Memory and the Perception
Candace Brower
When we perceive an aesthetic object, we do so on many
different levels. If the object is a painting, we may view it first
from a distance to take in its overall form, symmetry, and
color composition. Moving closer, we may allow first one
aspect and then another to come into focus, until we are able
to observe the smallest detail. We may then retreat to a more
distant perspective, allowing our apprehension of the whole
to be enhanced by our greater familiaritywith its parts. Like-
wise, when we hear a piece of music, we may first focus on
local events, listening for subtle inflections of pitch, articu-
lation, or rhythmicmotive, while in subsequent hearings we
may attend to the large-scale progression of themes and to-
nalities. Our conception of the piece is thus built up over
repeated listenings, as the relationship between small- and
large-scale structure is gradually clarified.
These two perceptual acts, viewing a work of art and lis-
tening to a piece of music, are in some ways similar. Musical
time is analogous to artistic space-it provides the canvas
upon which musical patterns unfold. In music, as in art, pat-
terns emerge at different levels of structure. In order to per-
ceive patterns at each level, we must be able to change our
perceptual horizon, broadening it to take in relationships
among widely spaced objects or events, or narrowing it to
focus on the intricacies of more detailed patterns.
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of
the Society for MusicTheory, Oakland, 1990. The authorwould like to thank
Jonathan Kramer for his many helpful comments and suggestions.
of Rhythm
Visual and musical perception differ in an importantway,
however. When we view a painting, we can change our per-
ceptual horizon simplyby changingthe distance between our-
selves and the object. When we do so, we change the object's
spatial frequencies. Spatial frequency measures the distance
between the elements of an image as it appearson the retina.
When we move towards the painting, the retinal image be-
comes larger, and more detailed figures come into focus.
When we move away from it, the image becomes smaller, and
larger shapes appear within our perceptualfield. We have no
such control over musical frequency, however. The spacing
of musical events in time is controlled not by the listener, but
by the composer or performer. We cannot stand back from
the music, as we can from a painting, to bring an entire piece
within our perceptual horizon. As listeners, we have no
choice but to take in musical events at the rate at which they
are presented to us.
How, then, do we hear rhythmic relationships among
widely separated musical events? How is it possible to per-
ceive a rhythmic pattern that unfolds over the course of an
entire movement? The answer, of course, is memory. Mem-
ory plays an essential, if relatively unrecognized, role in mu-
sical perception. This essay will examine that role as it per-
tains to the perception of rhythm, and will consider its
implications for theories of rhythm and meter.
Many contemporary theorists, believing rhythmic struc-
ture to be hierarchical, use rhythmic or metric reduction to
describe higher levels of rhythmic organization. Through a
20 Music Theory Spectrum

gradual process of abstraction, a phrase may be reduced to Figure 1.

a whole note or even a quarter note--an entire piece to a
handful of measures.' The appeal of metric reduction is that
it allows us to do in theory what we are unable to do in
fact-that is, it allows us to bring large-scale rhythmic pat-
terns within the bounds of our perceptual horizon. It frees
us from the constraints imposed on us by memory, making
it possible to perceive the low-frequency patterns of the back-
ground (albeit vicariously) as easily as those of the fore-
ground.
Reduction has proven itself to be a valuable tool, as dem-
onstrated by the appearance of an ever-increasing number of
Schenkerian and Schenker-like graphs in the theoretical lit-
erature. However, its transfer to the rhythmic domain raises
questions regarding its applicability there. Theorists who ap-
ply the principles of reduction to rhythm tend to make two
assumptions: 1) that the principles of rhythmic organization
are the same at all levels; and 2) that we perceive large- and
small-scale rhythms in the same way.2 That both of these
assumptions are open to question may be demonstrated by
a visual analogy. Figure 1 consists of a computer-processed

1Theoristswho have used metric reduction as an analytical tool include
ArthurKomar, Theoryof Suspensions(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,
1971); Carl Schachter, "Rhythmand Linear Analysis: A PreliminaryStudy,"
The Music Forum 4 (1976): 281-334; "Rhythm and Linear Analysis: Du-
rational Reduction," The Music Forum 5 (1980): 197-232; and "Rhythmand
Linear Analysis: Aspects of Meter," The Music Forum 6 (1987): 1-59;
Jonathan Kramer, The Time of Music (New York: SchirmerBooks, 1988);
and William Rothstein, Phrase Rhythmin Tonal Music (New York: Schirmer
Books, 1989). Whereas Komar and Kramer argue that meter extends to the
highest levels of musical structure, Schachter and Rothstein view meter as
operative only at foreground and middleground levels.
2However, not all theorists who apply reductive techniques to rhythm
make this assumption.MauryYeston, for instance, feels that the mechanisms
of perception may actually impede our ability to see important correspon-
dences among levels of rhythmicstructure. See The Stratificationof Musical
Rhythm (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), 37-38.
picture in which surface details-that is, higher spatial
frequencies-have been removed. The result is a gridlike ar-
rangement of squares of varying shades of light and dark.
When one looks at the picture closely, one sees only an ab-
stract geometric pattern, the units of which are the squares
themselves. From a distance, however, one no longer sees
squares, but the features of a human face: two eyes, a nose,
a chin, a mouth, and perhaps even a cigarette. What has
changed? When we change the distance between our eyes and
the picture, we also change its spatial frequencies, causing
higher-level organization to come into focus. Viewed at a
distance, we are able to see that beneath the surface structure
of the squares lies a different and more meaningful kind of
pattern.

What implications does this have for our understandingof
large-scale rhythmic structure? First, it tells us that by ex-
trapolating from the surface, by looking for a replication of
the patterns heard in the foreground, we may overlook more
significantpatterns in the background. Second, it tells us that
a pattern may be perceived one way when its elements are
close together, and another way when they are far apart. In
other words, when we change the temporal dimensions of a
durational pattern, we may also change the listener's inter-
pretation of that pattern.
Studies of memory and temporal perception suggest that
there are importantchanges in the way duration is perceived
over time. Memory is not like an unwindingscroll, which rolls
smoothly and continuously into the past, with the traces re-
corded there fading gradually over time. Instead, memory
combines mechanisms that store perceptual information in
different ways and for varying lengths of time. Psychologists
account for these differences by describing memory as con-
sisting of sensory, short-term, and long-term stores.3
Perceptualinput, whether aural or visual, is first stored in
sensory memory. Sensory memory is a precognitive store that
maintainssensory information in its original state until it can
be perceptually processed. In other words, events are re-
membered as sensations rather than perceptions. Sensory
memory allows us to see a sparkler on the fourth of July as
a streak of light in the darkness, and to hear the echo of a
strikingclock in the ensuing silence. Echoic memory, as sen-
3Psychologistscontinue to debate as to how (and whether) to differentiate
between short-and long-termmemory. Some arguethat the three-stagemodel
of memory is obsolete, since short- and long-term memory share properties
such as coding mechanismsand inhibitoryeffects. (See R. G. Crowder, "The
Demise of Short-Term Memory," Acta Psychologica 50 (1982): 291-323.)
Most psychologists, however, have found it useful to retain the distinction
between short- and long-termmemory, though they recognizethat the bound-
aries between them may not be as clearly defined as previously thought.
Memoryand the Perceptionof Rhythm 21
sory memory is called in the case of auditory perception, is
thought to last about two seconds.4
Once we exceed the limitations of echoic memory, we
depend on short-term or working memory to retain infor-
mation long enough to integratethe contents of a syntactically
meaningfulunit such as a sentence or a musicalphrase. Work-
ing memory is the product of cognitive activities that help to
keep events of the immediate past within our conscious
awareness. It is workingmemory that allows us to understand
words at the beginning of a sentence or phrase on the basis
of those that follow. For instance, someone hearing the fol-
lowing sentence read aloud: "Rapid writing with his unin-
jured hand rescued the contents of the capsized canoe,"
would be forced to reinterpretthe word "writing"as "right-
ing" in order to understand the sentence. It is only because
the word "writing"is still in working memory when the end
of the sentence is reached that one is able to reinterpret it
to fit the meaning of the sentence as a whole.
Working memory, like echoic memory, is of limited ca-
pacity. It appears that we have the capacity to maintain be-
tween five and nine chunks of information in working mem-
ory, a chunk being a subjectively defined unit based on prior
learning.5 In Figure 2a, for instance, the string of sixteen
digits arranged in random order represents sixteen chunks,
4See C. J. Darwin, M. T. Turvey, and R. G. Crowder, "An Auditory
Analogue of the Sperling Partial Report Procedure: Evidence for Brief Au-
ditory Storage," Cognitive Psychology 3 (1972): 255-67. There is evidence
that, in the absence of interference, the acoustic attributes of a single tone
may be remembered for significantlylonger periods. See Diana Deutsch,
"The Organizationof Short-TermMemory for a Single Acoustic Attribute,"
in Short-TermMemory, ed. Diana Deutsch and J. Anthony Deutsch (New
York: Academic Press, 1975), 99-134.
5George Miller, "The MagicalNumber Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some
Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information," Psychological Review
63 (1956): 81-97.
22 MusicTheory Spectrum
Figure 2.
(a) (b)
9172141582179461 1492 1776 1812 1945
well beyond our capacity for short-term retention. However,
if the same digits are rearranged to form meaningful dates as
in Figure 2b, the number of chunks is reduced from sixteen
to four, and we can easily store the entire sequence in work-
ing memory.
The length of time during which we can retain information
in working memory is also limited. Items are quickly for-
gotten unless we are given the opportunity to replay the se-
quence of events in our minds. When we listen to an ongoing
stream of auditory information such as speech or music, we
have no opportunity for rehearsal, since we are constantly
processing new information. Under these circumstances,
short-term retention can be related to the notion of the psy-
chological present. As William James first noted in 1890, we
do not experience the present as a point, but as a span of time,
made up of those events of the past that are still part of our
conscious awareness.6 Thus, the psychological present in-
cludes all those events of the past that are still available to
us for perceptual or cognitive processing.
The psychological present is not of fixed duration, like a
sliding window through which we view passing events. In-
stead, a continuous stream of information is broken up into
a series of psychological presents, each of which spans some
meaningful unit, such as a musical phrase. As we progress
from the beginning to the end of a phrase, the span of the
psychological present increases to include the entire phrase.
Once the phrase is complete, we extract whatever meaning
we can from it and allow it to pass from working memory to
6WilliamJames, ThePrinciplesof Psychology(New York: Henry Holt and
Co., 1890).
make room for the next phrase. If the phrase is so long or
complex that it exceeds our capacity for short-term retention,
we may have difficulty processing it as a single unit, and be
forced to break it up into smaller units. The duration of the
psychological present depends in part on the kind of infor-
mation presented, the strength of its organization, and the
rate at which events occur. The more recursively organized
the material, the more efficiently we are able to chunk it, and
the greater are our chances of reaching a grouping boundary
before we exhaust the resources of working memory.
Once we exceed the limitations of working memory, in-
formation about past events must be stored in long-term
memory-a more-or-less permanent store of effectively un-
limited capacity. Long-term memory stores not only traces of
past experiences, but also knowledge of a more conceptual
nature which has been abstracted from those experiences. In
1972, Endel Tulving first made the distinction between these
two kinds of memory, using the term episodic memory to
refer to our memory of specific events and semantic memory
to refer to our conceptual knowledge of the world around us.7
Episodic memory is a record of our past perceptions: it in-
cludes information as to what events occurred in which con-
texts, as well as information of a specifically sensory nature,
such as the sound of a sequence of harmonies or a rhythmic
motive. Semantic memory, on the other hand, exists outside
of the time and space coordinates of ordinary experience: it
includes our memory of facts, concepts, and relationships.
When we listen to music, each kind of memory plays a role
in our interpretation of events, the latter through our un-
derstanding of musical style and structure, and the former
through our recollection of earlier events within a piece.
It is our ability to bring back traces of earlier events from
episodic memory that allows us to relate the psychological
7EndelTulving, Elementsof Episodic Memory(Oxford: ClarendonPress,
1983).

present to the past and thus to perceive large-scale patterns.
We do not actively recall the events themselves, however, for
we have a limited capacity for attention which must be di-
vided among various mental activities, including perception,
cognition, and short-term retention. To reconstruct actively
events of the past would divert a large part of our resources
away from the more immediate and ongoing demands of per-
ception. Therefore, information stored in episodic memory
serves as a basis, not for recollection, but for recognition.
When memories of the past are evoked by events of the
present, episodic memory provides a backgroundfor our in-
terpretation of those events. Thus, repetition, varied or lit-
eral, serves an importantfunction in our perception of large-
scale structure by allowing us to relate widely separated
events through their similarity.8
THREE-FOLD DIVISION OF THE RHYTHMIC HIERARCHY
We have seen that the units of auditory information that
make up a musical work are stored in different forms and
for different lengths of time in echoic, short-term, and long-
term memory. Whereas events of the immediate past are
perceptually available as sounding phenomena, earlier
events quickly pass outside the boundaries of the psycho-
logical present and become available only as they are recalled
by events of the present. We are now ready to consider
the roles these memory processes play in rhythmic percep-
tion and how our understanding of rhythmic structure is
8My thinking on this matter has been influenced by ChristopherHasty,
who describes the role that long-term memory plays in the perception of
large-scalemusicalgroups in "PhraseFormationin Post-Tonal Music," Jour-
nal of Music Theory28 (1984): 186-88. That recall from long-term memory
requiresactive reconstructionwas first noted by FredericBartlett in Remem-
bering, a Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1932).
Memoryand the Perceptionof Rhythm 23
likely to change as we move from one level of the rhythmic
hierarchy to another.
First, for convenience the rhythmic hierarchy may be di-
vided into three regions-foreground, middleground, and
background. The boundary between foreground and mid-
dleground corresponds to the shift from echoic to short-term
memory, and the boundarybetween middlegroundand back-
ground corresponds to the shift from short- to long-term
memory. From the listener's perspective, the relationshipbe-
tween foreground, middleground, and background can be
described as a set of nested horizons. Since a single unit of
information may be stored in echoic, short-term, and long-
term memory at the same time, we cannot entirely separate
the contents of one store from another. Therefore, when we
speak of a rhythmicpattern as belonging to the foreground,
we must keep in mind that this pattern may also be repre-
sented at middleground and background levels. Thus, the
terms foreground, middleground,and backgroundshould not
necessarily be taken, as they are in Schenkerian theory, to
represent degrees of abstraction. Although our mental rep-
resentation of the rhythmicstructureof a piece may become
increasingly abstract as we attempt to include broader and
broader expanses of the music within our conceptual grasp,
it appears that even in long-term memory it is possible,
through the mechanismsof episodic memory, to retain some
of the immediacy of sensation experienced at foreground
levels.
Although each region is associated with a particularmem-
ory structure, the boundaries between these regions are far
from fixed. Since the capacity of each memory store depends
in part on the nature of the musical material and the per-
ceptual and cognitive demands made on the listener, the tran-
sition from foreground to middleground and from middle-
ground to background may differ from one listener to
another, or from one passage or hearing to another. If we are
already familiar with a piece, the demands on our memory
24 Music Theory Spectrum
will be less severe than on first hearing, since repeated lis-
tenings allow us to "rehearse" the piece. As memory traces
are strengthened, our ability to perceive the organization of
the events in the present and to anticipate those of the future
is enhanced, thereby expanding the range of foreground and
middleground perception.9 Furthermore, we engage in a
number of perceptual strategies that may influence the place-
ment of boundaries between regions. For a variety of reasons,
some practical and some aesthetic, we may favor one strategy
over another, causing us to rely more heavily on one kind of
memory than another.'?
FOREGROUND RHYTHMS
What are the units of echoic-memory perception in music?
At what point does immediacy of sensation give way to cog-
nitive representation? Psychological studies suggest that per-
ceptual processing begins well before the resources of echoic
memory have been exhausted." We start to integrate the
events stored in echoic memory as soon as they begin to
9The trained listener will, of course, have the advantage over the naive
listener of having already developed certain expectations and habits of lis-
tening that facilitate the organizational process.
"'One strategy which we have already discussed involves setting the span
of the psychological present to coincide with the musical phrase or its equiv-
alent.
"This has caused difficulties for researchers attempting to measure the
duration of echoic memory. Depending on the methods used for testing and
the nature of the stimulus used in experiments (whether a series of pure tones
or a sequence of digits or letters), echoic memory would appear to last any-
where from 200 milliseconds to six seconds. The shorter duration may rep-
resent the longest interval experienced as pure sensation, unadulterated by
higher-level processing, whereas the longer duration may represent contam-
ination introduced by processing operations on the echoic-memory trace. For
a review of these studies, see Arthur Wingfield and Dennis Byrnes, The
Psychology of Human Memory (New York: Academic Press, 1981), 172-79.
coalesce into meaningful units; thus, only a portion of the
information stored in echoic memory appears as "pure"
sensation.
In spoken language, the smallest meaningful units are in-
dividual words or syllables, themselves made up of pho-
nemes. What are the comparable units in music-that is, what
are the shortest patterns that are subject to higher-level or-
ganization? Christopher Hasty postulates that the units of
echoic-memory perception are small-scale rhythmic groups,
or motives.12 In atonal music, where meter is often flexible
if established at all, we may very well depend on low-level
grouping boundaries to delineate foreground rhythmic units.
There is reason to believe, however, that in metered music,
the length of the foreground rhythmic unit is established by
the pulse.
According to J. A. Michon, judgments of duration within
the range of echoic memory tend to be "preanalytic, emo-
tional, and immediate."'3 Studies of rhythmic performance
and perception suggest that subpulse rhythms are perceived
in this way. Psychologists have shown that ratios of subpulse
rhythms are often distorted in performance, and that treat-
ment of the same foreground rhythm within a piece of music
is frequently inconsistent.14 Even when performers are in-
structed to play as accurately as possible, subpulse rhythms
are rarely played with anything close to mechanical regular-
ity. Significantly, unequal durations below the level of the
12Hasty, "Phrase Formation," 173.
'3J. A. Michon, "Time Experience and Memory Processes," in The Study
of Time, vol. 2, ed. J. T. Fraser, F. C. Haber, and G. H. Mueller (New York:
Springer-Verlag, 1972), 302-13.
14See, for example, Alf Gabrielsson, "Perception and Performance of
Musical Rhythm," in Music, Mind, and Brain, ed. Manfred Clines (New
York: Plenum Press, 1982), 159-70; and Caroline Palmer, "Mapping Thought
to Musical Performance,"Journal of ExperimentalPsychology: Human Per-
ception and Performance15 (1989): 331-46.

pulse exhibit a consistently negative covariance.'s This sug-
gests that performers do not attempt to play a particular ratio
between the notes of an unequal rhythmic group, but rather
simply attempt to play the correct number of notes in the
correct relationships of equality or inequality and of greater
or lesser duration within the allotted time span provided by
the pulse.
These studies suggest that listeners do not perceive indi-
vidual durations below the level of the pulse, but only the
rhythmic pattern created by those durations. In other words,
each figure is perceived as a rhythmic gestalt.16 Instead of
measuring individual durations against the background of an
internally generated metric grid, the listener recognizes sub-
pulse rhythms by their qualities of evenness or unevenness,
twoness or threeness, accentedness or unaccentedness, and
so on. We can hear exact proportions at lower levels by set-
ting our internal clock to mark off smaller units of time (a
strategy often used by performers to learn rhythmically com-
plex passages); however, this will not necessarily provide a
more faithful representation of a composer's intentions. Psy-
15EricClarke, "Some Aspects of Rhythmand Expressionin Performances
of Erik Satie's 'Gnossienne No. 5,' " Music Perception2 (1985): 299-328. A
negative covariance means that an increase in the duration of one note of a
subpulse rhythm is balanced by a decrease in the duration of another. Du-
rations above the pulse level, by contrast, are more likely to show a positive
covariance,probablyreflectingthe more gradualchanges of tempo associated
with rubato.
16Perhapsthe strongestexperimentalevidence for this comes from a study
in which sequences of dichotomous tones were played at different rates of
presentation (one, two, and four per second). Listeners, when asked to play
back the patterns, grouped the tones differently depending on the rate of
presentation. The way the tones were grouped indicated that at slower rates,
perception was an intellectualized process, whereas at the fastest rate, per-
ception of the pattern was "integrated," "immediate." and "passive." See
David Preusser, "The Effect of Structureand Rate on the Recognition and
Description of Auditory Temporal Patterns," Perceptionand Psychophysics,
11 (1972): 233-40.
Memory and the Perception of Rhythm 25
chologists have found that certain rhythmic patterns are con-
sistently altered to produce ratios that are more complex than
those that are notated. Gabrielsson, for instance, has found
not only that the ratio 2:1 is most often performed as 1.75:1,
but also that listeners tend to prefer this ratio, giving it a
higher rating of "goodness" or naturalness.17
An additional reason for suspecting that the pulse delin-
eates the boundary between rhythmic foreground and mid-
dleground is the fact that the pulse itself is a remarkably
durable unit of subjectively experienced time. It is significant
that over the history of Western music the pulse has stayed
within a fairly narrow range, regardless of the music's char-
acter or style. For many centuries, the tactus was understood
to represent a relatively fixed value, corresponding to the
human pulse at rest. This value continues to represent the
standard length of a beat, and most likely represents an op-
timum size for the units of echoic-memory perception.
MIDDLEGROUND RHYTHMIC STRUCTURE
Once we cross the boundary between foreground and mid-
dleground, cognitive processing plays an increasingly impor-
tant role in perception. In order to maximize the duration of
the psychological present, we tend to organize our percep-
tions as efficiently as possible. According to the Law of Prag-
nanz, "psychological organization will always be as 'good' as
17Alf Gabrielsson, "Interplaybetween Analysis and Synthesis in Studies
of Music Performanceand Music Experience," Music Perception, 3 (1985):
59-86. Unfortunately, no indication of tempo is given in most studies of
rhythmicperformanceand perception, so that we have no way of knowing
for sure what note value represents the pulse. However, from one of Ga-
brielsson'searlier studies on rhythmicperformance,it is possible to infer that
the ratios applyto subdivisionsof units between 1.0 and 1.2 seconds in length,
or a pulse rate of M.M. 50-60. See Gabrielsson, "Perception and Perfor-
mance of Musical Rhythm."
26 Music Theory Spectrum
the prevailing conditions allow."18 Meter plays an important
role in this process, for it provides a simple, recursive means
of organizing our rhythmic perceptions. Once we become
attuned to recurring patterns of accent and time-span delin-
eation, from the regular spacing of downbeats at the level of
the measure to the recurrence of two-, four-, and eight-bar
units at higher levels, we can assign each event to a position
within the metric hierarchy.19 This hierarchy provides a cog-
nitive basis for the interpretation of the durational patterns
created by large- and small-scale events.
Although it is clear that meter plays an important role in
middleground rhythmic perception, it is less clear how meter
itself is perceived. How do we keep track of where we are
within a metric hierarchy? How do we recognize, for instance,
that we are on the third beat of the second measure of the
first phrase of an eight-bar period? The fact that meter is
recursive might lead us to assume that the listener perceives
meter in the same way at all levels. However, the shift from
sensation to perception that accompanies the change from
echoic to working memory takes place gradually rather than
abruptly. Although the pulse may represent the shortest unit
subject to cognitive processing, it does not exhaust the re-
sources of echoic memory. At one or two levels above the
pulse, rhythmic information may be stored in echoic and
working memory at the same time, echoic memory providing
"'K. Koffka, Principles of Gestalt Psychology (New York: Harcourt and
Brace, 1935), 110.
19Not all theorists agree that meter is regular. Wallace Berry, for instance,
defines meter as accent-delineated grouping and, as a result, denies that
regularity is a necessary condition for meter. See Structural Functions in Music
(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1976), 317-18. Jonathan Kramer argues
that metric time-spans need not be of equal length as long as the pattern of
alternation of one strong and one or two weak beats is maintained at each
level of the metric hierarchy (The Time of Music, 98-102). This author con-
siders meter to be regular on a normative basis, yet susceptible to alteration
as long as the irregularities introduced do not cause the listener entirely to
abandon expectations of metric regularity.
the immediacy of sensation, and working memory the lis-
tener's cognitive interpretation. At higher levels, on the other
hand, the listener must depend on cognitive resources to rep-
resent rhythmic information.
ACCENTUAL METER VERSUS METRIC GROUPING
This change in memory processes is likely to be accom-
panied by a change in perceptual strategies on the part of the
listener. At lower levels, the memory trace of one event is
still in echoic memory by the time we hear the next. This
allows us to keep track of where we are within a metric grid
by literally feeling the distance between successive events. We
are able to synchronize our own internal rhythms with those
of the music, allowing us to anticipate the arrival of each
downbeat. This gives rise to a sensation of rhythmic motion
to and away from metrically accented time-points, with up-
beats leading to downbeats, and afterbeats away from them.
This phenomenon led Zuckerkandl to propose a theory of
meter based on the concept of a "metric wave," a continuous
cycle of rhythmic motion in which downbeats are represented
as wave peaks.20 Example 1, from Sound and Symbol, shows
Zuckerkandl's interpretation of the metric-wave structure of
the opening of Chopin's A-Major Polonaise. Depending on
where each note falls on the wave, it is experienced as moving
away from the previous downbeat or leading to the following.
If we understand the metric wave to represent the cycle
of rhythmic motion experienced by the listener, then we can
see that this internally generated pattern corresponds closely
to the pattern of phenomenal accentuation found in the mu-
sic, with wave peaks coinciding with the registrally, textur-
ally, and agogically accented events heard on downbeats.
Because the listener entrains to regularly recurring accents
2"Victor Zuckerkandl, Sound and Symbol, trans. W. R. Trask (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1956), 169-72.
 Memoryand the Perceptionof Rhythm 27

Example 1. Chopin, Polonaisein A Major, Op. 40 No. 1, mm. to cues found in the music itself, such as similarity, change,
1-2 (from Zuckerkandl's Sound and Symbol) pattern repetition, and accent. Because the process is similar
to the one used to perceive rhythmic grouping and is based
tt,# on much the same criteria, the term metricgrouping shall be
t~ ~~ , w-w_d 0 used to refer to the kind of metric organization for which
counting is the primary mode of perception. Thus, we can
differentiate between accentual meter and metric grouping on
roi iV the basis of the different strategies used to perceive them.
3
temporal
succession I I I I II I 1
of tones I I I I I I

HIGH-LEVEL VERSUS LOW-LEVEL METRIC ACCENTS

me tric \ I I I I I I I I I
wave I I I

rhythm
-- --
heard in the music, generatinginternalmarkersto correspond
to those of the music, we can use the term entrainmentto refer
to this mode of perception, and the term accentual meter to
refer to the recurring patterns of accent that the listener
hears.
As long as some trace of the preceding downbeat remains
in echoic memory, the listener is able use entrainment to
predict the location of the following downbeat. At higher
levels, however, entrainment becomes impossible, since the
echoic-memorytrace of one accented timepoint has faded by
the time we hear the next. To locate an event within a metric
hierarchyat these levels, we are likely to switch to a counting
strategy, in which we count off measures and hypermeasures
in groups of twos or threes.21Counting is more flexible than
entrainment, since we can account for metric irregularitiesby
simply adding or subtracting a beat at a given level. When
using a counting strategy, we are more likely to pay attention
2tCounting is likely to occur at a subconscious, rather than a conscious,
level. In other words, we feel the first measure of a metric group as "one"
and the second as "two" rather than consciously counting off measures.
-
3
The listener responds to the metric organization of music
by generating internal accents or markers to correspond to
the recurring patterns of accent and time-span delineation
heard in the music. It is those markers that we identify as
metric accents-accents that, as JonathanKramerpoints out,
are felt rather than heard.22The quality of metric accentu-
ation differs, however, depending on the perceptual strategy
used and the hierarchicallevel at which it is applied. At lower
levels of the metric hierarchy-the primarymetric level and
below-the listener uses the entrainmentstrategyto generate
internalaccents or markersto correspondto recurringaccents
heard in the music.23As a result, there tends to be a high
degree of reciprocity between phenomenal and metric ac-
centuation, causing metrically accented events to sound
"strong"and unaccented ones "weak." This feeling is further
enhanced by the imposition of the metric wave, which turns
the downbeat into a goal of rhythmic motion, causing it to
be heard as a rhythmic focal point.
22Kramer, The Time of Music, 97.
23The term "primary metric level" is Joel Lester's. See The Rhythms of
Tonal Music (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986). Here
the term is taken to mean the level (or levels) at which accentual meter is
experienced most strongly, usually corresponding to the notated meter.
28 Music Theory Spectrum

At higher levels of the metric hierarchy, on the other hand, Table 1. Differences between accentual meter and metric
the listener uses counting to group smaller metric units into grouping
larger ones. This grouping is carried out on the basis of many Accentual Meter Metric Grouping
of the same criteria that govern our perception of rhythmic
primarily prospective primarily retrospective
grouping-factors such as similarity, proximity, and symme-
try. As William Benjamin has observed, metric and rhythmic once established, not easily relatively flexible
grouping become more and more closely associated at higher disturbed, relatively durable
levels of the metric hierarchy, whereas metric and rhythmic strong correlation between metric and rhythmic accents
accentuation fall increasingly out of phase.24 As a result, the metric and rhythmic accents typically out of phase
significance of the metric accent changes. It no longer indi- no particular correlation be- metric grouping strongly
cates rhythmic strength, as it does for accentual meter, but tween accentual meter and associated with rhythmic
'"oneness" as opposed to "twoness" or "threeness." There is rhythmic grouping grouping
no expectation that motion will necessarily lead from one
expectation is that accents expectation is that grouping
metrically accented timepoint to the next. Instead, metric will be equally spaced will be regular and (in most
accents tend to be associated with the points at which those cases) binary
motions are initiated. Because the accent marking the be- lack of correlation between no experience of syncopation
ginning of a metric group is largely the product of cognitive metric and phenomenal ac-
processing often applied only in retrospect, higher-level met- cents experienced as synco-
ric accents tend to lack the immediacy of those heard at lower pation
levels.
expansion or contraction of expansion or contraction of
The differences between accentual meter and metric the metric unit occurs infre- metric unit is common
grouping are summarized in Table 1. Perception of accentual quently in tonal music
meter is largely prospective, as the listener generates metric
accents to mark off equal time-spans in response to events
of the past that are still in echoic memory. Because of the
effects of preconditioning, accentual meter is relatively du- SYNCOPATION VERSUS METRIC EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION

rable; that is, the listener is able to maintain a pattern of

metric accent in the face of conflicting accents in the music.
Metric grouping, however, tends to be more flexible.
24Benjamin differentiates, as does this author, between a metric group (for
which he uses the term "group") and a rhythmic group (as defined by Lerdahl
and Jackendoff). See "A Theory of Musical Meter," Music Perception 1
(1984): 355-413.
One of the most important ways in which accentual meter
and metric grouping differ is in how the listener interprets a
change in the phenomenal accent pattern. When using an
entrainment strategy, we are likely to hear a change in the
spacing of phenomenal accents as syncopation, and we expect
equilibrium to be restored by bringing phenomenal and met-
ric accents back into phase. Once we shift to a counting strat-
egy, however, we cease to hear syncopations, since we adjust
to changes in the spacing of events by simply adding or

subtracting measures. As a result, at higher levels of the
metric hierarchy, large-scale syncopations give way to metric
expansions and contractions. In music of the Classicalperiod,
the change in expectations that accompanies the shift to
higher metric levels tends to be reflected by a change in com-
positional strategies as well. We find evidence of such a
change in compositional strategies in the last movement of
Beethoven's "Path6tique" Sonata (Ex. 2)-evidence that
supports the model of metric perception proposed here.
In the last movement of the Path6tiqueSonata, the highest
level at which we are likely to use an entrainment strategy
is the notated measure. At the level of the measure we find
a strong correlationbetween phenomenal and metric accents.
The first downbeat is marked by the entry of the left hand,
and the change from eighth notes to a dotted quarter in the
right. The second downbeat is similarlymarked by a change
in note value in the right hand and a change in the harmonic
rhythm from half notes to a whole note in the left. The first
two downbeats thus establish both the frequency and the
phase of the pattern for accentualmeter, causingus to set our
internal clock to generate accents one measure apart. Phe-
nomenal accents continue to supportthis internallygenerated
pattern until m. 12, where we hear a shift in the phenomenal
accent pattern at the quarter-note level. This change is not
interpreted as a realignment of metric boundaries, however,
but simply as the displacement of a phenomenal accent from
its normal position within the metric grid. As we would ex-
pect, rhythmic equilibrium is restored by bringing phenom-
enal and metric accents back into phase in the following mea-
sure. In mm. 33 and 34 we find a similar disturbance in the
metric pattern at the half-note level, with the appearance of
the sforzando chord on the second beat. Once again, the shift
in the phenomenal accent pattern results in syncopation
rather than in a change in the length of the metric unit.
When we examine higher middlegroundlevels, however,
we find that syncopation has given way to metric expansion
Memoryand the Perceptionof Rhythm 29
and contraction. The hypermetricstructureof this movement
is discussed by Jonathan Kramer in The Time of Music, and
his analysis of the first eighteen bars is shown as Figure 3. As
one can see from Kramer'sdiagram, the first departurefrom
hypermetricregularityoccurs in m. 12, where the pattern of
two- and four-barunits established in mm. 1 through 8 is cut
short by a measure through a metric overlap. Measure 12 is
understood as both the fourth measure of a four-bar unit
beginning in m. 9 and as the first measure of a six-bar unit
beginning in m. 12. Once we recognize that mm. 12 and 13
belong together, we retrospectively place a metric grouping
boundary at the beginning of m. 12. This is immediately fol-
lowed by a metric group that has been expanded (through
cadential elaboration) from four bars to six. Notice that in
neither case does the shift in the placement of the hypermetric
downbeat result in syncopation. Instead, we interpret the
length of the unit as having momentarily changed from four
to three, and then from four to six, and we reset our internal
clock accordingly.
In discussions of hypermeter and higher-level rhythmic
structure, one often finds reference to large-scale syncopa-
tions. In the opening of the Dies irae from Mozart'sRequiem
(Ex. 3a), for instance, Carl Schachterinterpretsthe time-span
occupied by the structuralpitch E in m. 2 as syncopated, as
shown in the accompanyingreduction (Ex. 3b).25 Schachter
argues that the rhythm of the rising linear progression,
D-E-F, is heard as syncopated against the two-bar and four-
bar hypermeterestablishedby the repeated motive. From the
vantage point of the model offered here, however, it would
appear that when performed at normal tempo, what is heard
at this level is not accentualmeter, but metric grouping. Since
meter and rhythmic grouping are in phase at this level, we
perceive no rhythmic conflict, but only the symmetrical
25Schachter'sdiscussion of this passage appears in "Rhythm and Linear
Analysis: Aspects of Meter," The Music Forum 6 (1987): 25.
30 Music Theory Spectrum

Example 2a. Beethoven, Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 13 ("Path6tique"), iii, mm. 1-17

Rondo
Allegro
A

ynIr : r-r
rr r -I r S
-
^ ?Q
Cbbb C f frl! d r^rlt
^sS
metric grouping: I I I

IIbb > 1 rrrC^

I [ rr
ni r> rl 0'r & A

r Etf
-' "tJi;nr rr r 7I-

12

cresc. f
7U r- o ;1
w,b irrr rf~rrfrJj ELrf rFCrJ '
~- _ I
I I

Example 2b. "Pathetique" Sonata, iii, mm. 33-35

?iD?i
r fiWffr
3~to0r _ f_f____ _

L$lge~cresc.
4,"1*^~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A A
 r

Memory and the Perception of Rhythm 31

Figure 3. Hypermetric analysis of Example :2, mm. 1-18 (from In his analysis of Chopin's Prelude in A Major (Ex. 4),
Kramer, The Time of Music) Edward Cone uses similar logic to claim that the added stress
ov on the downbeat of m. 12 is heard as a syncopation within
e I I a 6 hypermeasure.27 Here again it can be argued that the
d I I two-bar hypermeter is best understood as metric grouping,
c I I I not accentual meter. What we expect to hear-in part due
I
b I I I I I i. I I I I to the waltzlike accompaniment figure of m. 1-is not an
a I I I I 5I I I I I I I 1 1I I I I Ialternation of "strong" and "weak" measures, but an unin-
1 5 9 12 18 terrupted succession of rhythmically accented downbeats.
ov = overlap This expectation is denied, however, until we reach m. 12.
At that point, we hear a rhythmic accent on the second hy-
Example 3a. Mozart, Requiem, Dies irae, mnn. 1-4 (choral parts perbeat of the two-bar hypermeasure, which-far from
only) sounding like a syncopation-fulfills in a very satisfying way
a,
our previously frustrated rhythmic expectations.
Allhtrn

J es-^f
Di- ij J
BACKGROUND RHYTHMIC STRUCTURE
f/CDi- es i- rae, di- es il- la,
? r
9:b c 5---
fC. 6
Clearly, our understanding of meter changes as we shift
from lower to higher levels within the middleground. What
4--- 5
2---
happens to meter when we cross the boundary between mid-
dleground and background? Is it meaningful to describe
Example 3b. Schachter's analysis of Example 3a (shown as met- rhythmic organization in metric terms at these levels, and if
ric reduction) so, how do we perceive such organization? The perception
of large-scale rhythmic relationships, even more than those
J of pitch, depends on our ability to retain perceptual infor-
>b_l JJ lJ ^ l
. . I Lia mation over time. Although we can understand the relation-
5
Tr r 6
ship between widely spaced pitches by relating each to a
4 5 reference pitch, we have no external reference for timepoints.
2
We must construct the metric hierarchy, our internal refer-
ence, as we perceive it, bootstrapping ourselves from one
grouping of two-plus-two bars. Although the downbeat of m. level to the next.
2 is accompanied by a feeling of tension, the source of the
As long as we remain within the bounds of a single psy-
tension is not the "syncopated" E in the melody, but the
chological present, we can perceive meter retrospectively by
suspended D in the bass.26

26A slight sense of syncopation may be experienced at a lower level, 27EdwardCone, Musical Form and Musical Performance (New York:
however, due to the implied durational accent on the second beat of m. 2. W. W. Norton, 1968), 40.
32 MusicTheory Spectrum

Example 4. Chopin, Prelude in A Major, Op. 28 No. 7

Andantino
n a U .^-"T"
21 I I '- 3 #+ 4 -1- I ___5_ F I 1 6 i 1 7 8- I I 1

pl dolce

:#N ii 1I H
TA I v A I F A -l vA
*E . * z. * *
.

b. * T. * 'b. *
* A. * $%. *

scanning the contents of working memory, going back in time
to assign a metric accent to a timepoint heard earlier on the
basis of the grouping pattern that follows. We cannot, how-
ever, change our interpretation of timepoints that belong to
past psychological presents, because their contents are no
longer available for perceptual processing. It is not possible
to abstract information about the placement of past events
in musical time by scanning the contents of long-term mem-
ory, because information stored there is no longer repre-
sented in serial order. As a result, if we are to perceive large-
scale temporal relationships at all, we must do so by retaining
a cognitive representation of the large-scale structure of the
piece as we listen to it.
How do we keep track of our position within a rhythmic
hierarchy when successive timepoints fall within different
spans of consciousness? Assuming a one-to-one correspon-
dence between rhythmic and metric grouping, we could use
a counting strategy to keep track of the number of elapsed
phrases within a section, just as we counted measures at mid-
dleground levels. It seems unlikely, however, that we would
allocate the mental capacities necessary for such a task, since
to do so would interfere with our ability to perceive the events
of the present. We are more likely to maintain a qualitative
awareness of duration at background levels while abandoning
the more quantitative method of counting used at middle-
ground levels. We may be aware of regular grouping patterns
such as the pairing of four- or eight-bar phrases into eight-
or sixteen-bar periods, but we no longer experience changes
in the length of the pattern as metric expansions and con-
tractions.28 Just as we recognize at foreground levels equal
subdivisions of the pulse by the regularity of their recurrence,
28Benjaminhas argued similarly in "A Theory of Musical Meter," 404.

at background levels we recognize symmetrical grouping
structure by the regularity of large-scale pattern repetition
and recurrence. Episodic memory plays an important role in
our ability to perceive such symmetries, making it possible
for us to compare the durationsof large segments of a musical
work through the similarity of their contents.
THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS
The memory-basedmodel of rhythmicperception outlined
here has many important implications for our understanding
of rhythmic theory. First, it provides a broader basis from
which to view the controversy as to whether meter is func-
tional at the highest levels of the rhythmic hierarchy (as
Jonathan Kramersuggests), or whether it quickly fades from
consciousness (as claimed by Lerdahl and Jackendoff). Most
theorists, consciously or unconsciously, adopt a single model
of metric perception. Those who adopt a counting model tend
to support the notion that meter extends to fairly deep lev-
els.29Those who base their model on an entrainmentstrategy,
however, are likely to deny that meter exists at levels much
beyond that of the notated measure.30The conflict between
these two views can be resolved only if we accept that ac-
centual meter and metric grouping, while based on a shared
principle of metric regularity, represent fundamentally dif-
ferent ways of organizing and perceiving rhythm.
29That Schenker himself adopted a counting model can be inferred from
his numbering of measures to show hypermetric expansions and contractions.
Among latter-day theorists, Kramer and Rothstein also appear to use a count-
ing model.
3"This group would include Lerdahl and Jackendoff, Zuckerkandl, and
Hasty. Although Hasty articulates two different views of meter, one quan-
titative (based on counting) and one qualitative (based on accent), he appears
to favor the latter. See "Rhythm in Post-Tonal Music: Preliminary Questions
of Duration and Motion," Journal of Music Theory 25 (1981): 183-216.
Memoryand the Perceptionof Rhythm 33
Even more importantly, the division of the rhythmichier-
archy into separate regions, each with its own characteristic
rhythmic patterns and principles, brings into question the
notion of a recursive rhythmic hierarchy and the techniques
of rhythmicreduction used to illustrate such an organization.
Although it is true that rhythmicreduction can bring to light
similarities (which may be deliberately introduced through
augmentation or diminution) between foreground, middle-
ground, and backgroundrhythmic patterns, we should keep
in mind that reductive analysis predisposes us to overlook
essential differences in the way those patterns are heard.
Metric reduction masks important distinctions between
levels, distorting background and middlegroundrhythms by
reducing them to those of the foreground. The lack of uni-
formly applicable principles of rhythmic organization sug-
gests the need to develop new analyticalmethods to account
for the differences between large- and small-scale rhythmic
structure.
At the same time, the paucity of information about the
specific mechanisms of rhythmic perception indicates the
need for further research in this area. Although the theory
proposed here is corroborated by experimental data, it is
based as much upon introspection and reasoning as it is upon
known facts.31Experimental psychology unfortunately pro-
vides us with only few isolated pieces of the puzzle, and to
attempt to reconstruct the whole from these pieces is a bit
like trying to construct a model of an extinct creature from
a handful of skeletal fragments. Nevertheless, although this
3IPsychologists who have concerned themselves with issues of meter have,
like music theorists, tended to adopt a unitary model of metric perception.
Perkins and Howard, for example, assume that the listener uses a counting
strategy, whereas Povel and Essens assume the existence of an internal hier-
archical clock. See D. N. Perkins and V. A. Howard, "Toward a Notation
for Rhythm Perception," Interface 5 (1976): 69-86; and Dirk-Jan Povel and
Peter Essens, "Perception of Temporal Patterns," Music Perception 2 (1985):
4 11-40.
34 MusicTheory Spectrum
model of rhythmic perception is framed as a hypothesis, it
appears to provide a coherent explanation for many of the
puzzling inconsistencies in our body of theoretical beliefs. It
remains for psychologists to provide more rigorous tests for
its evaluation.
The model need not stand or fall, however, on the basis
of experimental evidence alone. The author hopes that its
intuitive appeal will resonate in the minds (and ears) of other
theorists. In addition, as has been shown, there is evidence
in the music itself to supportthe notion of a multitieredmetric
hierarchy. Although the few examples cited do not by them-
selves prove the validity of the theory, a more thorough ex-
aminationof the literaturewill, the author is convinced, pro-
vide additional support.
Even if the theory offers a realistic model of rhythmic
perception, however, one might question its relevance to the
music analyst. The analyst, after all, usually attempts to de-
scribe the experience of the ideal listener-the one who, as
Tovey says, "hears and remembers everything."32Most psy-
chological studies tell us only about the perceptions of the
average listener, or at best the partiallytrained listener, if the
subjects are-as is often the case-undergraduate music ma-
jors. How seriouslycan such studies be taken, consideringthe
ratherlarge gap that may exist between trainedand untrained
listeners? Clearly there is a need to treat the results of ex-
perimental studies with caution, and at times a healthy dose
of skepticism. The difficultyof interpretingthe results of such
studies is compounded by the fact that psychologists often
32Accordingto Donald Tovey, "a true analysis takes the standpointof a
listener who knows nothing beforehand, but hears and remembers every-
thing." See Essays in MusicalAnalysis, vol. 1, Symphonies(London: Oxford
University Press, 1935), 68. Edward Cone amends this to grant the ideal
listener knowledge of the historical,biographical,and music-theoreticalback-
ground of a piece. See "Three Ways of Reading a Detective Story-Or a
Brahms Intermezzo," in Music: A Viewfrom Delft (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1989), 86.
lack the musical understandingand sophistication needed to
isolate problems of significant musical interest. It must be
said, however, that many of the best of these studies, par-
ticularly in the area of rhythm, do not deal with musical
stimuli directly. Some of the most revealing studies deal with
very simple sequences of sounds, consisting of perhaps one
or two different tones. Such studies are valuable precisely
because they circumvent the stored memories and musical
habits of the listener, trained and untrainedalike, to tap their
most visceral responses to organized sound. The experiences
of all listeners must be traceable at some level to a set of
shared perceptual constraints. Identifying those constraints
can only make it easier to understand how knowledge and
experience broaden our perceptual horizons.
By bringingour methods of analysis in closer accord with
the principlesof perception, our analyticaljudgmentcan only
become more acute. An appreciation of the mechanisms of
perception allows us to understandbetter not only what lis-
teners do hear, but what they could hear, under the right
circumstances.Perception is not alwayseasy, and what comes
naturallyto a listener will not always be musically satisfying
in the long run. In the finale of Brahms' First Symphony, for
example, even a trained listener may have to work to main-
tain the feeling of syncopation in the passage leading up to
the climax (mm. 279-84), yet few would deny the logic, and
the aesthetic satisfaction, of doing so.33We all strive for that
hearing in which the meaning of every note and every rhyth-
mic gesture seems perfectly clear. As music theorists, we
cherish those flashes of insight reached through analysis that
bringto light aspects of the music that were previouslysensed
inchoately, if at all. Yet we must keep in mind that most of
the music of past centuries was meant to be heard, and un-
33Informalexperiments carried out on students in the author's theory
classes show that even those who are familiar with the piece may have dif-
ficulty hearing this passage as it is notated.

derstood, by real listeners. We would be foolish if in our
analytical and theoretical explorations we neglected to take
into account the real constraints under which such listeners
operate.
In closing, we return to the issue of rhythmic hierarchy in
order to propose a way of thinking about the relationship
between musical foreground and background that could pro-
vide a less distorted picture of large-scale rhythmic structure.
Looking at the computer-processed picture in Figure 1, we
might well ask the following question: what if we were in-
capable of changing the distance between ourselves and the
picture?-that is, what if its spatial frequencies were fixed?
What analytical means could we use to bring its underlying
structure into focus? Obviously, reductive analysis would be
of no use, since the background bears no structural similarity
to the foreground. What would be useful would be to reverse
the process of reduction; that is, to use information provided
by the middleground and background to fill in the gaps cre-
ated by discontinuities in the foreground. We can do this by
squinting our eyes while looking at the figure, which has the
effect of softening the high-frequency contrasts of the fore-
ground, enhancing the illusion of surface detail while clari-
fying its overall structure. Paradoxically, the shapes of the
middleground and background emerge only when we over-
look the surface discontinuities of the foreground.
Music is in some ways like the computer-processed picture
in Figure 1. Its surface is also discontinuous, being made up
of individual pitches and durations. Yet when we listen to a
piece of music, we understand discrete changes of pitch and
harmony as surface manifestations of a larger more contin-
uous process. Just as we experience the illusion of motion
rather than a succession of static frames when we view a
motion picture-in listening to music our imagination is cap-
Memory and the Perception of Rhythm 35
tured by the illusion of gradual change produced by discrete
changes of pitch, harmony, and duration. Thus, we instinc-
tively seek out the continuities that underlie the surface. The
challenge that faces rhythmic theorists today is to develop
methods of analysis that will allow large-scale rhythmic con-
tinuities to emerge from a discontinuous foreground. Such an
analytical approach would reverse the process of reduction,
which imposes the discontinuities of the foreground on the
middleground and background. Rather than enhancing our
understanding of continuity at higher levels, reduction merely
heightens the effect of discontinuity by gradually reducing the
number of musical events represented at each level. At the
highest level of reduction, a smoothly rounded rhythmic con-
tour becomes a plateau.
Musical continuity is as illusory as the facial features in
Figure 1. But if we allow continuous process, rather than
discontinuous change, to guide our analytical methods, we
may detect rhythmic shapes in the background that differ as
much from the musical foreground as the face of Humphrey
Bogart differs from the squares of Figure 1.
ABSTRACT
Consideration of the roles of echoic, short-term, and long-term
memory in rhythmic perception yields a three-fold division of the
rhythmic hierarchy into foreground, middleground, and back-
ground. It appears that at middleground levels meter provides a
quantitativebasis for rhythmicperception, while at foreground and
backgroundlevels rhythmsare perceived more qualitatively. It also
appears that at lower middlegroundlevels meter is perceived using
an entrainment strategy, while at higher middleground levels per-
ception is based on a counting strategy. Evidence for these per-
ceptual differences is found in the kinds of metric irregularitiesin-
troduced at each level, with lower levels being characterized by
syncopations and higher levels by expansions and contractions.