Subject: Re: Rhythm From: "Steven M. Boker" <sboker(at)CALLIOPE.PSYCH.ND.EDU> Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 09:18:41 -0500Hi Bill, You might take a look at Bruno Repp's work. He has reported that the ability to perceive the timing change is highly dependent on the structure of the musical piece in which it is embedded. He analyzes classical recordings and looks at rubato (timing changes) that occur in performance. He has then found that the ability to notice a single note timing change in a MIDI generated piece that is "perfectly" timed is degraded in the same places that rubato would have been performed by a professional musician. (at)ARTICLE{Repp92a, AUTHOR = {Repp, B. H.}, TITLE = {Probing the cognitive representation of musical time--structural constraints on the perception of timing perturbations}, JOURNAL = {Cognition}, VOLUME = {44}, PAGES = {241--281}, YEAR = {1992} } As is often the case, the answer to your question seems to be "it depends". Cheers, Steve --- Steven M. Boker 219-631-4941 (voice) sboker(at)nd.edu 219-631-8883 (fax) http://www.nd.edu/~sboker/ 219-257-2956 (home) Dept. of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556