While interaction techniques that use the temporal dimension have been used for a long time, such as multiple clicks or spring-loaded widgets, more advanced uses of rhythmic patterns have received little attention in HCI. Using such temporal structures to convey information can be particularly useful in situations where the visual channel is overloaded or even not available. In this paper we introduce Rhythmic Interaction as the use of rhythms for input. We report the results of two experiments that show that (i) rhythmic patterns can be efficiently reproduced by novice users and recognized by computer algorithms, and (ii) rhythmic patterns can be memorized as efficiently as traditional shortcuts when associating them with visual commands. Overall, these results demonstrate the potential of Rhythmic Interaction and open the way to a richer repertoire of interaction techniques.