Abstract
Discovering temporal structures in music is a basic cognitive operation. We extract periodic information from musical rhythms and hierarchically organize the resulting beat layers into musical meter. Constrained by salience factors such as tempo, meter provides the basis for physical synchronization with music, and is encoded in music notation. The quantized mental construct of meter is resilient in the face of non-isochronous rhythms, fluctuations in timing that can be important for creating particular rhythmic feels or for emphasizing grouping structure. The manipulation of musical time offers rich possibilities for expression in the hands of composers and performers.
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | Musical Structure: Time and Rhythm (5) |
| Publisher | Routledge Publishing |
| State | Published - Jun 23 2017 |