Musicians exaggerate physical note and pause durations about fourfold to convey written rhythm

Evidence

In Fig. 13.4a, the musical notation of a rhythmic sequence is given. Figure 13.4b illustrates the corresponding expected subjective durations by black bars for notes and white bars for pauses. However, as shown in Fig. 13.4c, the physical duration of bursts and pauses performed by musicians differ quite substantially from the pattern shown in Fig. 13.4b, in order to subjectively produce the rhythm expressed in the notation. As discussed in more detail in Chap. 12, the physical durations of bursts and pauses have to differ by a factor of about 4 in order to produce the same subjective duration. In addition, the subjective doubling of musical notes has to be produced by increasing the physical burst duration by a factor of 2.6. — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1511

Categorization

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