{{Short description|Rhythmic or melodic unit in music}} The 1957 ''Encyclopédie Larousse''<ref name="Nattiez 1990">quoted in Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). ''Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music'' (''Musicologie générale et sémiologue'', 1987). Translated by Carolyn Abbate (1990). {{ISBN|0-691-02714-5}}.</ref> defines a '''cell''' in music as a "small rhythmic and melodic design that can be isolated, or can make up one part of a thematic context". The cell may be distinguished from the figure or motif: the 1958 ''Encyclopédie Fasquelle''<ref name="Nattiez 1990" /> defines a cell as "the smallest indivisible unit", unlike the motif, which may be divisible into more than one cell. "A cell can be developed, independent of its context, as a melodic fragment, it can be used as a developmental motif. It can be the source for the whole structure of the work; in that case it is called a '''generative cell'''."<ref>Nattiez 1990, p.156.</ref>

[[Image:Tresillo divisive.png|250px|thumb|Tresillo, a rhythmic cell of the tango and habanera.<ref>Garrett, Charles Hiroshi (2008). ''Struggling to Define a Nation: American Music and the Twentieth Century'', p.54. {{ISBN|9780520254862}}. Shown in common time and then in cut time with tied sixteenth & eighth note rather than rest.</ref><ref>Sublette, Ned (2007). ''Cuba and Its Music'', p.134. {{ISBN|978-1-55652-632-9}}. Shown with tied sixteenth & eighth note rather than rest.</ref> {{audio|Tresillo divisive.mid|Play}}]] A '''rhythmic cell''' is a cell without melodic connotations. It may be entirely percussive or applied to different melodic segments.

==History== The term "cell" (German: ''Keim'') derives from organic music theorists of the nineteenth century. Arnold Schering adopted the term, along with "melodic kernels" (''Melodiekerne'') in his analysis of 14th-century madrigal, one of the first uses of Gestalt psychology in music theory.<ref>{{cite Grove|author=Ian D. Bent, revised by Anthony Pople|title=Analysis, §II. History, §4. 1910-1945|url-access=subscription|url=https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.41862}}</ref>

==See also== *Clave (rhythm) *Hauptrhythmus *Ostinato *Vamp

==References== {{reflist}}

{{Musical form}}

Category:Formal sections in music analysis