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Periodic sensory inputs entrain oscillatory brain activity, reflecting a neural mechanism that might be fundamental to temporal prediction and perception. Most environmental rhythms and patterns in human behavior, such as walking, dancing, and speech do not, however, display strict isochrony but are instead quasi-periodic. Research has shown that neural tracking of speech is driven by modulations of the amplitude envelope, especially via sharp acoustic edges, which serve as prominent temporal landmarks. In the same vein, research on rhythm processing in music supports the notion that perceptual timing precision varies systematically with the sharpness of acoustic onset edges, conceptualized in the beat bin hypothesis. Increased envelope sharpness induces increased precision in localizing a sound in time. Despite this tight relationship between envelope shape and temporal processing, it is currently unknown how the brain uses predictive information about envelope features to optimize temporal perception. With the current EEG study, we show that the predicted sharpness of the amplitude envelope is encoded by pre-target neural activity in the beta band (15–25 Hz), and has an impact on the temporal perception of target sounds. We used probabilistic sound cues in a timing judgment task to inform participants about the sharpness of the amplitude envelope of an upcoming target sound embedded in a beat sequence. The predictive information about the envelope shape modulated task performance and pre-target beta power. Interestingly, these conditional beta-power modulations correlated positively with behavioral performance in the timing judgment task and with perceptual temporal precision in a click-alignment task. This study provides new insight into the neural processes underlying prediction of the sharpness of the amplitude envelope during beat perception, which modulate the temporal perception of sounds. This finding could reflect a process that is involved in temporal prediction, exerting top-down control on neural entrainment via the prediction of acoustic edges in the auditory stream.

MusicLab Copenhagen was a unique research concert featuring the world-renowned Danish String Quartet in a naturalistic setting. The audience was split between one group physically located in the hall, another group listening to a radio broadcast, and a third group watching a live stream. Qualitative and quantitative data were captured from both musicians and audiences, resulting in a comprehensive dataset that can be used to address many research questions. This document introduces the dataset, explains its structure, and reflects on the related data collection, storing, publishing, and archiving processes.

Musical expertise affects the perception of the temporal location of a musical sound, often to a significant degree. In a study involving jazz musicians, electronic dance music (EDM) music producers, and Norwegian folk musicians, Danielsen et al. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 84, 599–615, (2022) found significant between-group differences regarding the mean location as well as the variability around that mean for a set of control and genre-specific musical sounds. The present study extends these findings to singers who are experts in jazz versus classical music genres. In two experiments participants were presented with sung (Exp. 1) and sung and spoken (Exp. 2) syllables. In both the task was to synchronize either taps or a click track with a looped target sound. In both experiments, we found that classical participants tended to place the mean location later (relative to the acoustic onset) than jazz participants, and likewise had greater variability. Interestingly, and contra to our hypothesis, this between-group difference persisted even when the stimuli were spoken rather than sung. The current study gives further insights into how musical expertise impacts the low-level processing of musical sounds and provides a window into the interaction between top-down and bottom-up aspects of music and auditory perception more generally. In addition, it provides insight into how musicians approach musical and quasi-musical tasks, as well as the way they perceive the acoustic aspects of sound both as a musical object in its own right as well as a cue for perception-action coupling with their fellow musicians.

Attention is not constant but rather fluctuates over time and these attentional fluctuations may prioritize the processing of certain events over others. In music listening, the pleasurable urge to move to music (termed ‘groove’ by music psychologists) offers a particularly convenient case study of oscillatory attention because it engenders synchronous and oscillatory movements which also vary predictably with stimulus complexity. In this study, we simultaneously recorded pupillometry and scalp electroencephalography (EEG) from participants while they listened to drumbeats of varying complexity that they rated in terms of groove afterwards. Using the intertrial phase coherence of the beat frequency, we found that while subjects were listening, their pupil activity became entrained to the beat of the drumbeats and this entrained attention persisted in the EEG even as subjects imagined the drumbeats continuing through subsequent silent periods. This entrainment in both the pupillometry and EEG worsened with inc

The TIME project: Timing and Sound in Musical Microrhythm (2017–2022) studied microrhythm; that is, how dynamic envelope, timbre, and center frequency, as well as the microtiming of a variety of sounds, affect their perceived rhythmic properties. The project involved theoretical work regarding the basic aspects of microrhythm; experimental studies of microrhythm perception, exploring both stimulus features and the participants’ enculturated expertise; observational studies of how musicians produce particular microrhythms; and ethnographic studies of musicians’ descriptions of microrhythm. Collectively, we show that: (a) altering the microstructure of a sound (“what” the sound is) changes its perceived temporal location (“when” it occurs), (b) there are systematic effects of core acoustic factors (duration, attack) on microrhythmic perception, (c) microrhythmic features in longer and more complex sounds can give rise to different perceptions of the same sound, and (d) musicians are highly aware of microrhythms and have developed vocabularies for describing them. In addition, our results shed light on conflicting results regarding the effect of microtiming on the “grooviness” of a rhythm. Our use of multiple, interdisciplinary methodologies enabled us to uncover the complexity of microrhythm perception and production in both laboratory and real-world musical contexts.

This paper reports on an experiment that investigated how guitarists signal the intended timing of a rhythmic event in a groove-based context via three different features related to sound-producing motions of impulsive chord strokes (striking velocity, movement duration and fretboard position). 21 expert electric guitarists were instructed to perform a simple rhythmic pattern in three different timing styles—“laidback,” “on-the-beat,” and “pushed”—in tandem with a metronome. Results revealed systematic differences across participants in the striking velocity and movement duration of chords in the different timing styles. In general, laid-back strokes were played with lower striking velocity and longer movement duration relative to on-the-beat and pushed strokes. No differences in the fretboard striking position were found (neither closer to the “bridge” [bottom] or to the “neck” [head]). Correlations with previously reported audio features of the guitar strokes were also investigated, where lower velocity and longer movement duration generally corresponded with longer acoustic attack duration (signal onset to offset).

This study compares three recent theories of expressive microtiming in music. While each theory was originally designed to engage a particular musical genre—Anne Danielsen’s beat bins for funk, Neo-Soul, and other contemporary Black musical expressions, Chris Stover’s beat span for “timeline musics” from Africa and the African diaspora, and Mats Johansson’s rhythmic tolerance for Scandinavian fiddle music—we consider how they can productively coexist in a shared music-analytic space, each revealing aspects of musical structure and process in mutually reinforcing ways. In order to explore these possibilities, we bring all three theories to bear on a recording of Thelonious Monk’s “Monk’s Dream,” focusing on Monk’s piano gestures as well as the relationship between saxophonist Charlie Rouse’s improvised solo and Monk’s and bassist John Ore’s accompaniments.

The pioneering “research concerts” of recent decades represent prime examples of interdisciplinary music research. MusicLab Copenhagen, a collaboration between RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time, and Motion at the University of ̽����ѡ and the Danish String Quartet was no exception in this regard. This paper aims to document and critically evaluate key components of the project by framing it as a radically interdisciplinary research collaboration. We review the multidimensional differences and similarities between the research traditions involved and report on semi-structured interviews with five key project members. This, in turn, forms the basis for a critical discussion of organizational aspects, aims, values, and overt and covert hierarchies resulting from the meeting of divergent scientific disciplines. Ultimately, we review the practical, epistemological, and theoretical gains and challenges involved in conducting organizationally complex research at the vanguard of interdisciplinarity—both in general terms and within music research in particular. A set of recommendations is provided for conducting successful research concerts, emphasizing, among other things, the importance of providing realistic and artistically satisfying concert experiences while still collecting valid, reliable, and sufficient data; of matching expectations about what can and cannot be achieved and concluded from the collected data; of prioritizing organizational competence and infrastructure, striking a balance between top-down control and bottom-up initiatives; and of recognizing and respecting each other's expertise across the involved research disciplines.

Music often evokes a regular beat and a pleasurable sensation of wanting to move to that beat called groove. Recent studies show that a rhythmic pattern’s ability to evoke groove increases at moderate levels of syncopation, essentially, when some notes occur earlier than expected. We present two studies that investigate that effect of syncopation in more realistic polyphonic music examples. First, listeners rated their urge to move to music excerpts transcribed from funk and rock songs, and to algorithmically transformed versions of these excerpts: 1) with the original syncopation removed, and 2) with various levels of pseudorandom syncopation introduced. While the original excerpts were rated higher than the de-syncopated, the algorithmic syncopation was not as successful in evoking groove. Consequently, a moderate level of syncopation increases groove, but only for certain syncopation patterns. The second study provides detailed comparisons of the original and transformed rhythmic structures that revealed key differences between them in: 1) the distribution of syncopation across instruments and metrical positions, 2) the counter-meter figures formed by the syncopating notes, and 3) the number of pickup notes. On this basis, we form four concrete hypotheses about the function of syncopation in groove, to be tested in future experiments.

There have been several studies investigating whether musical sound can be used as cell stimuli in recent years. We systematically searched publications to get an overview of studies that have used audible sound played through speaker-based systems to induce mechanical perturbation in cell cultures. A total of 12 studies were identified. We focused on the experimental setups, the sounds that were used as stimuli, and relevant biological outcomes. The studies are categorized into simple and complex sounds depending on the type of sound employed. Some of the promising effects reported were enhanced cell migration, proliferation, colony formation, and differentiation ability. However, there are significant differences in methodologies and cell type-specific outcomes, which made it difficult to find a systematic pattern in the results. We suggest that future experiments should consider using: (1) a more controlled acoustic environment, (2) standardized sound and noise measurement methods, and (3) a more comprehensive range of controlled sound parameters as cellular stimuli.

This paper describes the design and construction of a mini acoustic chamber using low-cost materials. The primary purpose is to provide an acoustically treated environment for small-scale sound measurements and experiments using ≤ 10-inch speakers. Testing with different types of speakers showed frequency responses of < 10 dB peak-to-peak (except the ”boxiness” range below 900 Hz), and the acoustic insulation (soundproofing) of the chamber is highly efficient (approximately 20 dB SPL in reduction). Therefore, it provides a significant advantage in conducting experiments requiring a small room with consistent frequency response and preventing unwanted noise and hearing damage. Additionally, using a cost-effective and compact acoustic chamber gives flexibility when characterizing a small-scale setup and sound stimuli used in experiments.

In this article, we explore the various ways in which drummers express a simple ‘backbeat’ pattern when asked to play with different timing styles (laid-back, on-beat, pushed) via manipulation of stroke onset and intensity features. Based on hierarchical clustering analyses and phylogenetic tree visualizations, we found three main strategies used to distinguish pushed/laid-back from on-the-beat performances: (1) strong ‘general earliness/lateness’ strategies, where most instruments are consistently played earlier/later in time relative to a metrical grid; (2) subtler ‘early/late flam’ strategies, where most instruments are played synchronously with the grid but at least one instrument is distinctively played as an early/late flam ; and (3) even subtler ‘ambiguously early/late compound sound’ strategies, where two instruments form a compound sound, but one is played synchronously with the grid, while the other is played early/late. The majority of drummers used additional consistent intensity strategies, the most common being greater hi-hat or snare intensity, which might enhance the effect of laidback and pushed rhythmic events. However, intensity was not used uniformly to exclusively distinguish laid-back/pushed from on-beat timing.

“212” is the first single from Azealia Banks’ debut album Broke with Expensive Taste (2014), co-written and produced by the Dutch electro-house duo Lazy Jay who first released its beat under the title Float My Boat (2009). The aim of this chapter is to unpack the secrets to success of “212” by focusing in particular on the track's groove, production, vocal delivery, and overall stylistic fusion of rap, reggaetón, pop, and house. We argue that Banks’ expressive range and seamless fusion of singing and rapping, her negotiations between confirming and protesting hip-hop norms, in combination with the style mix inherent in both Lazy Jay's original beat and her own rendition, were key to the track's success. An important aspect is the mix of musical forms typical of song and groove-directed repertoires, which allowed for many different interpretations and uses.

This article addresses the computational estimation of attack regions in audio recordings. Previous attempts to do so were based on the reduction of the audio waveform into an envelope curve, which decreases its temporal resolution. The proposed approach detects the attack region directly from the audio waveform. The attack region is modeled as a line starting from a low-amplitude point and intersecting one of the local maxima according to two principles: (1) maximizing the slope, while favoring, at the same time, a higher peak if the slope remains only slightly lower and (2) dismissing initial attack regions of relatively low amplitude. The attack start position is fine-tuned by intersecting the attack slope with the audio waveform. The proposed method precisely pinpoints the attack region in cases where it is unambiguously observable from the waveform itself. In such cases, previous methods selected a broader attack region due to the loss of temporal resolution. When attack regions are less evident, the proposed method’s estimation remains within the range of results provided by other methods. Applied to the prediction of judgments of P-center localization [Danielsen, Nymoen, Anderson, C^amara, Langerød, Thompson, and London, J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 45, 402–418 (2019)], the proposed method shows a significant increase in precision, at the expense of recall.

Researchers have argued that temporal microdeviations from the metric grid, such as those producedby musicians in performance, are crucial to making a musical rhythm groovy and danceable. It is curious, then, that the music currently dominating the dance floor, “electronic dance music” or EDM, is typically characterized by grid-based rhythms. But is such a “mechanistic,” grid-based aesthetic necessarily devoid of microrhythmic nuance? In this article, we aim to show that the microrhythmic component of an engaging groove involves the manipulation of more than simply the onset locations of rhythmic events—the sonic features fundamentally contribute to shaping the groove as well. In particular, we seek to demonstrate that EDM producers, with their preference for a grid-based microtiming aesthetic, are very sensitive to and adept at manipulating such sonic features for expressive effect. Drawing on interviews with EDM producers, we show that producers are often concerned with both sonic and temporal features, as well as their interactions. We argue that sonic features are crucial to shaping groove and feel at the micro level of rhythm. Moreover, such features also tend to introduce an indirect microtiming aspect to the grid-based aesthetic of EDM through the ways in which they shape timing at the perceptual level.

Musical expertise improves the precision of timing perception and performance – but is this expertise generic, or is it tied to the specific style(s) and genre(s) of one’s musical training? We asked expert musicians from three musical genres (folk, jazz, and EDM/hip-hop) to align click tracks and tap in synchrony with genre-specific and genre-neutral sound stimuli to determine the perceptual center (“P-center”) and variability (“beat bin”) for each group of experts. We had three stimulus categories – Organic, Electronic, and Neutral sounds – each of which had a 2 Å~ 2 design of the acoustic factors Attack (fast/slow) and Duration (short/long). We found significant effects of Genre expertise, and a significant interaction for both P-center and P-center variability: folk and jazz musicians synchronize to sounds typical of folk and jazz in a different manner than the EDM/hip-hop producers. The results show that expertise in a specific musical genre affects our low-level perceptions of sounds as well as their affordance(s) for joint action/synchronization. The study provides new insights into the effects of active long-term musical enculturation and skill acquisition on basic sensorimotor synchronization and timing perception, shedding light on the important question of how nature and nurture intersect in the development of our perceptual systems.

In this music-analytic interpretation of two love songs from Prince’s Around the World in a Day album, we investigate the properties of groove, arrangement, and vocality, all of which contribute to the artist’s inimitable signature. With a disciplinary grounding in musicology, we demonstrate ways whereby musical features are associated with meaning in recorded songs. Underlying the approach is the notion that it is in the music where Prince’s ingenuity mainly lies. The analysis is informed by an understanding of the technological ramifications of the process on the part of Prince and his audio engineer Susan Rogers.

Previous studies have revealed uneven duration patterns at the sixteenth note level of samba. In the present study, we investigated the influence of tempo on such sixteenth-note patterns in a performed samba groove.The results revealed an uneven duration pattern in all tempi. Interestingly, the shortest note becomes relatively shorter and the longest relatively longer as the tempo increases. We suggest that the differences in relative durations between tempi reflect the need to maintain the samba sixteenth note ‘template’ in all tempi: producing the samba ‘feel’ requires that relative durations have to be adjusted to tempo.

This paper reports on two experiments that investigated the expressive means through which musicians well versed in groove-based music signal the intended timing of a rhythmic event. Data were collected from 21 expert electric guitarists and 21 bassists, who were instructed to perform a simple rhythmic pattern in three different timing styles—“laidback,” “on-the-beat,” and “pushed”—in tandem with a metronome. As expected, onset and peak timing locations corresponded to the instructed timing styles for both instruments. Regarding sound, results for guitarists revealed systematic differences across participants in the duration and brightness [spectral centroid (SC)] of the guitar strokes played using these different timing styles. In general, laid-back strokes were played with a longer duration and a lower SC relative to on-the-beat and pushed strokes. Results for the bassists indicated systematic differences in intensity (sound-pressure level): pushed strokes were played with higher intensity than on-the-beat and laid-back strokes. These results lend further credence to the hypothesis that both temporal and sound-related features are important indications of the intended timing of a rhythmic event, and together these features offer deeper insight into the ways in which musicians communicate at the microrhythmic level in groove-based music.

Popular Musicology and Identity paves new paths for studying popular music’s entwinement with gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, locality, and a range of other factors. The book consists of original essays in honour of Stan Hawkins, whose work has been a major influence on the musicological study of gender and identity since the early 1990s. In the new millennium, musicological approaches have proliferated and evolved alongside major shifts in the music industry and popular culture. Reflecting this plurality, the book reaches into a range of musical contexts, eras, and idioms to critically investigate the discursive structures that govern the processes through which music is mobilised as a focal point for negotiating and assessing identity. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, Popular Musicology and Identity accounts for the state of popular musicology at the onset of the 2020s while also offering a platform for the further advancement of the critical study of popular music and identity. This collection of essays thus provides an up-to-date resource for scholars across fields such as popular music studies, musicology, gender studies, and media studies.

The perceptual center (P-center) of a sound is typically understood as the specific moment at which it is perceived to occur. Using matched sets of real and artificial musical sounds as stimuli, we probed the influence of attack (rise time), duration, and frequency (center frequency) on perceived P-center location and P-center variability. Two different methods to determine the P-centers were used: Clicks aligned in-phase with the target sounds via the method of adjustment, and tapping in synchrony with the target sounds. Attack and duration were the primary cues for P-center location and P-center variability; P-center variability was found to be a useful measure of P-center shape. Consistent interactions between attack and duration were also found. Probability density distributions for each stimulus display a systematic pattern of P-center shapes ranging from narrow peaks close to the onset of sounds with fast attack and short duration, to wider and flatter shapes indicating a range synchronization points for sounds with slow attack and long duration. The results support the conception of P-centers as not simple time points, but "beat bins" with characteristic shapes, and the shapes and locations of these beat bins are dependent upon both the stimulus and the synchronization task.

The present study tested two assumptions concerning the auditory processing of microtiming in musical grooves (i.e., repeating, movement-inducing rhythmic patterns): 1) Microtiming challenges the listener's internal framework of timing regularities, or meter, and demands cognitive effort. 2) Microtiming promotes a “groove” experience—a pleasant sense of wanting to move along with the music. Using professional jazz musicians and nonmusicians as participants, we hypothesized that microtiming asynchronies between bass and drums (varying from −80 to 80 ms) were related to a) an increase in “mental effort” (as indexed by pupillometry), and b) a decrease in the quality of sensorimotor synchronization (as indexed by reduced finger tapping stability). We found bass/drums-microtiming asynchronies to be positively related to pupil dilation and negatively related to tapping stability. In contrast, we found that steady timekeeping (presence of eighth note hi-hat in the grooves) decreased pupil size and increased tapping performance, though there were no conclusive differences in pupil response between musicians and nonmusicians. However, jazz musicians consistently tapped with higher stability than nonmusicians, reflecting an effect of rhythmic expertise. Except for the condition most closely resembling real music, participants preferred the on-the-grid grooves to displacements in microtiming and bass-succeeding-drums-conditions were preferred over the reverse.

It is not uncommon to hear musicians and audio engineers speak of warmth and brightness when describing analog technologies such as vintage mixing consoles, multitrack tape machines, and valve compressors. What is perhaps less common, is hearing this term used in association with retro digital technology. A question exists as to how much the low bit rate and low-grade conversion quality contribute to the overall brightness or warmth of a sound when processed with audio effects simulating early sampling technologies. These two dimensions of timbre are notoriously difficult to define and more importantly, measure. We present a subjective user study of brightness and warmth, where a series of audio examples are processed with different audio effects. 26 participants rated the perceived level of brightness and warmth of various instrumental sequences for 5 different audio effects including bit depth reduction, compression and equalisation. Results show that 8 bit reduction tends to increase brightness and decrease warmth whereas 12 bit reduction tends to do the opposite, although this is very much dependent on the instrument. Interestingly, the most significant brightness changes, due to bit reduction, were obtained for bass sounds. For comparison purposes, instrument phrases were also processed with both an analogue compressor and an equalisation plugin to see if any subjective difference was noticed when simulating sonic characteristics that might be associated with warmth. Greater significance was observed when the sound excerpts were processed with the plugins being used to simulate the effects of bit depth reduction.

In speech and music, the acoustic and perceptual onset(s) of a sound are usually not congruent with its perceived temporal location. Rather, these "P-centers" are heard some milliseconds after the acoustic onset, and a variety of techniques have been used in speech and music research to find them. Here we report on a comparative study that uses various forms of the method of adjustment (aligning a click or filtered noise in-phase or anti-phase to a repeated target sound), as well as tapping in synchrony with a repeated target sound. The advantages and disadvantages of each method and probe type are discussed, and then all methods are tested using a set of musical instrument sounds that systematically vary in terms of onset/rise time (fast vs. slow), duration (short vs. long), and center frequency (high vs. low). For each method, the dependent variables were (a) the mean P-center location found for each stimulus type, and (b) the variability of the mean P-center location found for each stimulus type. Interactions between methods and stimulus categories were also assessed. We show that (a) in-phase and anti-phase methods of adjustment produce nearly identical results, (b) tapping vs. click alignment can provide different yet useful information regarding P-center locations, (c) the method of adjustment is sensitive to different sounds in terms of variability while tapping is not, and (d) using filtered noise as an alignment probe yields consistently earlier probe-onset locations in comparison to using a click as a probe.

This chapter provides an overview of the concept of groove, investigating musical and sonic components of grooves as well as aspects related to pleasure, process, and affect. It starts out by addressing three distinct general understandings of groove: (1) pattern and performance; (2) pleasure and “wanting to move”; and (3) a state of being. The authors then propose a set of typical (rhythmic) features that seem to be common to a wide range of groove-based styles, exploring five main categories: pulse or regular beat; subdivision of the beat; syncopation; counter-rhythm; and microrhythm. Finally, the chapter presents some viable approaches to the analysis of groove, focusing on swing and anticipated beats in James Brown’s “Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine” (1970), aspects of counter-rhythm in Jackie Wilson’s “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher” (1967), and the extending of beats into beat bins in D’Angelo’s “Left & Right” (2000) and Rihanna’s “Needed Me” (2016).

Artikkelen problematiserer den rollen svart rytmisk musikk har spilt innenfor populærmusikkfeltet i etterkrigstiden. Den begynner med en gjennomgang av den historiske bakgrunnen for forestillingen om svart rytme som annerledes, umiddelbar og kroppslig. Deretter drøftes sammenhengen mellom den vestlige dualistiske tilnærmingen til kropp og sjel og den rytmiske musikkens «annerledeshet» og videre hvordan det gjennom å opprettholde bildet av det svarte som mer naturlig – enten i negativ forstand i form av noe vilt og barbarisk eller i positiv som noe mer egentlig – har vært mulig å bruke svart kultur til å negere kjerneverdier i hvit vestlig kultur. Nøkkelord: Rytmisk musikk, annerledeshet, primitivisme

Live music events are increasingly saturated with and mediated via the online and mobile devices of the audience. This article explores patterns in this media use surrounding the Øya festival in Norway and focuses, in particular, on music streaming and social media activity. It presents sta- tistical analysis of listening sessions via the streaming service Wimp and social interactions via the micro-blogging platform Twitter. The juxtaposition of these unique access points allows the analysis to explore the impact of physical live concerts on the digital music experience. It also enables a nuanced examination of how the festival audience responds to different artist segments, from international headliners to local acts. One key finding is that local artists that are positively evaluated via Twitter have the greatest boost in subsequent music streaming. The article argues that in-depth studies of the intersection of live and mediated music are essential to understanding the encounter between artists and audiences that is facilitated by contemporary live music events.

The attack phase of sound events plays an important role in how sounds and music are perceived. Several approaches have been suggested for locating salient time points and critical time spans within the attack portion of a sound, and some have been made widely accessible to the research community in toolboxes for Matlab. While some work exists where proposed audio descriptors are grounded in listening tests, the approaches used in two of the most popular toolboxes for musical analysis have not been thoroughly compared against perceptual results. This article evaluates the calculation of attack phase descriptors in the Timbre toolbox and the MIRtoolbox by comparing their predictions to empirical results from a listening test. The results show that the default parameters in both toolboxes give inaccurate predictions for the sound stimuli in our experiment. We apply a grid search algorithm to obtain alternative parameter settings for these toolboxes that align their estimations with our empirical results.

Tracking a moving sound in space requires continuous prediction of its next location. This implies that we must combine information about the time and location of the sound, to accurately predict its trajectory. Using EEG, auditory motion processing has previously been found in frontal, central, and parietal areas of the brain. Prior studies have suggested that space and time for auditory stimuli are processed separately in the brain. Despite the seemingly distinct processing pathways of spatial and temporal sound information, they must integrate at some stage to enable the prediction of movement. It remains unknown if these processes are initially working in parallel and then converging at some point, or if there are several instances of convergence throughout. The goal of this study was to delineate the neural correlates of spatial and temporal processing of moving sounds, and to assess how and when they converge to aid in the tracking of the sound movement.

In musical ensembles most notes/chords are sounded by more than one instrument at the same time, and we hear them as simultaneous, even when their onsets are not precisely simultaneous. Here we obtain estimates for the perceptual centers of such compound sounds when there are microtiming asynchronies between the instruments. In Exp1 three combinations of fast-attack instruments (acoustic kick drum/synthetic kick, kick/hi-hat, kick/bass) were presented with five levels of instrument asynchrony relative to the kick (-40, -20, 0, 20, and 40 ms); the ISI was 600ms (100 bpm) and the task was to align a click with the compound sound. An RMANOVA shows main effects (p<.001) of Asynchrony and Instrument combination, and a U-shaped relationship between Asynchrony and P-center, such that asynchrony in both directions relative to the kick (kick early and kick late) delays the P-center for the compound sound. In Exp2 we used combinations of fast and slow attack instruments. Ten combinations (three fast-attack–fast-attack, three slow-attack–slow-attack, four fast-attack–slow-attack) were presented with seven levels of instrument asynchrony: -80, -40, -20, 0, 20, 40, 80. RMANOVAs of the results revealed different relationships between asynchrony and P-center (p<.001): Fast/fast attack combinations replicated the U-shape of experiment 1. In fast/slow combinations, the P-center followed the fast-attack instrument linearly, and in the slow/slow combinations, P-centers followed the higher-pitched instrument. P- centers of compound sounds depend on both the asynchrony between the instruments and the shape of their attacks. Combinations of fast-attack instruments with extreme asynchrony produce bimodal distributions, indicating perceptual segregation of the two sounds. The findings align with studies showing that sharp sounds are used as landmarks for segmentation and timing in speech and music.

Previous research (Danielsen et al. 2022) has shown that musical expertise affects the perception of the temporal location (i.e., P-center) of an instrumental sound. Here we extend this research to the context of vocal music. In two experiments expert singers in jazz and classical genres were presented with a range of stimuli, including neutral Stimuli (e.g., noise bursts, clicks), vowel sounds sung by jazz and classical singers, and spoken versions of the vowel sounds. As with our previous study, neutral stimuli produce largely the same responses in both participant groups, while a linear mixed model showed that jazz participants placed their p-centers earlier (22 ms; p=.044) and with lower variability (21 ms; p = .025) than classical participants. Contra our hypothesis, the between-group differences for P-center location and variability persisted in the context of spoken sounds. Why should this be so? Expert musicians develop highly specific motor representations of their own actions and use them when singing and playing. For singers, these these models overlap with speech production more generally. This could explain the carry-over to speech stimuli. Likewise, the vocal stimuli presented our participants with not only acoustic cues for the P-center location of the sounds themselves, but also cues for synchronizing individual actions in performance (coordinating the behaviors that produce the sounds with others). This indicates that the vestiges of joint action that remained in our experimental context were enough to engage their top-down sensorimotor models, as would be used in an actual singing or speaking context.

Flexibly adapting to our dynamic surroundings requires anticipating upcoming events and focusing our attention accordingly. Rhythmic patterns of sensory input offer valuable cues for these temporal expectations and facilitate perceptual processing. However, a gap in understanding persists regarding how rhythms outside of periodic structures influence perception. Our study aimed to delineate the distinct roles of predictability and periodicity in rhythm-based expectations. Participants completed a pitch-identification task preceded by different rhythm types: periodic predictable, aperiodic predictable, and aperiodic unpredictable. By manipulating the timing of the target sound, we observed how auditory sensitivity was modulated by the target position in the different rhythm conditions. The results revealed a clear behavioral benefit of predictable rhythms, regardless of their periodicity. Interestingly, we also observed an additional effect of periodicity. While both periodic and aperiodic predictable rhythms improved overall sensitivity, only the periodic rhythm seemed to induce an entrained sensitivity pattern, wherein sensitivity peaked in synchrony with the expected continuation of the rhythm. The recorded event-related brain potentials further supported these findings. The target-evoked P3b, possibly a neural marker of attention allocation, mirrored the sensitivity patterns. This supports our hypothesis that perceptual sensitivity is modulated by temporal attention guided by rhythm-based expectations. Furthermore, the effect of rhythm predictability seems to operate through climbing neural activity (similar to the CNV), reflecting preparation for the target. The effect of periodicity is likely related to more precise temporal expectations and could possibly involve neural entrainment. Our findings suggest that predictability and periodicity influence perception via distinct mechanisms.

Interdisciplinary music research: gains and challenges Recent years have seen a steady increase in calls for interdisciplinary approaches to research from politicians, university administrators, and public and private funding agencies alike. Interdisciplinary research is needed, it is claimed, to solve many of the foundational crises faced by societies today. While interdisciplinary research holds great promise for large-scale problem-solving, it is also bedeviled by obstacles at the institutional and individual level that monodisciplinary research does not face to the same extent, such as insufficient infrastructure, organizational barriers, lower employability, and few well- established publication channels. Sometimes even more challenging, however, are the different research traditions of the disciplines involved, which might adhere to profoundly different methodological traditions, lack shared criteria for quality assessment, and even disagree regarding what counts as science. In this talk, I will address the gains and challenges of working across radically different disciplines in music research, sharing my experience from three highly interdisciplinary projects: the RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion; the MusicLab Copenhagen research concert; and the TIME project on musical microrhythm.

Vi er positive til fler- og tverrfaglige studieløp og synes 40-grupper er en god idé. Strukturen er på plass, men implementeringen er mangelfull. Til tider er det vanskelig å skjønne at vi jobber ved samme institusjon.

På konsert føler vi samhold med fremmede, viser forskning. I et kort øyeblikk samler musikken oss. Hvordan kan musikk også samle oss i urolige tider? Hva er det med akkurat musikk som forener oss? Bli med på musikksnakk med artistene Daniel Kvammen og vokalist i FIEH, Sofie Tollefsbøl, og musikkforsker Anne Danielsen. Her vil musikkprofessor Alexander Refsum Jensenius lede samtalen med ulike spørsmål knyttet til tematikken – kanskje svarer de på ditt spørsmål også? Samtalen er beregnet for et publikum uten faglig bakgrunn i temaet.

How does the dynamic shape of a sound affect its perceived microtiming? In the TIME project, we studied basic aspects of musical microrhythm, exploring both stimulus features and the participants’ enculturated expertise via perception experiments, observational studies of how musicians produce particular microrhythms, and ethnographic studies of musicians’ descriptions of microrhythm. Collectively, we show that altering the microstructure of a sound (“what” the sound is) changes its perceived temporal location (“when” it occurs). Specifically, there are systematic effects of core acoustic factors (duration, attack) on perceived timing. Microrhythmic features in longer and more complex sounds can also give rise to different perceptions of the same sound. Our results shed light on conflicting results regarding the effect of microtiming on the “grooviness” of a rhythm.

The notion of groove is key to both musicians’ and academics’ discourses on musical rhythm. In this keynote, I will present groove’s historical grounding in African American musical practices and explore its current implications by addressing three distinct understandings of groove: as pattern and performance; as pleasure and “wanting to move”; and as a state of being. I will point out some musical features that seem to be shared among a wide range of groove-based styles, including syncopation and counterrhythm, swing and subdivision, and microrhythmic qualities. Ultimately, I will look at the ways in which the groove experience has been approached in different disciplines, drawing on examples from musicology / ethnomusicology, philosophy, psychology and neuroscience.

There is currently a gap in rhythm and timing research regarding how we perceive complex acoustic stimuli in musical contexts. Many studies have investigated timing acuity in non-musical contexts involving simple rhythmic sequences comprised of clicks or sine waves. However, the extent to which these results transfer to our perception of microrhythmic nuances in multilayered musical contexts rife with complex instrumental sounds remains poorly understood. In this talk we will present an overview of a planned series of just-noticeable difference (JND) experiments that will generate ecologically valid perceptual heuristics regarding timing discrimination thresholds. The aim is to investigate the extent to which microrhythmic timing and sonic nuances are perceived in groove-based music and connect these heuristics to the pleasurable urge to move in groove-based contexts, as well as acoustic (e.g., intensity, duration, frequency) and musical features (e.g., tempo, genre), and listener factors (e.g. musical training, stylistic familiarity). Overall, we expect timing thresholds to be higher for polyphonic/musical than for monotonic/non-musical stimuli/contexts and higher for pulse attribution (whether one can perceive a “beat”; Madison & Merker 2002, Psychol Res) than for simple detection of asynchrony and anisochrony (whether one can perceive “rhythmic irregularities”). Thresholds will likely be modulated by intensity (Goebl & Parncutt 2002, ICMPC7), tempo (Friberg & Sundberg 1995, J Acous Soc Am), instrumentation (Danielsen et al. 2019, J Exp Psychol), and genre/stylistic conventions (Câmara & Danielsen 2019, Oxford). Musically trained/stylistically familiar listeners may also display style-typical sensitivity to microrhythmic manipulations (Danielsen et al. 2021 Atten Percept Psychophys; Jakubowski et al. 2022; Cogn). In terms of subjective experience, we expect that onset asynchrony exaggerations will likely elicit lower pleasure and movement ratings compared to performances with idiomatic timing profiles (Senn et al. 2018, PLoS One). Higher ratings should also be biased in favor of familiar styles (Senn et al. 2021) and rhythmic patterns that do not engender excessive metrical ambiguity are likely to elicit higher ratings (Spiech et al. 2022, preprint; Witek et al. 2014, PLoS One).

This study reports on an experiment that investigated how guitarists signal the intended timing of a rhythmic event in a groove-based context via three different features related to sound-producing motions of impulsive chord strokes (striking velocity, movement duration and fretboard position). 21 expert electric guitarists were instructed to perform a simple rhythmic pattern in three different timing styles—“laidback,” “on-the-beat,” and “pushed”—in tandem with a metronome. Results revealed systematic differences across participants in the striking velocity and movement duration of chords in the different timing styles. In general, laid-back strokes were played with lower striking velocity and longer movement duration relative to on-the-beat and pushed strokes. No differences in the fretboard striking position were found (neither closer to the “bridge” [bottom] or to the “neck” [head]). Correlations with previously reported audio features of the guitar strokes were also investigated, where lower velocity and longer movement duration generally corresponded with longer acoustic attack duration (signal onset to offset).

Det snakkes i festlige lag om at våre alumni er en ressurs. Dessverre viser praksis at man ikke bare ignorerer tidligere ansatte, men aktivt forsøker å fjerne alle spor av at de har forsket ved institusjonen.

In musical genres such as neo-soul and hip-hop, beats often have a temporal shape that makes their placement in time difficult to locate relative to a single point in time. This is often due to «muddy», processed sounds or asynchronies between events at beat-related metric positions. The beat bin theory suggests that the perceptual counterpart to such beat asynchronies or muddy beat shapes in a sounding groove is an internal (perceptual) reference structure of beat bins of considerable ‘width’ and a distinctive ‘shape’. I will start by pre- senting the theory and then focus on how various acoustic factors influence the beat bin, using examples from computer-based musical grooves. Ultimately, I argue that micro-level perception of, and synchronization to, sound is opti- mized for the task at hand, in line with the flexibility and dynamic nature of the human apparatus in perceiving, predicting, and processing rhythm.

This paper describes the design and construction of a mini acoustic chamber using low-cost materials. The primary purpose is to provide an acoustically treated environment for small-scale sound measurements and experiments using ≤ 10-inch speakers. Testing with different types of speakers showed frequency responses of < 10 dB peak-to-peak (except the ”boxiness” range below 900 Hz), and the acoustic insulation (soundproofing) of the chamber is highly efficient (approximately 20 dB SPL in reduction). Therefore, it provides a significant advantage in conducting experiments requiring a small room with consistent frequency response and preventing unwanted noise and hearing damage. Additionally, using a cost-effective and compact acoustic chamber gives flexibility when characterizing a small-scale setup and sound stimuli used in experiments.

Lyrikken er den mest populære og utbredte av alle diktarter – vel å merke sanglyrikken, den som fremføres til musikk og formidles gjennom radio, grammofonplater, CD-er og strømmetjenester. Den omgir oss til daglig og er samtidig den eldste formen for lyrikk vi kjenner til. I det gamle Hellas ble diktene fremsagt til lyrespill. Til tross for dette har sanglyrikken vært mindre utforsket enn skriftlyrikken, og det har skortet på teoretiske og metodiske perspektiver. Det søker denne boka å råde bot på. Her diskuteres først de grunnleggende likheter og forskjeller mellom skrift- og sanglyrikk, mellom øye- og ørekunst. Videre drøftes metodiske innfallsvinkler til studiet av sanglyrikk, med tanke på samspillet mellom ord og musikk. Deretter gjør boka rede for en rekke kjente sanglyriske sjangrer: ballader, skillingsviser, salmer, joik, viser, blues, rock, indie-folk og rap. Boka er den første i sitt slag i Norge. Den er særlig rettet mot forskere og studenter i høyere utdanning, og lærere som vil arbeide med sanglyrikk i skoleverket. Men alle som interesserer seg for sanglyrikkens sjangrer, vil finne noe å glede seg over her.

The internal beat or pulse in the listener is not a single point in time, but has a shape and a width and can be described via a probability distribution. This phenomenon has been conceptualized in the beat bin thoery (Danielsen 2010). The internal beat bin of the listener varies systematically with the precision needed in the given musical or sonic context. Anne and Sabine will present behavioral evidence for this phenomenon and a first attempt to reveal the underlying neural mechanism behind the flexible adaptation to the precision of the current beat bin context. They will present effects of acoustic factors on the perceptual center and the beat bin, as well as preliminary results on how neural oscillatory activity might represent a neural mechanism behind this phenomenon.

Background and Aim: Findings from performance timing experiments have shown that drummers are able to systematically play stroke onsets significantly earlier and later than an instructed on-the-beat performance (Câmara et al., 2020; Danielsen et al., 2015), and purportedly able to further control the degree of onset asynchrony between the various constituent instruments of the drum-kit (Câmara and Danielsen, 2019). Previous investigations have focused on comparing average statistical trends of onset timing between timing styles across entire groups of drummers. In this study, we map performance strategies present at the individual participant level and categorize the different archetypical ways in which drummers express different timing styles. We focus on the onset asynchrony and intensity of strokes between drum-kit instruments, and in relation to a metrical grid, and hypothesize that drummers employ consistent strategies to achieve different desired timing styles, choosing different instruments (snare/kick/hi-hat) in the rhythmic pattern to generate in-sync, late, and early timing performances. Methods: In a previous experiment (Câmara et al., 2020), twenty-two drummers were instructed to play a basic “back-beat” pattern along to a metronome and a pre-recorded instrumental track in three different timing conditions: laid-back, on-the-beat, and pushed. Here, we conduct a hierarchical cluster analysis of various onset and intensity features in this data set, combined with phylogenetic tree visualizations to provide an overview of the strategies used by the drummers to distinguish laid-back/pushed from on-the-beat performances. Furthermore, we encode the features of the onset or intensity clusters into microtiming archetypes that visually summarize the general characteristics of the drummers’ strategy in each cluster. Results: Overall, three overarching onset strategies were used to distinguish pushed/laid-back from on-the-beat performances: (1) strong “general earliness/lateness” strategies: most instruments are consistently played earlier/later in time relative to the grid; (2) subtler “early/late flam” strategies: most instruments are played synchronously with the grid but at least one instrument is played distinctively early/late ; and (3) even subtler “ambiguously early/late compound sound” strategies: two instruments are played synchronously in relation to each other as a compound sound, but one instrument is played synchronous with the grid and the other is played early/late. While no clear intensity manipulation patterns emerged to exclusively distinguish laid-back/pushed timing, they serve as a means of enhancing or diminishing the effect of intentionally produced asynchronies. Conclusion: Results indicate that performers utilize a range of inter-instrument onset timing and intensity relationships to express microrhythmic feel in groove performance, that is, different drummers use different means to achieve the same desired feel. Implications: The novel methods developed in this study may be applied to analysis of commercial recordings to provide insight into the idiomatic timing–sound strategies of influential performers and/or genres/styles more generally. References: Câmara, G. S., & Danielsen, A. (2019). Groove. In A. Rehding & S. Rings (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of critical concepts in music theory (pp. 271–294). Oxford University Press. Câmara, G. S., Nymoen, K., Lartillot, O., & Danielsen, A. (2020). Timing Is Everything . . . or Is It? Effects of Instructed Timing Style, Reference, and Pattern on Drum Kit Sound in Groove-Based Performance. Music Perception, 38(1), 1–26. Danielsen, A., Waadeland, C. H., Sundt, H. G., & Witek, M. A. G. (2015). Effects of instructed timing and tempo on snare drum sound in drum kit performance. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 138(4), 2301–2316.

Musicians can place the time-position of events with high precision and according to personal preference, genre and tempo [1]. For instance, the swing ratio is not kept constant, but it is systematically adapted to a global tempo [2]. In contemporary music, drummers can achieve a specific feel by manipulating the timing of rhythms in different ways and placing event onsets earlier or later compared to the time reference [1]. These small adjustments in time are also referred to as micro-timing variations. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of micro-timing variations in live-played rhythms on the perceived danceability and timing precision. The stimuli were chosen from Câmara et al. [1] where drummers were playing two different patterns with different timing styles (laid-back, pushed, on-beat). Two drummers’ performances were selected based on their reported average systematic timing. These 12 recordings were mixed with the instrumental backing track (bass and guitar) heard by the drummers to form the stimuli. Forty participants (M = 28.23 years, SD = 11.80), 28 males and 12 females, with varying musical background were recruited via social media (Facebook pages, groups and direct messages to chat groups). Participants were sent a link to the online listening test using Google Forms with modifications that presented the stimuli as embedded videos. Each video started with a prompt to wear headphones followed by 4 bars of groove for a total of 11 seconds (with a static image). For each page, the participant was presented with a reference track (on-beat timing) and a “beat” track (laid-back or pushed timing) and asked to rate the perceived danceability from 1 (not danceable at all) to 5 (very danceable). Additionally, listeners were asked to compare the beat with the reference track and indicate whether this was pushed (ahead), laid-back (behind) or on-beat (synced with) the reference in terms of timing. Preliminary results indicate that micro-timing variations affect the perceived danceability. On-beat patterns were rated with the highest danceability, followed by laid-back and pushed styles. The drummer that obtained the highest danceability rating for the laid-back performance is also the one that was mainly recognized as on-beat performer. As expected, identification of timing (ahead, behind or on) proved to be difficult. Using the instrumental backing track as a time reference could possibly have made the task even harder for untrained listeners. Future research could address this by comparing danceability ratings for the grooves mixed with different backing tracks. References [1] G. S. Câmara, K. Nymoen, O. Lartillot, and A. Danielsen, “Timing Is Everything…Or Is It? Effects of Instructed Timing Style, Reference, and Pattern on Drum Kit Sound in Groove-Based Performance,” Music Percept., vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 1–26, Sep. 2020, doi: 10.1525/mp.2020.38.1.1. [2] H. Honing and W. B. de Haas, “Swing Once More: Relating Timing and Tempo in Expert Jazz Drumming,” Music Percept., vol. 25, no. 5, pp. 471–476, Jun. 2008, doi: 10.1525/mp.2008.25.5.471.

The focus of the paper will be analytical and experiential aspects of repetition and difference in grooves. Inspired by the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, I will discuss the difference between static and dynamic repetition and develop the idea of repetition as production, which will then be applied to various musical examples of African-American groove-based music.

Kan en AI lage bedre tekster enn en visesanger? Og bedre drinker enn en bartender? Vi tester begge deler. Prøvekanin er Pål Moddi Knudsen. En AI har tygd seg gjennom de gamle tekstene hans, og spytta ut en splitter ny. Dessuten - Hvorfor hører man bare bassen fra festen ved siden av? - Konsentrer man seg bedre med musikk? - Løper man raskere med musikk? - Hvorfor har vi så ulik musikksmak? - Hvorfor er Moddis gitar alltid sur? - Hvor varmt blir det i en peisovn? I panelet Visesanger Pål Moddi Knudsen Datalog Morten Goodwin Musikkviter Anne Danielsen Fysiker Ole Martin Løvvik Hjerneforsker Per Brodal

Forskerne bruker utallige arbeidstimer på å legge inn informasjonen. Det er på tide å få den ut igjen! skriver UiO-forskerne Alexander Refsum Jensenius, Anne Danielsen og Peter Edwards.

In this keynote I will discuss interdisciplinarity as a methodological approach in music studies. I begin by outlining different forms of collaboration across disciplines. Then I will share my experiences with designing and leading the project TIME: Timing and Sound in Musical Microrhythm, funded by the NFR-TOPPFORSK scheme. The project draws on a wide variety of disciplines that have been central to the study of rhythm in music and explores a broad methodological palette: from musical analysis and aesthetic interpretation, to qualitative interviews, controlled experiments and cross-cultural comparative approaches. I will focus on how different methods can be combined to provide richer answers to the same research questions, and how to organize research to achieve collaboration across traditions. The challenges facing interdisciplinary research will also be addressed. In the last part of the lecture, the focus will be on interdisciplinarity across disciplines based on our experiences of running the RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion at the University of ̽����ѡ, where music scholars collaborate with researchers from other fields, such as informatics and cognitive psychology.

Det er underlig ̽����ѡ så aktivt går inn for å slette tilgjengelig informasjon om vår egen kultur og historie. Vi er enig i at det er behov for å rydde opp i nettsidene, men mener at fokuset bør ligge på rydding og kvalitetssikring fremfor sletting, skriver Alexander Refsum Jensenius og Anne Danielsen i RITMO.

Musical synchronization may be achieved with greater or lesser precision. Previous research has shown that acoustic factors systematically influence where a musician places one sound in relation to another in order to hear them as perfectly synchronized. However, it remains unclear how synchrony is affected by musical enculturation. In this talk, Anne Danielsen will present results from a comparative study where expert musicians and producers from jazz, folk music, and EDM/hip-hop did click alignment and tapping to different musical and quasi-musical sounds.

Forskerne bruker utallige arbeidstimer på å legge inn informasjonen. Det er på tide å få den ut igjen.

Sensory consequences of actions are predicted by the brain via an internal forward model to prepare sensory cortical areas, referred to as motor prediction. In a similar vein, the predictive coding framework suggests that perception is based on internal models making predictions about sensory events, based on statistical probabilities of the stimuli. In the current study we investigated action-based sensory predictions. We used a self-paced, two-choice random generation task, infrequently inducing deviant outcomes of voluntary action. Participants repeatedly pressed a right and a left button normatively associated with a 70 ms long 1 kHz and 2 kHz tone, respectively. Occasional deviants occurred, inverting the learned button-tone association. Participants were instructed that their button presses should be random, at a regular but self-paced tempo of one press per 1-2 s, and that they should press both buttons with equal probability. They were informed that the tones are task-irrelevant. We used intracranial EEG (iEEG) data recorded from 10 adult patients with electrodes localized in frontal and temporal lobes. The patients had drug resistant epilepsy and were undergoing presurgical monitoring via implanted stereotactic electrodes. Electrode coordinates and anatomical labels were obtained from coregistered MRI and CT images using iElectrodes toolbox. Initial results indicate that violations of action intentions modulated high frequency band activity (HFA, 75-145 Hz) in distributed brain regions including temporal and prefrontal cortices.

Rhythm and groove are at the heart of many African-American musical traditions. In this lecture, I will discuss the ways in which creative use of new digital technology has changed how music sounds. As my examples I will use contemporary African-American popular music that have been produced through unorthodox application of the digital audio workstation. I will also touch upon how sound processing can be used to alter the perceived timing of rhythmic events.

Recent research points towards a relation between syncopation and groove (Witek et al., 2014; Madison and Sioros, 2014), i.e. the pleasurable sensation of wanting to move to music (Janata et al., 2012). We aimed at confirming the inverted-U shape relation found in previous research, using more controlled music examples (MEs). To this end, we asked twenty-seven participants to listen to and rate variations of MEs that only differ in their syncopation. Ten short funk and rock loops consisting of drums, bass and keyboards were algorithmically transformed (Sioros and Guedes, 2014) to 1) remove the original syncopation, and 2) introduce various amounts of new syncopation: 25% (roughly equal amount to the original), 50%, and 70%. The MEs were produced using professional sound samples. The participants rated the groove of the original versions higher than all the transformed versions, including the version with a similar amount of algorithmic syncopation, while the 50% and 70% versions had the lowest scores. Statistically significant differences were observed between 1) the original and the rest, and 2) the 25% and the 50% and 70%, but not between the 25% and the deadpan. To understand this result, we compared the original and algorithmic syncopation. Our findings include: 1) The algorithmic syncopation is relatively uniformly distributed. In contrast, the original versions have less syncopated drums with almost no syncopated hi-hats. Certain metrical positions in the drums are never syncopated, e.g. the back-beat snare. 2) The original syncopation forms more and longer cross-rhythmic or metrically shifted patterns, as often encountered in the funk style (Danielsen, 2006). 3) The micro-timing alignment of sounds differs between versions. This experiment concludes that groove is increased by syncopation, however, not every pattern will do. Our analysis calls attention to the complex nature of syncopation and its possible dependence on structural factors.

Timing is an important aspect of groove music. The relationship between musicians’ body motion in performance and timing is, however, as yet not well understood Timing and drummers’ movement: A novel methodology for performance analysis . In the present study we recorded movement of 20 drummers performing the same rhythmic pattern under four different timing instructions: natural, on- the-beat, laid-back and pushed. Motion capture data synchronized to audio recordings of their performances were collected as part of a larger experimental project. This presentation focuses on our method for analyzing motion capture data. The aim of the analysis is a) to identify common movement strategies for sub-groups of drummers, and b) to identify strategies for achieving the four different timing conditions across drummers. In this presentation we focus on the movement of the left arm, and particularly on the preparation and rebound phase of the snare strokes. To explore and analyze the data without statistically testing a priori hypotheses about specific performance techniques, we combined existing practices from different disciplines into a novel methodology. First, we reduce the data into motion templates (Müller and Röder 2006). We design a set of 22 binary features to describe the movement of the arm. Second, we perform a phylogenetic analysis of the motion templates, in which we identify clusters within each timing condition. A comparison between clusters reveals differences in the coordination of the participants’ movements that correspond to the different performance strategies. Preliminary analysis has shown distinct clusters within all timing conditions that differ in specific features. For instance, we observe three groups of participants within the “natural” condition that differ in the flexion of the wrist and elbow. Besides our findings we will present the details of the methodology, which can be applied in the study of music-related movements beyond the scope of this project.

Groove is the pleasurable sensation of wanting to move to music. A series of studies has attempted to understand the function of this phenomenon by examining its relation to physical properties in the sound signal and found, among other things, that groove increases at optimal levels of syncopation. Here, we tested if the amount of syncopation is the critical factor, rather than the specific pattern of notes that are syncopated. To this end, our algorithm transformed ten short funk and rock loops consisting of drums, bass and keyboards to 1) remove the original syncopation, and 2) introduce various amounts of new syncopation: 0%, 25% (similar amount to the original), 50%, and 70%. All the examples were produced using profes- sional sound samples and were rated by 27 listeners. The ratings were highest for the original versions, next highest for the 0 and 25% versions, and lowest for 50% and 70% versions, with statistically significant differences between the original and the rest, and the 25% and the 50% and 70%, but not between the 0% and 25%. Apparently, our algorithm failed to recreate the groove of the original music. Comparing the origi- nal and algorithmic syncopation we found: (1) The algorithmic syncopation is relatively uniformly distributed across the instruments, while the original versions have less syncopated drums with almost no syncopated hi-hats, and the back-beat snare never syncopated. (2) The original syncopation forms more and longer cross-rhythmic or metrically shifted patterns, as often encountered in the funk style. (3) Differences in the micro-timing alignment of sounds. In conclusion, groove is greatly increased by syncopation; although, not necessarily by syncopation per se, as the results point to several structural factors that may be important and can be further tested and add to our understanding of the functional properties that underlie the sensation of groove.

Creative use of new digital technology has changed how music is produced, distributed, and consumed, as well as how music sounds. In this keynote, I will analyse some examples of new sonic expressions within the field of popular music that have been produced through unorthodox application of the digital audio workstation. I will also touch upon new patterns of personalised use and the so-called “prosumption” practices that have arised in the digital era in the form of remix, sample and mashup.

Får prisen for tverrfaglig, banebrytende og innovativt arbeid.

Hvorfor får vi lyst til å bevege oss når vi hører musikk? Vinnerne av UiOs innovasjonspris, Anne Danielsen og Alexander Refsum Jensenius, finner forhåpentligvis svaret når de fordyper seg i mennesket og rytmens mysterier.

Sentret ved institutt for musikkvitenskap på Univeristetet i ̽����ѡ skal sammen med ni andre senter dele på til sammen 1,5 milliarder kroner over ti år for å drive forskning på internasjonalt toppnivå.

The attack phase of sound events plays an important role in how sounds and music are perceived. Several approaches have been suggested for locating salient time points and critical time spans within the attack portion of a sound, and some have been made widely accessible to the research community in toolboxes for Matlab. While some work exists where proposed audio descriptors are grounded in listening tests, the approaches used in two of the most popular toolboxes for musical analysis have not been thoroughly compared against perceptual results. This article evaluates the calculation of attack phase descriptors in the Timbre toolbox and the MIRtoolbox by comparing their predictions to empirical results from a listening test. The results show that the default parameters in both toolboxes give inaccurate predictions for the sound stimuli in our experiment. We apply a grid search algorithm to obtain alternative parameter settings for these toolboxes that align their estimations with our empirical results.

Digital music technology has brought about unforeseen possibilities for manipulating sound, and, as a consequence, entirely new forms of musical expression have emerged. Among them are new rhythmic feels produced by either inserting glitches into the post-production of a played groove or by warping samples. Such rhythmic feels have been a striking aspect of African-American popular music styles such as, hip-hip, neo-soul, and contemporary R&B from the turn of the millennium onward. In this paper I present an analysis of the song ‘1000 Deaths’ from the album Black Messiah (2014) by D’Angelo. The analysis draws on previous work on D’Angelo’s microrhythms by Danielsen (2010). I will, first, map the micro-rhythmic relationship of the groove, and, secondly, relate its microrhythmic design to examples of similar past and present practices. The aim is to explore the wide array of musical and cultural meanings that such microrhythmic practices have taken on, from an experimental attitude (D’Errico) or political activism to black badness (West) or overtly sexual activities. The paper aims at bridging the gap between analysis of ‘the music itself’ and interpretations of its cultural and contextual meanings, demonstrating the ways in which they can be brought in touch with each other and mutually enhancing.

This thesis investigates the expressive means through which musicians well versed in groove-based music shape the timing of a rhythmic event, with a focus on the interaction between produced timing and sound features. In three performance experiments with guitarists, bassists, and drummers, I tested whether musicians systematically manipulate acoustic factors such as duration, intensity, and volume when they want to play with a specific microrhythmic style (pushed, on-the-beat, or laid-back). The results show that all three groups of instrumentalists indeed played pushed, on-the-beat, or laid-back relative to the reference pulse and in line with the instructed microrhythmic styles, and that there were systematic and consequential sound differences. Guitarists played backbeats with a longer duration and darker sound in relation to pushed and laid-back strokes. Bassists played pushed beats with higher intensity than on-the-beat and laid-back strokes. For the drummers, we uncovered different timing–sound combinations, including the use of longer duration (snare drum) and higher intensity (snare drum and hi-hat), to distinguish both laid-back and pushed from on-the-beat strokes. The metronome as a reference pulse led to less marked timing profiles than the use of instruments as a reference, and it led in general to earlier onset positions as well, which can perhaps be related to the phenomenon of “negative mean asynchrony.” We also conducted an in-depth study of the individual drummers’ onset and intensity profiles using hierarchical cluster analyses and phylogenetic tree visualizations and uncovered a diverse range of strategies. The results support the research hypothesis that both temporal and sound-related properties contribute to how we perceive the location of a rhythmic event in time. I discuss these results in light of theories and findings from other studies of the perception and performance of groove, as well as research into rhythm and microrhythmic phenomena such as perceptual centers and onset asynchrony/anisochrony.