A shift of the rhythmic pulse from a division of 2 to a division of 3 is called a

• A. Polyrhythm
• B. Hemiola
• C. Syncopation
• D. Tuplet

Answer: (B)

A shift in how the beat is subdivided from two equal parts to three equal parts is called a hemiola. It creates a temporary cross-rhythm, where the same span of time is felt as three units instead of two, producing a sense of the pulse moving from a duple feel to a triple feel (or vice versa). You can hear it when a passage that seems to be grouped in two’s suddenly emphasizes three evenly spaced notes across the same duration, or when two bars of one meter are felt with a different three-beat grouping across the span. This specific re‑grouping of the pulse distinguishes hemiola from other concepts: polyrhythm involves layering two rhythms at once, syncopation centers on accented off-beats, and a tuplet is any irregular subdivision like a triplet, not the overall shift in how the beat is divided.