In music and music theory, the beat is the basic unit of time, the pulse, of the mensural level. It is often defined as the rhythm listeners would tap their toes to when listening to a piece of music, or the numbers a musician counts while performing. Beats are organized into sections called measures and are separated by bar lines. The beat is not necessarily identical with the underlying pulse of a given piece of music, and the number and relative positions of accented and unaccented beats furnish the basis of proper metric articulation, with the strongest accent usually falling on the first beat after the bar line).
The beat is like the internal clock of the music, a constant pulse that does not change. It is a fundamental part of music and is characterized by a repeating sequence of stressed and unstressed beats, often called "strong" and "weak" beats. The beat is different from rhythm, as rhythm is a pattern of beats with emphasized and unemphasized notes. In Western musical notation, the number of beats to the measure is indicated by the upper figure of the time signature at the beginning of a musical composition, while the time value of each separate beat is indicated by the lower figure).
In summary, the beat is the basic rhythmic unit of a measure or bar, and it is essential for proper metric articulation in music. It is not necessarily identical with the underlying pulse of a given piece of music, and it is different from rhythm. The beat is a fundamental part of music and is organized into sections called measures, separated by bar lines).
