The present paper presents an overview of the ways we make sense of rhythm through visual means in music in terms of visual representation and notation, relating this to the user interfaces of music technology. Besides enabling the communication of rhythmical ideas, our systems of music representation reflect how we make sense of rhythm as a music parameter. Because of the complexity of visually representing rhythm, only software-based solutions provide flexible enough representations of rhythm in user interfaces. While the user interfaces of much rhythm oriented music technology deal with rhythm in looped phrases of 4/4 time, there are several examples of tools that challenge conventional ways of working with and visually representing rhythm.