Cargando…

Accuracy of Tempo Judgments in Disk Jockeys Compared to Musicians and Untrained Individuals

Professional disk jockeys (DJs) are an under-studied population whose performance involves creating new musical experiences by combining existing musical materials with a high level of temporal precision. In contemporary electronic dance music, these materials have a stable tempo and are composed wi...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Foster, Nicholas E. V., Beffa, Lauriane, Lehmann, Alexandre
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8525396/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34675835
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.709979
_version_ 1784585682092556288
author Foster, Nicholas E. V.
Beffa, Lauriane
Lehmann, Alexandre
author_facet Foster, Nicholas E. V.
Beffa, Lauriane
Lehmann, Alexandre
author_sort Foster, Nicholas E. V.
collection PubMed
description Professional disk jockeys (DJs) are an under-studied population whose performance involves creating new musical experiences by combining existing musical materials with a high level of temporal precision. In contemporary electronic dance music, these materials have a stable tempo and are composed with the expectation for further transformation during performance by a DJ for the audience of dancers. Thus, a fundamental aspect of DJ performance is synchronizing the tempo and phase of multiple pieces of music, so that over seconds or even minutes, they may be layered and transitioned without disrupting the rhythmic pulse. This has been accomplished traditionally by manipulating the speed of individual music pieces “by ear,” without additional technological synchronization aids. However, the cumulative effect of this repeated practice on auditory tempo perception has not yet been evaluated. Well-known phenomena of experience-dependent plasticity in other populations, such as musicians, prompts the question of whether such effects exist in DJs in their domain of expertise. This pilot study examined auditory judgments of tempo in 10 professional DJs with experience mixing by ear, compared to 7 percussionists, 12 melodic instrumental musicians, and 11 untrained controls. Participants heard metronome sequences between 80 and 160 beats per minute (BPM) and estimated the tempo. In their most-trained tempo range, 120–139 BPM, DJs were more accurate (lower absolute percent error) than untrained participants. Within the DJ group, 120–139 BPM exhibited greater accuracy than slower tempos of 80–99 or 100–119 BPM. DJs did not differ in accuracy compared to percussionists or melodic musicians on any BPM range. Percussionists were more accurate than controls for 100–119 and 120–139 BPM. The results affirm the experience-dependent skill of professional DJs in temporal perception, with comparable performance to conventionally trained percussionists and instrumental musicians. Additionally, the pattern of results suggests a tempo-specific aspect to this training effect that may be more pronounced in DJs than percussionists and musicians. As one of the first demonstrations of enhanced auditory perception in this unorthodox music expert population, this work opens the way to testing whether DJs also have enhanced rhythmic production abilities, and investigating the neural substrates of this skill compared to conventional musicians.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8525396
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-85253962021-10-20 Accuracy of Tempo Judgments in Disk Jockeys Compared to Musicians and Untrained Individuals Foster, Nicholas E. V. Beffa, Lauriane Lehmann, Alexandre Front Psychol Psychology Professional disk jockeys (DJs) are an under-studied population whose performance involves creating new musical experiences by combining existing musical materials with a high level of temporal precision. In contemporary electronic dance music, these materials have a stable tempo and are composed with the expectation for further transformation during performance by a DJ for the audience of dancers. Thus, a fundamental aspect of DJ performance is synchronizing the tempo and phase of multiple pieces of music, so that over seconds or even minutes, they may be layered and transitioned without disrupting the rhythmic pulse. This has been accomplished traditionally by manipulating the speed of individual music pieces “by ear,” without additional technological synchronization aids. However, the cumulative effect of this repeated practice on auditory tempo perception has not yet been evaluated. Well-known phenomena of experience-dependent plasticity in other populations, such as musicians, prompts the question of whether such effects exist in DJs in their domain of expertise. This pilot study examined auditory judgments of tempo in 10 professional DJs with experience mixing by ear, compared to 7 percussionists, 12 melodic instrumental musicians, and 11 untrained controls. Participants heard metronome sequences between 80 and 160 beats per minute (BPM) and estimated the tempo. In their most-trained tempo range, 120–139 BPM, DJs were more accurate (lower absolute percent error) than untrained participants. Within the DJ group, 120–139 BPM exhibited greater accuracy than slower tempos of 80–99 or 100–119 BPM. DJs did not differ in accuracy compared to percussionists or melodic musicians on any BPM range. Percussionists were more accurate than controls for 100–119 and 120–139 BPM. The results affirm the experience-dependent skill of professional DJs in temporal perception, with comparable performance to conventionally trained percussionists and instrumental musicians. Additionally, the pattern of results suggests a tempo-specific aspect to this training effect that may be more pronounced in DJs than percussionists and musicians. As one of the first demonstrations of enhanced auditory perception in this unorthodox music expert population, this work opens the way to testing whether DJs also have enhanced rhythmic production abilities, and investigating the neural substrates of this skill compared to conventional musicians. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-10-05 /pmc/articles/PMC8525396/ /pubmed/34675835 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.709979 Text en Copyright © 2021 Foster, Beffa and Lehmann. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Foster, Nicholas E. V.
Beffa, Lauriane
Lehmann, Alexandre
Accuracy of Tempo Judgments in Disk Jockeys Compared to Musicians and Untrained Individuals
title Accuracy of Tempo Judgments in Disk Jockeys Compared to Musicians and Untrained Individuals
title_full Accuracy of Tempo Judgments in Disk Jockeys Compared to Musicians and Untrained Individuals
title_fullStr Accuracy of Tempo Judgments in Disk Jockeys Compared to Musicians and Untrained Individuals
title_full_unstemmed Accuracy of Tempo Judgments in Disk Jockeys Compared to Musicians and Untrained Individuals
title_short Accuracy of Tempo Judgments in Disk Jockeys Compared to Musicians and Untrained Individuals
title_sort accuracy of tempo judgments in disk jockeys compared to musicians and untrained individuals
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8525396/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34675835
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.709979
work_keys_str_mv AT fosternicholasev accuracyoftempojudgmentsindiskjockeyscomparedtomusiciansanduntrainedindividuals
AT beffalauriane accuracyoftempojudgmentsindiskjockeyscomparedtomusiciansanduntrainedindividuals
AT lehmannalexandre accuracyoftempojudgmentsindiskjockeyscomparedtomusiciansanduntrainedindividuals