rhythm

There is something mysterious about the stimulating effect of rhythm. You can explain what it is that creates rhythm but you have to experience it yourself to know what it is like. A person listening to music experiences the rhythm as something beyond all reflection, something existing within himself. A man who moves rhythmically starts the motion himself and feels that he controls it. But very shortly the rhythm controls him; he is possessed by it. It carries him along. Rhythmic motion gives a feeling of heightened energy. Often, too, it occupies the performer without any conscious effort on his part so that his mind is free to wander at will -- a state very favorable to artistic creation... The person who hears music or watches dancing does none of the physical work himself but in perceiving the performance he experiences the rhythm of it as though it were in his own body... Often the man who forms architecture also works rhythmically in the creative process itself. This results in a regularity which may be very difficult to express in words but which is spontaneously felt by those who have the same sense of rhythm.

-- Steen Eiler Rasmussen Experiencing Architecture