3 - Visualizing the Rhythms of Performance

Summary

Traditional staff notation provides a quantized view of musical time: rhythm symbols place each note at a fixed position within a metric framework consisting of integer multiples and fractions of the beat. This familiar representation of rhythm conceals the temporal elasticity of music in performance, including the nuances of tempo rubato in Western art music as well as the distinctive rhythmic irregularities in other musical traditions, such as the unequal or “swung” eighth-note subdivisions of jazz and blues and the speech-like rhythms of hip hop and other genres of groove-based music. To promote a clearer understanding of such rhythmic practices, collectively known as expressive timing or microtiming, several new methods of visualizing rhythm have been proposed over the past century, both in the context of Western art music – the focus of this chapter – and in other contexts.