The Complexities of Musical Rhythm

Lecture 9

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n addition to pitch, melody, and harmony, another major aspect of music
is rhythm. There is something primal about musical rhythm—something
that taps into ancient aspects of how our brains and bodies work. Biology
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that beats rhythmically. With our bodies so full of rhythms, it might seem
that rhythmic processing should be the most basic and primal aspect of
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musical rhythmic processing can be.

Periodic versus Nonperiodic Rhythms

z There are two types of rhythmic patterns: periodic and nonperiodic
rhythms. Periodic rhythms are patterns that repeat regularly in time,
such as the heartbeat. Periodic rhythms play a very important role
in music. Much of the world’s music has a musical beat, which is a
perceived periodic pulse that listeners use to guide their movements
Lecture 9—The Complexities of Musical Rhythm

and performers use to coordinate their actions.

z The beat is a very interesting aspect of music cognition. It’s a

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events can have structure in time without having any periodicity.
All periodic patterns are rhythmic, but not all rhythmic patterns
are periodic.

Nonperiodic Rhythms and Expressive Performance

z If you look at a musical score of a piece of piano music, such as
a piece by Chopin, you’ll see visual symbols that represent which
pitches should be played at which time. The melodic, rhythmic, and
harmonic structures of the music are all there on the page, but a
compelling performance involves much more than just accurately
playing the notes from the score.

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A compelling performance involves much more than just accurately playing the
notes from the score.

z The differences between a performance that is technically accurate

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performance of the same passage concern the patterns of timing and
intensity of individual notes.

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empirically. Pioneering work by such scientists as Manfred Clynes
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z In 2011, Daniel Levitin and colleagues published an interesting
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Chopin’s music and people’s perception of how strongly the music
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z The researchers asked a professional pianist to perform several

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a concert. Then, they used sound-editing software to create different
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in timing and intensity.

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