Tempos Research Articles

CULTURES OF ORALITY AND PERFORMATIVITY IN THE PERFORMING ART TRADITION OF PURULIA CHHAU

Purulia Chhau, a folk, tribal, martial, masked dance-drama form of Eastern India, is performed over generations orally. Having no written performance text available, all the actions of Purulia Chhau, such as gestures, postures, dance movements and so on are materialized through the various performative utterances by the vocalist, who provide the storyline of the Chhau repertoires; musicians, who bring musical tempo into dance movements; and the dancers, who are dressed in big headgear masks and dynamic costumes enact the actual Chhau performances. Referring to the social and cultural perspectives and employing a qualitative approach as the primary methodological tool, the present paper, at the first level, seeks to explore how the cultures of orality exists in Purulia Chhau tradition and critically evaluates three Chhau repertoires with their contextual significance. It also examines how this folk-dance form manifests cultural values, shared beliefs and customs, and represents a unique cultural identity among the concerned people. At the second level, the paper analyses how the idea of performativity works on its reflexive level in Purulia Chhau and creates meaning to the audience. It also emphasizes on the performative procedure invoked and executed by all the performers correctly and completely.

DYNAMICS OF RHYTHM – THE TĀLA DAŚA PRĀṆA-S IN BHARATA NATYAM

Rhythm has been very closely associated with mankind ever since primitive times. Man felt the need for rhythmic impulses in order to co-ordinate his emotional movements. The simple sounds created naturally and consciously with the help of his body were man’s first attempts at the manifestation of rhythm – his first attempts to create pre-instrumental music. Rhythm is innate in nature. Universe will cease to function if the activities become arrhythmic. All activities- visible and non-visible adhere to the principle of rhythm. Rhythm is governed by the concept of speed or tempo. This is visible in both ordinary life as well as in the arts. Both plastic as well as performing arts are governed by rhythm. Especially in music and dance, rhythm becomes its very soul and reason for existence. Rhythm in dance is also governed by the body movements. This concept of rhythm has been deeply and minutely explored in music, which has given rise to the concept of the ten elements of musical time or tāladaśaprāṇa-s. The present paper is a study of the concept of ‘tāla’ in relation to its ten vital aspects. Each element is defined and explored from the perspective of Indian classical dance, namely, Bharata Natyam. Particular emphasis is given to the element- ‘yati’ by studying it from the practical aspect of Bharata Natyam.

Acute effects of plyometric-based conditioning activity and warm-up music stimuli on physical performance and affective state in male taekwondo athletes.

This study assesses the acute effects of combining a plyometric-based conditioning activity (CA) with different musical stimuli during warm-up on taekwondo (TKD) performance and related psychological aspects. In a randomized cross-over study design, 16 male TKD athletes (age: 19.94 ± 1.12 years) performed the TKD-specific agility test (TSAT), frequency speed of kick test (FSKT-10s) and its multiple version (FSKT-mult) under 7 experimental and one control condition. For the experimental conditions, participants experienced varying combinations of music selection process [self-selected (SSM) vs. pre-selected (PSM)], and music tempo [fast (F) vs. slow (S)], within preferred (PG) and non-preferred (NPG) music genre; all in the presence of a plyometric based-CA. Athletes were instructed to rate their perceived exertion (RPE) after each test and their felt arousal (FAS), feeling scale (FS), and motivation after testing completion. Findings showed that combining a plyometric-based CA with SSMPG at both fast and slow tempo improved TSAT, FSK-10s, FSKT-mult, FAS, motivation, and RPE post-TSAT greater than the other conditions (all p < 0.05). Additionally, FSSMPG combined with CA improved FS, and RPE after both FSKT-10s and FSKT-mult better than the other conditions (all p < 0.05). In conclusion, listening to fast self-selected music from a preferred genre in combination with a plyometric-based CA during warm-up setups an individualized warm-up strategy and serves to improve the subsequent specific performances and the related psychological aspects in TKD athletes.

An angular vs. circular servicescape? The impact of shape cues and music tempo on solo diners

With the increasing number of solo diners, creating a stimulating dining environment for solo diners is of great importance. While angular and circular shape cues are ubiquitous in the service context, their impact on solo dining experiences has been overlooked. Therefore, this research examines the joint effect of shape cues and background music on solo diners’ responses. The findings of Study 1 show that solo diners exhibit higher arousal when exposed to angular (vs. circular) shape cues, leading to enhanced dining experiences and revisit intention. However, such a shape effect is not observed among social diners. Furthermore, the findings of Study 2 demonstrate that the shape effect is more pronounced when solo diners listen to slow-tempo (vs. fast-tempo) music. This study contributes to the growing literature on solo dining and servicescape in hospitality. Our findings provide practitioners with a novel sensory strategy for enhancing solo dining experiences.

Effect of music tempo on reaction time during study: an investigation on university students

Several studies have been conducted to reveal the impact of specific music on cognitive functions. However, the effect of music tempo of human intelligence still holds great potential for further research. The purpose of this research is to examine the influence of specific music tempos (adagietto, moderato, and assai) on the concentration levels of students at Diponegoro University during the study. This experiment uses the stroop task paradigm in a design experiment within the subject from August to September 2023. The study involved a total of 42 participants from the Industrial Engineering Department with four treatment conditions (no distraction, adagietto tempo, moderato tempo, and assai tempo). Data collection was carried out for each treatment at a 24-hour interval. Then, the result data for the three variables (accuracy, reaction time, &amp; stroop effect) are analyzed. The results of the statistical analysis indicate a significant increase in reaction time with ρ &lt; 0.05 (0.004 &lt; 0.05). The post hoc test indicates a significant difference between non-music treatment and assai tempo with ρ &lt; 0.05 (0.008 &lt; 0.05). The tempo assai treatment resulted in higher reaction times compared to the no music treatment, with values of 772.826 ms and 665.489 ms, respectively.

Harmonizing Engagement: The Impact of Music on Consumer Interaction in Social Media Marketing

This study investigates the influence of music in social media marketing on consumer engagement metrics, focusing on selected provinces in Northern Vietnam. Utilizing a mixedmethod approach combining Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), the research examines how various musical elements impact engagement on social media platforms. Data collected from 460 participants through surveys and social media data extraction reveal that music presence, congruence, familiarity, and tempo significantly affect engagement metrics, including overall engagement, brand attitude, content sharing, and viewing duration. The study extends the Stimulus-Organism-Response model and Elaboration Likelihood Model to the context of music in social media marketing, offering novel insights into the complex interplay between auditory elements and consumer behavior in digital environments. The findings provide valuable theoretical contributions to the field of digital marketing and offer practical implications for social media marketers seeking to enhance consumer engagement through strategic use of music in content creation

End-to-End Bayesian Segmentation and Similarity Assessment of Performed Music Tempo and Dynamics without Score Information

Segmenting continuous sensory input into coherent segments and subsegments is an important part of perception. Music is no exception. By shaping the acoustic properties of music during performance, musicians can strongly influence the perceived segmentation. Two main techniques musicians employ are the modulation of tempo and dynamics. Such variations carry important information for segmentation and lend themselves well to numerical analysis methods. In this article, based on tempo or loudness modulations alone, we propose a novel end-to-end Bayesian framework using dynamic programming to retrieve a musician's expressed segmentation. The method computes the credence of all possible segmentations of the recorded performance. The output is summarized in two forms: as a beat-by-beat profile revealing the posterior credence of plausible boundaries, and as expanded credence segment maps, a novel representation that converts readily to a segmentation lattice but retains information about the posterior uncertainty on the exact position of segments’ endpoints. To compare any two segmentation profiles, we introduce a method based on unbalanced optimal transport. Experimental results on the MazurkaBL dataset show that despite the drastic dimension reduction from the input data, the segmentation recovery is sufficient for deriving musical insights from comparative examination of recorded performances. This Bayesian segmentation method thus offers an alternative to binary boundary detection and finds multiple hypotheses fitting information from recorded music performances.

The effect of music tempo on movement flow.

There has been much controversy over the effects of music tempo on movement flow. In this study, a single-factor repeated-measurement design was used to explore the effect of music tempo (fast, slow, and no music control) on movement flow by measuring both subjective experiences and objective electroencephalographic (EEG) characteristics during brisk walking. In the experiment, 20 college students walked briskly on a treadmill using EEG equipment. Each participant walked for 10 min on three different days. Their brain waves were recorded during brisk walking on a treadmill. After each walk, the participants completed a form of short flow state scale-2 (S FSS-2), which covered nine major aspects of flow. The results showed that music tempo had a significant effect on subjective experiences and objective physiological characteristics; that is, a higher subjective flow level for fast-tempo music in brisk walking and a significant enhancement of mean power values in the subconscious brain waves of the delta, theta, alpha, and beta bands for fast tempo music were observed. A fast tempo facilitated the movement flow. The findings of this study can be instructive for the use of music in exercises to improve sports training outcomes.

Мифологема ужаса в структуре музыкального времени

The topic of the article is music and time. But the problem posed is not limited to musical time. Music is associated with the Dionysian principle (as a cultural and historical archetype). Time is understood as the highest existential characteristic of being . The question, therefore, is: how can the fullness of being be expressed and what role can music play in this process, understood in the ultimate mythological-symbolic sense? The material presented in the article is significantly transformed by a side topic – the one of existential horror. The theoretical plot of the work in this case looks like this: horror (fear) is a state that reveals itself to a person facing the fullness of existence in the world, all of time, including the past (what has happened), the future (the possible, the fate of things being ) and the present (reality, disappearing in the rush of moments); Dionysian art is able to tame universal, cosmic horror and transform it into a kind of delight in falling into the abyss of existence; time carries within itself the key to the cognizing power of art and, above all, music – a temporary art that goes beyond visual images and verbal semantics. The structure of time coincides with the temporal scheme of modality (Kant), implemented in music as a procedural phenomenon. Time has colossal negative energy, erasing all certainty and stability. It is precisely this that explains the presence of existential horror in great musical creations. The article also touches on the issues of the antithetics of horror, the nature of the cleansing (cathartic) delight that accompanies the experience of beauty, and the presence of existential boundaries in the temporal dimension of the future (all of this also relates to the phenomenology of horror).

Connecting the dots: La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc, a musical score and censorship

ABSTRACT Film historians have long known that the version of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928) shown at its French premiere was heavily censored by the state and the Catholic church. Exactly what was cut, however, has never been entirely clear, meaning that almost all of the critical literature about the subject has been forced to accept the testimony of those who claim to have seen it at the time. An overlooked source that would help resolve the debate is the score commissioned for its Paris premiere. It includes vital evidence in the form of intertitles and actions that correspond to a print acquired by the British Film Institute in 1947. A detailed comparison of screen and musical time convincingly demonstrates that the 1947 print is a copy of the censored version, and a broader analysis of empathetic musical gesture and specially written lyrics for choir and soloists supports that contention. This analysis underlines the valuable contribution that film-music studies can make to film history in helping reveal for the first time exactly what it was to which the authorities objected in Dreyer’s famous film.

Call and response: Ethnomusicological methods to awaken specific memories with targeted songs encoded in neuronal populations of a dementia patient

AbstractThis study collaborates with a fellow expert ethnomusicologist Sean Williams to trigger specific contextual memories associated with songs of her mother Julian Williams, born in 1932, and currently struggling with the early stages of dementia. The goal was to ascertain the success rate of a one‐to‐one correspondence type: The use of targeted, known songs of the dementia patient as a means to trigger the patient’s contextual memories.By adopting a methodology in Ethnomusicology involving the autobiography of one’s music history and their corresponding memories of the patient Julian Williams, I set up the experiment for Sean Williams to conduct. Dividing the study into discrete music time periods (infancy, childhood, teenager, young adult, older adult), I asked Sean Williams to choose specific songs with specific memories to the patient to be sung. The memory responses of the patient on video were then recorded.Each of those songs had deep levels of recognition by the Alzheimer’s patient, as evidenced in her singing with some memories (lyrics and contextual environment) stronger than than others. The fact that there is some autobiographical recall, despite a weakened sense of time and space after the onset of Alzheimer’s, suggests there may be use for this technique in dementia care. Of note, is the fun‐filled disposition of the participants during the recording of the singing. That speaks to a higher quality of life one could expect by using music as a memory‐recall and time‐ travel companion.This single case study needs to be broadened into a larger‐scale experiment involving many participants from different cultures to ascertain the use of individualized targeted songs to awaken specific memories of the dementia patients. In the area of dementia care, this approach also makes it possible for families to participate actively since the songs will probably be known to them as well.

20세기 소련 작곡가 카푸스틴의 음악에 나타난 재즈적 요소 - &lt;피아노 협주곡 2번 Op. 14&gt;를 중심으로

Amid changes in world politics and the chaos of musical culture in the 20th century, the need for research on the fusion of classical music and jazz emerged. Therefore, this study reveals the characteristics that the jazz elements in “Kapustin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 Op. 14” (Concerto) combined with classical music to contribute to the evolution of modern music. Analysis of various aspects such as musical form, tempo, rhythm, melody, harmony, and instrumentation based on the orchestral score revealed that Kapustin’s Concerto exhibited musical diversity and innovation through the fusion of classical music and jazz, and was a work that went beyond the boundaries of tradition and experiment. Kapustin developed a unique musical style by incorporating jazz elements into classical music and demonstrated the potential of the third stream. Kapustin’s musical fusion was clearly revealed as a new trend in modern music in which various musical elements interacted. These results can help find and create new works by promoting the popularization of classical music and innovation of popular music.

Cultural Genesis of Concert Performance in the Twentieth-Century Music

Cultural genesis in music is linked to the various systems of actualization of the musical phenomenon—a stylistic, genre resource of music in unity with the natural dimensions of sound production, with the movement of musical time. Performing activity is structured both vertically and horizontally. Horizontally, it is assimilation of ethno-cultural, amateur, stylistic, genre, multicultural, multicultural, metaartistic, hermetic artistic codes, techniques, and systems of interpretation. Vertically, in the terms of J. Deleuze, it is elaboration of form creation, the unity of individual and the world, unity with the absolute, which is system- and structure-creating. Thus, the mechanism of a person’s vertical independence in the world is a guarantor of their ability to find an intensive metric of musical matter alongside all other possibilities—mixes, configurations of composition in music. Music perseveres despite all the innovations of psychedelism and all the transformations of melos and folklore occurring during the 20th century.

Aspects of Musical Time in the work of composer Doina Rotaru. Case Study: Clocks

Concepts such as time and memory are defining elements in the music of composers from Romania. A specific case is composer Doina Rotaru's work, “Clocks”, where the theme is explicit. The current study analyses throughout the composition how various facets of time (objective time, measuring instruments, inner time, subjective time, and circular time) are musically highlighted through compositional techniques such as precision of form, slow developments, interplay of musical syntax, and ingenious orchestration.

Do atmospheric cues matter in live streaming e-commerce? An eye-tracking investigation

This study developed a stimulus-organism-response (SOR) framework based on the cognitive load theory to investigate the influencing mechanisms of atmospheric cues, such as background visual complexity (BVC) and music tempo (MT), in customers’ live-streaming shopping. To test these hypotheses, a laboratory experiment was conducted using eye tracking. The experiment had a 3 (BVC: high vs. medium vs. low) × 3 (MT: fast vs. slow vs. no) within-subject factor design. The outcomes indicate that both BVC and MT significantly affect the participants’ arousal states, which in turn influences their behavioral intentions. Specifically, high arousal was triggered among participants when they were viewing live streams with complex background images and fast-tempo background music. The results also indicate that high BVC induces less intrinsic cognitive load, which is positively correlated with purchase intention and continuous watching intention.

The influence of tonality, tempo, and musical sophistication on the listener's time-duration estimates.

Music listening affects time perception, with previous studies suggesting that a variety of factors may influence this: musical, individual, and environmental. Two experiments investigated the effect of musical factors (tonality and musical tempo) and individual factors (a listener's level of musical sophistication) on subjective estimates of duration. Participants estimated the duration of different versions of newly composed instrumental music stimuli under retrospective and prospective conditions. Stimuli varied in tempo (90-120 bpm) and tonality (tonal-atonal), in a 2 × 2 factorial design, while other musical parameters remained constant. Estimates were made using written estimates of minutes and seconds in Experiment 1, and the reproduction method in Experiment 2. Two-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) showed no main effect of tonality on estimates and no significant interactions between tempo and tonality, under any condition. Musical tempo significantly affected estimates, with the faster tempo leading to longer estimates, but only in the prospective condition, and with the use of the reproduction method. Correlation matrices using the Pearson correlation coefficient found no correlation between musical sophistication scores (measured using the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index [Gold-MSI]) and verbal or reproduction estimates. In conclusion, together with the existing literature, findings suggest that (1) changes in tonality, without further changes in rhythm, metre, or melodic contour, do not significantly affect estimates; (2) small changes in musical tempo influence only prospective reproduction estimates, with larger tempo differences or longer stimuli being needed to cause changes in retrospective estimates; (3) participants' level of musical sophistication does not impact estimates of musical duration; and (4) empirical research on music listening and subjective time must consider potential method-dependent results.

The Beginning of the Middle: Initiation and Reinitiation in Bach's Binary-form Keyboard Works

This article borrows from William Caplin's theory of formal functions, adapting these concepts to music from Bach's keyboard dance suites. It begins with a description of how Caplinian phrase functions such as "initiation" and "continuation" can be applied to this music. A novel "reinitiation" function is then proposed to identify a phrase function that Bach uses following non-final cadences. Reinitiation is similar to Caplin's initiating phrase functions, with the crucial difference that it occurs in an unstable harmonic con text. This combination of harmonic instability with otherwise initiating features allows reinitiation to succinctly express both a local "beginning" and a higher-level "middle." Bach most often achieves the harmonic instability characteristic of reinitiation function by means of a technique this article calls "de-tonicization": the immediate tonal desta bilization of a point of cadential arrival by reinterpreting it as a non-tonic harmony in another key. These ideas help illuminate how each moment of Bach's music "expresses [its] own location within musical time" (Caplin 2010).

Relaxing and stimulating ambient odors influence preferences for musical tempo

It has recently been shown that relaxing and stimulating odors distort time perception by slowing down or speeding up the pacemaker of the internal clock. Since individuals tend to prefer musical tempo at the rate of the pacemaker, we examined whether relaxing and stimulating ambient odors could bias tempo preference in a study in which the musical stimuli were unfamiliar pleasant musical excerpts. Participants listened to pairs of excerpts played at slightly different tempi and had to indicate which one they preferred. We hypothesized that participants exposed to a relaxing odor (strawberry) would prefer the slower excerpts while participants exposed to a stimulating odor (lemon) would prefer the faster excerpts. As expected, the findings showed that participants in the control (no odor) condition preferred the slower of the fast-tempo pairs of excerpts and the faster of the slow-tempo pairs, indicating a preference bias for moderate tempo. Preferences in both odor conditions differed significantly from those in the control condition such that no such preference bias was observed. There was an interaction between tempo and odor such that participants showed no preference for the slower of the fast-tempo pairs of excerpts in the presence of a lemon odor, and no preference for the faster of the slow-tempo pairs in the presence of a strawberry odor. To our knowledge, this is the first time it has been shown that odors can alter the rate of the pacemaker without participants being conscious of the presence of an olfactory stimulus in the environment.

Musical atmosphere as a (dis)tractive facet of user interfaces: An experiment on sustainable consumption decisions in eCommerce

User interfaces are increasingly multimodal in nature. Their design is moving beyond just primarily considering visuality-related aspects to considering the rich and complex effects of other facets of user interfaces interacting with different senses of users. Music and other atmosphere-altering facets of interfaces are increasingly considered to hold potential to affect users’ actions and decision-making. While music is associated with both more impulsive and less impulsive decision-making in general, it may also affect the sustainability of consumption choices. Therefore, in this study we investigate the supporting/distracting effects of musical atmosphere as a facet of user interface on sustainable decision-making in the context of eCommerce. We conducted four online experiments (11 groups, 462 valid samples) and one focus group interview-discussion. The results show that fast music tempo (compared to no music or slow music tempo) had a positive effect on willingness to purchase healthy food as mediated by its reduction of negative emotion and consequent increase in positive attitude. People had more positive attitude towards unhealthy food options in the slow music tempo condition. The findings provide novel insights on using non-traditional facets of user interfaces for rational and sustainable decision-making.

Accuracy and Stability of Musical Tempo Memory and the Role of Musical Expertise

Previous studies have demonstrated that musical tempo memory, as the ability to recall a musical tempo without an external reference, is highly accurate. However, little is known about the stability of tempo memory for different genres and reproduction methods over time, and the factors that may influence them. In two longitudinal studies conducted over a 15-day period, we examined the accuracy and stability of musical tempo memory in individuals with different levels of music training. Specifically, we measured tempo memory every three days, and explored various factors including physiological arousal, musical aptitude, and current mood. In Study 1 (N = 111), participants reproduced the tempos of two well-known pieces (one classical and one pop piece) from memory by isochronous tapping, while in Study 2 (N = 61), participants actively performed a self-selected piece of music. Our results suggest that musical tempo memory is generally highly accurate and stable, with even greater accuracy and stability when participants played an instrument to reproduce the tempo. Furthermore, we found no evidence for an effect of arousal and mood. The impact of musical expertise, however, was mixed: individuals with higher expertise performed better in Study 1 but with no statistically significant difference in Study 2.