Perception

1
Perception Cognition

• RHYTHM PERCEPTION AND COGNITION
• Current beat-perception research reveals
  important developmental traits related to age and
  musical training.

2
Perception Cognition

• RHYTHM PERCEPTION AND COGNITION
• Drake, Jones, and Baruch (2000) examined the
  relationship between subjects natural
  beat-tapping rates and the tempi at which they
  most consistently perceive and reproduce the beat
  in response to music.
• Participants were asked to tap at a
  comfortable rate
• Four- and six-year-olds tapped at 150 beats per
  minute (bpm)
• Eight- and ten-year-olds tapped more slowly, at
  around 110-120 bpm
• Adults tapped at about 100 bpm.
• Musically trained subjects of all ages tapped
  significantly slower than their same-age peers.
• Conclusion spontaneous tapping rates slow
  significantly as a result of increasing age and
  musical training.

3
Perception Cognition

• RHYTHM PERCEPTION AND COGNITION
• Drake, Jones, and Baruch (2000) also concluded
  that
• listeners of all ages tend to synchronize with
  the beat at slower tempi than they spontaneously
  tap a beat without any stimulus.
• Geringer, Duke, and Madsen (1992) found that
  musicians tend to identify a beat in the 60-120
  bpm range. When the musical stimuli led them
  outside this range, they tended to double or
  halve the tapping rate so that the beat tapping
  again fell within this comfortable range. Drakes
  (1998) research supports this conclusion,
  indicating that most adult listeners focus on an
  intermediate beat tempo around 100 bpm.

4
Perception Cognition

• Perception of Metric Organization
• Povel formulated a beat-based model that
  proposed that the perception of rhythmic
  sequences depends on two steps
• first, the segmentation of the sequence into
  parts of equal length (beats), based on the
  detection of regularly occurring accents
• second, the identification of individual events
  as specific subdivisions of these beats into a
  small number (usually two or three) of equal
  parts. (Clarke, 1999, p. 483)

5
Perception Cognition

• Perception of Metric Organization
• Dowling (1999) highlights evidence of this
  hierarchical organization even in very young
  children
• The picture that emerges of the development of
  rhythmic organization is that a multilevel
  structure appears early and that by the age of 5,
  the child is quite sophisticated. Already the
  spontaneous songs of a 2-year-old show two levels
  of rhythmic organization, the beat and rhythmic
  subdivisions (often speech rhythms) overlaid on
  that, and the 5-year-old follows the same
  hierarchical organization in tapped
  reproductions. (p. 618)

6
Perception Cognition

• Perception of Metric Organization
• Drake (1993) found 5-year-olds able to perceive
  and reproduce rhythm sequences utilizing the beat
  and both binary and ternary subdivisions, with
  binary examples being somewhat easier. By the age
  of 7, children are able to reproduce complex
  rhythm patterns nearly as well as adult
  non-musicians. Clearly, school-age children
  perceive and comprehend two levels of rhythm the
  beat and the beat-subdivision.

7
Perception Cognition

• Perception of Metric Organization
• Drakes research demonstrates that more
  experienced listeners eventually focus on a third
  level of meter beat groupings. Jones (1985)
  analysis of five prominent theories of meter
  perception supports this position. His analysis
  concluded that metric groupings occur at the
  level of the basic beat, as well as at levels of
  subdivisions and multiples of that beat (p. 54).

8
Perception Cognition

• These three levels beat, subdivision of the
  beat, and grouping of beats combine to
  establish the widely accepted definition of meter
  appearing in New Grove Dictionary of Music and
  Musicians (London, 2001, p. 531)
• Metres may be categorized as duple or triple
  (according to whether the beat or pulse is
  organized in twos or threes) and as simple or
  compound (whether those beats are subdivided into
  duplets are triplets). The four basic metric
  categories are shown in Table 1.
• Basic metric categories
• Binary pattern of beats
  Ternary pattern of beats
• Subdivision by twos simple duple 2/4,
  4/8 simple triple 3/4, 3/2
• Subdivision by threes compound duple
  6/8 compound triple 9/8
• Note that the compound metres are compounded
  as a result of the binary orthography of Western
  durational notation in order to use a standard
  note form for the ternary subdivision, one must
  use a dotted value for the beats themselves.

9
Perception Cognition

• Compound Meter Perception vs. Notation
• 6-year-olds best perceive and synchronize their
  tapping to the beat at about 112 bpm.
• In compound meter, therefore, young children will
  tend to perceive the dotted-quarter note as the
  beat until these notes occur at a slow enough
  rate that the eighth-note division begins to more
  closely match this natural reference level. This
  does not happen until the tempo of the
  dotted-quarter note falls significantly below 60
  bpm. By 50 bpm, the eighth-note pulse is at 150
  bpm closer to 112 bpm than the dotted-quarter
  pulse. Only then will children begin to focus on
  the eighth-note pulse as the beat.

10
Perception Cognition

• Compound Meter Perception vs. Notation
• For older and musically trained learners who tend
  to perceive beats at slower rates than these
  young children, this transition will typically
  not occur until the tempo of the dotted-quarter
  falls below 35 bpm. Given the fact that the
  overwhelming majority of compound-meter music
  calls for a tempo at which the dotted-quarter
  note exceeds 50 bpm, any practical rhythm
  pedagogy must prepare young students to
  eventually identify and label the dotted-quarter
  note as the beat in compound meters.