“It?is very important for our overall impression of music that the details are right,” says musicologist Anne Danielsen at the RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion at the University of Oslo.
Together with her research colleague Guilherme Schmidt C?mara, she is looking for answers to what these details are. They know there are some basic rules relating to sound and timing which most creators of music comply with. Few, however, are aware of what they actually do in order to make it sound right.
“When?we talk to musicians and producers, it becomes clear that they simply adjust sounds automatically in order to get the right timing – it's a form of implicit knowledge,” says C?mara.
In order to make this knowledge more explicit, the researchers have studied the factors that influence when we perceive a sound happening. They have found a pattern and have noticed that our perception of timing is closely related to the quality of the sound – whether or not it is soft or sharp, short or long and wobbly.
When does a sound happen?
Timing the sounds of all instruments so that the music sounds good is essential, but the different notes are not necessarily being played when you hear them.
“Scientists?have previously assumed that we perceive the timing at the beginning of a sound but have not reflected critically on what happens when the sounds have different shapes,” says Danielsen.
A sound has a rhythmic centre. If you imagine a sound wave, this centre is located near the top of the wave, and your perception of where in time the sound is located is act