370

HOOK REVfEWS

Peter Desain & Luke Windsor (Eds.), Rhythm Perception and Production. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers, 2000. No .. 3 or the series Studies on New Music Research. Includes CD with sound examples. ISBN 9026516363, hardback, 289 + XVI pp.

This book presents nineteen papers originating from a workshop in 1998 organised by the Music, Mind, Machine group of the Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information, the latest in a series of such workshops on rhythm perception and production. The papers are organised into five sections: "Mental Timekeepers and Lnternal Clocks, Oscillators and Complex Dynamics",' Tapping and Synchronization", "Time Perception and Estimation". "Expressive Timing in Music", and "Rhythm and Metre in Music and Speech". Each section begins with a briefintroduction by an authority in the field, summarising and commenting on the material in the chapters which follow. Some introductions also include contextual material to relate or discuss the issues raised. Tbe book has indices of names and subjects, and a CD of sound examples presenting examples of the material used in the experiments reported in eight of the chapters. The proof-reading has unfortunately been inadequate (an entire paragraph is repeated alone point), but only rarely does this leave the sense of the text obscure. In other respects, the book is well presented and easily u ed.

The editors claim. with some justification. that the book is "more than a conference proceedings" (p, xv).

The introductions to each section ensure this at least. They a.re yrnptomatic al '0 of the book's close concentration OIl a few specific topics. It is the book's real strength that the papers presented do overlap in their concerns, so that readers have, in one volume. an account of a range of current work and views on topics in rhythm. On the other hand. musicians reading the book may well feel that a great deal of importance about rhythm has not been accounted for. The first two sections ofthe book. which comprise about three fifths of its contents, deal with just 011 e kind of behaviour: .ynch ronisation of body movements (usually the tapping of a finger) with a repetitive sequence of sounds. and sometimes continuing to tap once the sequence has stoppecL Furthermore. tbat sequence consists. in many cases. of a single sound (e.g., a click) repeated at a fixed, or sometimes slightly varying interval. Clearly thi kind of behaviour has something to do WitJ1 musical rhythm, and it might justifiably be regarded as fundamental, but there is very muchmore 10 rhythm than this.

It is com mon and often wise. of course, for scientific study to concentrate 011 deliberately simplified phenomena (and many branches of musicology are, in this respect at least, scientific). A justification for the concentration on synchronised tapping behaviour from the musical perspective might go as follows. Musical behaviour exhibits regularities of timing over a range ofintervals (roughly 50 ms to 2000 D1s to be recognised a rhythm). The simplest kind of regularity is a sequential repetition of a single kind of event at a fixed interval,

o let us first seek to understand the psychological Factors, and perhaps also motor-control factors, which underlie the production of this kind of regular sequence. Furthermore, mu ician exhibit behaviour in which events are synchronised with each. other. so let us seek to understand synchronisation with a regular sequence ofevents. The funda menta I question this line of research seeks to answer could be expressed a : "What mental! physical mechanisms allow us to perceive and produce time intervals?" (A related question, "by what mechanisms do musicians detect regularity in a sequence of sounds"," the e sentiaJ question of "beat induction", is covered less in.this book than in previous publications, such as Desain & HOlling, 1994 and 1999.) The risks on his concentration on regular sequences are firstly that important factors of musical rhythm might be lost thereby, since music is clearly not composed of just regular sequences. and secondly that the simplification might be illusory, causing more complex phenomena to arise which are not present in apparently more complex musical rhythms. We will see below that the studies in this book suggest that the first risk has been avoided, but that the second ri k is rather dangerou ..

These studies of regular tapping (or other repetitive bodily movements) and synchronisation aim to discover the underlying mechanisms through analysis of the errors and spontaneous variations seen in experimental situations, and in some cases by analysis of response to external perturbations. Certain important

BOOK REVIEWS

371

phenomena are well established: humans are rather poor at perceiving and producing single temporal intervals, but quite good at producing regular sequences .. Thus analysis of tapping patterns commonly reveals negative first-order correlations: an interval which is longer than the target is followed by a compensating interval which is shorter. Indeed; the chapter by Bruno Repp presents distinct evidence for this difference i:n behaviour between single intervals and sequences, He presented musicians with sequences in a synchronisation task in which the "inter-onset intervals" (the times between. each note) were equal except Cor occasional isolated perturbations. These changes in the time interval werevery small and described as "subliminal", firstly because they were of a size which previous experiments had shown to be too small for an interval to be reliably recognisedas different from a preceding or following interval and secondly because the asynchrony they would have produced with a sequence of absolutely regular taps was of a. size whi ch previous exper iments had shown to be too small for subjects to reliably report the order of the asynchronous events. Nevertheless, he found that subjects' tapping showed immediate compensations Ior this subliminal perturbation.

Another well established phenomenon is that "tapping" behaviour shows similar characteristics of error and compensation no matter which body part (toe, knee, arm, finger, etc.) does the "tapping", It is thus believed thatessential features of'tirning behaviour are determined by "central" brain behaviour. (No research has as yet revealed a Ioealisatioa fo~ timing behaviour in the brain) This underlies the chapters or the first part, by Peter Beek, Lieke Peper, Andreas Daffertshofer, Chris Jansen and Jeffrey Summers, which seek models of such mental timing behaviour. Some models have been based on the idea of mental timekeepers. which are assumed to "tick" at regular intervals. An alternative paradigm is instead based on oscillators, which display contmuousbehaviour, Some of the most valuable material in these chapters concerns the relation, and even convergence, of'these two paradigms. (This is also a topic of John Michon's introduction to the second section of the book, where he makes a parallel with the particle and wave theories of light) The close, and impressive; detail of some of these models is developed often by studies ofsimultaneous tapping of two different sequences of intervals by different limbs. Thecommon observation is that in-phase simply related sequences (e.g., two taps with one hand to everyone tap with the other) are more easily tapped than out-of-phase or complex patterns (e.g., five taps with one hand to every three of the other); the tapping of one limb clearly influences the tapping of another. (This is an observation with which musicians can readily identify) Peper, Beek and Daffertshofer propose a model of coupled non-linear oscillators, incorporating also the dynamics ofthe moving limbs to account for the observed phenomena of regular and polyrbythmic tapping.

The incorperation oflimb dynamics in this model should be no surprise. The human body clearly displays poly my thmic behaviours more independent than those discovered in the tapping experiments described here. Not all of our movements areco-ordinated with our heart-beats, for example. It might be objected that the heart is riot subject to conscious control, but what of our legs? Marching bands and those who whistle or sing while walking might readily report that synchronisation regularly occurs, but we are clearly capable also of singing out of synchrony with our legs while walking. The legs are subject to conscious con trol, but such Control hardly seems necessary once the body is in motion; the legs and body have a rhythm of their own .. Some have argued that oscillations of the body should be seen as notjustinfluential but paradigmatic for timing (see Todd, O'Boyle, & Lee, 1.999). Indeed the authors of the OD.e chapter of this book on beatinduction, Douglas Eck, Michael Gasser and Robert Port, aim to use a robotic arm in addition to artificial "neural oscillators' in their model.

A question commonly asked ofpatterns with two different sequences. of intervals is whether the timing of taps is determined simply on the basis of the irregular interval between consecutive taps, regardless of whether they occur in the left or the right hand, called "integrated chained" timing, or on the basis of the two regular intervals between consecutive taps in the left and right hands separately, called 'parallel chained timing, or on the basis of the regular intervals between consecutive taps in. one hand and the irregular intervals between those taps and the taps oftheether hand, called integrated hierarchical" timing. The patterns of errors from experimental data (for example, those presented in the chapter by Summers) suggest that musicians use integrated hierarchical timing (i.e., the taps of one hand are placed in relation to the regular sequence of'taps in the

372

BOOK REVIEWS

other hand) but that non-musicians are inclined to use integrated chained timing. (No evidence is presented here for tile use of parallel chained timing, but it is reported that some other studies have claimed to find it in the performance of complex patterns by experts) These results clearly connect both with musicians' experience (as noted above) and with music theory and pedagogy, both of which emphasise the hierarchical nature of musical rhythms. Thus the risk of failing to find anything of interest about musical rhythms by concentrating on simple sequences has been avoided.

The danger of illusory simplification, however. is indicated in three chapters. Two of these, by Jansen, Peper & Beek, and by Guy Madison, concern more the statistical analysis of data rather than new experimental work. Both indicate that previously reported phenomena might be artefacts of the experimental set-up. The first examines the idea that ill tapping parallel sequences, there are "attractors" at simple phase/period relalions towards which subjects' tapping behaviour tends. A common paradigm [or discovering such artractors is "scanning" whereby subjects are asked to tap to different parallel sequences across the full range of phase relations. The chapter demonstrates that the commonly observed phenomenon of "switching", whereby the left band taps when the right should, and vice versa, can produce the false identification of'attractors when the data are analysed by a simple process of determining mean relative phase error and variability An alternative method of analysis, finding deviations for uniformity in the data, is demonstrated, This still finds attractors, so the underlying theory is not called into question.

The same cannot be said of the chapter by Madison, which examines data from experiments in which subjects continue a sequence of taps after the external synchronisation stimulus has stopped. The commonly observed first-order negative correlation ("error correction"?) has already been mentioned. Madison instead examines higher-order variance which has been described as "drift" or "trend". Some have identified a higherorder cyclical. drift (cyclical slewingdownand speeding up) while others have seen a linear trend (particularly a gradual slowing down for fast sequences). Madison s close statistical analyses, however, suggest that these are artefacts of particular experimental situations, and that a better general explanation is provided by regarding human timing to be subject to l/fnoise, a common characteristic of biological systems.

More worrying still for those who would base their research 0'0 the putative simplicity of sequences of clicks is the chapter byWohlschlager and Koch, which examines so-called "synchronisation error". in experiments in which subjects are asked to tap in time with a regular stimulus. it is commonly observed that. they generally tap slightly before the stimulus. This "negative synchronisation error" has been observed in many different setups. It varies with a number of factors but appears to be at its most severe with sequences of clicks such as produced by a metronome. This phenomenon would appear puzzling for musicians not only because they doubtless believe that they areable play iB synchrony with a beat, but also because ·i1' it were the whole story then we could expect chamber ensembles, whose tempo is determined co-operatively to continually speed up in their playing as each player plays slight ahead ofthe beat she or he perceives in the playing of the others. Wohlschlliger and Koch examined synchronisation error in detailunder a number of different conditions, with different audio stimuli and different modes of tapping .. They discovered that any kind of filling of the interval between the stimuli with which the taps were to synchronise caused the synchronisation error to diminish or even disappear. This filling could be additional activity by the subject, a lengthening of the audio stimulus, or even random clicks between the synchronisation stimuli.The authors argue that synchronisation error arises from under-estimation of the size of empty time intervals, and any kind of filling of the interval ai.ds more accurate estimation. If this is the case, since most time intervals in music are not empty, basing experiments on empty intervals between clicks is actually a complication of the task of musical synchronisation rather than a simplification.

The remaining chapters of the book are generally shorter, and deal with a broader range of topics, These include some dose to the preoccupations of musicians, such as the timing of vibrato and grace notes. the relation of timing and structure, hierarchical metre, rhythmic complexity and changes of tempo, Others are more distant, covering topics such as the effect of delayed auditory feedback on speech, the perceived speed of

BOOK REV1EW

373

speech, concurrent rhythmic and memory tasks and perception of binaural sequences by brain-damaged subjects.

Of particular interest are the two chapters dealing with ornaments, musical details whose timing is only indeterminately indicated in a core. A chapter by Peter De am, Henkjan Honing, Rinus Aarts and Renee Timmers examines the timing of vibrato in performance of a single melody on a number of different instruments and by a singer, at a number of different tempi. Overall the authors demonstrate that the number and speed of pitch oscillations making up a vibrato are related to the tempo of the performance, but the detail of this relationship varies from instrument to instrument. In particular. it would appear that the singer has minimum control over hi vibrato, which appeared highly variable and not systematically related to tempo. that the string players (violin and cello) had the tightest control over vibrato and perhaps not surprisingly. the players with slower vibrato showed the closest relationship between the phase of the vibrato and the metre, The chapter by Luke Windsor, Aarts, Desain, Hank Heijink and Timmers examined instead the timing of grace notes in repealed performances of a piano piece by a professional pianist at a number of different tempi. Again, timing was found to vary with tempo, but the variation was not a imple scaling, Indeed, the proportional length of many of the grace note was found to increase \ ith tempo but by differing amounts. The different scaling behaviours of different grace notes appeared to be related to different structural functions (particularly related to the size of the following interval), but the data et was too small to draw more general conclusions. Both chapters present research in an entirely novel area, and one of importance for a full understanding of musical performance. Models based on this kind of research would be essential, for example, in systems for synthesising properlymusical performances.

Overall, then, the book provides the reader with a wealth of observations. of various kinds of rhythmic behaviour. In the case of the regular tapping studies, this extends to a number of sophisticated and well developed models. It should not be regarded as a weaknes that the gaps are left so bare, Instead, it is a useful consequence ofthe concentration remarked on at the beginning that the areas for future re earch are clarified, Most obviously in this case, the need to rea ses data based on experiments using empty time intervals, the need to reconcile the models of timing allowing for the wide variability een in tapping experiments with the very precise timing een in the analyses of expert musical performance and the need to understand the role of musical structures in modulating regularity in the perception and production of rhythms, is clear.

Reviewed by Alan Marsden, Music Department, Lancaster University E-maiL AMarsdenclancaster.ac.uk

REFERENCES

Desain P. & Honing, H. (1994). brief introduction 10 beat induction, Proceedings 0/ the 1994 International Computer

Music Conference. San rancisco.

Desain, P. & Honing, H. (1999). Computational models of beat induction: the rule-based approach, Journal of New Music Resewclr.28 (I),

Todd N,P.M, O'Boyle, DJ. & Lee, c.s. (1999), A sensory-motor theory of rhythm, lime perception and beat induction.

Journal a/New Musie Research 28 (I),

Copyright © 2002 E BSCO Publishing