Rhythm, Meter, And Musical Structure

Front 1

What is Rhythm?

Back 1

“Time pattern created by notes as music unfolds over time”

________ and timing determined primarily by tone onsets.

*usually comprised of simple ratios

*mostly based on relative, not absolute, time

Front 2

Tempo

Back 2

Sets the overall (absolute) timing for music.

Front 3

Precise Tempo

Back 3

Use of metronome
- Usually referred to in beats per minute (bpm)
Allegro & Adagio

-Regular beats in a given tempo lead to “entrainment” and prediction of next notes.
*People normally try to maintain a beat of around 100 bpm.

Front 4

________________________ often at similar
deceleration as stopping after a running pace.

Back 4

Ritardandos (slowing down)

Front 5

Clock Theories: Biological Clocks

Back 5

*Our perception of time has a biological or physiological basis (heart rate or walking).

The flow of subjective time ( the impression that time passes) is related to some body mechanism that acts in a periodic manner, with each period serving as one "tick" of the biological timer.
*Circadian rhythms, Short-term timers, and Biological pacemakers

Front 6

Clock Theories: Cognitive Theories

Back 6

Times is viewed as a purely cognitive process that is not tied to any objective or "clock" time but is based on how much sensory information is processed, how many events occur within a given trial, or how much attention is paid to ongoing events.

Front 7

Circadian Rhythms

Back 7

Examples: sleep-wakefulness cycle, pulse, blood
pressure, temperature of the body

Entrainment, Time-setter, Suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)

Front 8

Entrainment

Back 8

the process by which the biological
clock is synchronized to physical time cycles

Front 9

Time-setter

Back 9

the stimulus used to calibrate, or entrain,
the biological clock (e.g., light)

Front 10

Suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)

Back 10

a center in the hypothalamus that is believed to be responsible for circadian rhythms (affected by light and a hormone, melatonin)

Front 11

Short-term timers
*Physiological examples:

Back 11

Heartbeats, electrical activity in the brain, breathing, hormonal and metabolic activities, walking steps

Front 12

Perceptual moment:

Back 12

the hypothetical basic psychological time, between 25 and 150 ms in duration, depending on the task and how it is measured

Front 13

Biological pacemaker: Fast Biological Clock

Back 13

fast psychological time or decrease in the size of the psychological time unit

Front 14

Biological pacemaker: Slow Biological Clock

Back 14

slow psychological time or increase in the size of the psychological time unit

Front 15

Cognitive clocks

Back 15

Perception of the passage of time is based not on
physical time but rather on the mental processes that occur during an interval.
*Time is not directly perceived but rather
"reconstructed" or "inferred".

Front 16

filled time intervals ______________ than un-filled time intervals

Back 16

last longer

Front 17

Audiovisual Integration: Duration

Back 17

Visual cues influence the perceived duration of a
sound

Front 18

Audiovisual Integration: Lag

Back 18

We are more tolerant of audio lagging behind video than vice versa
Useful in the real world, as light travels faster than sound.

Front 19

Meter

Back 19

-“outlines a recurring period that frames the
structure of music”
-Pattern of alternating “strong” and “weak” beats.
-is often inferred from rhythm, as well as internal
constraints (tendency towards 100 bpm) and
expectations.

Front 20

Accents in Meter:

Back 20

Structural, Metrical, Phenomenal

Front 21

Phenomenal Accents

Back 21

changes in intensity, simultaneous note density, register, timbre, or duration

Front 22

Structural accents

Back 22

Points of arrival or departure in the music
that are the consequences of structural properties such as tonality.

Front 23

Metrical Accents

Back 23

Defined as time points in music that are
perceived as accented by virtue of their position within a metrical scheme.

Front 24

Perceiving meter

Back 24

process of detecting and filtering phenomenal and structural accents so as to discover
underlying periodicities

Front 25

Individual differences in meter perception

Back 25

1. Age (older people tend to identify slower meter).
2. Musical experience (musicians also follow slower meter).
3. May relate to rates of entrainment (natural rhythm), as well as increased ability to dissociate “surface” beats from underlying meter.

Front 26

Analysis of musical structure

*Surface models:

Back 26

Study of successive notes and chords:
1. Anticipation
2. Rules of melody construction and perception.

Front 27

Hierarchical models:

Back 27

Concerned with “deeper” structure and longer timescales

Front 28

Grouping: 3 compnents

Back 28

1. formalized Gestalt principles (principle of proximity in time, change in pitch, duration, loudness, or articulation)

2. more abstract formal concerns (principles of symmetry and the equivalent of variants of the same segment or passage)

3. principles relating to pitch stability