An Experimental Study of Selected Variables in the Performance of Musical Durational Notation

rTHE ACHIEVEMENT OF high-quality standards of performance in rhythm is a goal of all conscientious music teachers and conductors of performing organizations. Substantial research in the areas of reading and performance of musical durational notation can be a significant aid toward the achievement of this goal. Most of the studies in the field of rhythm during the first half of this century were performed by psychologists, and practically none of them attempted to measure response to actual notation. Those studies that did use notation did not attempt to measure the rhythmic response with a high degree of temporal accuracy. Even today, many excellent studies involving response to notated rhythm have relied upon subjective evaluation of the response to the notation. This study was basically exploratory in nature and its general purpose was two-fold.1 First, it was an exploration of the way trained players actually respond to rhythmic notation; and second, it was an attempt to develop a highly accurate instrumentation which would measure precisely the increments of time involved. Thus the scoring of error went beyond the usual "right or wrong" and attempted to measure exactly "how right" or "how wrong." The study was highly limited in the amount of information it attempted to uncover, but the results have pointed out some new directions in which future research in rhythmic response can be