Rhythm is the pattern of beats you could tap out on a table, while melody is the tune you could hum. A drum solo has rhythm but no melody, and a whistled tune has melody built on a rhythm.
The core difference
Rhythm is the pattern of beats and timing; melody is the sequence of notes that makes a recognisable tune.
- rhythm — a regular, repeating pattern of beats or sounds: the drummer kept a steady rhythm throughout the song.
- melody — a sequence of musical notes that forms a recognisable tune: she hummed the melody without remembering the words.
How to tell them apart
A useful test is whether you could clap it or whether you could hum it. Clapping only gives you the rhythm, since claps have no pitch, just timing. Humming gives you the melody, because it carries the rise and fall of notes. Most songs need both: the rhythm holds the beat steady while the melody carries the tune over the top of it.
The mix-up usually shows up when people describe a song as having a good rhythm when they actually mean the tune is catchy, or the reverse, praising the melody of a purely percussive track. Rhythm also stretches beyond music, as in the rhythm of someone's speech or daily routine, where there is no melody involved at all.
