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This special issue grew out of the Analytical Approaches to World Musics (AAWM) Symposium on Meter and Rhythm, which took place over four days in June 2023. The virtual symposium featured speakers affiliated with six continents, from different stages of music-analytic careers, and representing the study of a variety of repertoires. The event included six paper sessions, one special paper session planned by the organizing committee, a panel discussion organized by the program committee, a book dialogue, and a keynote presentation by Daniel Avorgbedor entitled “Audiencing, Sensorial Affectivities, and the Construction of Liminal Spaces in Anlo-Ewe Performance Traditions.” All presenters at the symposium were invited to submit expanded versions of their conference papers to be considered for inclusion in this special issue. Following double-blind peer review, eight manuscripts were selected to move forward for publication. The resulting collection, united by its focus on meter and rhythm, represents a wide range of perspectives and topics.
[2] The eight papers contained in this special issue both extend and challenge existing concepts of “rhythm” and “meter,” while also exploring interactions between music and dance, uses of notation, and the philosophy and ethics of music analysis itself. From the existing literature on rhythm and meter, works by Honing (2006, 2013) and Huron (2006) on human perception and by London (2012) on the form and quality of temporal structures figure prominently in the discourse that unfolds across the articles in this issue. Many of the authors in this issue provide working definitions of meter as they apply the concept to the musics under analysis. For example, Arom establishes African meter as an “abstract grid, acting as a background and framework to sound events” (19). Bernacki refers to a beat in vareis horoi as “a frame of time in which a choreographic event can occur … when dancers can move (2). Howard describes the dance-drummer’s foot movements as maintaining the music’s “metric identity” throughout a performance even in sections when their rhythms may “occupy distant territory” (11).
[3] Several authors in this special issue address relationships that meter and rhythm have to physical movements beyond those associated with sound production, such as dance and processions (see also Hellmuth Margulis 2019, 50–51; Hellmuth Margulis 2014, 112; Honing 2013, 381; Huron 2006, 176, and many more). In the music analyzed by Keith Howard, Kaein changgu nori, the drummer is also the dancer, performing intricate drum patterns while dancing throughout the performance space. Nathan Bernacki focuses on vareis horoi, a genre where the leader of a line of dancers also leads the musicians for one section, before the lead gradually shifts to the drummer for the final section. Judith Olson works with the relationship between Transylvanian village dancers and their Roma accompanists. Yonatan Malin’s main musical example, “Gasn Nign,” is traditionally used for a street procession. Finally, Simha Arom, who refers to dancers’ foot motions as the “materialization of the tactus” (10), promotes a theory that applies to many genres of sub-Saharan African musics, including music for dance; the re-notated transcription he focuses on is of Ewe dance music.
[4] This special issue of the AAWM Journal begins with “Slow 5-cycles and their Special Properties heard in World Music,” in which John Roeder explores the relationship between musical pacing and the salience of specific factors influencing listener expectation—in musical cycles combining five rhythmic and/or metric events. Roeder articulates and deploys the relevant theoretical language when framing excerpts from five diverse musical examples comprising songs and instrumental performances by Estonian, Bulgarian, Ugandan, South African, and Papua New Guinean musicians. These examples do not simply cover a variety of geographies; they have been carefully selected to represent a variety of social functions, textures, and orchestrations. Roeder argues that the particularly slow pacing of some five-cycle music exists at a kind of perceptual threshold beyond which a listener’s expectations begin to be dominated by event sequences rather than event durations. (Bernacki and Malin’s respective articles also afford attention to slow tempi). Transparently, and in dialogue with existing work on musical perception, cognition, and entrainment, Roeder reflexively foregrounds first-person experiences to explore the nuances and limits of the listening analyst.
[5] In “Revisiting Korean Kaein changgu nori: Rhythm Writ Large,” Keith Howard presents a close reading of Kim Pyŏngsŏp’s interpretation of the Korean drum-dance solo “Kaein changgu nori.” With the goal of “contribut[ing] to the global understanding of Korean musical grammar” (4), Howard traces the ways in which Kim built on tradition, “devis[ing] a rhythmic grammar that fused together music of his elders with elements lifted from other music and dance genres” (10). Howard, who studied and performed with Kim for several years, also considers this paper to be his “personal reflection” on the piece, consolidating his previous research [5].
[6] Essential to the understanding of rhythm and meter in this genre is Howard’s “archetype model,” or changdan—literally “long [and] short”—which other scholars have translated as “rhythmic cycles” or “rhythmic patterns.” These models provide “identity” via initial downbeats, sets of binary or ternary cells containing groups of pulses, and an identity-providing “inner code featur[ing] accented and stressed pulses” (5). Archetype models are repeated with variations throughout a performance of traditional Korean music. The variations are governed by a set of “mechanical rules … learnt through practice” (23), which include filling in temporal spaces and the use of hemiola. While archetype models are “metric” according to many scholars (including to Howard), those who disagree raise the “pertinent question … to what extent metricity is a Western concept” (8).
[7] Prior to Kim’s influence on “Kaein changgu nori,” drum-dancers created solos that “recycled the oral repertoires” (6) of local bands, incorporating a great deal of repetition of patterns within the prevailing archetype model. Kim’s main contribution was to incorporate “linear development … [giving] a more even flow of material” (10). Over years, Kim’s interpretation became a more-or-less fixed piece of repertoire, which he taught to several people. Howard considers the criticism that Kim received for moving beyond the older way of performing reflected “a challenge for those who had bought into the then-fashionable preservation of inherited traditions” (10). His introduction also notes that “surely, all traditions are invented, somewhere and at some time” (1).
[8] Howard then provides a detailed examination of the rules governing percussion music in Korea in general, focusing on his earlier work with Chindo bands and scholarly accounts of other genres including sanjo. Through a close analysis of his version, Howard illustrates ways in which Kim’s interpretation varied from traditional practice via an abandonment of pure improvisation and a focus on linear motivic development. He also traces some of the changes in Kim’s version throughout the years. Finally, in Appendix 1, Howard provides a transcription of Kim’s complete and final version of Kaein changgu nori, adopting Robert Provine’s notational practice, which includes time signatures, bar lines, and Western rhythmic notation on a single line staff.
[9] Judith Olson’s “Hitting the Beat: Transylvanian Roma Musicians and Village Dancers in Community Improvisation” explores “choreomusical intimacy” (Quigley and Varga 2020) in the interactions of village dancers and Roma musicians. Olson defines this as “a ‘conversation’ in which individual dancers interact with the band and form an expressive whole” (2). Olson brings to bear decades of dance experience both in Transylvania and as a táncház participant and organizer in the U.S. in analysis of dancer-musician interaction, incorporating such embodied insights as “the manner and speed at which one moves to another position, elevation of the body, and other aspects of motion… [also] how information is passed physically between members of a couple” (footnote 30).
[10] Olson analyzes a dance cycle made up of a group of dances played in a particular order, characterized by specific tempi and whether they are solo men’s or couple dances. The flow of each cycle and its particularities are controlled by the prímás, the violinist bandleader who “manipulates the content and length of cycles, shaping them to the interest and energy level of the dancers, modeling timing on many levels at once” (12). Olson also notes that the musicians are also always competent dancers themselves, which contributes to their finesse in shaping each cycle. She focuses on two of the cycle’s dances: Legényes for solo men, and a couple’s dance.
[11] The Legényes dance comprises a series of improvised pontok (“points”), “dance phrases corresponding to the musical phrase” (15). Olson describes the dancer and band as performing in “counterpoint” (ibid.), and her analysis of a particular set of pontok in Video Example 2A and its accompanying notation in Illustration 3 demonstrates this. Here, the transcription of the music reveals an ostensibly simple AAB form. The prímás provides ornaments and varies the repetitions within the tune, while the solo male dancer creates improvisations that incorporate opening figures, interludes, and cadential structures. The dancer in this example, who is already familiar with the tune and is therefore able to react to the prímás’ evolving variations, aligns four basic dance phrases and their variations in such a way as to create a contrapuntal line that plays with and against the varied phrases and subphrases of the solo violin.
[12] The overall dance cycle begins at a slow tempo, with each successive dance accelerating to the tempo of the next. Dance pieces alternate with interludes, which articulate the larger structure. The video and annotation of Olson’s Examples 6, 7, and 8 demonstrate specific ways in which the band shapes the overall cycle, while interacting with various dancers as they move to the coveted position in front of the musicians, to deepen and personalize their experience. Throughout her paper, Olson demonstrates the ways in which the band and dancers are active collaborators as they work together to create a music and dance event.
[13] Nathan Bernacki analyzes a dance song of the vareis horoi (“heavy dance”) genre in “Embodied Metric Transformation in the Greek-Macedonian Dance Song Doular Tsalar,” While analyzing tempo-dependent metric transformation in performances of Doular Tsalar, Bernacki engages with existing theories of meter, beats as timing ranges, and entrainment.
[14] “Doular Tsalar” exhibits what Bernacki terms “telescoping metric form” (3), where metric coordination gradually shifts from being led by the lead dancer at a very slow tempo, to being led by the douli drummer at a fast tempo. He measures the IOIs (interonset intervals) for the first and last sections—where the tempo is relatively steady (the middle section contains a constant acceleration)—and finds that all beats are non-isochronous at all tempi in this piece. In the slow Section 1, cycle lengths are also non-isochronous. Finally, relative beat lengths are consistent throughout the radical shift in tempo.
[15] Bernacki’s analysis here questions the applicability of London’s (2012) theory of non-isochronous meter in which either, the “beat cycle” or “IOIs on the N cycle” may be non-isochronous, but not both (See London’s Well-formedness Constraints 4.1.2 and 4.2.1). In the case of the vareis horoi genre of dance music, “non-isochronous timing can occur simultaneously on every metric level” (13). As mentioned below, this is made possible by the use of gesture and entrainment in timing coordination.
[16] Bernacki’s analysis also builds on scholarship that looks at beats as “timing ranges” (Goldberg 2015) rather than timepoints; these are referred to in the literature as “beat spans,” (Stover 2009), “beat bins,” (Danielsen 2010), and as having “rhythmic tolerance” (Johansson 2010). Bernacki notes that the “temporal range” for beats in Section 1 of the present example is much wider than those previously studied, and accounts for this by noting the “visual mode of coordination” (10) in the slow Section 1, where the musicians take their beat cues from the lead dancer.
[17] Finally, Bernacki locates gesture as “a common and integral link” to interactions of meter, choreography, and shifting modes of coordination. He offers a critique of Clayton et al.’s (2020) theory of Interpersonal Musical Entrainment (IME), where “bodily movement of musicians is considered, although full consideration of dance is deferred” (140). Further, according to Bernacki, “entrainment studies that do include dance often study dancers as recipients that respond to sonic signal rather than musical actors with agency in co-creating musical temporality” (19). In his analysis of “Doular Tsalar,” Section 1, in which none of the metrical levels is isochronous—the cycle, the beat, nor the subdivision—the lead dancer’s physical gestures serve to direct and control the musical timing.
[18] In “Timing in Klezmer Performance”, Yonatan Malin pinpoints uses of varied timing in performances of “Gasn Nign” by comparing three recordings made of the piece in the U.S. in the 1920s. He employs graphic representations (including annotated transcriptions), and comparisons of beat subdivision duration percentages, to establish the specifics of temporal manipulation in these historical recordings. Malin notes the use of a “broad stylistic feature of klezmer performance” (14), which he dubs variously “move-ahead-and-wait” and “accelerate-and-delay”. In addition to tracking this performance technique, he notes instances of it being taught explicitly.
[19] Malin then compares these three historical recordings to a more recent recording (1996), in order to trace the “elements of continuity… which is important to a culture that was almost entire decimated in the Holocaust and in the Soviet Union under Stalin” as well as “discontinuity, elements that are not sustained, and innovation” significant of “the vitality of the tradition” (27). Here, Malin finds continuity in the use of several rhythmic techniques and profiles. Many of these are taught by the performer Alicia Svigals in her pedagogical videos, showing an intentional sustaining of historical practice. Malin demonstrates that Svigals employs her own unique timing techniques.
[20] Finally, Malin, applies the same analytical techniques to Cookie Segelstein’s original piece, “I Flow the Water Under the Ice” (recorded 2019), to “explore the continuing relevance of a few basic timing elements across genres and time periods” (34). This piece is in a faster tempo and a different sub-genre of klezmer. Here, among other klezmer timing idiosyncrasies such as short-long timing for pairs of sixteenths, Segelstein applies the accelerate-and-delay gesture at structural points.
[21] As Malin argues, the “varied and distinctive timings” (ibid.) of klezmer music are not simply expressive (or even what we might call metrically expressive) in a particular piece; several of them are used in general performance and should be considered specific meters within this genre, as should the more personally idiomatic timing profiles.
[22] Jason Winikoff’s piece, “Mungongi: Metric Ambiguity and Analytical Uncertainty in Zambian Luchazi Percussion,” blends ethnographic and music-analytic approaches in order to confront the technical and ethical challenges presented by emic ambiguities, inconsistencies, and uncertainties. Critically self-reflexive and content-rich, this process-oriented article introduces the reader to the Luchazi and related people, the orchestration for and role of music within initiation and spiritual practices, and the histories and social functions of mungongi. Inviting us to move with him as a musician and analyst, Winikoff uses comparative analysis as an entry to more focused attention on meter in mungongi itself. Insights, missteps, progress, and backtracking all unfold, as the author’s familiarity—both with the music and with his teachers’ and interlocutors’ interpretations of it—continues to grow and change. Transcriptions of musical passages are presented, not as singular definitive claims, but often as one of many potentialities. Alongside these transcriptions are several high-quality audio and video recordings of performance excerpts featuring different settings and musicians, further demonstrating the multiplicity of mungongi. While Winikoff does eventually land on a metric interpretation that he finds most useful for understanding mungongi, he refuses the temptation to shoehorn musical material that emerges as incongruous. Analysis itself becomes plural. Rather than rounding the edges or conforming to conventions of Africanist musicologies, Winikoff encourages us to embrace the possibility that metric ambiguity “need not be remedied, but rather acknowledged, demonstrated, and explained” [51].
[23] Christopher Stover’s “Senghor, Rhythm, and Music Analysis: Some Musicological Implications of African Philosophy” posits mid-twentieth century writings—especially foregrounding the concept of “rhythm” in the work of Léopold Sédar Senghor—as an ethically appropriate philosophical foundation from which to theorize on the analysis of African musics. The proposed music-analytical framework works toward a relational corrective for the overemphasis on atomistic rationality in European philosophy as articulated by Senghor and others, emphasizing relationality in seven themes. Stover breathes new life into familiar concepts such as expression (as verb and noun), participation, call and response, repetition, variation, and the metaphorical application of the “standard” timeline or bell pattern.
[24] Simha Arom brings together decades of experience with a variety of sub-Saharan African musics to bear as he comments on the relationship of rhythm and meter on this continent. Here, as in his 1991 African Polyphony and Polyrhythm: Musical Structure and Methodology, Arom defines three levels in much African music: beats, elementary durations and cycles. This aligns with London’s theory of metric entrainment, which calls for “a coordinated set of attentional periodicities on different time scales … at a minimum, metrical entrainment requires a tactus coordinated with one other level of organization … more typically meter involves three or more levels” (2012, 24). However, Arom differentiates his theory from London’s, giving special analytical weight to beats in particular (7). For Arom, the tactus is “the only [element] that lends itself to both division and multiplication” (6) and “the musical equivalent of the basic dance step” (18). Arom rejects the concept of strong and weak beats in African music, and also the use of time signatures. Arom features a side-by-side rendering of two transcriptions of an excerpt of a performance of the Ewe dance rhythm “Sogba”, illustrating his assertions by comparing a 1959 version by A.M. Jones with a recent re-notation by Julien André.
[25] These eight articles, whose attention to the nuances of rhythm and meter along with detailed accounts of their usage in a variety of genres, present a robust dialogue with current music scholarship on musical temporality. The variety of analytical techniques applied herein, from transcription—whether in Western staff notation, or something further tailored to the music at hand—to microtiming measurements, philosophical orientations, prose descriptions and ethnography, demonstrate the diversity of approaches that exist on the cutting edge of research on musical rhythm and meter, and point toward future avenues of research and exploration.
Clayton, Martin, Kelly Jakubowski, Tuomas Eerola, Peter E. Keller, Antonio Camurri, Gualtiero Volpe, Paolo Alborno. 2020. “Interpersonal Entrainment in Music Performance: Theory, Method, and Model.” Music Perception 38(2): 136–194. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2020.38.2.136.
Danielsen, Anne. 2010. “Here, There and Everywhere: Three Accounts of Pulse in D’Angelo’s ‘Left and Right’.” Musical Rhythm in the Age of Digital Reproduction, edited by Anne Danielsen, 19–35. Farnham, UK: Ashgate.
Goldberg, Daniel. 2015. “Timing Variations in Two Balkan Percussion Performances.” Empirical Musicology Review 10(4): 305–28.
Hellmuth Margulis, Elizabeth. 2019. The Psychology of Music: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
Honing, Henkjan. 2013. “Structure and Interpretation of Rhythm in Music.” In The Psychology of Music Third Edition, ed. Diana Deutsch.
Huron, David. 2006. Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. Cambridge: the MIT Press.
Johansson, Mats. 2010. “The Concept of Rhythmic Tolerance: Examining Flexible Grooves in Scandinavian Folk Fiddling.” In Musical Rhythm in the Age of Digital Reproduction, edited by Anne Danielsen, 69–83. Farnham, UK: Ashgate.
London, Justin. 2012. Hearing in Time: Psychological Aspects of Musical Meter Second Edition. Oxford University Press.
Quigley, Colin and Varga Sándor. 2020. “Peasant Dancers and Gypsy Musicians: Social Hierarchy and Choreomusical Interaction.” The World of Music (New Series) Vol. 9, No. 1: 117–38.
Stover, Christopher. 2009. “A Theory of Flexible Rhythmic Spaces for Diasporic African Music.” Ph.D. diss., University of Washington.