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Title [sv]
Musical groove: functions, mechanisms, and origin
Title [en]
Musical groove: functions, mechanisms and origin
Abstract [sv]
Groove, or ?sväng? in Swedish, is the quality of music that makes people tap their feet, rock their head, and get up and dance. Although well established in folk psychology its formal characteristics are virtually unknown. Extant literature on groove is not only very limited, but predominantly non-empirical. This project draws on biology, psychology, musicology, and computational modelling to investigate the mechanisms and functions of groove in music. The link between groove and movement, and thus between music and dance, has far-reaching implications for our understanding of the biological basis and social functions of music. Central questions addressed are: How general is the experience of groove? What are the properties of the sound signal that induce the experience of groove? What are the functions of groove? We will record listeners? adjective ratings and movements in response to a range of sound examples, and assess their correlations with aspects of the examples? rhythmical and metrical structure, as reflected in measures based on low-level statistical descriptors combined into higher-order models by Boolean and linear algebra operators. We will use both real music, systematically sampled with respect to genre and other salient features, and synthetic stimuli parametrically constructed for their ability to induce groove.
Abstract [en]
Groove (sväng) is the quality of music that makes people tap their feet, rock their head, and get up and dance. Although this quality is central in jazz and much of folk- and dance-music, its formal characteristics are virtually unknown. The connection between groove and movement, and thus between music and dance, is important for our understanding of the biological basis and social functions of music.This project draws on biology, psychology, musicology, and computer science to investigate the mechanisms and functions of groove in music, and its possible role in our adaptation.Preliminary results suggest that different listeners experience similar tendencies to move regardless of whether they like or are familiar with the inducing music or musical style, and that the tempo of the music plays a minor role.Future studies aim to identify the specific properties of the sound signal associated with the experience of groove. To this end listeners’ movements and ratings of groove will be compared with (1) measures of rhythmical properties based on music content processing of real music, (2) manipulations of these properties in real music examples, and (3) synthesized sound examples with systematically varied properties.The team members are Guy Madison, expert in human timing and synchronization, Björn Merker, neuroscientist acknowledged for his theoretical work concerning the development and organisation of the brain, and Fabien Gouyon, expert on music content processing
Co-InvestigatorMadison, Guy
Principal InvestigatorMadison, Guy
Co-InvestigatorMerker, Björn
Coordinating organisation
Umeå University
Funder
Period
2009-01-01 － 2011-12-31
Identifiers
DiVA, id: project:475Project, id: P2008-0887:1-E_RJ

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