Motion Patterns of Feet’s Movements and Metrical Structure in Electronic Music’s Dance Style

Motivation. In some dance styles, musical meter is encoded in the dancer’s space: some parts of the body go through the same spatial points on the same beats (Naveda and Leman, 2010), producing a metrically aligned motion-pattern (MP). As to electronic dance music (EDM), arms, chest and head movements seem to be highly spontaneous but still aligned with musical metre (Marchiano and Martínez, 2018). In this study we aim at extending the analysis to EDM feet movements to see whether and how MPs are metrically aligned. Methodology. Stimulus: Audiovisual recording of an EDM party in La Plata City, Argentina. Analysis: Microgenetic observational analysis of 27 minutes of 31 people’s feet’s movements, aiming at describing motion regularities and ways of synchronization with music metrical levels. Results. All subjects’ motions showed exclusively 2 looped MPs, both defined by the entrainment to the beat at the footstep level: (i) 2 (1-1) beat cycle (strong-weak/right-left foot alternation) stationary; and (ii) 4 (2-2) beat cycle (strong/weak right - strong/weak left foot alternation), with feet displacement on the horizontal axis. Implications. EDM’s dancers embody the metrical structure of the music through their feet’s spatiotemporal location. The presence of MPs in a dance style non-taught but still developed in parties, attest the social, non-verbal instantiation of musical features through embodied alignment with music.Laboratorio para el Estudio de la Experiencia Musica

Small-Group Interactions with Music and Others in Social Dance

Motivation. In musical environments, large groups of people synchronize on intra-personal, inter-personal, and inter-group levels (Clayton, 2013). Motion behaviour with music has been studied in personal, dyadic (Carlson et al., 2018), and large group’s levels in dance conditions. We aim at studying personal and interpersonal small-group level interactions with music in an electronic dance music (EDM) social context. Methodology. Stimulus: Audiovisual recording of an EDM party in La Plata City, Argentina. Musical analysis: musicological analysis of form. Movement analysis: Observation of a 4:26 minutes of Tech House track, interactive behaviour and microanalysis of legs’ motion patterns of 15 dancers. Results. Small-group interaction: people group together in circles (2-5 people each). Each group shows two kinetic behaviours: (i) a shared 2 beat/4 beat leg’s motion pattern in entrainment with musical metre; and (ii) a dyadic dance-together behaviour inside the small group with momentary inter-personal movement synchronisation, prompted by intentional body contact or mutual gazes. Personal behaviour: most people change their leg’s movement at the main themes’ beginnings (signalled mainly by the salience of the bassline and the high pitched percussions, among others timbral-textural features). Implications. Even though movements’ dancers show a common kinetic behaviour, and a personal, intentional kinetic alignment with musical features such as metric and timbral-textural changes of EDM musical style, interactions within small groups tend to be reduced to dyads, suggesting a transcendence of early traces of communicative musicality in adult social life.Laboratorio para el Estudio de la Experiencia Musica

Textural layers and polyphonic timbre links in electronic dance music

Polyphonic timbre refers to the overall timbral mixture in a music signal. Some of their most salient acoustic dimensions are the Sub-Band Fluxes. Our hypothesis is that there is a temporal alignment between Sub-Band Flux changes and perceived textural layers’ onsets and offsets in electronic dance music (EDM). (i) We asked to 15 professional musicians to record in Reaper every perceived textural layer’s onset or offset of 11 EDM’s tracks, (ii) and calculated the transitional temporal data between homogeneous and successive states of Sub-Band Flux from signals with MIRToolbox functions. Data (i) and (ii) are being correlated. We expect that acoustical timbral changes will show temporal coincidence with perceived textural layers’ onsets and offsets. Results are still in process, and will be discussed in reference to the EDM’s acoustic environment to mutually afford the perception of textural layers and polyphonic timbres.Trabajo publicado en SysMus18. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology. State University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2018.Facultad de Bellas Arte

Textural layers and polyphonic timbre links in electronic dance music

Polyphonic timbre refers to the overall timbral mixture in a music signal. Some of their most salient acoustic dimensions are the Sub-Band Fluxes. Our hypothesis is that there is a temporal alignment between Sub-Band Flux changes and perceived textural layers’ onsets and offsets in electronic dance music (EDM). (i) We asked to 15 professional musicians to record in Reaper every perceived textural layer’s onset or offset of 11 EDM’s tracks, (ii) and calculated the transitional temporal data between homogeneous and successive states of Sub-Band Flux from signals with MIRToolbox functions. Data (i) and (ii) are being correlated. We expect that acoustical timbral changes will show temporal coincidence with perceived textural layers’ onsets and offsets. Results are still in process, and will be discussed in reference to the EDM’s acoustic environment to mutually afford the perception of textural layers and polyphonic timbres.Trabajo publicado en SysMus18. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology. State University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2018.Facultad de Bellas Arte

Textural layers and polyphonic timbre links in electronic dance music

Polyphonic timbre refers to the overall timbral mixture in a music signal. Some of their most salient acoustic dimensions are the Sub-Band Fluxes. Our hypothesis is that there is a temporal alignment between Sub-Band Flux changes and perceived textural layers’ onsets and offsets in electronic dance music (EDM). (i) We asked to 15 professional musicians to record in Reaper every perceived textural layer’s onset or offset of 11 EDM’s tracks, (ii) and calculated the transitional temporal data between homogeneous and successive states of Sub-Band Flux from signals with MIRToolbox functions. Data (i) and (ii) are being correlated. We expect that acoustical timbral changes will show temporal coincidence with perceived textural layers’ onsets and offsets. Results are still in process, and will be discussed in reference to the EDM’s acoustic environment to mutually afford the perception of textural layers and polyphonic timbres.Trabajo publicado en SysMus18. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology. State University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2018.Facultad de Bellas Arte

Expressive alignment with timbre: changes of sound-kinetic patterns during the break routine of an electronic dance music set

Background: Expressive alignment (Leman, 2016) refers to the synchronization of human movement patterns with musical patterns. On the one hand, Solberg and Jensenius (2017) found that dancers share a movement pattern during the break routine (BR) of electronic dance music (EDM) tracks (sound pattern formed by breakdown-build up-drop sequence which constitutes a formal articulation of EDM set). On the other hand, although a number of timbral dimensions have been established which organize auditory perception (Alluri, 2012), expressive alignment with timbral patterns have not been studied yet. In this work we studied the timbral relevance of the acoustic changes during BRs of EDM’s sets, and assume that these changes form musical patterns that, in turn, afford changes in human movement patterns. Aims: To describe the changes of sound-kinetic patterns during the BRs on an EDM party video, resulting from the expressive alignment between human movement patterns and sonic patterns of music. Methods: Stimulus: an EDM party audiovisual record. Sound analysis: (1) Aural identification, description and temporal location annotation on Elan 5.0 timeline of all the BRs of the EDM set. (2) Processing of its acoustic signal, and extraction of features related to timbre, rhythm and pitch with MIRToolbox. Movement analysis: (1) Detection of movement patterns formed by arms, head and shoulders of all people completely visible on the video during 15 BRs. (2) Laban Movement Analysis (Laban, 1950) video annotation on Elan 5.0 of effort-shape elements of each movement pattern. (3) Comparative analysis of the movement patterns of each person. Results: Sound analysis results show that the BR is defined by an acoustical pattern, in which some timbral features play a relevant role. With regard to movement analysis; (1) we identified changes on movement patterns during BRs, especially at the drop moment ; (2) we noted that people develop personal movement patterns, differentiated from those of others by the organization of effort-shape elements; and (3) changes in the dancers´ personal style of movement patterns occur at the same time. Conclusions: In this work we observed that EDM dancers develop expressive alignments during the BR. From a musical point of view, the changes in acoustical features related to timbre during the BR modify the sonic environmental conditions, and the consequent expressive alignment of the dancers. Although people keep their personal styles of movement, they all change their movement patterns in phase with the changes of music, producing a shared sound-kinetic pattern. References: Alluri, V. (2012). Acoustic, Neural, and Perceptual Correlates of Polyphonic Timbre (Doctoral Thesis). University of Jyväskylä: Jyväskylä. Laban, R. (1950). The Mastery of Movement. Binsted: Dance Books. Leman, M. (2016). The Expressive Moment. How Interaction (with Music) Shapes Human Empowerment. Massachusetts: MIT Press. Solberg, R.T. y Jensenius, A.R. (2017). Arm and head movements to musical passages of electronic dance music. Book of Abstracts, 25th ESCOM. Gent: ESCOM.Trabajo publicado en Parncutt, R. & Sattmann, S. (eds.) (2018). Proceedings of ICMPC15/ESCOM10. Graz, Austria: Centre for Systematic Musicology, University of Graz.Facultad de Bellas Arte

La experiencia musical en fiestas electrónicas : Un estudio sobre la cognición corporeizada, imaginística y social en públicos y DJs de La Plata, Argentina

La experiencia musical es un tema abordado fundamentalmente por la psicología de la música. Actualmente, la corriente que domina la disciplina es el poscognitivismo, que plantea que nuestra cognición es constitutivamente corporeizada, conceptual y social. En esta tesis se aborda el problema de la experiencia musical en fiestas electrónicas a partir de tres estudios empíricos realizados en la ciudad de La Plata (Argentina), cada uno de ellos orientado a indagar una de estas tres dimensiones de la cognición musical. El primer estudio aborda la dimensión corporeizada desde un punto de vista enactivo a partir del análisis de los movimientos del baile compartidos entre el público y sus vínculos con las características musicales. El segundo se focaliza en la dimensión conceptual de la cognición musical desde la teoría de la metáfora conceptual y los esquemas-imagen, y se orienta a identificar las metáforas utilizadas para expresar las características de la experiencia musical durante las fiestas. El tercero se ocupa de la dimensión social desde la perspectiva de la segunda persona, en base al análisis de las atribuciones de estados mentales e interacciones sociales entre los miembros del público y entre el DJ y el público. Los resultados de los tres estudios se integran en una descripción única de la experiencia musical en fiestas electrónicas que unifica algunos rasgos de las tres dimensiones cognitivas analizadas, permitiendo establecer vínculos entre el enactivismo, la teoría de la metáfora conceptual y las perspectivas de la atribución mental.Facultad de Arte

Un modelo corporeizado de interacción expresiva con la música : Reseña de: Leman, Marc (2016). The Expressive Moment. How Interaction (with Music) Shapes Human Empowerment. Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 251 pp. ISBN 9780262034937

Desde sus inicios, Leman ha sido un exponente fundamental del enfoque ecológico de la cognición musical corporeizada, concibiendo al cuerpo como un mediador entre el ambiente y la formación del significado (Leman, 2011) y estudiando el involucramiento del cuerpo en diversas actividades: la escucha corporeizada, las articulaciones expresivas de los instrumentistas, la alineación del cuerpo con la música en actividades cotidianas, los movimientos espontáneos de baile, las posibilidades multimodales de consulta de música por parte de usuarios a través de tecnologías de mediación, entre otros. En El momento expresivo Leman se encarga por un lado de situar su pensamiento de la corporalidad en la interacción con la música bajo un enfoque enactivo y comunicativo, y por el otro de articular sus ideas ligadas a la segunda generación de las ciencias cognitivas con nociones de modelos clásicos que parecían abandonados y que acá aparecen sumamente resignificados. El libro tiene el objetivo de definir los principios y las causas del empoderamiento que genera la música en el ser humano, estudiando los procesos pre-reflexivos rápidos y dinámicos de la interacción musical. Leman propone considerar las representaciones conscientes y el pensamiento cognitivo lingüístico como una extensión de los mecanismos sensorio-motores que definen y determinan las interacciones corporeizadas.Sociedad Argentina para las Ciencias Cognitivas de la Música (SACCoM

El ruido en la música de Marcelo Toledo. : Un análisis de resplandescencias de la nada

Gran parte de la obra de Marcelo Toledo se focaliza en el trabajo sobre el ruido. A partir de la obra Resplandescencias de la nada se analiza cómo se definen los parámetros, cuáles son fundamentales en el trabajo de materiales elaborados desde la no-tonicidad y qué lógica de organización de los materiales usa el compositor. El objetivo de este trabajo es reflejar las características particulares de esta obra como también elaborar conclusiones que sean susceptibles de ser aplicadas a otras obras del propio compositor o, inclusive, a otras músicas.Mesa B.Facultad de Bellas Arte

El ruido en la música de Marcelo Toledo. : Un análisis de resplandescencias de la nada

Gran parte de la obra de Marcelo Toledo se focaliza en el trabajo sobre el ruido. A partir de la obra Resplandescencias de la nada se analiza cómo se definen los parámetros, cuáles son fundamentales en el trabajo de materiales elaborados desde la no-tonicidad y qué lógica de organización de los materiales usa el compositor. El objetivo de este trabajo es reflejar las características particulares de esta obra como también elaborar conclusiones que sean susceptibles de ser aplicadas a otras obras del propio compositor o, inclusive, a otras músicas.Mesa B.Facultad de Bellas Arte