The Power of Anacrusis

Abstract

In 1966, Charles Keil introduced the term “engendered feeling” to capture a crucial aspect of jazz performance practice, that certain something beyond notation that performers add to music to make it “swing.” Engendered feeling subsumes the sense of rhythmic propulsion that Andre Hodeir once referred to as “vital drive,” the impulse that makes music come alive and induces listeners to movement. It stems, Keil insisted, not from syntactical processes that can be represented in common musical notation, but from musicians’ use of expressive microtiming at the sub-syntactical level in sustaining a rhythmic groove, a phenomenon he later dubbed “participatory discrepancies.” Research on expressive microtiming in jazz and other groove-based musics has largely followed suit and neglected the relevance of syntactical pattern for the production of engendered feeling. By contrast, I propose that engendered feeling arises from the systematic interaction of participatory discrepancies with aspects of syntactical pattern. Supplementing Christopher Hasty’s theory of metric projection with empirical research on expressive microtiming, I show how participatory discrepancies, operating at the sub-syntactical level, condition the way we experience rhythmic grooves at the syntactical level specifically through the operation of anacrusis at multiple levels of rhythmic structure, for it is the strategic manipulation of anacrusis that drives an effective groove. Analysis of the ride rhythm in jazz, the basic rock drumbeat, and the groove pattern of Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon” illustrate how variations in timing serve either to enhance or attenuate the affective power of anacrusis, leading to subtle differences in engendered feeling.

Microtiming in Swing and Funk affects the body movement behavior of music expert listeners

“…In 1995, Keil took notice of microtiming studies by Prögler ( 1995 ) and Alén ( 1995 ) that gave evidence for the existence of temporal PDs (Keil, 1995 ). Prögler's and Alén's studies were early examples of a substantial body of timing analyses that, starting in the 1980s, revealed systematic microtemporal patterns in the performance of music in different beat-oriented genres (Rose, 1989 ; Alén, 1995 ; Prögler, 1995 ; Collier and Collier, 1996 , 2002 ; Repp, 1999 ; Busse, 2002 ; Friberg and Sundström, 2002 ; Doffman, 2005 , 2008 , 2009 ; McGuiness, 2005 , 2006 ; Benadon, 2006 , 2009 ; Butterfield, 2006 ; Pfleiderer, 2006 ; Senn, 2007 , 2011 ; Honing and Haas, 2008 ; Polak, 2010 ; Brandmeyer et al, 2011 ; Kilchenmann and Senn, 2011 ; Naveda et al, 2011 ).…”

Calls and Responses

“…Importantly, all these take Hasty's theory out of the somewhat rarified world of score‐based Western ‘art’ music and into the active participatory musicking processes of collective vernacular expressions. This follows a trend set in motion by Robin Attas (2011 and 2015), Matthew Butterfield (2006) and myself (Stover 2009) and continued by, among others, Garrett Michaelsen and John Roeder, as seen in their contributions to this forum, which is to enlist Hasty's theory of metric projection to help account for temporal processes which can be heard to occur in different global and popular music contexts 4…”

Backbeat placement affects tempo judgments.

“…Although our experiments were not designed to directly address the perception of the metrical hierarchy, we would be remiss if we failed to acknowledge the impact of our study on the apparent impasse between traditional metric theory and the seemingly vital role that backbeat serves in the musical styles in which it is commonplace. Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s (1983) theory would explain backbeat as a surface-level, rhythmic phenomenon; yet, many scholars have argued that backbeat serves as a governing, orienting force in specific repertories (Attas, 2014; Biamonte, 2014; Butterfield, 2006; Iyer, 2002; Kozak, 2018; Kubik, 2010). Our results suggest that, in style-specific conditions such as those presented in our experiments, backbeat is a musical feature to which listeners readily attend.…”

“…Kubik (2010, p. 45) referred to the backbeat as “the structural core of the musical piece” that enables “singers, drummers, and dancers … to find their bearings.” Furthermore, several scholars argue that the backbeat coordinates the movements of musicians and listeners (Attas, 2014; Iyer, 2002; Kozak, 2018; Zbikowski, 2004), a perspective supported by ethnographic interviews with musicians (Attas, 2014). With this in mind, scholars such as Attas (2014), Butterfield (2006), and Zbikowski (2004) have each adapted various theories to account for backbeat as a metric phenomenon, rather than a rhythmic one…”