With minor exceptions, rhythm in music is one of the commonalities in almost every musical tradition around the world and, as such, it can transcend individual traditions, colonial or otherwise. In a creative era, such as ours which is dominated by a fascination for complexity, the understanding between cognitively ordered complexity and conceptual (or notational) complexity that is often audibly cognized as unstructured "noise" is a crucial understanding for composers who wish to create and master music that can function as communication between composer and listeners and as a language which can be shared among creators and listeners. The universality of rhythm in world music, can be approached as a deeper cognitive process that transcends but does not betray polyglot cultural practices. The idea of "rhythm" will be expanded to include "harmonic rhythm," "fractal rhythm," "phasing," etc. This course will be useful to graduate and undergraduate composers but also to percussionists who increasingly find themselves acting as composers during their performing careers.