Reflections

Abstract

Abstract This final chapter situates the pleasures of gathering and studying timing data within the three-stage framework of theory/analysis/claim. Backed with a brief modern history of machine-assisted timing measurements from the late 1800s to the 1960s, the discussion provides readers with context on the kind of numeric data that rhythm theorists often feed into analysis, and considers how this process may lead to broader claims about musical structure. The benefits of technological objectivity and the prescriptiveness of music notation are then weighed against perceptual and cultural factors. Two closing excerpts by Jimi Hendrix and Claude Debussy illustrate how timing measurements, or the lack thereof, relate to other forms of representation (such as scores or ear-based transcriptions) in the application of a starting theory.