ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2021
Extreme precision in rhythmic interaction is enabled by role-optimized sensorimotor coupling: analysis and modelling of West African drum ensemble music.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Lateralised neural mechanisms facilitate auditory self-other distinction and coordination in human dyads.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- All About That Bass Drum? Asynchrony Effects on the Perceived Timing of Compound Musical Sounds.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- Interpersonal predictive coding in piano duets: the role of multimodal micro-cues in joint coordination.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Revealing rhythm categorization in human brain activity.Science advances · 2025Article
- Rhythmic coordination in rapid duets of little crakes: cooperative signalling without shared experience.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- De-sync: disruption of synchronization as a key factor in individual and collective creative processes.BMC neuroscience · 2024Review
- Rhythmic qualities of jazz improvisation predict performer identity and style in source-separated audio recordings.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Effect of time delay on performance and timing control in dyadic rhythm coordination using finger tapping.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Hyper-brain hyper-frequency network topology dynamics when playing guitar in quartet.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2024Article
- Preceding and trailing role-taking in dyad synchronization using finger tapping.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Confronting ethical and social issues related to the genetics of musicality.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2023Article
- Lessons learned in animal acoustic cognition through comparisons with humans.Animal cognition · 2023Review
- Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
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3 authors.
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Abstract
Human social interactions often involve carefully synchronized behaviours. Musical performance in particular features precise timing and depends on the differentiation and coordination of musical/social roles. Here, we study the influence of musical/social roles, individual musicians and different ensembles on rhythmic synchronization in Malian drum ensemble music, which features synchronization accuracy near the limits of human performance. We analysed 72 recordings of the same piece performed by four trios, in which two drummers in each trio systematically switched roles (lead versus accompaniment). Musical role, rather than individual or group differences, is the main factor influencing synchronization accuracy. Using linear causal modelling, we found a consistent pattern of bi-directional couplings between players, in which the direction and strength of rhythmic adaptation is asymmetrically distributed across musical roles. This differs from notions of musical leadership, which assume that ensemble synchronization relies predominantly on a single dominant personality and/or musical role. We then ran simulations that varied the direction and strength of sensorimotor coupling and found that the coupling pattern used by the Malian musicians affords nearly optimal synchronization. More broadly, our study showcases the importance of ecologically valid and culturally diverse studies of human behaviour. This article is part of the theme issue 'Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology'.
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