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One hypothesis for why humans enjoy musical rhythms relates to their prediction of when each beat should occur. The ability to predict the timing of an event is important from an evolutionary perspective. Therefore, our brains have evolved internal mechanisms for processing the progression of time. However, due to inherent noise in neural signals, this prediction is not always accurate. Theoretical considerations of optimal estimates suggest the occurrence of certain systematic errors made by the brain when estimating the timing of beats in rhythms. Here, we tested psychophysically whether these systematic errors exist and if so, how they depend on stimulus parameters. Our experimental data revealed two main types of systematic errors. First, observers perceived the time of the last beat of a rhythmic pattern as happening earlier than actual when the inter-beat interval was short. Second, the perceived time of the last beat was later than the actual when the inter-beat interval was long. The magnitude of these systematic errors fell as the number of beats increased. However, with many beats, the errors due to long inter-beat intervals became more apparent. We propose a Bayesian model for these systematic errors. The model fits these data well, allowing us to offer possible explanations for how these errors occurred. For instance, neural processes possibly contributing to the errors include noisy and temporally asymmetric impulse responses, priors preferring certain time intervals, and better-early-than-late loss functions. We finish this article with brief discussions of both the implications of systematic errors for the appreciation of rhythm and the possible compensation by the brain's motor system during a musical performance. [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]

The score of Luciano Berio's Sequenza VII for solo oboe exhibits a strict and definite temporal space, yet most performers do not manage to perform the work within the prescribed time. The score is presented as a matrix with thirteen lines and columns and each line undergoes a temporal compression. The impetus of this practitioner-based study was driven by a need to find a method of performing the unusual time increments and to be as close as possible to the composer's intent regarding the temporal grid. The aim of this study was to investigate and demonstrate a method of calculating and performing the intended duration of Sequenza VII so that the performance realises the absolute duration intended by Berio. Two methods were used to calculate the total duration of the composition. The result of the precise calculation of the predetermined total duration of Sequenza VII is six minutes and thirty seconds, and therefore refines the results of previous explorations of this subject by other scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1/f fluctuations have been described in numerous physical and biological processes. This noise structure describes an inverse relationship between the intensity and frequency of events in a time series (for example reflected in power spectra), and is believed to indicate long-range dependence, whereby events at one time point influence events many observations later. 1/f has been identified in rhythmic behaviors, such as music, and is typically attributed to long-range correlations. However short-range dependence in musical performance is a well-established finding and past research has suggested that 1/f can arise from multiple continuing short-range processes. We tested this possibility using simulations and time-series modeling, complemented by traditional analyses using power spectra and detrended fluctuation analysis (as often adopted more recently). Our results show that 1/f-type fluctuations in musical contexts may be explained by short-range models involving multiple time lags, and the temporal ranges in which rhythmic hierarchies are expressed are apt to create these fluctuations through such short-range autocorrelations. We also analyzed gait, heartbeat, and resting-state EEG data, demonstrating the coexistence of multiple short-range processes and 1/f fluctuation in a variety of phenomena. This suggests that 1/f fluctuation might not indicate long-range correlations, and points to its likely origins in musical rhythm and related structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IT HAS LONG BEEN ASSUMED THAT RHYTHM cognition builds on perceptual categories tied to prototypes defined by small-integer ratios, such as 1:1 and 2:1. This study aims to evaluate the relative contributions of both generic constraints and selected cultural particularities in shaping rhythmic prototypes. We experimentally tested musicians' synchronization (finger tapping) with simple periodic rhythms at two different tempi with participants in Mali, Bulgaria, and Germany. We found support both for the classic assumption that 1:1 and 2:1 prototypes are widespread across cultures and for culture-dependent prototypes characterized by more complex ratios such as 3:2 and 4:3. Our findings suggest that music-cultural environments specify links between music performance patterns and perceptual prototypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a visual analogue for musical rhythm derived from an analysis of motion in video, and show that alignment of visual rhythm with its musical counterpart results in the appearance of dance. Central to our work is the concept of visual beats —- patterns of motion that can be shifted in time to control visual rhythm. By warping visual beats into alignment with musical beats, we can create or manipulate the appearance of dance in video. Using this approach we demonstrate a variety of retargeting applications that control musical synchronization of audio and video: we can change what song performers are dancing to, warp irregular motion into alignment with music so that it appears to be dancing, or search collections of video for moments of accidentally dance-like motion that can be used to synthesize musical performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship identifies various technical, expressive, sociocultural and communicative functions of bodily gestures within music performance contexts. The relationships and interactivity of these functions serve the integration of biomechanical activity and the communication of artistic intent underlying music performance. This integration is considered a result of mindful, bodily engagement with a musical instrument in the music-making process. The performer’s embodied activity thus translates a particular composition into a musical experience. This article examines and identifies the interactive and interrelated gestural functions of four expert pianists performing Claude Debussy’s Feux d’Artifice using Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies (LBMS). The LBMS concepts of Body, Effort, Space and Shape are utilized not only to identify functional and expressive purposes of gestures during performance, but also the relationships between them and how they serve the unique artistic interpretations of the musical score. This article offers LBMS as an inclusive analytical approach, in combination with an aural analysis of the performance acknowledging score indications, as observational analysis of piano performances informing both embodied knowledges and performance-related practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Musician's body movements are considered to be a source of communication and to contribute to the perceived musical impression of a performance. The aim of this study was to analyse ancillary body movements of clarinettists in order to identify characteristic motion types used in performance and to investigate their influence on the perception of the musical performance. The body movements of 22 clarinettists were recorded using 3D motion capture. A cluster analysis was performed on the variances of the angles in the shoulders, arms, knees, the back and the instrument hold, in order to examine commonalities in movement patterns. Four different motion types were classified: predominant knee motion (PkneeM), predominant arm motion (ParmM), no specific prominent motion pattern (NoSMP) and overall low motion performance (LowMP). In a perceptual experiment, in which all audio-visual recordings of performances were presented with the same audio track, 154 participants were asked to rate 8 performances (2 in each motion type) on 5 evaluation scales. The results showed that different motion types had a significant effect on perceptual ratings, with the highest affective ratings given to those who performed with predominant motion patterns in either the arms (ParmM) or in the knees (PkneeM) and the lowest ratings were given for performances with overall low motion (LowMP). In summary, the categorization of four motion types supports a systematic analysis of commonalities in motions made during clarinet performances across players. In addition, these different motion types have been shown to effectively influence perception of musical performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the results of (author's) own research on the students of early-school education imitation and the rhythmical improvisation in the light of their stabilised musical aptitudes measured with Edwin E. Gordon's AMMA test and also Edwin E. Gordon's readiness to rhythm improvisation readiness record (RIRR). In the first part of the research the students imitated some rhythmical patterns diversified in terms of difficulty in duple and triple meter and the subsequent part concerned guiding the oral rhythmical dialogue (on the BAH syllable) by the teacher with the application of various rhythmical motives in different metres. The students' both imitative and improvising performances were rated by three competent judges. What was undertaken was searching for the relations between musical aptitudes, improvisation readiness and the pupils' rhythmical imitation and improvisation abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perception of a regular beat in music is inferred from different types of accents. For example, increases in loudness cause intensity accents, and the grouping of time intervals in a rhythm creates temporal accents. Accents are expected to occur on the beat: when accents are “missing” on the beat, the beat is more difficult to find. However, it is unclear whether accents occurring off the beat alter beat perception similarly to missing accents on the beat. Moreover, no one has examined whether intensity accents influence beat perception more or less strongly than temporal accents, nor how musical expertise affects sensitivity to each type of accent. In two experiments, we obtained ratings of difficulty in finding the beat in rhythms with either temporal or intensity accents, and which varied in the number of accents on the beat as well as the number of accents off the beat. In both experiments, the occurrence of accents on the beat facilitated beat detection more in musical experts than in musical novices. In addition, the number of accents on the beat affected beat finding more in rhythms with temporal accents than in rhythms with intensity accents. The effect of accents off the beat was much weaker than the effect of accents on the beat and appeared to depend on musical expertise, as well as on the number of accents on the beat: when many accents on the beat are missing, beat perception is quite difficult, and adding accents off the beat may not reduce beat perception further. Overall, the different types of accents were processed qualitatively differently, depending on musical expertise. Therefore, these findings indicate the importance of designing ecologically valid stimuli when testing beat perception in musical novices, who may need different types of accent information than musical experts to be able to find a beat. Furthermore, our findings stress the importance of carefully designing rhythms for social and clinical applications of beat perception, as not all listeners treat all rhythms alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers musical texture as an aspect of structure, examining first how elements in a texture may relate to one another, and then exploring how the analyst may develop a variety of perspectives by privileging certain elements in the texture over others. Traditional classical music textures are coordinated, and the traditional analytical perspective employs the Ideal Listening Position (ILP). Some popular music, however, may employ layered textures, which manifest varying degrees of textural stratification. The ideas of point of coordination and span are developed as a way of analyzing textural rhythm and mapping variations in the level of coordination that may occur both within and between sections in a given piece. Stratified music encourages positional listening, particularly in performance, and such positions tend to differ from the tradition ILP. Positional analysis attempts to capture such variant positions and analytical perspectivism provides a lens for considering how such differences may be reconciled (or not). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ALTHOUGH THE VISUAL MODALITY OFTEN DOMINATES the auditory one, one exception occurs in the presence of tempo discrepancies between the two perceptual systems: variations in auditory rate typically have a greater influence on perceived visual rate than vice versa. This phenomenon, termed "auditory driving," is investigated here through certain techniques used in cinematic art. Experiments 1 and 2 relied on montages (slideshows) of still photos accompanied by musical selections in which the perceived rate of one modality was assessed through a recognition task while the rate of the other modality was systematically varied. A similar methodological strategy was used in Experiments 3 and 4 in which film excerpts of various moving objects were accompanied by the sounds they typically produce. In both cases, auditory dominance was observed, which has implications at both a theoretical and applied level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

STRUCTURE IN MUSICAL RHYTHM CAN BE MEASURED using a number of analytical techniques. While some techniques--like circular statistics or grammar induction--rely on strong top-down assumptions, assumption-free techniques can only provide limited insights on higher-order rhythmic structure. I suggest that research in music perception and performance can benefit from systematically adopting phase space plots, a visualization technique originally developed in mathematical physics that overcomes the aforementioned limitations. By jointly plotting adjacent interonset intervals (IOI), the motivic rhythmic structure of musical phrases, if present, is visualized geometrically without making any a priori assumptions concerning isochrony, beat induction, or metrical hierarchies. I provide visual examples and describe how particular features of rhythmic patterns correspond to geometrical shapes in phase space plots. I argue that research on music perception and systematic musicology stands to benefit from this descriptive tool, particularly in comparative analyses of rhythm production. Phase space plots can be employed as an initial assumption-free diagnostic to find higher order structures (i.e., beyond distributional regularities) before proceeding to more specific, theory-driven analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable rating scale to assess jazz rhythm sections in the context of jazz big band performance. The research questions that guided this study included: (a) what central factors contribute to the assessment of a jazz rhythm section? (b) what items should be used to describe and assess a jazz rhythm section performance? (c) how should the items be categorized? (d) what differences among jazz rhythm sections exist at three performance achievement levels? and (e) what criteria best predict group membership into three performance achievement levels? Items were gathered from research and literature related to the assessment, teaching, and general discussions related to the jazz rhythm section. Twenty-nine item statements were paired with a four-point Likert scale. One hundred and twenty-two responses were gathered from 41 volunteer raters. The results of the data were factor analyzed and yielded a two-factor structure including rhythmic support/drive and style/clarity. The 16-item scale accounted for 79.23% of the variance and the alpha reliability was estimated at 0.986. The rhythmic support/drive factor contributed most to discriminating between overall group differences. More specifically, five out of the 16 items contributed most to discriminating between groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]