Investigating Music-Dance Relationships

Abstract

This article studies the rhythm of Norwegian telespringar, a tradition with an intimate relationship between music and dance that features a nonisochronous meter; that is, the durations between adjacent beats are unequal. A motion-capture study of a fiddler and dance couple revealed a long-medium-short duration pattern at the beat level in both the fiddler's and the dancers' periodic movements. The results also revealed a correspondence between how the fiddler and the dancers executed the motion patterns. This correspondence suggests that the performers share a common understanding of the underlying “feel” of the music. The results are discussed in light of recent theoretical perspectives on the multimodality of human perception. It is argued that the special feel of telespringar derives from embodied sensations related to the dance and how music and dance have developed in tandem over time. The study advocates a holistic view of music and dance, the importance of insider experience, and the role of embodied experience in guiding our understanding of the music as such.

There’s More to Timing than Time

“…microrhythms of the music (Blom, 1981;Broughton & Stevens, 2009;Kilchenmann & Senn, 2015;Toivainen et al, 2010). Similarly, in genres where music and dance are closely related, cues for the metric structure are present in the dance (Haugen, 2016(Haugen, , 2021.…”

An integrated review of music cognition and rhythmic stimuli in sensorimotor neurocognition and neurorehabilitation

“…By choosing a genre of music (e.g., salsa music) that features frequent displacement dissonances that arise when the established clave pattern is flipped, paused, or broken and whose grouping dissonances rarely occur, the author shows that dancers tend to respond to these metric disruptions. The Norwegian telespringar —a music and dance tradition that has developed in tandem over time and features a nonisochronous meter (i.e., a temporal organization where the durations between adjacent beats are unequal)—may have derived from embodied sensations related to the dance 65 . Adjustment to complexities in the meter may be explained by a historical analysis of choreography in eighteenth‐century dances.…”

“…The Norwegian telespringara music and dance tradition that has developed in tandem over time and features a nonisochronous meter (i.e., a temporal organization where the durations between adjacent beats are unequal)-may have derived from embodied sensations related to the dance. 65 Adjustment to complexities in the meter may be explained by a historical analysis of choreography in eighteenth-century dances. These dances promoted the development of hypermetrical hearing (i.e., a high-level rhythmic structure).…”

Collectively Classical: Connectedness, Awe, Feeling Moved, and Motion at a Live and Livestreamed Concert

“…The folk tunes were a selection of Irish and Nordic folk tunes arranged by the Danish String Quartet, namely (i) a set of three by Turlough O’Carolan: Mable Kelly, Planxty Kelly, and Carolan's Quarrel with the Landlady; (ii) Stædelil; (iii) Halling efter Haltegutten; (iv) Unst Boat Song; (v) Lovely Joan; and (vi) Halling by Fredrik Sjölin, the DSQ cellist. The folk genre is often associated with folk dances that co-develop as music–dance styles, and engagement through movement is often a characteristic feature of folk performances (e.g., with Norwegian telespringar ; Haugen, 2021). Watching past performances by the Danish String Quartet provided insights into how an audience might experience the concert.…”