Moving in Time

2015

This paper presents the scientific-artistic project Sverm, which has focused on the use of micromotion and microsound in artistic practice. Starting from standing still in silence, the artists involved have developed conceptual and experiential knowledge of microactions, microsounds and the possibilities of microinteracting with light and sound.

2014

Samba groove is often characterized by its complex rhythmical patterns. Recent studies, based on audio recordings of samba music, report that the 3 rd and the 4 th 16 th -notes are played slightly ahead of their corresponding quantized position, and that this seems to be a prominent feature of samba groove. Considering that samba derives from a culture where music and body motion are intrinsically related, may suggest that we should include both sound and motion data in studies of its rhythmical structures. In this paper we investigate whether the microtiming features, previously shown in samba music, may also be represented in the body motion of performers playing and dancing samba. We report from a motion capture experiment where two skilled samba performers, a percussionist and a dancer, were recorded using an advanced optical infrared motion capture system. Our audio analysis confirms the existence of systematic microtiming patterns on the 16 th -note level in samba music. In addition, motion analysis of the percussionist's heel tapping and the dancer's steps revealed motion patterns in synchrony with the systematic microtiming features found in samba music. These observations support the view that the systematic micro timing of 16 th -notes in samba playing is not a deviation from an underlying perceived pulse with isochronous subdivisions, but rather constitutes an essential feature of samba.

In: Correia Castilho L., Dias R., Pinho J.F. (eds) Perspectives on Music, Sound and Musicology. Current Research in Systematic Musicology, vol 10. Springer, Cham. , 2021

In this work we investigate the use of automatic onset detection techniques to support the ethnomusicological analysis of microtiming in Maracatu de Baque Solto. In order to lay the foundation for a robust and meaningful analysis of Maracatu in terms of its temporal and rhythmic structure, we require extremely precise annotations of note onset positions. However, the nature of Maracatu performance, with percussionists in very close proximity to one another and playing very loud and at high tempo, makes manual annotation extremely challenging. To this end, we orient our work towards minimising the number of corrections necessary by a human annotator, and thus we incorporate explicit knowledge of Maracatu into a computational approach for onset detection. In our evaluation, we explore the divergence between the use of an "off the shelf" state-of-the-art onset detection technique which has been trained to generalise across a wide variety of musical material, with a bespoke approach which specifically targets the instrumentation in Maracatu. We then explore the impact of this approach when visualising microtiming profiles.

2007

This paper is concerned with investigating expressive bodily movement in music performance, focussing on the keyboard percussion instrument, the marimba. A theoretical basis for developing a qualitative analysis of expressive bodily movement in music performance is presented. Research in experimental psychology and music performance has demonstrated that bodily movement creates visual information that can influence judgements of auditory information. The concert setting provides an excellent opportunity for performers to use both the aural and visual modes to their advantage in engaging audience attention and guiding awareness to musical content and artistic interpretation. It is suggested that the notated score provides sufficient information for the creation of an embodied musical interpretation resulting in an expressive audiovisual performance. It is proposed that 'Laban Movement Analysis' can be implemented as a qualitative method and metalanguage for analysing expressive bodily movement in music performance. Two worked examples illustrate analysis of a performer's expressive bodily movements. 'Effort-Shape Notation' is employed as a tool that links observed movement with the musical score. A theory based on embodied cognition of a musical score is proposed that explains the performer's role in effectively communicating their artistic image and musical interpretation with an audience through auditory and visual means.

2011

Music and dance cannot be easily dissociated in the culture of Afro-Brazilian samba. Together, these experiences convey a sort of unified gesture, or cross-modal gesture, which is acquired and performed through sound, movement and other modalities. In this study, we investigate how this gesture is modeled through sound and movement and how the interdependence between these modalities has influenced samba music and samba dances. Starting from commercial audio excerpts and field recordings, we demonstrated that samba is characterized by particular micro-timing deviations, as well as an unclear configuration of periodicities in the metrical structure of music. From motion capture and video recordings of dance, we developed methods that allow the description of gestures in terms of shapes and spatiotemporal reference frames. The applications of these methods to data-sets of motion capture recordings of samba dances show that the musical meter is indeed strongly represented in the gestures and in the dance space. In addition, we argue that the metric signature of samba music may actually be dependent on the metric structure of dance. The research shows that the sounding structure of samba cannot be fully understood without taking into consideration the role of the human body and the structure of dances. However, characteristic models of samba dances and music are beyond invariant properties of repetitive gestures or rhythm motives. More research is needed in order better understand the involvement of cultural factors in the structure of dances and music forms.

The analysis of micro–rhythmic aspects of music has experienced an important development in recent years. Microtiming involves small–scale temporal deviations of events in the musical surface with respect to an underlying isochronous metrical grid. These deviations can take the form of tempo variations like rubato; in other cases they rather consist of the time–shifting of events with respect to the steady beats of a constant tempo (e.g. notes inégales in Baroque or " swing " eighth–notes in Jazz). It has been recently argued that in some cases microtiming could be better understood by considering non–isochronous beat subdivisions. This paper presents the results of measuring and analysing the micro–rhythmical properties of the drumming patterns in Uruguayan Candombe. Candombe rhythm results from the interaction of the patterns of three drums of different size and pitch, and its metric structure—a cycle of four beats and sixteen pulses—shares many traits with other musics of the Afro–Atlantic world. The analysis of several recordings by renowned players reveals the systematic and consistent use of micro–temporal deviations in the patterns of Candombe, demonstrating that microtiming is a structural component of its rhythm.

Empirical Musicology Review

Patterned microtiming deviations from metronomic regularity are ubiquitous in the performance of metered music. The relevance of microtiming to the perception of music has been studied since the 1980s. Most recently, microtiming has been investigated as a cause of groove (i.e., the pleasant urge to move in response to music). The study of microtiming relies on the availability of microtiming data. This report presents three large corpora of onset timings derived from drum kit performances in popular Anglo-American popular music styles. These data are made freely available (CC 4.0 license) to provide a resource for use by analysts and experimenters alike. They offer a common point of reference for future studies into the temporal facets of music performance. The datasets adhere to FAIR principles; they thus facilitate replication of analyses and experimental stimuli.

The perception of musical meter is fundamental for rhythm production and perception in much music. Underlying structures such as pulse, meter, and metrical subdivisions are often described as successive points in time. This paper investigates whether experienced musical meter may not only include such points in time, but also trajectories between the points–that is, metrical shapes. Previous studies have pointed out that there seems to be a relationship between musical meter and periodic body motion like foot tapping, head nodding and dancing. This paper investigates musical meter in music styles with an intimate relationship with dance, and whether metrical points and trajectories can be understood by investigating performers' periodic body motion. Two motion capture studies form the empirical basis of this paper; first, a percussionist and a dancer performing Brazilian samba; second, a fiddler and two dancers performing Norwegian telespringar. The analysis showed that it seemed to be a relationship between the periodic fluctuation in audio amplitude and the performers' periodic foot motion on sixteenth note level in samba. Furthermore, motion analysis revealed similar periodic shapes in both percussionist and dancer foot motion. In telespringar there seemed to be a relationship between the metrical beat level and the fiddler's foot stamping. In addition, the beat duration pattern, as indicated by the fiddler's periodic foot stamping, seemed to correspond to the shape of the dancers' vertical body motion. The results support the view that there is a close relationship between musical meter and performers' periodic body motion. This suggest that the underlying meter may not only include metrical points in time, but that each metrical beat/subdivision duration has a corresponding metrical trajectory with a certain shape. If this is the case, then perceivers' and performers' implicit knowledge of the underlying reference structure in samba and telespringar might incorporate knowledge about the underlying metrical shape.

X Encuentro de Ciencias Cognitivas de la Música (Young Research Award)

A great part of the musical engagement is dependent on the human capacity to perceive and produce of temporal regularities in music. In Western music theory, these regularities are related to the concept of musical meter. A brief overview of the theories of musical meter reveals that a number of approaches are built upon abstract concepts of musical structure, axiomatic rules of preference or hypothetical models. In this paper, we argue that dance provides reliable explanations for a number of mechanisms behind the emergence of meter. We demonstrate our hypothesis by means of a case study on the analysis of dance and music recordings of Afro-Brazilian samba. The movement and audio data was processed by using TGA analysis (topological gesture analysis). The results show that the structure of musical meter is not only more elaborated in the dance gestures but also provides richer elements to support the concept of meter in music. We demonstrate that the structure of meter is readily available in the choreographic forms and delineated by biomechanical constraints of the dancer's body. We suggest that the structure of musical meter might have been formed as an entangled musical-choreographic form and was further fragmented in a disembodied view of musical knowledge.