Tatum (music)

A Tatum ^[1] is the "lowest regular pulse train that a listener intuitively infers from the timing of perceived musical events: a time quantum. It is roughly equivalent to the time division that most highly coincides with note onsets". It can be computed by using a histogram of inter-onset intervals.

The term was coined by J. A. Bilmes in an MIT Master's thesis Timing is of essence published in 1993, and named after the influential jazz musician Art Tatum.

Notes

1. Tristan Jehan, Creating Music By Listening. PhD Thesis, MIT 2005, section 3.4.3