Rhythmic segment analysis: Conceptualizing, visualizing, and measuring rhythmic data

TL;DR

This paper introduces a unified framework for analyzing rhythmic data through interval segments, visualizations, and measures, enhancing understanding of rhythmic regularities in both synthetic and real-world contexts.

Contribution

It proposes a conceptual framework that unifies visualization methods, generalizes rhythmic measures, and introduces the concept of quantality for better rhythmic analysis.

Findings

The pattern-duration plot effectively visualizes rhythmic regularities.

nPVI is shown as a special case of a broader isochrony-based measure.

The framework applies successfully to both synthetic and real-world rhythmic data.

Abstract

This paper develops a framework for conceptualizing, visualizing, and measuring regularities in rhythmic data. I propose to think about rhythmic data in terms of interval segments: fixed-length groups of consecutive intervals, which can be decomposed into a duration and a pattern (the ratios between the intervals). This simple conceptual framework unifies three rhythmic visualization methods and yields a fourth: the pattern-duration plot. When paired with a cluster transition network, it intuitively reveals regularities in both synthetic and real-world rhythmic data. Moreover, the framework generalizes two common measures of rhythmic structure: rhythm ratios and the normalized pairwise variability index (nPVI). In particular, nPVI can be reconstructed as the average distance from isochrony, and I propose a more general measure of anisochrony to replace it. Finally, the novel concept of quantality may shed light on wider debates regarding small-integer-ratio rhythms.