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This article draws on a case study of a third‐year geography course to explore the potential of music in fostering relational pedagogy in higher education. We argue that the reciprocal nature of music sharing generates a dialogical space that allows for multiple relations to be developed between the learners and their selves, among students and peers, between learners and teachers, as well as between students and the materials they study and the wider world. Furthermore, music encourages an approach to pedagogy that is emancipatory and which is characterised by genuine care, humility and trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animal songs differ from calls in function and structure, and have comparative and translational value, showing similarities to human music. Rhythm in music is often distributed in quantized classes of intervals known as rhythmic categories. These classes have been found in the songs of a few nonhuman species but never in their calls. Are rhythmic categories song‐specific, as in human music, or can they transcend the song–call boundary? We analyze the vocal displays of one of the few mammals producing both songs and call sequences: Indri indri. We test whether rhythmic categories (a) are conserved across songs produced in different contexts, (b) exist in call sequences, and (c) differ between songs and call sequences. We show that rhythmic categories occur across vocal displays. Vocalization type and function modulate deployment of categories. We find isochrony (1:1 ratio, like the rhythm of a ticking clock) in all song types, but only advertisement songs show three rhythmic categories (1:1, 1:2, 2:1 ratios). Like songs, some call types are also isochronous. Isochrony is the backbone of most indri vocalizations, unlike human speech, where it is rare. In indri, isochrony underlies both songs and hierarchy‐less call sequences and might be ancestral to both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: With the development of technology, research related to music‐based dance generation models has been increasing. Some of the studies have applied algorithms to dance generation models, but these algorithms suffer from problems such as the inability to make an exact match between music and dance. To solve these problems, the research innovatively proposes a deep learning toddler dance generation model based on music rhythm and beat to extract music and dance features respectively. In addition, the study generates smooth dances through a generator module, improves the match between the dances and music generated by the model through a discriminator, and enhances the representativeness of audio features through a self‐encoder module. Finally, the study completes the validation of the model by comparing the loss functions and other aspects. Results demonstrate that this model has the smallest loss value of 17.58, and that the model generates a better match between dance and music for different music, with values of 8.9, 8, and 7.4. Compared with the comparison model, the study's model for generating dances for young children has better results in terms of dance generation. The study solves the problem that previous algorithms cannot make an exact match between music and dance, and has implications for fields such as cross‐modal generation and games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Musical instrument training has been linked to improved academic and cognitive abilities in children, but it remains unclear why this occurs. Moreover, access to instrument training is not always feasible, thereby leaving less fortunate children without opportunity to benefit from such training. Although music‐based video games may be more accessible to a broader population, research is lacking regarding their benefits on academic and cognitive performance. To address this gap, we assessed a custom‐designed, digital rhythm training game as a proxy for instrument training to evaluate its ability to engender benefits in math and reading abilities. Furthermore, we tested for changes in core cognitive functions related to math and reading to inform how rhythm training may facilitate improved academic abilities. Classrooms of 8–9 year old children were randomized to receive either 6 weeks of rhythm training (N = 32) or classroom instruction as usual (control; N = 21). Compared to the control group, results showed that rhythm training improved reading, but not math, fluency. Assessments of cognition showed that rhythm training also led to improved rhythmic timing and language‐based executive function (Stroop task), but not sustained attention, inhibitory control, or working memory. Interestingly, only the improvements in rhythmic timing correlated with improvements in reading ability. Together, these results provide novel evidence that a digital platform may serve as a proxy for musical instrument training to facilitate reading fluency in children, and that such reading improvements are related to enhanced rhythmic timing ability and not other cognitive functions associated with reading performance. Research Highlights: Digital rhythm training in the classroom can improve reading fluency in 8–9 year old childrenImprovements in reading fluency were positively correlated with enhanced rhythmic timing abilityAlterations in reading fluency were not predicted by changes in other executive functions that support readingA digital platform may be a convenient and cost‐effective means to provide musical rhythm training, which in turn, can facilitate academic skills [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pleasurable urge to move to music (PLUMM) activates motor and reward areas of the brain and is thought to be driven by predictive processes. Dopamine in motor and limbic networks is implicated in beat‐based timing and music‐induced pleasure, suggesting a central role of basal ganglia (BG) dopaminergic systems in PLUMM. This study tested this hypothesis by comparing PLUMM in participants with Parkinson's disease (PD), age‐matched controls, and young controls. Participants listened to musical sequences with varying rhythmic and harmonic complexity (low, medium and high), and rated their experienced pleasure and urge to move to the rhythm. In line with previous results, healthy younger participants showed an inverted U‐shaped relationship between rhythmic complexity and ratings, with preference for medium complexity rhythms, while age‐matched controls showed a similar, but weaker, inverted U‐shaped response. Conversely, PD showed a significantly flattened response for both the urge to move and pleasure. Crucially, this flattened response could not be attributed to differences in rhythm discrimination and did not reflect an overall decrease in ratings. For harmonic complexity, PD showed a negative linear pattern for both the urge to move and pleasure while healthy age‐matched controls showed the same pattern for pleasure and an inverted U for the urge to move. This contrasts with the pattern observed in young healthy controls in previous studies, suggesting that both healthy aging and PD also influence affective responses to harmonic complexity. Together, these results support the role of dopamine within cortico‐striatal circuits in the predictive processes that form the link between the perceptual processing of rhythmic patterns and the affective and motor responses to rhythmic music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music can be interpreted by attributing syntactic relationships to sequential musical events, and, computationally, such musical interpretation represents an analogous combinatorial task to syntactic processing in language. While this perspective has been primarily addressed in the domain of harmony, we focus here on rhythm in the Western tonal idiom, and we propose for the first time a framework for modeling the moment‐by‐moment execution of processing operations involved in the interpretation of music. Our approach is based on (1) a music‐theoretically motivated grammar formalizing the competence of rhythmic interpretation in terms of three basic types of dependency (preparation, syncopation, and split; Rohrmeier, 2020), and (2) psychologically plausible predictions about the complexity of structural integration and memory storage operations, necessary for parsing hierarchical dependencies, derived from the dependency locality theory (Gibson, 2000). With a behavioral experiment, we exemplify an empirical implementation of the proposed theoretical framework. One hundred listeners were asked to reproduce the location of a visual flash presented while listening to three rhythmic excerpts, each exemplifying a different interpretation under the formal grammar. The hypothesized execution of syntactic‐processing operations was found to be a significant predictor of the observed displacement between the reported and the objective location of the flashes. Overall, this study presents a theoretical approach and a first empirical proof‐of‐concept for modeling the cognitive process resulting in such interpretation as a form of syntactic parsing with algorithmic similarities to its linguistic counterpart. Results from the present small‐scale experiment should not be read as a final test of the theory, but they are consistent with the theoretical predictions after controlling for several possible confounding factors and may form the basis for further large‐scale and ecological testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urge to move to music (groove) depends in part on rhythmic syncopation in the music. For adults, the syncopation‐groove relationship has an inverted‐U shape: listeners want to move most to rhythms that have some, but not too much, syncopation. However, we do not know whether the syncopation‐groove relationship is relatively sensitive to, or resistant to, a listener's experience. In two sets of experiments, we tested whether the syncopation‐groove relationship is affected by dance experience or changes through development in childhood. Dancers and nondancers rated groove for 50 rhythmic patterns varying in syncopation. Dancers' and nondancers' ratings did not differ (and Bayesian tests provided substantial evidence that they were equivalent) in terms of mean groove and the optimal level of syncopation. Similarly, ballet and hip‐hop dancers' syncopation‐groove relationships did not differ. However, dancers had more robust syncopation‐groove relationships (higher goodness‐of‐fit) than nondancers. Children (3–6 years old) completed two tasks to assess their syncopation‐groove relationships: In a 2‐alternative‐forced choice task, children compared rhythms from 2 of 3 possible levels of syncopation (low, medium, and high) and chose which rhythm in a pair was better for dancing. In a dance task, children danced to the same rhythms. Results from both tasks indicated that for children, as for adults, medium syncopation rhythms elicit more groove than low syncopation rhythms. A follow‐up experiment replicated the 2‐alternative‐forced choice task results. Taken together, the results suggest the optimal level of syncopation for groove is resistant to experience, although experience may affect the robustness of the inverted‐U relationship. Research Highlights: In Experiment 1, dancers and nondancers rated groove (the urge to move) for musical rhythms, demonstrating the same inverted‐U relationships between syncopation and groove.In Experiment 2, children and adults both chose rhythms with moderate syncopation more than low syncopation as more groove‐inducing or better for dancing.Children also danced more for moderate than low syncopation, showing a close perception‐behavior relationship across tasks.Similarities in the syncopation‐groove relationship regardless of dance training and age suggest that this perceptual and behavioral groove response to rhythmic complexity may be quite resistant to experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhythmic stability (nonrandom temporal structure) is required for many neural and physiological functions, whereas rhythmic irregularities can indicate genetic or developmental deficiencies. Therefore, rhythmic courtship or contest signals are widespread in nature as honest advertisement displays. Examination of bird songs revealed the pervasiveness of categorical rhythmic patterns that can be described as small integer ratios between sequential inter‐call intervals. As similar rhythmic profiles are prevalent in human music, it was suggested that a shared functionality could drive both animal songs and human musical rhythms, facilitating synchrony between signallers and enabling easy identification of performance errors.Here we examined whether the rhythmic structure and the rhythmic stability of vocal displays are related to reproductive success in male rock hyraxes (Procavia capensis), which presents an unusual case of a terrestrial singing mammal.We combined long‐term parentage analysis of 13 male hyraxes (22 male/years) with an analysis of an audio library of 105 hyrax songs. Male annual reproductive success was determined by the number of offspring that survived to the age of 1 year. The frequency of singing events was used to determine the seasonal singing effort for each male. Songs were analysed for rhythmic structure, focusing on the presence of categorical rhythms and the contribution of rhythmic stability to annual reproductive success.We found that male hyraxes that sing more frequently tend to have more surviving offspring and that the rhythmic profile of hyrax songs is predominantly isochronous with sequential vocal element pairs nearly equally spaced. The ratio of isochronous vocal element transitions (on‐integer) to element transitions that deviate from an isochronous pattern (off‐integer) in hyrax songs is positively correlated with male reproductive success.Our findings support the notion that isochronous rhythmic stability can serve as an indication of quality in sexually selected signals and is not necessarily driven by the need for multiple caller synchronization. The relative scarcity of nonisochronous rhythmic categories in individually performed hyrax songs raises the question of whether such rhythmic categories could be a product of collective, coordinated signalling, while being selected against in individual performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music is often used to "soothe the soul," and one important function of music listening has been emotion regulation. In comparing consumption trends across cultures, past research has shown that individuals in Western countries, with typically higher prevalence of high arousal negative emotions, tend to listen to similarly high arousal rhythmic (danceable) music to cathartically discharge those emotions. However, other studies have shown that Spotify's energy feature, a measure of the intensity‐based arousal of a song, indicates the opposite effect: Energy was higher in songs in East Asian top‐50 charts than in Western ones. Combining evidence from reanalyses of secondary data (Pilot Analyses 1 and 2), sentiment analyses of lyrics from the US and Singapore (Study 1; N = 87 songs), and an emotion induction experiment in Japan and the US (Study 2; N = 353 participants), we show that collectivistic, East Asian cultures generally prefer songs with higher energy levels, and energetic songs are robustly associated with anger downregulation, over sadness and anxiety downregulation. We speculate that energy, as an intensity‐based musical arousal feature, may represent internalizing (control) regulation that one uses to "drown out" anger, which would be more prevalent in East Asian cultures due to sociocultural norms of emotion (non)expression. Conversely, this would be different from the externalizing regulation associated with rhythm‐based musical arousal (i.e., danceability). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The durations here are longer than the first durations I heard; they sit at approximately the two-second limit beyond which it is difficult to compare durations (Hasty [5], p. 86), but the reproduction is still strikingly exact. He studies rhythm, mathematical and computational models of music, contemporary art music, and the analysis of traditional music from across the world. Feld highlights a Kaluli song in which a repeating descending pitch/rhythmic gesture mimics the song of a local bird species (Feld [3], pp. 21-34). Christopher Hasty's I Meter as Rhythm i describes the experience of music as a richly varying flux of concurrent promises perceived, fulfilled and denied. [Extracted from the article]

A growing body of evidence suggests that steady‐state evoked potentials may be a useful measure of beat perception, particularly when obtaining traditional, explicit measures of beat perception is difficult, such as with infants or non‐human animals. Although attending to a stimulus is not necessary for most traditional applications of steady‐state evoked potentials, it is unknown how attention affects steady‐state evoked potentials that arise in response to beat perception. Additionally, most applications of steady‐state evoked potentials to measure beat perception have used repeating rhythms or real music. Therefore, it is unclear how the steady‐state response relates to the robust beat perception that occurs with non‐repeating rhythms. Here, we used electroencephalography to record participants' brain activity as they listened to non‐repeating musical rhythms while either attending to the rhythms or while distracted by a concurrent visual task. Non‐repeating auditory rhythms elicited steady‐state evoked potentials at perceived beat frequencies (perception was validated in a separate sensorimotor synchronization task) that were larger when participants attended to the rhythms compared with when they were distracted by the visual task. Therefore, although steady‐state evoked potentials appear to index beat perception to non‐repeating musical rhythms, this technique may be limited to when participants are known to be attending to the stimulus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A particular subset of Ravel's output features a phrase‐rhythmic technique wherein tonal and thematic returns are accompanied by surprisingly asymmetrical or ambiguous phrase rhythm. This defies both generic conventions linking thematic reprise and tonal closure to relatively stable phrase rhythm and specific expectations created by these works' formal processes, and contrasts with trajectories moving from phrase‐rhythmic instability to stability which Ravel deploys in other works. The set of pieces which features this technique includes À la manière de ... Chabrier, the Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn, pieces from Le Tombeau de Couperin, the last of the Valses nobles et sentimentales, and the 'Blues' movement from the Violin Sonata. This study notes how themes of loss and distance connect these pieces, allowing for the phrase‐rhythmic technique to be bound up with interpretative implications which can enhance our understanding of how phrase rhythm can carry expressive freight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncovering the genetic underpinnings of musical ability and engagement is a foundational step for exploring their wide‐ranging associations with cognition, health, and neurodevelopment. Prior studies have focused on using twin and family designs, demonstrating moderate heritability of musical phenotypes. The current study used genome‐wide complex trait analysis and polygenic score (PGS) approaches utilizing genotype data to examine genetic influences on two musicality traits (rhythmic perception and music engagement) in N = 1792 unrelated adults in the Vanderbilt Online Musicality Study. Meta‐analyzed heritability estimates (including a replication sample of Swedish individuals) were 31% for rhythmic perception and 12% for self‐reported music engagement. A PGS derived from a recent study on beat synchronization ability predicted both rhythmic perception (β = 0.11) and music engagement (β = 0.19) in our sample, suggesting that genetic influences underlying self‐reported beat synchronization ability also influence individuals' rhythmic discrimination aptitude and the degree to which they engage in music. Cross‐trait analyses revealed a modest contribution of PGSs from several nonmusical traits (from the cognitive, personality, and circadian chronotype domains) to individual differences in musicality (β = −0.06 to 0.07). This work sheds light on the complex relationship between the genetic architecture of musical rhythm processing, beat synchronization, music engagement, and other nonmusical traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conducting constitutes a well‐structured system of signs anticipating information concerning the rhythm and dynamic of a musical piece. Conductors communicate the musical tempo to the orchestra, unifying the individual instrumental voices to form an expressive musical Gestalt. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment, 12 professional conductors and 16 instrumentalists conducted real‐time novel pieces with diverse complexity in orchestration and rhythm. For control, participants either listened to the stimuli or performed beat patterns, setting the time of a metronome or complex rhythms played by a drum. Activation of the left superior temporal gyrus (STG), supplementary and premotor cortex and Broca's pars opercularis (F3op) was shared in both musician groups and separated conducting from the other conditions. Compared to instrumentalists, conductors activated Broca's pars triangularis (F3tri) and the STG, which differentiated conducting from time beating and reflected the increase in complexity during conducting. In comparison to conductors, instrumentalists activated F3op and F3tri when distinguishing complex rhythm processing from simple rhythm processing. Fibre selection from a normative human connectome database, constructed using a global tractography approach, showed that the F3op and STG are connected via the arcuate fasciculus, whereas the F3tri and STG are connected via the extreme capsule. Like language, the anatomical framework characterising conducting gestures is located in the left dorsal system centred on F3op. This system reflected the sensorimotor mapping for structuring gestures to musical tempo. The ventral system centred on F3Tri may reflect the art of conductors to set this musical tempo to the individual orchestra's voices in a global, holistic way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We studied the role of sensorimotor and working memory systems in supporting development of perceptual rhythm processing with 119 participants aged 7–12 years. Children were assessed for their abilities in sensorimotor synchronization (SMS; beat tapping), auditory working memory (AWM; digit span), and rhythm discrimination (RD; same/different judgment on a pair of musical rhythm sequences). Multiple regression analysis revealed that children's RD performance was independently predicted by higher beat tapping consistency and greater digit span score, with all other demographic variables (age, sex, socioeconomic status, music training) controlled. The association between RD and SMS was more robust in the slower tempos (60 and 100 beats‐per‐minute (BPM)) than faster ones (120 and 180 BPM). Critically, the relation of SMS to RD was moderated by age in that RD performance was predicted by beat tapping consistency in younger children (age: 7–9 years), but not in older children (age: 10–12 years). AWM was the only predictor of RD in older children. Together, the current findings demonstrate that the sensorimotor and working memory systems jointly support RD processing during middle‐to‐late childhood and that the degree of association between the two systems and perceptual rhythm processing is shifted before entering into early adolescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The successful design of musical interventions for dementia patients requires knowledge of how rhythmic abilities change with disease severity. In this study, we tested the impact of the severity of the neurocognitive disorders (NCD) on the socioemotional and motor responses to music in three groups of patients with Major NCD, Mild NCD, or No NCD. Patients were asked to tap to a metronomic or musical rhythm while facing a live musician or through a video. We recorded their emotional facial reactions and their sensorimotor synchronization (SMS) abilities. Patients with No NCD or Mild NCD expressed positive socioemotional reactions to music, but patients with Major NCD did not, indicating a decrease in the positive emotional impact of music at this stage of the disease. SMS to a metronome was less regular and less precise in patients with a Major NCD than in patients with No NCD or Mild NCD, which was not the case when tapping with music, particularly in the presence of a live musician, suggesting the relevance of live performance for patients with Major NCD. These findings suggest that the socioemotional and motor reactions to music are negatively affected by the progression of the NCD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: This study was undertaken to determine and compare lesion patterns and structural dysconnectivity underlying poststroke aprosodia and amusia, using a data‐driven multimodal neuroimaging approach. Methods: Thirty‐nine patients with right or left hemisphere stroke were enrolled in a cohort study and tested for linguistic and affective prosody perception and musical pitch and rhythm perception at subacute and 3‐month poststroke stages. Participants listened to words spoken with different prosodic stress that changed their meaning, and to words spoken with six different emotions, and chose which meaning or emotion was expressed. In the music tasks, participants judged pairs of short melodies as the same or different in terms of pitch or rhythm. Structural magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired at both stages, and machine learning‐based lesion–symptom mapping and deterministic tractography were used to identify lesion patterns and damaged white matter pathways giving rise to aprosodia and amusia. Results: Both aprosodia and amusia were behaviorally strongly correlated and associated with similar lesion patterns in right frontoinsular and striatal areas. In multiple regression models, reduced fractional anisotropy and lower tract volume of the right inferior fronto‐occipital fasciculus were the strongest predictors for both disorders, over time. Conclusions: These results highlight a common origin of aprosodia and amusia, both arising from damage and disconnection of the right ventral auditory stream integrating rhythmic–melodic acoustic information in prosody and music. Comorbidity of these disabilities may worsen the prognosis and affect rehabilitation success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Everyone agrees that musical works are individuated by essential elements such as tone, harmony, and rhythm. Some argue that timbre or instrumentation is an essential element of some musical works, too. I argue here that there is a further essential element of some musical works: spatial location. Some works of music are partly constituted by the location and motion of their sound sources. I begin by describing works of spatial music and arguing that they exist. I then consider the implications for the ontology of music. Hardcore formalists cannot allow for spatial music. I argue that two other views, which allow a close relationship between sounds and musical works, can allow for works of spatial music. However, their ability to do so turns on issues in the philosophy of sound. I appeal to work in the philosophy of sound to show that music is an art not just of hearing, but of sounds. Musical elements can be located just like sounds are located. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synchronization of movement to music is a seemingly universal human capacity that depends on sustained beat perception. Previous research has suggested that listener's conscious perception of the musical structure (e.g., beat and meter) might be reflected in neural responses that follow the frequency of the beat. However, the extent to which these neural responses directly reflect concurrent, listener‐reported perception of musical beat versus stimulus‐driven activity is understudied. We investigated whether steady state‐evoked potentials (SSEPs), measured using electroencephalography (EEG), reflect conscious perception of beat by holding the stimulus constant while contextually manipulating listeners' perception and measuring perceptual responses on every trial. Listeners with minimal music training heard a musical excerpt that strongly supported one of two beat patterns (context phase), followed by a rhythm consistent with either beat pattern (ambiguous phase). During the final phase, listeners indicated whether or not a superimposed drum matched the perceived beat (probe phase). Participants were more likely to indicate that the probe matched the music when that probe matched the original context, suggesting an ability to maintain the beat percept through the ambiguous phase. Likewise, we observed that the spectral amplitude during the ambiguous phase was higher at frequencies that matched the beat of the preceding context. Exploratory analyses investigated whether EEG amplitude at the beat‐related SSEPs (steady state‐evoked potentials) predicted performance on the beat induction task on a single‐trial basis, but were inconclusive. Our findings substantiate the claim that auditory SSEPs reflect conscious perception of musical beat and not just stimulus features. Although prior research suggests that steady state‐evoked potentials (SSEPs) reflect musical beat perception, our study is one of the first to use real music to induce musical beat and to collect a listener‐reported measure of perception concurrently with SSEPs. While recent rodent findings suggest that lower‐level propagation of stimulus differences may fully account for the relation between SSEPs and musical beat, we provide counterevidence by showing the effect after eliminating stimulus differences between conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has described several features shared between musical rhythm and speech or language, and experimental studies consistently show associations between performance on tasks in the two domains as well as impaired rhythm processing in children with language disorders. Motivated by these results, in the current study our first aim was to explore whether a short exposure to a regular musical rhythm (i.e., rhythmic priming) can improve subsequent grammatical processing in preschool‐aged Hungarian‐speaking children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). Second, we investigated whether rhythmic priming is specific to grammar processing by assessing priming in two additional domains: a linguistic but non‐grammatical task (picture naming) and a non‐linguistic task (nonverbal Stroop task). Third, to confirm that the rhythmic priming effect originates from the facilitating effect of the regular rhythm and not the negative effect of the control condition, we added a third condition, silence, for all the three tasks. Both groups of children showed better performance on the grammaticality judgment task in the regular compared to both the irregular and the silent conditions but no such effect appeared in the non‐grammatical and non‐linguistic tasks. These results suggest that (1) rhythmic priming can improve grammatical processing in Hungarian, a language with complex morphosyntax, both in children with and without DLD, (2) the effect is specific to grammar and (3) is a result of the facilitating effect of the regular rhythm. These results could motivate further research about integrating rhythmic priming into traditional speech‐language therapy. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/zKzGuIjZyvU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous work suggests that auditory–vestibular interactions, which emerge during bodily movement to music, can influence the perception of musical rhythm. In a seminal study on the ontogeny of musical rhythm, Phillips‐Silver and Trainor (2005) found that bouncing infants to an unaccented rhythm influenced infants' perceptual preferences for accented rhythms that matched the rate of bouncing. In the current study, we ask whether nascent, diffuse coupling between auditory and motor systems is sufficient to bootstrap short‐term Hebbian plasticity in the auditory system and explain infants' preferences for accented rhythms thought to arise from auditory–vestibular interactions. First, we specify a nonlinear, dynamical system in which two oscillatory neural networks, representing developmentally nascent auditory and motor systems, interact through weak, non‐specific coupling. The auditory network was equipped with short‐term Hebbian plasticity, allowing the auditory network to tune its intrinsic resonant properties. Next, we simulate the effect of vestibular input (e.g., infant bouncing) on infants' perceptual preferences for accented rhythms. We found that simultaneous auditory–vestibular training shaped the model's response to musical rhythm, enhancing vestibular‐related frequencies in auditory‐network activity. Moreover, simultaneous auditory–vestibular training, relative to auditory‐ or vestibular‐only training, facilitated short‐term auditory plasticity in the model, producing stronger oscillator connections in the auditory network. Finally, when tested on a musical rhythm, models which received simultaneous auditory–vestibular training, but not models that received auditory‐ or vestibular‐only training, resonated strongly at frequencies related to their "bouncing," a finding qualitatively similar to infants' preferences for accented rhythms that matched the rate of infant bouncing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of music spans an enormous territory, and the risk of any publication about it is that writers (and readers) will find themselves getting easily lost. Gustav Mahler, in a letter to Lois Marshall, stated that 'we find ourselves faced with the important question how, and indeed I why i music should be interpreted with words at all' (quoted in Cooke, 1980, p. 54) - a rhetorical question also faced by many others, Kennedy himself included. Kennedy considers I movement i as one of music's most prominent features, alongside its more obvious temporal dimension: music moves - and it can also move us. [Extracted from the article]

Introduction: Music is ubiquitous and powerful in the world's cultures. Music listening involves abundant information processing (e.g., pitch, rhythm) in the central nervous system and can also induce changes in the physiology, such as heart rate and perspiration. Yet, previous studies tended to examine music information processing in the brain separately from physiological changes. In the current study, we focused on the temporal structure of music (i.e., beat and meter) and examined the physiology, neural processing, and, most importantly, the relation between the two areas. Methods: Simultaneous MEG and ECG data were collected from a group of adults (N = 15) while they passively listened to duple and triple rhythmic patterns. To characterize physiology, we measured heart rate variability (HRV), indexing the parasympathetic nervous system function (PSNS). To characterize neural processing of beat and meter, we examined the neural entertainment and calculated the beat‐to‐meter ratio to index the relation between beat‐level and meter‐level entrainment. Specifically, the current study investigated three related questions: (a) whether listening to musical rhythms affects HRV; (b) whether the neural beat‐to‐meter ratio differed between metrical conditions, and (c) whether neural beat‐to‐meter ratio is related to HRV. Results: Results suggest that while at the group level, both HRV and neural processing are highly similar across metrical conditions, at the individual level, neural beat‐to‐meter ratio significantly predicts HRV, establishing a neural–physiological link. Conclusion: This observed link is discussed under the theoretical "neurovisceral integration model," and it provides important new perspectives in music cognition and auditory neuroscience research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a growing literature points to substantial variation in speech/language abilities related to individual differences in musical abilities, mainstream models of communication sciences and disorders have not yet incorporated these individual differences into childhood speech/language development. This article reviews three sources of evidence in a comprehensive body of research aligning with three main themes: (a) associations between musical rhythm and speech/language processing, (b) musical rhythm in children with developmental speech/language disorders and common comorbid attentional and motor disorders, and (c) individual differences in mechanisms underlying rhythm processing in infants and their relationship with later speech/language development. In light of converging evidence on associations between musical rhythm and speech/language processing, we propose the Atypical Rhythm Risk Hypothesis, which posits that individuals with atypical rhythm are at higher risk for developmental speech/language disorders. The hypothesis is framed within the larger epidemiological literature in which recent methodological advances allow for large‐scale testing of shared underlying biology across clinically distinct disorders. A series of predictions for future work testing the Atypical Rhythm Risk Hypothesis are outlined. We suggest that if a significant body of evidence is found to support this hypothesis, we can envision new risk factor models that incorporate atypical rhythm to predict the risk of developing speech/language disorders. Given the high prevalence of speech/language disorders in the population and the negative long‐term social and economic consequences of gaps in identifying children at‐risk, these new lines of research could potentially positively impact access to early identification and treatment. This article is categorized under:Linguistics > Language in Mind and BrainNeuroscience > DevelopmentLinguistics > Language Acquisition [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional methods of learning solfeggio (music theory) generally do not take advantage of computer‐based support, meaning that, when learning individually, students cannot receive instantaneous feedback on their activities. The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of an interactive mobile application, mySolfeggio, for learning solfeggio. Using a mobile device, students can take advantage of visual, auditory and tactile modalities to recognise musical notes. Students can also practice and learn notation, rhythm and melody, for which the mobile application provides corrective feedback. To evaluate students' perceptions of the mobile application and its effect on knowledge, we conducted an experiment with 42 students, from 9 to 13 years old. After learning a particular song during a regular lesson, one group of students practiced it individually with only the musical notation, while the other group used both the musical notation and the mobile application. The results of the experiment illustrated only a small effect on students' performance in singing and tapping when using the mobile application. However, they demonstrated higher scores in terms of musical intervals and rhythmic accuracy when compared to students in the control group. The students did not find the use of the application difficult, thus allowing it to be used as a tool for improvement of their homework practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research suggests that infants' perception of musical rhythm is fine‐tuned to culture‐specific rhythmic structures over the first postnatal year of human life. To date, however, little is known about the neurobiological principles that may underlie this process. In the current study, we used a dynamical systems model featuring neural oscillation and Hebbian plasticity to simulate infants' perceptual learning of culture‐specific musical rhythms. First, we demonstrate that oscillatory activity in an untrained network reflects the rhythmic structure of either a Western or a Balkan training rhythm in a veridical fashion. Next, during a period of unsupervised learning, we show that the network learns the rhythmic structure of either a Western or a Balkan training rhythm through the self‐organization of network connections. Finally, we demonstrate that the learned connections affect the networks' response to violations to the metrical structure of native and nonnative rhythms, a pattern of findings that mirrors the behavioral data on infants' perceptual narrowing to musical rhythms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In recent years, interest has grown in potential links between abilities in musical rhythm and the development of language and reading, as well as in using music lessons as an intervention or diagnostic tool for individuals at risk for language and reading delays. Nevertheless, the development of abilities in musical rhythm is a relatively new area of study. In this article, we review knowledge about the development of musical rhythm, highlighting key musical structures of rhythm, beat, and meter, and suggesting areas of inquiry. Further research is needed to understand how children acquire the perceptual and cognitive underpinnings of universal musical behaviors such as dancing, clapping, and singing in time with music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: Schoenberg's Piano Piece Op. 33b can be interpreted fruitfully using the composer's notion of ‘musical idea’, in which a problem or conflict is introduced at the beginning, elaborated during the piece and resolved near the end. Previous studies of the piece disagree about whether bars 5b–11a should be understood as the continuation of the first theme's sentence or as a second theme, because of differences between the tetrachordal row partitions of bars 1–5a and the trichordal partitions of bars 5b–11a, and the marked dissimilarities in set‐class content, interval successions (including <−2, −2> in the trichordal partitions), rhythm and heard metre that result. These differences introduce the work's ‘problem’, which the piece then elaborates in bars 21–28 by taking an element from the transitional bars following the ‘continuation’, <+2, +2> and <−2, −2> interval successions paired together in vertical symmetry, and further developing that element to create hexachords that are not equivalent to contiguous hexachords of the source row. The solution to the problem occurs gradually after bar 32, in two ways: first, the set classes, interval successions, pitches and rhythms associated with each kind of partition are shown to be generable by the other partition; second, after bar 57 both kinds of partition project themselves simultaneously on a single row form, demonstrating intervallic, pitch and rhythmic similarities between the elements of the contrasting partitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: There is mounting evidence for links between musical rhythm processing and reading‐related cognitive skills, such as phonological awareness. This may be because music and speech are rhythmic: both involve processing complex sound sequences with systematic patterns of timing, accent, and grouping. Yet, there is a salient difference between musical and speech rhythm: musical rhythm is often beat‐based (based on an underlying grid of equal time intervals), while speech rhythm is not. Thus, the role of beat‐based processing in the reading–rhythm relationship is not clear. Is there is a distinct relation between beat‐based processing mechanisms and reading‐related language skills, or is the rhythm–reading link entirely due to shared mechanisms for processing nonbeat‐based aspects of temporal structure? We discuss recent evidence for a distinct link between beat‐based processing and early reading abilities in young children, and suggest experimental designs that would allow one to further methodically investigate this relationship. We propose that beat‐based processing taps into a listener's ability to use rich contextual regularities to form predictions, a skill important for reading development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Gait dysfunctions in Parkinson's disease can be partly relieved by rhythmic auditory cueing. This consists in asking patients to walk with a rhythmic auditory stimulus such as a metronome or music. The effect on gait is visible immediately in terms of increased speed and stride length. Moreover, training programs based on rhythmic cueing can have long‐term benefits. The effect of rhythmic cueing, however, varies from one patient to the other. Patients’ response to the stimulation may depend on rhythmic abilities, often deteriorating with the disease. Relatively spared abilities to track the beat favor a positive response to rhythmic cueing. On the other hand, most patients with poor rhythmic abilities either do not respond to the cues or experience gait worsening when walking with cues. An individualized approach to rhythmic auditory cueing with music is proposed to cope with this variability in patients’ response. This approach calls for using assistive mobile technologies capable of delivering cues that adapt in real time to patients’ gait kinematics, thus affording step synchronization to the beat. Individualized rhythmic cueing can provide a safe and cost‐effective alternative to standard cueing that patients may want to use in their everyday lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Beat entrainment is the ability to entrain one's movements to a perceived periodic stimulus, such as a metronome or a pulse in music. Humans have a capacity to predictively respond to a periodic pulse and to dynamically adjust their movement timing to match the varying music tempos. Previous studies have shown that monkeys share some of the human capabilities for rhythmic entrainment, such as tapping regularly at the period of isochronous stimuli. However, it is still unknown whether monkeys can predictively entrain to dynamic tempo changes like humans. To address this question, we trained monkeys in three tapping tasks and compared their rhythmic entrainment abilities with those of humans. We found that, when immediate feedback about the timing of each movement is provided, monkeys can predictively entrain to an isochronous beat, generating tapping movements in anticipation of the metronome pulse. This ability also generalized to a novel untrained tempo. Notably, macaques can modify their tapping tempo by predicting the beat changes of accelerating and decelerating visual metronomes in a manner similar to humans. Our findings support the notion that nonhuman primates share with humans the ability of temporal anticipation during tapping to isochronous and smoothly changing sequences of stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Rhythmic incongruity in the form of syncopation is a prominent feature of many contemporary musical styles. Syncopations afford incongruity between rhythmic patterns and the meter, giving rise to mental models of differently accented isochronous beats. Syncopations occur either in isolation or as part of rhythmic patterns, so‐called grooves. On the basis of the predictive coding framework, we discuss how brain processing of rhythm can be seen as a special case of predictive coding. We present a simple, yet powerful model for how the brain processes rhythmic incongruity: the model for predictive coding of rhythmic incongruity. Our model proposes that a given rhythm's syncopation and its metrical uncertainty (precision) is at the heart of how the brain models rhythm and meter based on priors, predictions, and prediction error. Our minimal model can explain prominent features of brain processing of syncopation: why isolated syncopations lead to stronger prediction error in the brains of musicians, as evidenced by larger event‐related potentials to rhythmic incongruity, and why we all experience a stronger urge to move to grooves with a medium level of syncopation compared with low and high levels of syncopation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Why does musical rhythm have the structure it does? Musical rhythm, in all its cross‐cultural diversity, exhibits commonalities across world cultures. Traditionally, music research has been split into two fields. Some scientists focused on musicality, namely the human biocognitive predispositions for music, with an emphasis on cross‐cultural similarities. Other scholars investigated music, seen as a cultural product, focusing on the variation in world musical cultures. Recent experiments found deep connections between music and musicality, reconciling these opposing views. Here, we address the question of how individual cognitive biases affect the process of cultural evolution of music. Data from two experiments are analyzed using two complementary techniques. In the experiments, participants hear drumming patterns and imitate them. These patterns are then given to the same or another participant to imitate. The structure of these initially random patterns is tracked along experimental “generations.” Frequentist statistics show how participants’ biases are amplified by cultural transmission, making drumming patterns more structured. Structure is achieved faster in transmission within rather than between participants. A Bayesian model approximates the motif structures participants learned and created. Our data and models suggest that individual biases for musicality may shape the cultural transmission of musical rhythm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Syntactic processing is essential for musical understanding. Although the processing of harmonic syntax has been well studied, very little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying rhythmic syntactic processing. The present study investigated the neural processing of rhythmic syntax and whether and to what extent long‐term musical training impacts such processing. Fourteen musicians and 14 nonmusicians listened to syntactic‐regular or syntactic‐irregular rhythmic sequences and judged the completeness of these sequences. Nonmusicians, as well as musicians, showed a P600 effect to syntactic‐irregular endings, indicating that musical exposure and perceptual learning of music are sufficient to enable nonmusicians to process rhythmic syntax at the late stage. However, musicians, but not nonmusicians, also exhibited an early right anterior negativity (ERAN) response to syntactic‐irregular endings, which suggests that musical training only modulates the early but not the late stage of rhythmic syntactic processing. These findings revealed for the first time the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of rhythmic syntax in music, which has important implications for theories of hierarchically organized music cognition and comparative studies of syntactic processing in music and language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sub-second time intervals in musical rhythms provide predictive cues about future events to performers and listeners through an internalized representation of timing. While the acuity of automatic, sub-second timing as well as cognitively controlled, suprasecond timing declines with ageing, musical experts are less affected. This study investigated the influence of piano training on temporal processing abilities in older adults using behavioural and neuronal correlates. We hypothesized that neuroplastic changes in beta networks, caused by training in sensorimotor coordination with timing processing, can be assessed even in the absence of movement. Behavioural performance of internal timing stability was assessed with synchronization-continuation finger-tapping paradigms. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) was recorded from older adults before and after one month of one-on-one training. For neural measures of automatic timing processing, we focused on beta oscillations (13-30 Hz) during passive listening to metronome beats. Periodic beta-band modulations in older adults before training were similar to previous findings in young listeners at a beat interval of 800 ms. After training, behavioural performance for continuation tapping was improved and accompanied by an increased range of beat-induced beta modulation, compared to participants who did not receive training. Beta changes were observed in the caudate, auditory, sensorimotor and premotor cortices, parietal lobe, cerebellum and medial prefrontal cortex, suggesting that increased resources are involved in timing processing and goal-oriented monitoring as well as reward-based sensorimotor learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT What is it about groove in music that makes people move? And what explains the physical pleasure listeners and dancers experience as they synchronise their bodies to the beat? In this article, groove is analysed phenomenologically as a triangulation of rhythmic structure, embodiment and pleasure. Following a brief review of groove research, theories of extended mind and affective practice are added to demonstrate how groove is distributed amongst mind, body and music. In this distributed process, pleasure is not caused by some cognitive-physical stimulation, but rather emerges dynamically in the active participation in a cyclical mind-body-music system. The syncopated nature of the music provides the structural premise for the embodied extension. By opening up empty spaces in the rhythm - as illustrated in the house track 'Drum Track', by Helix (2012) - syncopations invite the body to fill in through entrainment and synchronised movement. When filling in the gaps, listeners and dancers enact aspects of the musical structure and thus become part of the groove itself. Rejecting drive-oriented models, this article argues that it is the process in action, rather than the achievement, that makes groove pleasurable, and it makes suggestions for how this process might be socially distributed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study considered a relation between rhythm perception skills and individual differences in phonological awareness and grammar abilities, which are two language skills crucial for academic achievement. Twenty-five typically developing 6-year-old children were given standardized assessments of rhythm perception, phonological awareness, morpho-syntactic competence, and non-verbal cognitive ability. Rhythm perception accounted for 48% of the variance in morpho-syntactic competence after controlling for non-verbal IQ, socioeconomic status, and prior musical activities. Children with higher phonological awareness scores were better able to discriminate complex rhythms than children with lower scores, but not after controlling for IQ. This study is the first to show a relation between rhythm perception skills and morpho-syntactic production in children with typical language development. These findings extend the literature showing substantial overlap of neurocognitive resources for processing music and language. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In [1], the shading of rows in Table 1 is not correct. Musical rhythm and reading development: does beat processing matter? The authors and editors apologize for this error. [Extracted from the article]

Perception of temporal patterns is fundamental to normal hearing, speech, motor control, and music. Certain types of pattern understanding are unique to humans, such as musical rhythm. Although human responses to musical rhythm are universal, there is much we do not understand about how rhythm is processed in the brain. Here, I consider findings from research into basic timing mechanisms and models through to the neuroscience of rhythm and meter. A network of neural areas, including motor regions, is regularly implicated in basic timing as well as processing of musical rhythm. However, fractionating the specific roles of individual areas in this network has remained a challenge. Distinctions in activity patterns appear between 'automatic' and 'cognitively controlled' timing processes, but the perception of musical rhythm requires features of both automatic and controlled processes. In addition, many experimental manipulations rely on participants directing their attention toward or away from certain stimulus features, and measuring corresponding differences in neural activity. Many temporal features, however, are implicitly processed whether attended to or not, making it difficult to create controlled baseline conditions for experimental comparisons. The variety of stimuli, paradigms, and definitions can further complicate comparisons across domains or methodologies. Despite these challenges, the high level of interest and multitude of methodological approaches from different cognitive domains (including music, language, and motor learning) have yielded new insights and hold promise for future progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although music is universal, there is a great deal of cultural variability in music structures. Nevertheless, some aspects of music processing generalize across cultures, whereas others rely heavily on the listening environment. Here, we discuss the development of musical knowledge, focusing on four themes: (a) capabilities that are present early in development; (b) culture-general and culture-specific aspects of pitch and rhythm processing; (c) age-related changes in pitch perception; and (d) developmental changes in how listeners perceive emotion in music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beat induction ( BI) is the cognitive skill that allows us to hear a regular pulse in music to which we can then synchronize. Perceiving this regularity in music allows us to dance and make music together. As such, it can be considered a fundamental musical trait that, arguably, played a decisive role in the origins of music. Furthermore, BI might be considered a spontaneously developing, domain-specific, and species-specific skill. Although both learning and perception/action coupling were shown to be relevant in its development, at least one study showed that the auditory system of a newborn is able to detect the periodicities induced by a varying rhythm. A related study with adults suggested that hierarchical representations for rhythms (meter induction) are formed automatically in the human auditory system. We will reconsider these empirical findings in the light of the question whether beat and meter induction are fundamental cognitive mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effects of culture-specific experience on musical rhythm perception are evident by 12 months of age, but the role of culture-general rhythm processing constraints during early infancy has not been explored. Using a habituation procedure with 5- and 7-month-old infants, we investigated effects of temporal interval ratio complexity on discrimination of standard from novel musical patterns containing 200-ms disruptions. Infants were tested in three ratio conditions: simple (2:1), which is typical in Western music, complex (3:2), which is typical in other musical cultures, and highly complex (7:4), which is relatively rare in music throughout the world. Unlike adults and older infants, whose accuracy was predicted by familiarity, younger infants were influenced by ratio complexity, as shown by their successful discrimination in the simple and complex conditions but not in the highly complex condition. The findings suggest that ratio complexity constrains rhythm perception even prior to the acquisition of culture-specific biases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism is presented for the book "The Anthology of Rap," edited by Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois. The author criticizes the book's editors for their portrayal of rap music as a literary form that is primarily experienced as music. The author comments on how the musical aspects of rap, in contrast to its lyrical aspects, are open to criticism due to the limited use of melody and harmony as well as its reliance on 4/4 time signatures.

Auditory metre perception refers to the ability to extract a temporally regular pulse and an underlying hierarchical structure of perceptual accents from a sequence of tones. Pulse perception is widely present in humans, and can be measured by the temporal expectancy for prospective tones, which listeners generate when presented with a metrical rhythm. We tested whether musical expertise leads to an increased perception and representation of the hierarchical structure of a metrical rhythm. Musicians and musical novices were tested in a mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm for their sensitivity to perceptual accents on tones of the same pulse level (metre-congruent deviant) and on tones of a lower hierarchical level (metre-incongruent deviant). The difference between these two perceptual accents was more pronounced in the MMNs of the musicians than in those of the non-musicians. That is, musical expertise includes increased sensitivity to metre, specifically to its hierarchical structure. This enhanced higher-order temporal pattern perception makes musicians ideal models for investigating neural correlates of metre perception and, potentially, of related abstract pattern perception. Finally, our data show that small differences in sensitivity to higher-order patterns can be captured by means of an MMN paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Music is commonly regarded as expressive of emotions that can be perceived by listeners. Nevertheless, the specific characteristics of this perceptual process are not well understood. This study aims to investigate the relationships between various features of musical structure and the emotions perceived by listeners, with a focus on the role of interactions among such features. Eight musical features (pitch, mode, melodic progression, rhythm, tempo, sound level, articulation and timbre) were systematically manipulated in a factorial design through synthesis. Ten musically trained listeners judged the resulting 384 pieces of music on five emotion scales. The relationships between musical features and listener judgements were modelled by means of multiple regression analysis. The results (1) confirmed empirically based predictions from previous post hoc analyses with respect to which musical features are associated with each emotion; (2) suggested that different musical features were important for different emotions; (3) indicated that some features (e.g. tempo) were more powerful than others overall; and (4) revealed that interactions made significant but small contributions to the predictive power of the regression models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meter is considered an important structuring mechanism in the perception and experience of rhythm in music. Combining behavioral and electrophysiological measures, in the present study we investigate whether meter is more likely a learned phenomenon, possibly a result of musical expertise, or whether sensitivity to meter is also active in adult nonmusicians and newborn infants. The results provide evidence that meter induction is active in adult nonmusicians and that beat induction is already functional right after birth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perception of meter, or the alternation of strong and weak beats, was assessed in musically trained listeners through magnetoencephalography. Metrical accents were examined with no temporal disruption of the serial grouping of tones. Results showed an effect of metrical processing among identical standard tones in the left hemisphere, with larger responses on strong than on weak beats. Moreover, processing of occasional increases in intensity (phenomenal accents) varied as a function of metrical position in the left hemisphere, but not in the right. Our findings support the view of a relatively early, left-hemispheric effect of metrical processing in musicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study challenges prevailing interpretations of Messiaen's serial practice by arguing that it not only focused on rhythm but also was ongoing, extending far beyond the years (1949-52) in which he supposedly used and then abandoned serial techniques. Messiaen's serial practice emerged from his theological preoccupation with time and eternity and his fascination with number. His temporal ideas and efforts to express them in his music are indebted to the philosophies of Henri Bergson (1859-1941) and Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962). These precepts are examined in the context of several works dating from the 1960s to the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explore the hermeneutics of metric dissonance by examining the association between displacement or syncopation-type conflicts and Romantic longing ( Sehnsucht) in the German Lied. It includes close readings of music-text relations in four specific songs: the ‘Wandrers Nachtlied II’ (Goethe/Schubert); ‘Intermezzo’ (Eichendorff/Schumann); ‘Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer’ (Lingg/Brahms); and ‘Unterm Schutz’ (George/Schoenberg). The primary methodology for the process of metric analysis derives from the work of Harald Krebs. The article as a whole traces changes both in the use of displacement dissonance, and in the nature of Sehnsucht, as well as correlations between the two over the course of the ‘long nineteenth century’. The four analyses as a group outline an historical progression of ‘introduction’ (in Schubert), ‘intensification’ (in Schumann), ‘complication’ (in Brahms) and ‘refraction’ (in Schoenberg). The study thereby combines a history of metric dissonance – one of the recurring elements of nineteenth-century style – with that of Sehnsucht – one of the most prominent features of Romantic consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the role of speeds in the music "A Mirror on Which to Dwell," by composer Elliott Carter in Great Britain. Aspects of the compositional style of the composer; Analysis of the music; Composition of large-scale rhythmic form and control small-scale rhythmic activity.