Groove in drum patterns as a function of both rhythmic properties and listeners’ attitudes

Abstract

Music psychology defines groove as humans’ pleasureable urge to move their body in synchrony with music. Past research has found that rhythmic syncopation, event density, beat salience, and rhythmic variability are positively associated with groove. This exploratory study investigates the groove effect of 248 reconstructed drum patterns from different popular music styles (pop, rock, funk, heavy metal, rock’n’roll, hip hop, soul, R&B). It aims at identifying factors that might be relevant for groove and worth investigating in a controlled setting in the future. Drum patterns of eight bars duration, chosen from 248 popular music tracks, have been transcribed and audio reconstructions have been created on the basis of sound samples. During an online listening experiment, 665 participants rated the reconstructions a total of 8,329 times using a groove questionnaire. Results show that, among 15 tested variables, syncopation (R2 = 0.010) and event density (R2 = 0.011) were positively associated with the groove ratings. These effects were stronger in participants who were music professionals, compared to amateur musicians or mere listeners. A categorisation of the stimuli according to structural aspects was also associated with groove (R2 = 0.018). Beat salience, residual microtiming and rhythmic variability showed no effect on the groove ratings. Participants’ familiarity with a drum pattern had a positive influence on the groove ratings (η2 = 0.051). The largest isolated effect was measured for participants’ style bias (R2 = 0.123): groove ratings tended to be high if participants had the impression that the drum pattern belonged to a style they liked. Combined, the effects of style bias and familiarity (R2 = 0.152) exceeded the other effects as predictors for groove by a wide margin. We conclude that listeners’ taste, musical biographies and expertise have a strong effect on their groove experience. This motivates groove research not to focus on the music alone, but to take the listeners into account as well.

The sensation of groove is affected by the interaction of rhythmic and harmonic complexity

“…Musical training may lead to an increased awareness and appreciation of syncopation and its effect on the desire to move. For example, musicians have been shown to use syncopation intentionally to convey groove [15] and musical expertise has been positively linked with the effect of syncopation on groove ratings [25]. Musical training may lead to more developed internal models that lead to stronger rhythmic expectations.…”

“…However, the results of studies comparing musicians and non-musicians are somewhat contradictory. Musicians have shown a greater effect of syncopation on groove ratings [25], stronger motor response to high groove music [26], and larger error-related neural response to rhythmic violations, compared to non-musicians [27]. Conversely, several studies have suggested that musical training has little or no effect on groove ratings [3,26] or leads to lower groove ratings [28].…”

Experience of Groove Questionnaire

“…Participants completed the survey once they had given informed consent. They answered a series of questions related to demographic data (age, musical expertise, gender, country of residence, musical taste; for details, see Senn et al, 2018). They were instructed to use quality headphones or external loudspeakers during the experiment and to carry the experiment out in a quiet room.…”

“…Music psychology defines the experience of groove more narrowly as listeners' inner urge to move in response to the music (Davies, Madison, Silva, & Guyon, 2013;Eaves, Griffiths, Burridge, McBain, & Butcher 2019;Madison, 2001Madison, , 2006Sioros, Miron, Davies, Gouyon, & Madison, 2014). Many studies additionally describe this inner urge as being pleasant (Cameron et al, 2019;Etani, Marui, Kawase, & Keller, 2018;Janata, Tomic, & Haberman, 2012;Lustig & Tan, 2019;Madison, 2003;Madison, Gouyon, Ullèn, & Hörnström, 2011;Matsushita & Nomura, 2016;Matthews, Witek, Heggli, Penhune, & Vuust, 2019; & Hoesl, 2018;Stupacher, Hove, & Janata, 2016;Witek, Clarke, Wallentin, Kringelbach, & Vuust, 2014).…”

Modelling perceived syncopation in popular music drum patterns

“…Another study found that participants synchronised their body movement more readily with low-and medium-syncopation music, than with highly syncopated music (Witek et al, 2017). Finally, a recent study on popular music drum patterns reports that syncopation is positively associated with groove in expert music listeners, but no effect was measured for non-musicians (Senn, Kilchenmann, Bechtold, & Hoesl, 2018).…”