Learning to Feel the Time

Abstract

Abstract When musicians talk about playing with good time, they refer to the ability to keep a regular, steady pulse or beat. However, they often use the term ‘time feel’ interchangeably with time. Musical time, to performers, is as much about a feel as it is about keeping a steady beat. Time and feel are particularly important aspects of performance for percussionists/drummers since their attack placement is critical and undeniable in its immediacy. How does a percussionist learn to play and feel time? How do musicians in different cultures learn and think about time? And how can empirical research inform performers of pulse-based music? This chapter examines these questions from the perspectives of Western and non-Western musicians and from the disciplines of ethnomusicology, rhythmic theory, poetry, neuroscience, and music perception and cognition.