, the former college roommate of drummer Dave Weckl claimed that he could turn on a metronome and start practicing, turn off the metronome, turn it back on after an hour or two, and he would always be in perfect time with it. 4. George Michael Bluth also has a perfect sense of time and is sometimes called the “Human Metronome”. My guess: Rhythm and meter are controlled by the same part of the brain as the more advanced language centers. ---
**Author:** ![Sinisterniik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/51bf81/32.png) [@Sinisterniik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinisterniik)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/12 "2012-07-04T02:38:19Z")
Oh yeah, I should add that you can train yourself to have a stronger sense of musical rhythm. The reason musicians practice with a metronome is to do just that, and I can assure you that most young musicians have much more difficulty playing in time than the professionals do. That being said, I don’t think any of this impedes younger audiences from appreciating rhythmically complex music. I can’t say whether this is because audiences have a different relationship with the music then the performer, or because the hypothetical audience is just enjoying the non-rhythmic aspects of the music. Either way, our sense of rhythm is like a muscle in that we can strengthen it. ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/13 "2012-07-04T03:09:46Z")
“This is the story of how we begin to remember This is the powerful pulsing of love in the veins… These are the roots of rhythm and the roots of rhythm remain” Paul Simon explained it best. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/14 "2012-07-04T03:24:41Z")
Though half of me is in the details, I’m otherwise in your soul. No, really. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/15 "2012-07-04T03:27:15Z")
It’s all in your mind. – Siam Same, the Solipsist ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-your-sense-of-rhythm-all-in-your-brain/627137/16 "2012-07-04T03:39:22Z")
> [@Sinisterniik](#): > > Related, with all of the science in the last couple paragraphs: > [Meet Snowball, the cockatoo born to boogie! Parrots have rhythm, just like humans | Daily Mail Online](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1175669/Meet-Snowball-cockatoo-born-boogie-Parrots-rhythm-just-like-humans.html) > > Even more related: > [Rhythm - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm#Anthropology) > > The only other things I can add to the thread: > > 1. Not everyone has the same sense of musical meter (and I can only extrapolate rhythm as well). Some or more sensitive than others, similar to hearing pitch. > 2. Critically acclaimed bassist Christian McBride once addressed a clinic I was at claiming that some people have “perfect time” in the same way as it’s possible to have “perfect pitch”. > 3. Along the same lines, the former college roommate of drummer Dave Weckl claimed that he could **turn on a metronome and start practicing, turn off the metronome, turn it back on after an hour or two, and he would always be in perfect time with it**. > 4. George Michael Bluth also has a perfect sense of time and is sometimes called the “Human Metronome”. > > My guess: Rhythm and meter are controlled by the same part of the brain as the more advanced language centers. My emboldening. Sorry but that sounds like a ridiculous claim. When does he turn it back on? :rolleyes: Maybe if someone took it out of the room and listened to him they could verify he keeps a perfect rhythm, otherwise who knows how many beats he has gone on ahead or fallen behind.