Observing entrainment in music performance: Video-based observational analysis of Indian musicians' tanpura playing and beat marking

Abstract

Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Observational analysis was carried out using The Observer Video-Pro software, configured to record the plucking of tanpura strings and performers" beat markers (hand or finger taps). Time series data thus generated were analysed using calculations of phase relationships, revealing several instances of both self-and interpersonal entrainment (the stated intention of the performers is, on the contrary, that the tanpura rhythms should each proceed independently). Entrainment between these behaviours points to a complex, but unintended form of emergent order. This unexpected result demonstrates the usefulness of this method in revealing otherwise unnoticed phenomena in musical performance, and raises important questions for future research.Clayton_ObsEnt_DRAFT 3 02/09/2011

Inter-group entrainment in Afro-Brazilian Congado ritual

“…Having generated and checked the timing data, these were analysed using established methods for determining the degree of synchrony -and hence entrainment -between two rhythmic processes (see Clayton, 2007;Clayton, Sager & Will, 2005). First, the time series extracted in Transcribe!…”

“…One approach, which developed from Jones's dynamical attending theory (Jones & Boltz 1989), sees the perception of metre as founded on the entrainment of the listener's attentional rhythms to musical stimuli: this process has been modelled by Large and others and forms an important part of London's theory of metre (Eck, 2002;Large, 2000;Large & Jones, 1999;Large & Kolen, 1994;London, 2004). Clayton et al discussed further applications of this idea in music research, and in ethnomusicology in particular (2005), and Clayton (2007) explored unintentional entrainment in a performance of Indian classical music. However, to date, entrainment studies drawing on data from actual musical performances -unmediated by metronomes, click-tracks or other experimental interventionsremain extremely rare (see however Doffman, 2008).…”

Sharing Musical Expression Through Embodied Listening: A Case Study Based on Chinese Guqin Music

“…social musical interaction (Clayton, 2007;De Bruyn, Leman, Demey, & Moelants, in press;De Bruyn, Leman, & Moelants, 2008;Keller, 2008).…”

The time of music and the time of history

“…From the simple pulse, moreover, more complex forms of order emerge spontaneously, and where these can be perceived they can be consciously ordered. My own study of entrainment in jor demonstrates how a singer and her harmonium accompanist are able to sustain a loose coordination, and how the musicians' tendencies to entrain result in intermittent (and inaudible) entrainment between tanpura players organized with reference to this pulse (Clayton 2007a). I also show how this entrainment can encompass a number of different polyrhythmic relationships, so that the musicians' mutual attention results in the emergence of unstable, imperceptible, but nonetheless complex forms of temporal organization (which I have termed proto-meter).…”