Search

The brain uses temporal structure in the environment, like rhythm in music and speech, to predict the timing of events, thereby optimizing their processing and perception. Temporal expectations can be grounded in different aspects of the input structure, such as a regular beat or a predictable pattern. One influential account posits that a generic mechanism underlies beat-based and pattern-based expectations, namely, entrainment of low-frequency neural oscillations to rhythmic input, whereas other accounts assume different underlying neural mechanisms. Here, we addressed this outstanding issue by examining EEG activity and behavioral responses during silent periods following rhythmic auditory sequences. We measured responses outlasting the rhythms both to avoid confounding the EEG analyses with evoked responses, and to directly test whether beat-based and pattern-based expectations persist beyond stimulation, as predicted by entrainment theories. To properly disentangle beat-based and pattern-based expectations, which often occur simultaneously, we used non-isochronous rhythms with a beat, a predictable pattern, or random timing. In Experiment 1 (n = 32), beat-based expectations affected behavioral ratings of probe events for two beat-cycles after the end of the rhythm. The effects of pattern-based expectations reflected expectations for one interval. In Experiment 2 (n = 27), using EEG, we found enhanced spectral power at the beat frequency for beat-based sequences both during listening and silence. For pattern-based sequences, enhanced power at a pattern-specific frequency was present during listening, but not silence. Moreover, we found a difference in the evoked signal following pattern-based and beat-based sequences. Finally, we show how multivariate pattern decoding and multiscale entropy—measures sensitive to non-oscillatory components of the signal—can be used to probe temporal expectations. Together, our results suggest that the input structure used to form temporal expectations may affect the associated neural mechanisms. We suggest climbing activity and low-frequency oscillations may be differentially associated with pattern-based and beat-based expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting the timing of incoming information allows the brain to optimize information processing in dynamic environments. Behaviorally, temporal expectations have been shown to facilitate processing of events at expected time points, such as sounds that coincide with the beat in musical rhythm. Yet, temporal expectations can develop based on different forms of structure in the environment, not just the regularity afforded by a musical beat. Little is still known about how different types of temporal expectations are neurally implemented and affect performance. Here, we orthogonally manipulated the periodicity and predictability of rhythmic sequences to examine the mechanisms underlying beat-based and memory-based temporal expectations, respectively. Behaviorally and using EEG, we looked at the effects of beat-based and memory-based expectations on auditory processing when rhythms were task-relevant or task-irrelevant. At expected time points, both beat-based and memory-based expectations facilitated target detection and led to attenuation of P1 and N1 responses, even when expectations were task-irrelevant (unattended). For beat-based expectations, we additionally found reduced target detection and enhanced N1 responses for events at unexpected time points (e.g., off-beat), regardless of the presence of memory-based expectations or task relevance. This latter finding supports the notion that periodicity selectively induces rhythmic fluctuations in neural excitability and furthermore indicates that, although beat-based and memory-based expectations may similarly affect auditory processing of expected events, their underlying neural mechanisms may be different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DNA encodes all sorts of information that makes us human, but, aside from encoding genes, could DNA also encode for a mapping of musical rhythms in a very abstract way? This project sought to generate rhythms out of DNA and compose a musical piece out of a gene's rhythmic sequence. Computational rules inspired by geometric analyses of rhythms guided the mapping of DNA's molecular structure into rhythmic timelines and melodic scales; these basic structures were then used to compose a song according to the sickle cell gene DNA sequence. The rhythms generated by this 'genetic analysis' alternate pleasantly between even and odd time signatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a machine-learning technique to analyze and produce statistical patterns in rhythm through real-time observation of human musicians. Here, timbre is considered an integral part of rhythm, as might be exemplified by hand-drum music. Moreover, this article considers challenges (such as mechanical timing delays, that are negligible in digitally synthesized music) that arise when the algorithm is executed on percussion robots. The algorithm's performance is analyzed in a variety of contexts, such as learning specific rhythms, learning a corpus of rhythms, responding to signal rhythms that signal musical transitions, improvising in different ways with a human partner, and matching the meter and the "syncopicity" of improvised music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing interest in how the brain's motor systems contribute to the perception of musical rhythms. The Action Simulation for Auditory Prediction hypothesis proposes that the dorsal auditory stream is involved in bidirectional interchange between auditory perception and beat-based prediction in motor planning structures via parietal cortex [Patel, A. D., & Iversen, J. R. The evolutionary neuroscience of musical beat perception: The Action Simulation for Auditory Prediction (ASAP) hypothesis. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 8, 57, 2014]. We used a TMS protocol, continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS), that is known to down-regulate cortical activity for up to 60 min following stimulation to test for causal contributions to beat-based timing perception. cTBS target areas included the left posterior parietal cortex (lPPC), which is part of the dorsal auditory stream, and the left SMA (lSMA). We hypothesized that down-regulating lPPC would interfere with accurate beat-based perception by disrupting the dorsal auditory stream. We hypothesized that we would induce no interference to absolute timing ability. We predicted that down-regulating lSMA, which is not part of the dorsal auditory stream but has been implicated in internally timed movements, would also interfere with accurate beat-based timing perception. We show (n = 25) that cTBS down-regulation of lPPC does interfere with beat-based timing ability, but only the ability to detect shifts in beat phase, not changes in tempo. Down-regulation of lSMA, in contrast, did not interfere with beat-based timing. As expected, absolute interval timing ability was not impacted by the down-regulation of lPPC or lSMA. These results support that the dorsal auditory stream plays an essential role in accurate phase perception in beat-based timing. We find no evidence of an essential role of parietal cortex or SMA in interval timing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Musical rhythm engages motor and reward circuitry that is important for cognitive control and there is evidence for enhanced inhibitory control in musicians. We recently revealed an inhibitory control advantage in percussionists compared with vocalists, highlighting the potential importance of rhythmic expertise in mediating this advantage. Previous research has shown that better inhibitory control is associated with less variable performance in simple sensorimotor synchronization tasks; however, this relationship has not been examined through the lens of rhythmic expertise. We hypothesize that the development of rhythm skills strengthens inhibitory control in two ways: by fine-tuning motor networks through the precise coordination of movements "in time" and by activating rewardbased mechanisms, such as predictive processing and conflict monitoring, which are involved in tracking temporal structure in music. Here, we assess adult percussionists and nonpercussionists on inhibitory control, selective attention, basic drumming skills (self-paced, paced and continuation drumming), and cortical evoked responses to an auditory stimulus presented on versus off the beat of music. Consistent with our hypotheses, we find that better inhibitory control is correlated with more consistent drumming and enhanced neural tracking of the musical beat. Drumming variability and the neural index of beat alignment each contribute unique predictive power to a regression model, explaining 57% of variance in inhibitory control. These outcomes present the first evidence that enhanced inhibitory control in musicians may be mediated by rhythmic expertise and provide a foundation for future research investigating the potential for rhythm-based training to strengthen cognitive function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Musical rhythm positively impacts on subsequent speech processing. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are so far unclear. We investigated whether carryover effects from a preceding musical cue to a speech stimulus result from a continuation of neural phase entrainment to periodicities that are present in both music and speech. Participants listened and memorized French metrical sentences that contained (quasi-)periodic recurrences of accents and syllables. Speech stimuli were preceded by a rhythmically regular or irregular musical cue. Our results show that the presence of a regular cue modulates neural response as estimated by EEG power spectral density, intertrial coherence, and source analyses at critical frequencies during speech processing compared with the irregular condition. Importantly, intertrial coherences for regular cues were indicative of the participants' success in memorizing the subsequent speech stimuli. These findings underscore the highly adaptive nature of neural phase entrainment across fundamentally different auditory stimuli. They also support current models of neural phase entrainment as a tool of predictive timing and attentional selection across cognitive domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by Marshall McLuhan's suggestion that advances in technology serve to alter sense perceptions, and that it is the role of artists to be aware of such changes, the author explores intersections and contrasts among five different approaches to the subject and practice of ear training in the context of sound recording technology, with attention to how these approaches serve to expand and challenge traditional ear training pedagogy and what these changes to tradition reveal about how sound recording technology has altered our sense perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic attending theory predicts that attention is allocated hierarchically across time during processing of hierarchical rhythmic structures such as musical meter. ERP research demonstrates that attention to a moment in time modulates early auditory processing as evidenced by the amplitude of the first negative peak (N1) approximately 100 msec after sound onset. ERPs elicited by tones presented at times of high and low metric strength in short melodies were compared to test the hypothesis that hierarchically structured rhythms direct attention in a manner that modulates early perceptual processing. A more negative N1 was observed for metrically strong beats compared with metrically weak beats; this result provides electrophysiological evidence that hierarchical rhythms direct attention to metrically strong times during engaged listening. The N1 effect was observed only on fast tempo trials, suggesting that listeners more consistently invoke selective processing based on hierarchical rhythms when sounds are presented rapidly. The N1 effect was not modulated by musical expertise, indicating that the allocation of attention to metrically strong times is not dependent on extensive training. Additionally, changes in P2 amplitude and a late negativity were associated with metric strength under some conditions, indicating that multiple cognitive processes are associated with metric perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the highlights of the second International Workshop on Cross-Disciplinary and Multicultural Perspectives on Musical Rhythm and Improvisation held at New York University Abu Dhabi in United Arab Emirates on October 12-15, 2014. Topics covered include the aim of the event, concert by saxophonist Barak Schmool and workshop on topics such as psychology and rhythm, computer improvisation and composition and rhythm in non-Western music.

This article introduces a library of external objects for real-time computer-aided composition and musical notation in Max. The library provides Max with a set of tools for the graphical representation of musical notation, manipulation of musical scores through a variety of approaches ranging from GUI interaction to constraint programming, and sequencing. The library is oriented to real-time interaction, and is meant to interoperate easily with other processes or devices controlled by Max, such as DSP tools, MIDI instruments, or generic hardware systems. These features and design choices place our software at the intersection of various categories of musical software environments and approaches, allowing it to help reduce the gap found between tools for sound-based, electroacoustic musical practices, and for symbol-based, traditional composition. The library is called "bach: automated composer's helper." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time is an integral element in music. The chronometric duration of a piece of music often differs from the duration perceived by the listener. This paper presents a composition that aims to manipulate the listener's perception of time and presents the research findings that influenced the compositional decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many tools for computer-assisted composition contain built-in music-theoretical assumptions that may constrain the output to particular styles. In contrast, this article presents a new musical representation that contains almost no built-in knowledge, but that allows even musically untrained users to generate polyphonic textures that are derived from the user's own initial compositions. This representation, called functional scaffolding for musical composition (FSMC), exploits a simple yet powerful property of multipart compositions: The pattern of notes and rhythms in different instrumental parts of the same song are functionally related. That is, in principle, one part can be expressed as a function of another. Music in FSMC is represented accordingly as a functional relationship between an existing human composition, or scaffold, and a generated set of one or more additional musical voices. A human user without any musical expertise can then explore how the generated voice (or voices) should relate to the scaffold through an interactive evolutionary process akin to animal breeding. By inheriting from the intrinsic style and texture of the piece provided by the user, this approach can generate additional voices for potentially any style of music without the need for extensive musical expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an attempt to begin to redress the relative lack of literature focused on rhythm in acousmatic music, this article is intended as a brief look at the acousmatic perspective on rhythm. The article begins with a quick overview of discussion around rhythm in electroacoustic music in general, then contrasts this with some of Pierre Schaeffer's views on rhythm and finally compares the perceptual temporal levels identified by Schaeffer with similar levels drawn from electroacoustic music, contemporary music and cognitive psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we explore the use of Bayesian networks for identifying the timbre of musical instruments. Peak spectral amplitude in ten frequency windows is extracted for each of 20 time windows to be used as features. Over a large data set of 24,000 audio examples covering the full musical range of 24 different common orchestral instruments, four different Bayesian network structures, including naive Bayes, are examined and compared with two support vector machines and a k-nearest neighbor classifier. Classification accuracy is examined by instrument, instrument family, and data set size. Bayesian networks with conditional dependencies in the time and frequency dimensions achieved 98 percent accuracy in the instrument classification task and 97 percent accuracy in the instrument family identification task. These results demonstrate a significant improvement over the previous approaches in the literature on this data set. Additionally, we tested our Bayesian approach on the widely used Iowa musical instrument data set, with similar results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the use of ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) to analyze a system for tempo estimation from audio signals. It states that the novel aspect of EEMD is its generation of temporal signature of music excerpt in different time scales and decomposed the audio signals into a series of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). It also mentions that the EEMD is straightforward to implement and has a moderate computational complexity.

The article presents a study regarding the rhythmic interaction with human-computer interface (HCI) in a tutoring system. It is investigated by an interactive system capable of providing the user real time feedback on their learning and performance and teaching the user to perform various rhythmic patterns. A system for dynamic rhythmical interaction and novel tutor system were described using hand claps. It concludes that the visual and auditory feedback are useful in rhythmic tutoring system.

The article focuses on the Laptop Orchestra Live Coding (LOLC), which is a new textual performance environment for laptop ensemble. It states that the LOLC is not a programming language although it is inspired by live coding systems. It says that the interaction paradigm inspired by other forms of ensemble improvisation such as avant-garde and jazz music is facilitated by the LOLC design, wherein musicians create the rhythmic patterns based on sound files and share it over a local network.

The article examines entropy and musical style in terms of arousal potential which refers to the psychological strength of a stimulus pattern, the degree to which it can disturb and alert the organism. It investigates whether different parameters in different musical styles might reveal shifts from style to style such as a decline in tonal content of entropy would lead to an increase in rhythmic content. The examination has revealed that entropy can capture enough characteristics of musical styles when applied to individual musical parameters.

In this article, the authors describe an approach to pattern representation and discovery in music, where pattern components can contain any number of features and can be as general or as specific as required by the data. The authors highlight the concept of subsumption, which provides a natural way to explore the pattern search space in a general to specific manner. They note that the discovery of patterns repeated within a single piece is an important step to segmentation according to thematic structures.

The article focuses on the division- and addition-based models of rhythm in a computer-assisted composition system. Illustrations of rhythms generated by purely addition-based and purely division-based means, both of which are capable of generating a variety of rhythmic surfaces, is presented. It states that a transcription of the addition-based rhythm associates a simple notational unit with the unit pulse, while a transcription of the division-based rhythm taxes notational resources slightly more. The author considers how three rhythm-generating processes can engage the addition- and division-based aspects of conventional music notation and the associated strategies that are accessible to experienced performers.

The article focuses on the Expressive Notation Package (ENP) music notation program. The program has been developed to meet the requirements of computer-aided composition, music analysis and synthesis control. It is primarily intended to represent Western musical notation roughly from the 17th century onward with an emphasis on modern notation. ENP-Expressions refer to multipurpose visualization devices that can be used to represent complex dynamic Lisp-based objects as part of a musical texture. ENP Expression Designer is a visual tool that can be used to create custom expressions.

The article focuses on the development of a robotic percussionist named Haile that is designed to demonstrate musicianship. Robotic musicianship is defined as a combination of musical, perceptual and interaction skills with the capacity to produce rich acoustic responses in a physical and visual manner. Computational modeling of rhythm perception can be seen as a subset of the field of machine musicianship that is particularly significant to the rhythmic phase of the project. A number of challenges have been identified in the robot's design, mechanics, perception and interaction including the creation of a mechanical device that encourages humans to collaborate with a machine in an expressive and intuitive manner.

This article introduces some well-established design patterns for music notation computer software. In the article, the authors presented three well-known patterns that have served well in the process. These are the Observer Pattern, the Abstract Factory Pattern and the Strategy Pattern. The Observer Pattern is a pattern that provides a solution to the problems of keeping a number of objects consistent. It is ideal for many small-scale graphical movement operations like the example of shifting notes. The Abstract Factory Pattern provides a very high degree of flexibility and control over the object-creation process. While the Strategy Pattern allows the musician to think similarly in cases not concerned with stems.

This article presented a framework to determine the key, chords and hierarchical rhythm structure of acoustic music signals. This is the first attempt to use a rule-based approach that combines low-level features with high-level music knowledge of rhythm and harmonic structure to determine all three of these dimensions of music. The methods should work reasonably well for key and chord labeling of popular music. However, they would not extend very far beyond this idiom or to more rhythmically and tonally complex music. Toward this end, it is believe that the model proposed in the article provides a promising platform for the future development of more sophisticated auditory models based on a better understanding of music.

This article proposes an alternative approach to metrical evaluation. This builds on the score-time idea, but allows multiple metrical levels and also permits a more flexible comparison of metrical analyses. It should be stated at the outset that the system is intended primarily for symbolic-input models. It is hoped that the system presented here will facilitate the testing and comparison of metrical models. Although the system does have certain limitations, as discussed above, it offers a rational way of comparing metrical structures whose results accord reasonably well with intuition. The Kosta-Payne Corpus presented here also has limitations, especially the fact that it represents only common-practice music, which may not be fair to the aims of some metrical models. Of course, the note-address system could also be used with a different corpus, providing that the corpus is annotated with note-address information. Notice that the system does not in any way require note addresses with five levels; it could function perfectly well with, say, three levels. Perhaps the greatest limitation of the note-address system is that it is limited to symbolic input. This is unfortunate, given the considerable number of models proposed in recent years that take audio data as input. The note-address system could, in principle, be used with audio models.

Analyses representations of timing and tempo common in computational models of music cognition and in programming languages for music. Ways of representing expressive timing; Limitations of the time-map representation; Ways of concatenating two arbitrary time-maps.

Cyclic arrays, such as clock faces, have advantages over linear arrays for conceptualizing repetitive rhythmic structures. The author maps rhythms from African and Indonesian musics into cyclic arrays and analyzes them using concepts from Gestalt psychology, mathematical group theory and psycho-acoustics. The perceptual structures thus revealed exist between the different musical parts played on various instruments and contradict the usual processes of auditory segregation according to the physical locations of instrumentation. This prompts a proposal for a theory of musical despatialization to explain the psychological efficacy of these rhythms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the interrelationships of hierarchy, time and meter in music. Hierarchy and perception; Hierarchical strata and representation; Linking hierarchical levels; Rules and media; Inter-penetration of hierarchical strata.

Examines the role of repetition of separate fragments or intonations in song melodies. Quantitative evaluation of musical fragment closeness; Coding of musical text; Representation in terms of repetitions; Method for revealing similar melodies; Description of experimental results.

Visual communication and Piaget's pedagogical theory can be applied to music reading with interesting results. The purpose of the author's project is to make musical scores easier to read and play and thus facilitate the teaching of music. This article describes his solution: a music-writing system based on a Cartesian representation of sound duration and color-encoded representation of pitch. One of the advantages of the system, which he calls Rainbow Scores, is that it enables one to create videos of musical scores that move along before the student's eyes at metronome-controlled speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhythm in Central African music is based on a strictly periodic structure. The period is internally organized on two levels: by the pulse and by the minimal operational values. Rhythm consists in the imposition of cyclic figures--with or without variations---on an underlying period. Rhythmic figures can be defined by a set of five features: mark, durations, morphology, metricity and structure. The dominant rhythmic feature in Central Africa is a contrametric relationship to the pulse, which creates an antagonism between the rhythmical events and their temporal framework. Polyrhythmic music results from the interaction of two or more superposed rhythmic figures, which may vary in dimensions but have periods standing in simple ratios, and its dommant feature is the interweaving of accents, tone colors and/or attacks of the simultaneously per formed figures This gives rise to a conflict between rhythm and rhythm, which is coupled with the antagonism between rhythm and meter characterizing each individual figure. Many of the phenomena described in this paper are current over a much wider area of sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patterning plays a major role in the construction of music and, apparently, in the communication of ideas. In this article, I first discuss the possible reasons for the evolution of patterning in music. Then I examine patterning in Western European 'art' music. American jazz and non-Western musics. Finally, I suggest physiological links between patterning in a composition and emotive response in a comprehending listener. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How is it possible that, during the performance of music, tempo can be controlled in such a way that, even for a long-lasting piece, there are only minute differences of tempo between the beginning and the end? From the biological and psychological viewpoint this question is rather difficult to answer, A new theory is proposed that tries to link tempo control in music to the neuronal mechanisms of the brain that underlie human time perception and the timing of intentional acts. Elementary temporal experiences--i.e. simultaneity, asynchrony, succession, the subjective present and duration--are structured within a hierarchical model. One aspect of this model is that it allows one to talk about a 'brain-clock' that underlies, it is suggested, tempo control in music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]