Rhythmic Structure Research Articles

L. Ukrainka – M. Lysenko’s «Oriental melody»: specifics of recreation of Oriental imagery

Statement of the problem. The article analyzes the ways of recreating oriental features in the song “Oriental Melody” (“Skhidna melodiia”) by Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko, based on a poem by Ukrainian poetess, playwright, short story writer Lesia Ukrainka. This song, or “solospiv”, as Lysenko called his vocal and piano works, was created in the last period of the composer’s work, when, working in this genre, he began to use poems by modern Ukrainian poets, including Lesia Ukrainka. This fact most likely caused some changes in the style of these works in comparison with Lysenko’s more traditional early works. “Oriental melody” has not been previously studied by musicologists, so this article conducts its composition analysis in order to understand its structure and ways of interpreting the poetic text The purpose of the study is to identify the specific embodiment of oriental features in the musical language of the song. Results and conclusions. Lesia Ukrainka’s poem “Oriental Melody” from her second Crimean cycle “Crimean Echoes” (“Krymski vidhuky”) is a love poem, in which oriental images are interspersed with exotic landscapes of the Crimea. The composer strives to follow the structure of the poem, which led to the creation of a five-part composition with a variational repetition of the first part at the very end. The article reveals that Lysenko’s “Oriental Melody” contains a number of well-established ways for Western European music to recreate the oriental image. In addition, the song contains features of recitative, sometimes giving the impression of a theatrical monologue. Lysenko often changes the meter, avoids repetition in rhythmic structures, using complex rhythms and seeks for through-composed type of composition. The lack of scholars’ attention to the song “Oriental Melody” can be explained by the dominance of the folklore paradigm in the studies of Lysenko’s music, which doesn’t focus on oriental themes. However, it is interesting how exactly this song became a meeting place for two different worldviews. Lesia Ukrainka was one of the brightest Ukrainian modernist writers, and Mykola Lysenko, who is considered the founder of the Ukrainian national school of composers, created his music in the style of late romanticism. Thus, although the oriental scenery of the song is recreated by a number of clichés, the sincerity of the protagonist is indisputable, and the work as a whole has its own artistic value.

Temporal patterns in Cape fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) mother and pup attraction calls

Vocal recognition is widespread in the animal kingdom, and a necessary tool for offspring survival in some groups. Temporal patterns of animal vocalisations can facilitate communication and convey information such as identity, emotional state, or motivation of the caller. While pinniped (i.e., walrus, eared and true seals) vocalisations are generally well studied, and captive pinnipeds show strong timing abilities, little is known about the temporal structure of their calls in the wild. Here, we followed Cape fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) during spontaneous search efforts at the Cape Cross Seal Reserve in Namibia. To investigate the temporal and rhythmic patterning of Cape fur seal attraction calls, we analysed call bouts of 80 mothers and 148 pups. We assessed the relative vocal efforts undertaken by mothers and pups by calculating calling rates, inter-call intervals (periods of silence between vocalisations), and the total time spent calling per bout. To explore the rhythmic structure of the calls, we visualised their temporal patterns by plotting the calling events and frequency histograms of the inter-onset-intervals between each two consecutive vocalisations in a bout. A normalized Pairwise Variability Index was calculated for each individual to investigate underlying patterns and compared between mothers and pups. Pups produced more calls per search, vocalised at higher rates, and took shorter breaks between consecutive vocalisations than females. Even though female vocalisations were much longer, there was no significant difference in the total time females and pups spent vocalising per bout. All animals vocalised at seemingly random intervals, with no distinguishable rhythmic pattern, suggesting that these do not encode identity information during mother-pup reunions. However, numerical analysis showed a potential asynchronous patterning within the age classes, possibly used in anti-masking. Our results indicate that Cape fur seal females and pups invest their energy differently during a search, and while their total calling effort is comparable, reunions seem to be driven mostly by the young.

Postmodernism in Ukrainian music: “Quiet Songs” by Valentyn Silvestrov

The article is devoted to the analysis of the vocal cycle of the modern Ukrainian composer "Quiet Songs", which is considered in the context of Ukrainian music of the 1970s. The main features of its poetics as a transitional phenomenon between avant-garde and postmodernism are revealed: meditativeness, uncertainty, blurring of the composition, variability of the rhythmic structure, intertextuality, polystylistic, reflexivity, self-absorption, etc. It is concluded that Silvestrov went through a complex evolution from avant-garde experiments to quiet simplicity, to small vocal form and poetics of introspection. He created a sound model of the world, immersed in contemplation and reflection, understood as the path of self-awareness, tragic and beautiful at the same time.

Moving to the rhythm of spring: a case study of the rhythmic structure of dance

The specific goal of the article is to investigate the principles governing the perception of rhythmic structure in dance and music—taken separately and together—on the basis of a case study. I take as a starting point Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s (A generative theory of tonal music. MIT Press, 1983) conception of musical rhythm as the interaction between grouping and meter, and I examine to what extent it can apply to dance. Then, I explore how the rhythmical structures of music and dance interact in a single event. I conclude that dance and music perception largely share the same abstract system, and the differences in the properties of their structure derives from the different (visual vs. auditory) modalities in which they are perceived; their modality difference also affects the perceived structure resulting from their combination in dance-music events. The exploration is guided by a detailed examination of the opening of Stravinsky’s Augurs of Spring (1913) as choreographed by Nijinsky (1913), Béjart (1970) and Bausch (1975). By comparing these minimal pairs of dance-music events, I adapt the formal methodology of linguistics to other cognitive systems. The general goal of the article is to shed further light on the organizational principles of mental representations by comparing several cognitive systems in order to distinguish between general cognitive properties and modality-specific or domain-specific properties.

Editors’ Introduction

Editors’ Introduction

The Rhythm of Hegel’s Speculative Logic

ABSTRACT This article argues that Hegel’s speculative logic has an essentially rhythmic structure. Rhythm shows up in paragraphs 56–61 of the Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, where Hegel introduces the speculative proposition and explains his speculative logic. The article begins by analyzing some critical sections in the Preface to show how rhythm secures the formal passage of the subject into the predicate within the speculative proposition. Then, I briefly explore how Hegel’s speculative logic gets taken up in the writings of Gadamer and Nancy to show how each of these thinkers renews the rhythm of Hegel’s speculative logic in their own appropriations of it. The article concludes by extending the scope of speculation, taking it from the proposition to non-propositional forms of expression, and then finally to the sensible world.

Influencing the Rhythm and Tempo Ability in Sports Dance for Athletes in the Age Group 12-13 Years

The purpose of the study was to determine the level of rhythm and tempo for dancers. This research was conducted in 12 pairs and was organized between 2016 and 2017. The methods used aimed to improve the ability of rhythm and tempo in the Viennese Waltz byusing specific exercises and means borrowed from other sports. The tests used were: The test for rhythmic ability and the test for tempo which has in its structure regular figures from sports dance. The results confirmed the efficiency of the means used by us intraining. In the tempo test, the subjects obtained in T.I an average value of the mark of 6.37 and in T.F an average of the mark of 8.06. In the test for rhythmic ability, our subjects obtained an average value in T.I of 68.12 points, and an average of 79.37 in T.F. The resultof an organized sports training and a regular repetition of the basic rhythmic structures, influences the rhythm and tempo capacity of the athlete.

Time Characteristics of Technical Readiness of Female Triple Jumpers of High Qualification

Background. The relentless growth of sports results and the lack of comparative analysis of a set of indicators of technical readiness of female triple jumpers of various qualifications indicates the viability of research in this regard.
 The study purpose was to specify the time characteristics of technical readiness of female triple jumpers of high qualification.
 Materials and methods. We used the following research methods: theoretical analysis and generalization of data from scientific and methodological literature, pedagogical observation, instrumental methods (video recording) and methods of mathematical statistics. The study was conducted on the basis of investigating the time characteristics of the technical readiness of skilled triple jumpers. The pedagogical experiment took place during the competitions of the Cup of Ukraine and the Championship of Ukraine in Athletics. The study involved 9 female triple jumpers (average age 25.3 ± 5.1), including two masters of sports of international class of Ukraine, four masters of sports of Ukraine, and three candidates for masters of sports of Ukraine. 
 Results. In the course of the study, we found that the indicators of the duration of the reference periods of the last 6 steps of the run in the triple jump by female jumpers of high qualification are characterized by a low level of variability. In terms of flight duration, the highest variability was observed in the 3rd, next to last and last steps of the run. According to the results of the study of rhythmic-tempo characteristics of a triple jump of high qualification, it was established that the highest indicators of the pace of the running step are at the last step of the run and reach 4.67 ± 0,03 st./s. The correlation between such time characteristics as the duration of the flight period of the next to last run step (r = -0.85), the rate of the next to last (r = 0.60) and last step (r = 0.78), and the rate of intensity (r = 0.76) with a sports result. In the triple jump by female jumpers of high qualification, indicators of the duration of the phases of “jump”, “step”, “jump”, their total duration and the average speed of the jumping phases are characterized by a low level of variability. The duration of the “hop” is 0.66 ± 0.06 s. The longest phase is the “jump” phase (0.78 ± 0.06 s), and the shortest is the “step” phase (0.51 ± 0.04 s).
 Conclusions. It was established that due to the reduction of the duration of flight periods in the last steps of the take-off, there is an increase in the take-off speed of high-skilled jumpers. The variability of the contrast between the growth rate of 31.90% and the rate of mobilization of 35.12% indicates that high-skilled jumpers use different options to combine takeoff and repulsion. Analysis of the rhythmic structure of the triple jump technique shows that all jumps are dominated by the phase of “jump” (40.05%), and the shortest is the phase of “step” (26.30%). It was found that the following time characteristics: the duration of the flight period of the next to last run step (r = -0.85), the pace of the next to last step (r = 0.60), the pace of the last step (r = 0.78), and the pace intensity (r = 0.76) have a statistically significant relationship with sports results (p < 0.05).

Sacred Foundations of Folk Song Art

The purpose of the research is to determine the influence on the spontaneous and creative formation of song symbolism (in particular, musical-typological), which took place through instincts. The research methodology uses scientific methods to emphasise that folklore is an extremely complex and much more difficult system to be systematized than literature and music. Therefore, the criteria of genre classification of written works to folklore can be used in part, aware of their conditionality. In folklore, which is the bearer of the pre-written experience of mankind, in addition to mental formative and aesthetic achievements, biological instincts are also reflected. Instincts influenced the intuitive and creative formation of song symbolism (in particular, musical and typological). The scientific novelty of the research is that it emphasizes the folklore to be a legacy of the Neolithic worldview (phenomena: magical, religious, organizational and social, legal – like a wedding). For several thousand years under the influence of historical circumstances, and then Christianity in the Neolithic and folklore heritage has undergone significant distortions. The most significant changes have affected the vocabulary of lyrics and melodies of songs: they are the least stable components of the song in the race of time. Much less time affected the rites, beliefs and especially musical forms of songs. The rhythmic structure of musical forms has been preserved the most, as well as the compositional structure of song texts, which is always organically combined with musical rhythmics. Conclusions. The stability of ritual actions over the millennia, which is inherent in all religions (and paganism as well), is due primarily to the influence of sacredness. But sacredness does not affect the mind, but the senses. In order to assert it, the magic of the cycle of the agricultural year and the linear movement of human life (from the cradle to the grave) was worked out. To consolidate in the minds of the genus (tribe) through magic the laws of the annual agrarian cycle, the Magi-priests intuitively developed a perfect musical system of cognitive signs: winter, spring, and summer. The same applies to family rites. In fact, ritual melodies have clearly defined rhythmic structures that are associated with a certain time of year, with family events.

Macrosemantic rhythmic structures in the songs of A. Mirzayan

Earlier, semantic rhythms were found in several texts of the author's song of the 1950s-80s, determined by the oppositions "private-universal" and "order-chaos". In the process of analyzing these works, a method of categorical macrosemantic structures was developed. Previously, this approach was applied in a systematic study of cultural trends. As part of the current work, the songs of the famous bard Alexander Mirzayan are considered using this method. The totality of this author's creativity is analyzed. From the standpoint of semantic rhythms, a structural analysis of the song "Wanderers" based on the poems of A. Mirzayan was carried out, as well as several song adaptations based on the texts of I. Brodsky, V. Sosnora and T. Klangsor were considered. In the works under study, the general theme of the conflict of a certain alternative system with the state line is traced. Mirzayan's interest in this topic is probably connected with the social processes of the late USSR. In addition, the presence of semantic rhythms in songs based on poems by A. Mirzayan and poems by other authors is compared. As a result, it turned out that the indicators of PM-rhythmics in song adaptations exceed the indicators of these structures in A. Mirzayan's poetry. Thus, the method of categorical macro-semantic structures helped clarify the principle by which Mirzayan selects poems by other authors and what are the methods of their adaptation.

Archival Silence in the Collections of Dietrich Schulz-Köhn

Archival Silence in the Collections of Dietrich Schulz-Köhn

Syncopation and Groove in Polyphonic Music

Music often evokes a regular beat and a pleasurable sensation of wanting to move to that beat called groove. Recent studies show that a rhythmic pattern’s ability to evoke groove increases at moderate levels of syncopation, essentially, when some notes occur earlier than expected. We present two studies that investigate that effect of syncopation in more realistic polyphonic music examples. First, listeners rated their urge to move to music excerpts transcribed from funk and rock songs, and to algorithmically transformed versions of these excerpts: 1) with the original syncopation removed, and 2) with various levels of pseudorandom syncopation introduced. While the original excerpts were rated higher than the de-syncopated, the algorithmic syncopation was not as successful in evoking groove. Consequently, a moderate level of syncopation increases groove, but only for certain syncopation patterns. The second study provides detailed comparisons of the original and transformed rhythmic structures that revealed key differences between them in: 1) the distribution of syncopation across instruments and metrical positions, 2) the counter-meter figures formed by the syncopating notes, and 3) the number of pickup notes. On this basis, we form four concrete hypotheses about the function of syncopation in groove, to be tested in future experiments.

Neural signals regulating motor synchronization in the primate deep cerebellar nuclei.

Movements synchronized with external rhythms are ubiquitous in our daily lives. Despite the involvement of the cerebellum, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. In monkeys performing synchronized saccades to periodically alternating visual stimuli, we found that neuronal activity in the cerebellar dentate nucleus correlated with the timing of the next saccade and the current temporal error. One-third of the neurons were active regardless of saccade direction and showed greater activity for synchronized than for reactive saccades. During the transition from reactive to predictive saccades in each trial, the activity of these neurons coincided with target onset, representing an internal model of rhythmic structure rather than a specific motor command. The behavioural changes induced by electrical stimulation were explained by activating different groups of neurons at various strengths, suggesting that the lateral cerebellum contains multiple functional modules for the acquisition of internal rhythms, predictive motor control, and error detection during synchronized movements.

Ostinatos in Black-Atlantic traditions: generic-specific similarity and proximity

Ostinatos of sub-Saharan Africa, South America, and the Caribbean are continually repeated rhythms also known as “timelines.” Taking as a starting point the ostinato termed the “Standard Pattern,” generic and specific features of Black-Atlantic ostinatos are analyzed: in European-derived theory, these features correspond to the quantity and quality of musical intervals. Like the standard pattern, other ostinatos that have been employed in several Black-Atlantic traditions and comprise a rhythmic structure that corresponds to the structure of hyperdiatonic scales in contemporary European-derived pitch theory; other widespread ostinatos considered have a complementary, hyperpentatonic structure. Interpreted in terms of Gestalt grouping principles, both of these kinds of ostinatos maximize similarity and proximity. Other ostinatos of these traditions can be construed as variants of hyperdiatonic or hyperpentatonic ostinatos. Differences of similarity and proximity that these variants manifest are analyzed in terms of adjacent swaps, fusions and fissions, and moduli that encompass two or more ostinatos’ least common multiples. In turn, similarity and proximity measures for rhythmic ostinatos are shown to parsimoniously clarify aspects of pitch relations, including the general notion of evenness, within 1- dimensional frameworks for pitch and time.

«Vicious» or «selected»? The linguosemantics of dispondee ending in Cicero's In Catilinam

This article is devoted to the study of "heavy" clauses, i.e. the rhythmics of dyspondee [– – – x], molossus and spondee [– – – – x] and creticus and molossus [– ᴗ – – – x ] at the end of the period in classical Latin prose on the material of Cicero's speeches "Against Catilina". The first paragraph, containing a brief outline of the history of the study of metric clauses, is generally devoted to two different approaches to the study of such rhythmic structures, namely the method of A. Bornecque, who called such clauses "vicious" and subjected some of them to conjuncture, and the teaching of Th. Zielinski, who distinguished them into a special class of "selected". As a result, the question of an alternative approach to the study of clauses is raised. В The second paragraph contains an analysis of the dyspondean clauses in Cicero's speeches "Against Catilina" regarding the frequency and place of their use in pericopes; the analysis uses a new methodology for studying the rhythm of prose developed by the author of the article. The relatively high frequency of heavy clauses indicates their essential role in the rhythmic organization of the text, and Cicero's desire to avoid such clauses at the end of super-phrasal units indicates their associative connection with the continuation of thought. Based on the data obtained, conclusions are drawn about the specific role of "heavy" clauses in the logical division of the text, which indicates the truth of Zielinski's theory.

The Genesis of Yi’an Style (易安體) in Medieval Chinese Poetry

This article deals with the genesis of Yi’an style (易安體), the poetic style of the outstanding Chinese female poet of the Song dynasty Li Qingzhao (李清照, 1084–1155?). The empirical material for this research is her extant early 22 ci (1098–1108). The first part of the article briefly discusses the specific features of ci genre, which reached its heyday during the Song dynasty (宋朝, 960–1279). The second part examines the peculiar features of Li Qingzhao’s early ci, which indicate her pushing the limits of writing traditional Chinese poetry. These features are 1) modification of the classical themes and images; 2) introduction of love and erotic ci from a female perspective; 3) experiments with the composition of ci and their rhythmic and melodic structure. She introduced the lyric element into conventional ci, composing the poems with strong personal engagement. Her genre innovations lie in overcoming the limits and conventions of the genre, legitimating the Self of a poet in her distinctive personal style – Yi’an style.

AN ATTEMPT AT PERFORMANCE AND TEXTOLOGICAL RESEARCH ON THE HUTSULKA (BASED ON THE OLDEST AUDIO RECORDING)

The article is devoted to an ethnomusicological, musical-textological, and performing analysis of the traditional dance the Hutsulka. The material is an audio recording of an anonymous wedding band from the Galician-Hutsul part of the Ukrainian Carpathians, made in the first half of the 20th century. This recording is included in the album ‘Music of the Ukraine’ released by the studio Folkways Records USA (vinyl, 1951). As the oldest known audio recording of the Hutsulka, the piece ‘Hutsulka and Kozachok Dances’ is characterised by an original interpretation of the genre at the musical form-building and thematic levels. Based on an analysis of the musical form, the melodic scale and the rhythmic structure, typical features of the performance style of the Kosmach-Brustury tradition are revealed. They are especially evident in the playing by the fiddler and fuyarnist. The identity of the fiddler was established hypothetically, by comparing these data with the testimonies of respondents.

Between grammar and conversation : On the well-formedness of beat clashes in natural conversation

This paper deals with the interplay between grammar and conversation. This will be exemplified by a rhythmical phenomenon that has been described as beat clash in metrical phonology. In metrical phonology beat clashes are regarded as highly marked or even deviant rhythmical structures because the phonologically unmarked alternation between prominent and non-prominent syllables is cancelled in favour of a succession of prominent syllables. It will be shown that participants in natural conversation not only let beat clashes happen, but that beat clashes are actively constructed by turning non-prominent syllables into prominent ones. But these achieved beat clashes seem to be restrained by sequential and grammatical constraints: they occur in extended first assessments like stories, news or informings and in seconds to these conversation objects, but they are absent in first and in second assessments of assessment pairs; they respect the prominence structure which is the result of grammatical rules.

The effect of competitor rhythmic structure when recalling vowels in a complex listening environment

Research has shown that the rhythmic structure of speech is relevant to listening outcomes in complex environments. Several studies have shown that an intact, natural target rhythm facilitates listeners’ perception of auditory signals. However, less is known about the effect of competitor signal rhythmic structure on target recognition. The current study uses a synthetic vowel identification paradigm to investigate the influence of the rhythmic structure of to-be-ignored competing signals on listeners’ ability to identify speech information in a target signal. Listeners were tasked with identifying the last three vowels of target sequences of varying length presented alongside competing sequences consisting of either vowel-like harmonic tone complexes or similar vowels. The inter-onset-intervals in these sequences were manipulated to create conditions where the internal rhythm of the sequences was either isochronous or irregular. Competitor rhythm was found to be a significant factor for target recognition only with the vowel-sequence competitors. Isochronous target vowel recognition was better for vowel-sequence competitors with an irregular rhythm than with a regular (isochronous) rhythm. The results of this study highlight (1) the relevance of the rhythmic structure in selective listening tasks and (2) the importance of target and competitor similarity in determining the influence of competitor rhythm.

A Variable Clock Underlies Internally Generated Hippocampal Sequences.

Humans have the ability to store and retrieve memories with various degrees of specificity, and recent advances in reinforcement learning have identified benefits to learning when past experience is represented at different levels of temporal abstraction. How this flexibility might be implemented in the brain remains unclear. We analyzed the temporal organization of male rat hippocampal population spiking to identify potential substrates for temporally flexible representations. We examined activity both during locomotion and during memory-associated population events known as sharp-wave ripples (SWRs). We found that spiking during SWRs is rhythmically organized with higher event-to-event variability than spiking during locomotion-associated population events. Decoding analyses using clusterless methods further indicate that a similar spatial experience can be replayed in multiple SWRs, each time with a different rhythmic structure whose periodicity is sampled from a log-normal distribution. This variability increases with experience despite the decline in SWR rates that occurs as environments become more familiar. We hypothesize that the variability in temporal organization of hippocampal spiking provides a mechanism for storing experiences with various degrees of specificity.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT One of the most remarkable properties of memory is its flexibility: the brain can retrieve stored representations at varying levels of detail where, for example, we can begin with a memory of an entire extended event and then zoom in on a particular episode. The neural mechanisms that support this flexibility are not understood. Here we show that hippocampal sharp-wave ripples, which mark the times of memory replay and are important for memory storage, have a highly variable temporal structure that is well suited to support the storage of memories at different levels of detail.