What determines the similarity of musical rhythms? According to the “family” theory, which this paper presents, one factor is the temporal sequence of the onsets of notes: rhythms with the same pattern of interonset intervals tend to sound similar. Another factor is meter. It determines whether or not rhythms are members of the same family, where families depend only on three types of possibility for each metrical unit. If the beat is the relevant metrical unit, these three possibilities are: 1) a note starts on a beat and therefore reinforces the meter, 2) a syncopation anticipates the beat and lasts through its onset and therefore disturbs the meter, and 3) all other events such as rests or ties that start on the beat provided no syncopation anticipates them. Two experiments showed that similarity between rhythms depends on both their temporal patterns of onsets and their families, which combined give a better account than edit distance – a metric of the distance apart of two strings of symbols. Two further experiments examined the errors that participants made in reproducing rhythms by tapping them. Errors more often yielded rhythms in the same family as the originals than rhythms in a different family.
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June 2014
Research Article|
June 01 2014
Similarity and Families of Musical Rhythms
Max Lotstein,
Max Lotstein
Universität Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
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Philip N. Johnson-Laird
Princeton University
P. N. Johnson-Laird, Visiting Scholar, Department of Psychology, Room 409, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003. E-mail: phil@princeton.edu
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P. N. Johnson-Laird, Visiting Scholar, Department of Psychology, Room 409, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003. E-mail: phil@princeton.edu
Music Perception (2014) 31 (5): 444–469.
Article history
Received:
March 01 2013
Accepted:
October 10 2013
Citation
Erica Cao, Max Lotstein, Philip N. Johnson-Laird; Similarity and Families of Musical Rhythms. Music Perception 1 June 2014; 31 (5): 444–469. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2014.31.5.444
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