Dance, Music, Meter and Groove: A Forgotten Partnership
I argue that core aspects of musical rhythm, especially “groove” and syncopation, can only be fully understood in the context of their origins in the participatory social experience of dance. Musical meter is first considered in the context of bodily movement. I then offer an interpretation of the p...
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| Format: | Online |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2016
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4771755/ |
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pubmed-47717552016-03-11 Dance, Music, Meter and Groove: A Forgotten Partnership Fitch, W. Tecumseh Neuroscience I argue that core aspects of musical rhythm, especially “groove” and syncopation, can only be fully understood in the context of their origins in the participatory social experience of dance. Musical meter is first considered in the context of bodily movement. I then offer an interpretation of the pervasive but somewhat puzzling phenomenon of syncopation in terms of acoustic emphasis on certain offbeat components of the accompanying dance style. The reasons for the historical tendency of many musical styles to divorce themselves from their dance-based roots are also briefly considered. To the extent that musical rhythms only make sense in the context of bodily movement, researchers interested in ecologically valid approaches to music cognition should make a more concerted effort to extend their analyses to dance, particularly if we hope to understand the cognitive constraints underlying rhythmic aspects of music like meter and groove. Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-03-01 /pmc/articles/PMC4771755/ /pubmed/26973489 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00064 Text en Copyright © 2016 Fitch. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution and reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Fitch, W. Tecumseh |
| spellingShingle |
Fitch, W. Tecumseh Dance, Music, Meter and Groove: A Forgotten Partnership |
| author_facet |
Fitch, W. Tecumseh |
| author_sort |
Fitch, W. Tecumseh |
| title |
Dance, Music, Meter and Groove: A Forgotten Partnership |
| title_short |
Dance, Music, Meter and Groove: A Forgotten Partnership |
| title_full |
Dance, Music, Meter and Groove: A Forgotten Partnership |
| title_fullStr |
Dance, Music, Meter and Groove: A Forgotten Partnership |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Dance, Music, Meter and Groove: A Forgotten Partnership |
| title_sort |
dance, music, meter and groove: a forgotten partnership |
| description |
I argue that core aspects of musical rhythm, especially “groove” and syncopation, can only be fully understood in the context of their origins in the participatory social experience of dance. Musical meter is first considered in the context of bodily movement. I then offer an interpretation of the pervasive but somewhat puzzling phenomenon of syncopation in terms of acoustic emphasis on certain offbeat components of the accompanying dance style. The reasons for the historical tendency of many musical styles to divorce themselves from their dance-based roots are also briefly considered. To the extent that musical rhythms only make sense in the context of bodily movement, researchers interested in ecologically valid approaches to music cognition should make a more concerted effort to extend their analyses to dance, particularly if we hope to understand the cognitive constraints underlying rhythmic aspects of music like meter and groove. |
| publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
| publishDate |
2016 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4771755/ |
| _version_ |
1613544939164008448 |