Aksak

The Turkish term aksak, borrowed from Ottoman musical theory, means "limping", "stumbling", or "slumping", i.e., irregular (Brăiloiu 1951; Fracile 2003, 198; Reinhard, Stokes, and Reinhard 2001, §II, 4). It designates a rhythmic system in which pieces or sequences, executed in a fast tempo, are based on the uninterrupted reiteration of a matrix, which results from the juxtaposition of rhythmic cells based on the alternation of binary and ternary quantities, as in 2+3, 2+2+3, 2+3+3, etc.