According to a variety of investigations the rhythm have been perceived for ourselves through the walking and the heartbeat as that natural repetitions have gave to us the first sequences.
Also we naturally look for perfection, with the example of an hominid giving the food to the offsprings at the same time to the modern development of the clocks.
There is exsisting registers about drummings before ancient combats and the evidence in present hominids show how they mark with sound sequences before the figth. The rhythm has been always present in combat from our origins.
The rhythm in music of ancient civilizations was not having a specific system to define or limit it. The music was more an improvisation generating polyrhythm with a variety of percussive instruments.
Classical Japan and the European Renaissance show us how the music started having a more defined rhythm system together with the finalization of a track. The composition has defined our rhythm systems.
Antique poetry has defined the rhyme following 2 and 4 sentences. The minstrels compositions have also followed the pattern of repetitions after 2 and 4 sentences.
Popular music have adopt an specific rhythmic unit following 2 - 4 - 8 - 16 - 32 - 64 steady pulses and bars sequenced in progressive stages. There is also another rhythmic units that are explored in jazz improvisations and modern compositions.
The numbers are the same summation of digits in all the universe, the unit represents a single entity and it is also the first of the infinite sequence of the natural numbers. The multiplication of the unit gave us the first sequence, the number 2 and the multiplication of the double unit it is the number 4 consequently goes the sequence to the number 8, 16, 32, 64, etc.
There is an aesthetic rule of the rhythm following the previous sequence based in the number "4". No one have standardize it and is the traditional rhythmic unit from our recent past in composition. The reason of this natural rule is just the sequence of the multiplication of the unit or the number "1".
Liber Abaci Institute. 07/09/18.
