Interpersonal Entrainment in Music Performance

Abstract

Interpersonal musical entrainment—temporal synchronization and coordination between individuals in musical contexts—is a ubiquitous phenomenon related to music’s social functions of promoting group bonding and cohesion. Mechanisms other than sensorimotor synchronization are rarely discussed, while little is known about cultural variability or about how and why entrainment has social effects. In order to close these gaps, we propose a new model that distinguishes between different components of interpersonal entrainment: sensorimotor synchronization—a largely automatic process manifested especially with rhythms based on periodicities in the 100–2000 ms timescale—and coordination, extending over longer timescales and more accessible to conscious control. We review the state of the art in measuring these processes, mostly from the perspective of action production, and in so doing present the first cross-cultural comparisons between interpersonal entrainment in natural musical performances, with an exploratory analysis that identifies factors that may influence interpersonal synchronization in music. Building on this analysis we advance hypotheses regarding the relationship of these features to neurophysiological, social, and cultural processes. We propose a model encompassing both synchronization and coordination processes and the relationship between them, the role of culturally shared knowledge, and of connections between entrainment and social processes.

Extreme precision in rhythmic interaction is enabled by role-optimized sensorimotor coupling: analysis and modelling of West African drum ensemble music

“…Following Rasch [16], pairwise asynchrony is the average of the root mean square (RMS) of pairwise differences between instruments articulating the same metric position.data sourcemusical stylepairwise asynchrony (ms)this study Jembe drumming (Mali): 72 recordings of a single piece, ‘Suku’17.0Clayton et al . [3,15] Jembe drumming (Mali): 16 recordings of three pieces, provided by author Polak15.6 Candombe drumming (Uruguay)18.0 Son and Salsa popular music (Cuba)24.4 Stambeli ritual music (Tunisia)28.0 Raga music (North India)29.1 String quartet (UK)35.2Rasch [16]European chamber music30–50…”

“…Malian drummers play complex, improvised rhythmic patterns at very fast tempos (up to 600 events per minute), near the rate limit for human performance while maintaining near-perfect synchrony [ 4 , 11 , 14 ]. In a recent study of synchronization in musical ensembles based on the cross-culturally broadest set of corpora available today [ 3 , 15 ], Malian drummers were found to have the lowest level of timing variability among groups studied ( table 1 ), far lower than has been found in Western classical music performance, and slightly lower than other highly proficient Uruguayan candombe drummers [ 17 ]. How can Malian drummers maintain this high level of temporal coordination while playing complex improvised rhythms at such rapid tempos?…”

Collective rhythm as an emergent property during human social coordination

“…To our knowledge, there is no experimental evidence confirming (ii), only correlational evidence found in the anthropological literature between collective activities and group cohesion, ecstasy, wellbeing, and solidarity [reviewed in Gelfand et al, 2020], such as marching together during military drills [McNeill, 1997: 2], the church services in early Christian practices [Ehrenreich, 2007: 65] or secular festivities during the Middle Ages [Ehrenreich, 2007: 92] Confirmation of (i) and (ii) could lead to a more straightforward explanation to the previously suggested association [Mogan et al, 2017;Wheatley et al, 2012;Wood et al, 2018;Haidt et al, 2008;Clayton et al, 2020] between collective coordination and what Emile Durkheim coined as "collective effervescence", i.e. the feeling of belonging and assimilation experienced during collective rituals [cited in Xygalatas et al, 2011].…”

“…Research on collective rhythm would benefit if instead of equating social coordination to the concept of synchronization and considering dynamics as an endless alignment between systems, more complex and multilayered dynamics were included [Wooed et al, 2018;Fusaroli et al, 2014;Clayton et al, 2020]. Social coordination may include, for instance, compensatory exchanges (e.g.…”

“Music Has No Borders”: An Exploratory Study of Audience Engagement With YouTube Music Broadcasts During COVID-19 Lockdown, 2020

“…It has been touted as holding a key to collective identity formation through its practice and consumption (De Nora, 2000;Hesmondhalgh, 2013). Existing empirical work has led to theoretical propositions that music functions as a means of social cohesion through neurohormonal processes, communication, coordination of action, empathy, and social cognition (Dunbar, 2012;Koelsch, 2013;Clayton et al, 2020). Across cultures, social bonding and expression of cultural identity have been found to be important functions of music listening (Boer and Fischer, 2010).…”