The lower limit for meter in dance drumming from West Africa

Abstract

Human rhythm perception and sensorimotor synchronization are both constrained by temporal thresholds on several levels. The lower limit for durations that allow for entrainment at the level of metric beat subdivision has been estimated at about 100–120 ms (London, 2002; Repp, 2003). Tempos and subdivision durations reported for American jazz and East African xylophone music performance, however, suggest that the perception of shorter subdivisions within a range of 80–100 ms may well be possible. This paper musicologically analyzes and empirically measures the fastest metric subdivisions in two sets of live recordings of vernacular dance music from West Africa. In two recordings of Ewe drumming from Ghana, subdivision durations display mean values within a range of 90–100 ms for extended periods of time. Four recordings of jembe drumming from Mali feature subdivision IOIs of about 80–90 ms during their final and fastest sections. A lower limit for metric subdivision durations is hypothesized to perceptually constrain West African drumming within a threshold range of about 80–100 ms.

Effect of tempo on relative note durations in a performed samba groove

“…The assumption that there exists such a lower limit of duration was not confirmed in this study. Our findings show that the duration of the second sixteenth note in the fast tempo is on average shorter than 80-100 ms, which has been suggested as a lower limit for duration in other genres (Dittmar et al, 2015;Polak, 2017). If the duration patterns found in the present study were 'restricted' by a lower limit of duration, there should either have been an upper limit for the overall tempo, not allowing second sixteenth note durations under a lower limit, or the second sixteenth note should have stabilised around a lower limit of duration at the fast tempo, producing a floor effect that consequently made it more similar to the first and third sixteenth note durations.…”

“…A possible influence of a lower limit for sixteenth note duration was investigated. In the fast tempo (133 bpm), the mean duration for the short second sixteenth note was only 68 ms, which is below the 80-100 ms range suggested as a lower limit for duration in other genres (Dittmar et al, 2015;Polak, 2017). We neither found that rhythmic categories of similar duration merge as a result of increase of tempo, as suggested by Clarke (1985).…”

“…Dittmar et al (2015) found a similar tendency: the second eighth note durations varied between 80 and 110 ms at tempi faster than 150 bpm. This also accords with a lower limit for subdivision duration suggested to constrain West African drumming, namely 80-100 ms (Polak, 2017). Honing and Haas (2008), on the other hand, did not find support for a lower limit around 100 ms for duration nor a linear decrease of swing ratio in their study of jazz swing drumming.…”

“…Secondly, we wanted to investigate whether there is a lower limit for sixteenth note duration that constrains the duration pattern in the fast tempi. Based on previous research (Dittmar et al, 2015;Friberg and Sundström, 1997;Polak, 2017) we expected to find a floor effect in the range of 80-100 ms. Finally, we were interested in whether notes of similar duration would merge into one single rhythmic category in fast tempo, as suggested by Clarke (1985).…”

Rhythmic Prototypes Across Cultures

“…Previous tapping studies have rarely used intervals shorter than 250 ms, assuming that nonmusician participants usually cannot tap much faster than that without considerable interference from motor constraints (Povel, 1981;Repp, 2003). By contrast, the threshold for the fastest metric subdivision rate in music performance and perception has been suggested to go down to 125 ms (Repp, 2003), 100 ms (London, 2002), or even 80 ms (Polak, 2017). Basic synchronization or synchronizationcontinuation tapping paradigms thus cannot easily cover the fastest event activity rates found in music when testing the general population.…”