Extending the Parallel Multiple-Analysis Processor

Abstract

This article revisits the issue of perceived meter in rhythmically irregular post-tonal music by way of Danuta Mirka’s (2009) dynamic model of meter. Her model, which is a parallel multiple-analysis processor in the sense of Jackendoff (1991), accounts for rapidly fluctuating sensations of meter in the real-time listening process, while maintaining local regularity as a defining feature of metric processing. I offer two extensions to her model—one concerning the perceptual processing of non-isochronous meter and the other concerning meter in multiple perceptual streams—along with applications to music by Carter, Webern, Barber, Babbitt, Feldman, and Adès.