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Bechtold TA, Curry B, Witek M. The perceived catchiness of music affects the experience of groove. PLoS One 2024; 19:e0303309. [PMID: 38748741 PMCID: PMC11095763 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0303309] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2023] [Accepted: 04/23/2024] [Indexed: 05/19/2024] Open
Abstract
Catchiness and groove are common phenomena when listening to popular music. Catchiness may be a potential factor for experiencing groove but quantitative evidence for such a relationship is missing. To examine whether and how catchiness influences a key component of groove-the pleasurable urge to move to music (PLUMM)-we conducted a listening experiment with 450 participants and 240 short popular music clips of drum patterns, bass lines or keys/guitar parts. We found four main results: (1) catchiness as measured in a recognition task was only weakly associated with participants' perceived catchiness of music. We showed that perceived catchiness is multi-dimensional, subjective, and strongly associated with pleasure. (2) We found a sizeable positive relationship between PLUMM and perceived catchiness. (3) However, the relationship is complex, as further analysis showed that pleasure suppresses perceived catchiness' effect on the urge to move. (4) We compared common factors that promote perceived catchiness and PLUMM and found that listener-related variables contributed similarly, while the effects of musical content diverged. Overall, our data suggests music perceived as catchy is likely to foster groove experiences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Toni Amadeus Bechtold
- Department of Music, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
- Lucerne School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland
| | - Ben Curry
- Department of Music, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
| | - Maria Witek
- Department of Music, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
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Etani T, Miura A, Kawase S, Fujii S, Keller PE, Vuust P, Kudo K. A review of psychological and neuroscientific research on musical groove. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2024; 158:105522. [PMID: 38141692 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105522] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/18/2023] [Revised: 12/18/2023] [Accepted: 12/19/2023] [Indexed: 12/25/2023]
Abstract
When listening to music, we naturally move our bodies rhythmically to the beat, which can be pleasurable and difficult to resist. This pleasurable sensation of wanting to move the body to music has been called "groove." Following pioneering humanities research, psychological and neuroscientific studies have provided insights on associated musical features, behavioral responses, phenomenological aspects, and brain structural and functional correlates of the groove experience. Groove research has advanced the field of music science and more generally informed our understanding of bidirectional links between perception and action, and the role of the motor system in prediction. Activity in motor and reward-related brain networks during music listening is associated with the groove experience, and this neural activity is linked to temporal prediction and learning. This article reviews research on groove as a psychological phenomenon with neurophysiological correlates that link musical rhythm perception, sensorimotor prediction, and reward processing. Promising future research directions range from elucidating specific neural mechanisms to exploring clinical applications and socio-cultural implications of groove.
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Affiliation(s)
- Takahide Etani
- School of Medicine, College of Medical, Pharmaceutical, and Health, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan; Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, Fujisawa, Japan; Advanced Research Center for Human Sciences, Waseda University, Tokorozawa, Japan.
| | - Akito Miura
- Faculty of Human Sciences, Waseda University, Tokorozawa, Japan
| | - Satoshi Kawase
- The Faculty of Psychology, Kobe Gakuin University, Kobe, Japan
| | - Shinya Fujii
- Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University, Fujisawa, Japan
| | - Peter E Keller
- Center for Music in the Brain, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark/The Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg, Denmark; The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia
| | - Peter Vuust
- Center for Music in the Brain, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark/The Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg, Denmark
| | - Kazutoshi Kudo
- Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
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O’Connell SR, Nave-Blodgett JE, Wilson GE, Hannon EE, Snyder JS. Elements of musical and dance sophistication predict musical groove perception. Front Psychol 2022; 13:998321. [PMID: 36467160 PMCID: PMC9712211 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.998321] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2022] [Accepted: 10/21/2022] [Indexed: 11/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Listening to groovy music is an enjoyable experience and a common human behavior in some cultures. Specifically, many listeners agree that songs they find to be more familiar and pleasurable are more likely to induce the experience of musical groove. While the pleasurable and dance-inducing effects of musical groove are omnipresent, we know less about how subjective feelings toward music, individual musical or dance experiences, or more objective musical perception abilities are correlated with the way we experience groove. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate how musical and dance sophistication relates to musical groove perception. One-hundred 24 participants completed an online study during which they rated 20 songs, considered high- or low-groove, and completed the Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index, the Goldsmiths Dance Sophistication Index, the Beat and Meter Sensitivity Task, and a modified short version of the Profile for Music Perception Skills. Our results reveal that measures of perceptual abilities, musical training, and social dancing predicted the difference in groove rating between high- and low-groove music. Overall, these findings support the notion that listeners' individual experiences and predispositions may shape their perception of musical groove, although other causal directions are also possible. This research helps elucidate the correlates and possible causes of musical groove perception in a wide range of listeners.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samantha R. O’Connell
- Caruso Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Keck School of Medicine of USC, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States
| | | | - Grace E. Wilson
- Department of Psychology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, United States
| | - Erin E. Hannon
- Department of Psychology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, United States
| | - Joel S. Snyder
- Department of Psychology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, United States
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Senn O, Rose D, Bechtold T, Kilchenmann L, Hoesl F, Jerjen R, Baldassarre A, Alessandri E. Preliminaries to a Psychological Model of Musical Groove. Front Psychol 2019; 10:1228. [PMID: 31214069 PMCID: PMC6558102 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01228] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2019] [Accepted: 05/09/2019] [Indexed: 01/20/2023] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Olivier Senn
- School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland
| | - Dawn Rose
- School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland
| | - Toni Bechtold
- School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland
| | - Lorenz Kilchenmann
- School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland
| | - Florian Hoesl
- School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland
| | - Rafael Jerjen
- School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland
| | - Antonio Baldassarre
- School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland
| | - Elena Alessandri
- School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland
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Abstract
Bass sounds play a special role in conveying the rhythm and stimulating motor entrainment to the beat of music. However, the biological roots of this culturally widespread musical practice remain mysterious, despite its fundamental relevance in the sciences and arts, and also for music-assisted clinical rehabilitation of motor disorders. Here, we show that this musical convention may exploit a neurophysiological mechanism whereby low-frequency sounds shape neural representations of rhythmic input at the cortical level by boosting selective neural locking to the beat, thus explaining the privileged role of bass sounds in driving people to move along with the musical beat. Music makes us move, and using bass instruments to build the rhythmic foundations of music is especially effective at inducing people to dance to periodic pulse-like beats. Here, we show that this culturally widespread practice may exploit a neurophysiological mechanism whereby low-frequency sounds shape the neural representations of rhythmic input by boosting selective locking to the beat. Cortical activity was captured using electroencephalography (EEG) while participants listened to a regular rhythm or to a relatively complex syncopated rhythm conveyed either by low tones (130 Hz) or high tones (1236.8 Hz). We found that cortical activity at the frequency of the perceived beat is selectively enhanced compared with other frequencies in the EEG spectrum when rhythms are conveyed by bass sounds. This effect is unlikely to arise from early cochlear processes, as revealed by auditory physiological modeling, and was particularly pronounced for the complex rhythm requiring endogenous generation of the beat. The effect is likewise not attributable to differences in perceived loudness between low and high tones, as a control experiment manipulating sound intensity alone did not yield similar results. Finally, the privileged role of bass sounds is contingent on allocation of attentional resources to the temporal properties of the stimulus, as revealed by a further control experiment examining the role of a behavioral task. Together, our results provide a neurobiological basis for the convention of using bass instruments to carry the rhythmic foundations of music and to drive people to move to the beat.
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Senn O, Kilchenmann L, Bechtold T, Hoesl F. Groove in drum patterns as a function of both rhythmic properties and listeners' attitudes. PLoS One 2018; 13:e0199604. [PMID: 29958289 PMCID: PMC6025871 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0199604] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2018] [Accepted: 06/11/2018] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Music psychology defines groove as humans’ pleasureable urge to move their body in synchrony with music. Past research has found that rhythmic syncopation, event density, beat salience, and rhythmic variability are positively associated with groove. This exploratory study investigates the groove effect of 248 reconstructed drum patterns from different popular music styles (pop, rock, funk, heavy metal, rock’n’roll, hip hop, soul, R&B). It aims at identifying factors that might be relevant for groove and worth investigating in a controlled setting in the future. Drum patterns of eight bars duration, chosen from 248 popular music tracks, have been transcribed and audio reconstructions have been created on the basis of sound samples. During an online listening experiment, 665 participants rated the reconstructions a total of 8,329 times using a groove questionnaire. Results show that, among 15 tested variables, syncopation (R2 = 0.010) and event density (R2 = 0.011) were positively associated with the groove ratings. These effects were stronger in participants who were music professionals, compared to amateur musicians or mere listeners. A categorisation of the stimuli according to structural aspects was also associated with groove (R2 = 0.018). Beat salience, residual microtiming and rhythmic variability showed no effect on the groove ratings. Participants’ familiarity with a drum pattern had a positive influence on the groove ratings (η2 = 0.051). The largest isolated effect was measured for participants’ style bias (R2 = 0.123): groove ratings tended to be high if participants had the impression that the drum pattern belonged to a style they liked. Combined, the effects of style bias and familiarity (R2 = 0.152) exceeded the other effects as predictors for groove by a wide margin. We conclude that listeners’ taste, musical biographies and expertise have a strong effect on their groove experience. This motivates groove research not to focus on the music alone, but to take the listeners into account as well.
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Affiliation(s)
- Olivier Senn
- School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland
- * E-mail:
| | - Lorenz Kilchenmann
- School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland
| | - Toni Bechtold
- School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland
| | - Florian Hoesl
- School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland
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Hofmann A, Wesolowski BC, Goebl W. The Tight-interlocked Rhythm Section: Production and Perception of Synchronisation in Jazz Trio Performance. JOURNAL OF NEW MUSIC RESEARCH 2017; 46:329-341. [PMID: 29238387 PMCID: PMC5706983 DOI: 10.1080/09298215.2017.1355394] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2016] [Accepted: 07/07/2017] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
This study investigates the production and perception of timing, synchronisation and dynamics in jazz trio performances. In a production experiment, six trio combinations of one saxophonist, two bassists, and three drummers were recorded while they performed three popular jazz songs. Onset timing and dynamics of each performer were extracted and analysed. Results showed that the tempo was significantly influenced by the timing of the drummers and all performers showed higher temporal precision on the backbeats. The drummers demonstrated individual swing-ratios, accentuations of beats and intrapersonal asynchronies between simultaneous hi-hat and ride cymbal onsets, which resulted in a hi-hat played 2-26 ms ahead of the pulse of the music. In a subsequent perception test, participants ([Formula: see text]) rated 12 excerpts of the jazz recordings. They selected their preferred version from a pool of stimuli containing the original version, but also manipulations with artificially increased or reduced asynchronies. Stimuli with reduced asynchronies smaller than 19 ms were preferred by the listeners over the original or the fully quantised timing. This suggests that listeners endorse a 'tight-interlocked' jazz rhythm section, with asynchronies smaller than the perceptual threshold (temporal masking), but with natural timing variabilities that makes it distinguishable from a computer-generated playback.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alex Hofmann
- University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria
- Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI), Austria
| | | | - Werner Goebl
- University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria
- Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI), Austria
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