Learning rhythm and meter: The roles of statistical learning and dynamic entrainment

Colloquium Musicology

Dr. Benjamin Schultz, University of Amsterdam (Music Cognition Group)

Thursday 19 April 2018, 15:30 - 17:00

Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 3.01

Temporal expectancies play a crucial role in perceiving and producing music. Rhythm learning is hypothesized to occur through the statistical learning of temporal intervals but these theories are often insensitive to aspects of beat (i.e., perceived regular pulses at multiple timescales). The dynamic attending theory states that attentional oscillations synchronize with and adapt to regularities in an auditory scene and suggests that temporal expectancies are formed more readily for rhythms that imply a beat (i.e., metrical rhythms) compared to those that do not (i.e., nonmetrical rhythms). I present two behavioural experiments that show how rhythm and meter are learned through statistical learning and beat entrainment using highly controlled metrical and nonmetrical rhythms that contain identical statistical probabilities but differ in metrical structure. Results demonstrated that metrical and nonmetrical patterns are both learned. However, only one experiment showed that metrical patterns are learned more readily than nonmetrical patterns. In both experiments, abstraction of a metrical framework was evident in the metrical condition. Overall, results indicate that rhythm learning cannot only be explained by statistical learning but also requires dynamic temporal processing (e.g., entrainment). 

Dr. Benjamin Schultz was previously a post-doctoral fellow working with Caroline Palmer from November 2012 to June 2014 and Isabelle Peretz from July 2014 to July 2015. He received a Bachelor of Arts (2006) and Bachelor of Health Sciences (2008) in Psychology from the University of Adelaide, a PhD (2013) in Auditory Psychology from the MARCS Institute, University of Western Sydney (Prof. Catherine J. Stevens), and a PhD (2013) in Cognitive Psychology from the Université de Lyon 2 (Prof. Barbara Tillmann). His primary research interests include how people learn rhythmic sequences, entrain and move to the beat, and coordinate their speech and actions with others. In particular, he is interested in how people adapt the acoustic properties and the timing of sound productions in response to those of others in speech and music. Benjamin’s current projects examine the mechanisms that underlie acoustic cueing in persons with Parkinson’s Disease and other motor-related deficits (with Sonja Kotz) and plasticity (i.e., neural changes) that occur during rhythm learning (with Henkjan Honing).

Solfeggio in the Long Eighteenth Century

Music Theorist in Residence 2018
Dr. Nicholas Baragwanath, University of Nottingham 

Thursday 8 March 2018, 15:30 - 17:30
Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 3.01

Each year the Vereniging voor Muziektheorie invites a guest from abroad to come to the Netherlands and Flanders to offer lectures, workshops, and seminars on a topic of choice. This year, Dr. Nicholas Baragwanath will present on:

Solfeggio in the Long Eighteenth Century
Apprenticed musicians in the eighteenth century would spend three or more years singing solfeggio before they were allowed to undertake lessons in playing an instrument, counterpoint, or composition. Solfeggio training provided the fundaments for almost every musician, regardless of their later specialism. Many thousands of their solfeggio manuscripts survive. They record compilations of sung lessons, usually conceived by a maestro and written-down for a pupil to sing, but sometimes originating in the pupil’s own improvisations. What they reveal about the art of melody is just as relevant to sonatas and concertos as arias.
To reconstruct how solfeggi were used, I will present evidence drawn from the following: (1)hitherto unremarked performance indications that regularly appear in manuscripts; (2) contemporary solmization and its founding principles; (3) a broad range of contemporary vocal repertory and singing treatises; and (4) consideration of the practical demands and pedagogical purposes of individual solfeggi.
Knowing how to “speak” galant melody explains how castratos managed to amaze audiences by singing the same aria five or six times in completely different ways, and how composers could write an opera in a matter of days. The secret lies in understanding how the same basic cantus firmi, learned in the first weeks of training, were sung for up to six years.

Following studies as a pianist, Nicholas Baragwanath completed postgraduate degrees at the University of Sussex. From 1998 he was Lecturer in Music at the University of Wellington, New Zealand, moving in 2001 to the Royal Northern College of Music, where he was Head of Postgraduate Studies and subsequently Dean of Research and Enterprise, overseeing the establishment of a new Graduate School and the introduction of PhD programmes. He joined the University of Nottingham in 2010.