The mazur and mazurek (small mazur), or in English mazurka, are general terms for a series of Polish folk dances in triple meter, which originated in the plains of Mazovia around Warsaw . The people of the province were called Mazurs, thus the dance mazur has the name of the male inhabitant of the region. Again, they became popular with Polish emigration in C19, and now form a small part of the repertoire of Irish musicians.

The original mazurka rhythm consisted of a pattern of two sixteenths followed by two eighth-notes (in a three-eighths meter), i.e. two short and two long notes.

 The pattern of eight bars in three-eighths meter is reproduced above, with the beginning of the next system marked at the left, in the third line. In the music, strong accents are irregularly placed on the second or third beat of the bar. There is also a marked tendency to end the phrase on the dominant pitch located on an unaccented third beat in the measure. The tempi varied greatly between the various types of the dance, and also geographically. The mazurka also has a melodic structure based on such schemes as AABB, AABC, AAAB or ABBB.