No description available.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of a program of rhythmic training upon the ability to perform music at sight. In addition to examining the overall sight-reading improvement, rhythm reading improvement was also investigated. The program of rhythmic training utilized the Temporal Acuity Products (TAP) system as the rhythm training aid. From these findings it was concluded that the program of rhythmic training did not affect the ability to perform music at sight. A transfer of rhythm reading to sight-reading did no take place. Results of the retention test indicated an improvement in the experimental group's scores over an extended period of time. This improvement revealed that when subjects were tested after two months, the program of rhythmic training did have an effect on sight-reading ability. It was also concluded that there might be a hierarchy of skills in which rhythmic training is only one aspect. Furthermore, there could be a combination of skills which must improve simultaneously in order to effect overall sight-reading ability.

Cinq rechants, composed in December of 1948, represents the culmination of Olivier Messiaen's rhythmic exploration. These rhythmic influences, including Greek versification, talas from ancient India, and medieval and Western associations with plainsong, canon, ostinato, and polymeter, drew Messiaen's attention to ways in which to alter rhythms. The techniques which Messiaen discovered enabled him to alter rhythmic patterns through added values, the addition or subtraction of a note, dot, or rest, and augmentation or diminution. An analysis of form, texture, text associations, and meter adaptation within Cinq rechants provides the framework for a study in the application of Messiaen's rhythmic discoveries and inventions.

This project focuses on the relationship between plainchant notation and the conducting gesture in the Quatre Motets Sur Des Themes Gregoriens, Op. 10 of Maurice Durufle. Durufle's intimate knowledge of the chant practices of the Solesmes school of chant interpretation is a major influence in the compositional style of the four motets. This project explores the relevance of the Solesmes interpretational practices and their influence on Durufle's compositional technique. The conducting gesture employed in the realization of the motets must demonstrate an active knowledge of the compositional techniques employed and the Solesmes interpretational practices. As such the incorporation of traditional Gregorian Chironomy into a working gesture for use in the rehearsal and performance of the motets is the essence of this project.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the kinetic structures or reinforcement schedules of metric temporal patterns (metric combination of note values within a measure) in five best-selling beginning piano method series. Based upon a survey mailed to 98 music dealers, the five best-selling beginning piano method series in 1992 and 1993 were identified as: the Alfred Basic Piano Library, Bastien Piano Basics, David Carr Glover Piano Library, John. W. Schaum Piano Course, and John Thompson Modern Course for Piano. A coding system was developed for identifying the numerical appearances and occurrences of various metric temporal patterns per learning piece within each method series. Several computer programs were written to compute the kinetic structures, scope, and pacing of metric temporal patterns for each method series. The derived data were then compared to delineate relationships between the three analytical variables.

This dissertation is in two unrelated parts: the first part is the Dissertation Essay (p. 1-49) and the second part is the Dissertation Composition (p. 50-178). The Dissertation Essay is an analysis of György Ligeti's Étude 1: Désordre (Disorder) (1985) for piano. In the first part of the essay, there is a short introduction to Ligeti's Piano Etudes, quotations by him, and basic information about the Désordre. In the second part the etude's melodic lines are discussed, with help of figures of the phrases of the melodic lines. The main focus of the composition is in rhythm, which is given consideration in the third and most extensive part. The rhythm is approached from a perspective of different rhythmic levels, also with the help of figures. Finally in the fourth, shifting and form are scrutinized. The last part is followed by Conclusions, Bibliography / Works Cited, and Appendix (Analysis sheets of Désordre). In the analysis sheets of Désordre (Appendix) the etude is approached from the points of view of rhythmic levels of two individual lines, phrasings of these melodic lines, shifting of bar lines (between right and left hands) and overall form. Throughout this essay it is recommended that one follows Appendix. Désordre is a refined combination of systematic and non-systematic music. Ligeti bends, changes and breaks the system along the way. The fine balancing between the order and disorder, is a core idea of the composition. The Dissertation Composition is Velinikka, Concerto for Quarter-tone Accordion and Chamber Orchestra (2008). The composition was commissioned by Gaudeamus Music Week and is dedicated to Veli Kujala. Velinikka, 25-minute work, was premiered on September 1st, 2008 by Veli Kujala, quarter-tone accordion, and Insomnio conducted by Ulrich Pöhl at Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ in Amsterdam. The cadenza of the concerto is improvised or/and composed by the soloist. Cooperation between Veli Kujala and the undersigned has led to an elaboration of a new instrument, the quarter-tone accordion. The most significant difference between the quarter-tone accordion and a standard chromatic button accordion with free-bass system is that the reed blocks inside the accordion are replaced with quarter-tone reed blocks. The quarter-tone reed blocks are able to produce a complete quarter-tone scale of nearly five-octave range. The quarter-tone accordion was invented by Veli Kujala in 2004. The quarter-tone reed blocks were designed by Veli Kujala and built by Pigini, an accordion factory in Italy, in 2006. The tuning system used is quarter-tone equal temperament, in which the scale divides an octave into 24 equal-ratio steps. Today many composers are interested in using micro-intervals. This increases demand for instruments able to produce them. The quarter-tone accordion is one of the answers for this demand.

This dissertation explores multi-modal, symbolic, and embodied strategies for navigating musical periodicity, or “meter.” In the first half, I argue that these resources and techniques are often marginalized or sidelined in music theory and psychology on the basis of definition or context, regardless of usefulness. In the second half, I explore how expanded notions of metric experience can enrich musical analysis. I then relate them to existing approaches in music pedagogy. Music theory and music psychology commonly assume experience to be perceptual, music to be a sound object, and perception of music to mean listening. In addition, observable actions of a metaphorical “body” (and, similarly, performers’ perspectives) are often subordinate to internal processes of a metaphorical “mind” (and listeners’ experiences). These general preferences, priorities, and contextual norms have culminated in a model of “attentional entrainment” for meter perception, emerging through work by Mari Riess Jones, Robert Gjerdingen, and Justin London, and drawing upon laboratory experiments in which listeners interact with a novel sound stimulus. I hold that this starting point reflects a desire to focus upon essential and universal aspects of experience, at the expense of other useful resources and strategies (e.g. extensive practice with a particular piece, abstract ideas of what will occur, symbolic cues) Opening discussion of musical periodicity without these restrictions acknowledges experiences beyond attending, beyond listening, and perhaps beyond perceiving. I construct two categories for various resources and strategies: those which involve dynamic symbolic encoding (such as conducting patterns and tala gestures) and those which utilize static theoretical information (such as score-based knowledge and calculation of abstract relationships). My primary means of revealing and exploring these additional resources involves instances of “metric multi-tasking,” in which musicians keep track of multiple non-nested periodicities occurring simultaneously. One of the reasons these situations work so well at revealing additional resources is that attentional entrainment offers no explanation for how one might be able to do such a thing (only that attention is insufficient for the task). I do not make these moves in an attempt to significantly alter the theory of attentional entrainment. Rather, I frame that model as but one mode of temporal perception among many. I also leave room for types of temporal knowledge which may not be perceptual at all, but are nonetheless useful in situations involving musical periodicity. Pedagogical systems already make use of dynamic symbols and theoretical knowledge to help with temporally difficult tasks, and generally not virtuosic feats of metric multi-tasking. With these ideas in mind, I return to more straightforward “mono-metric” contexts and reconsider what to do with the concepts of “meter” and “perception.”

No description available.

Modelling a listener's perception of musical rhythm requires both an understanding of rhythm as a whole as well as a definition of its constituent elements. The hypothesis is that once we can adequately define rhythm, we can then begin to design and implement models to gain insight into the perceptual processes which occur when listening to rhythmic sequences. This research outlines studies which have attempted to define and outline both the structure and the perception of rhythm. Based on the conclusions of these investigations, a computer model is designed and implemented using connectionist techniques. The emphases on this model are to arrive at a viable solution for extracting rhythmic material from performed input, and to implement time-scale invariance. Time-scale invariance allows the system to recognize (categorize) similar patterns played at different tempos as being the same pattern. The performance of this model is evaluated against earlier models designed with similar neural network architectures as well as in relation to the conclusions drawn by music theorists and psychologists.

This thesis presents and analyzes tools and experiments that aim at achieving multiple yet related goals in the exploration and manipulation of musical cyclic rhythms. The work presented in this thesis may be viewed as a preliminary study for the ultimate future goal of developing a general computational theory of rhythm. Given a family of rhythms, how does one reconstruct its ancestral rhythms? How should one change a rhythm's cycle length while preserving its musicologically salient properties, and hence be able to confirm or disprove popular or historical beliefs regarding its origins and evolution? How should one compare musical rhythms? How should one automatically generate rhythmic patterns? All these questions are addressed and, to a certain extent, solved in our study, and serve as a basis for the development of novel general tools, implemented in Matlab, for the manipulation of rhythms.