isorhythm

plural isorhythms

1. countableuncountableentertainmentA technique that arranges a fixed pattern of pitches with a repeating rhythmic pattern, used in some medieval motets and in more recent works.

   Even when such preconceived structural arrangements are not used, as in the Gloria of the Machaut Mass, the idea of isorhythm is present in the suggestion of recurring and balancing strophic plans.

   1955, Oscar Lee Rigsby, The Sacred Music of Elzéar Genet: Historical and analytical study

   2 more examples

   In his motets Machaut strove for all-over patterns of rhythmic unity through isorhythms, a system codifying a few set patterns of time value, the number of repetitions of a pattern within a composition depending upon the desired length […]

   1953, Herbert Weinstock, Music as an art, page 31

   Meaning simply "same rhythm," isorhythm refers to the practice of using the same rhythmic pattern, called in fourteenth-century treatises a talea ("cutting"), over and over in one or more part as the structural base for a motet or mass movement.

   2006, Kyle Gann, The Music of Conlon Nancarrow