McGill University Insights: The Science Behind Playing Music in Sync

McGill University Insights: An activity that brings people together is music. Synchronisation is the cornerstone of all musical interactions, from orchestral play to applause from audiences. What, though, explains our capacity to behave in unison with a group or click with someone?

In order to learn more about how musicians synchronise their music creation in groups, Professor Caroline Palmer of McGill University and Professor Alexander Demos of the University of Illinois Chicago are integrating mathematics and social theory.

“The tendency for humans to time our behaviours to those of others is known as synchronisation. Many survival abilities depend on it, and it may have an effect on how we see our interactions with the other members of our group. In fact, prior studies have demonstrated that synchronous rhythmic actions like clapping, making music, dancing, marching, and drumming make people more sociable, according to Professor Palmer, who also holds the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience of Performance.

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Musicians use synchronisation frequently because it enables them to play their notes simultaneously. Musical synchronisation is the capacity to produce musical tones that are almost simultaneous. Despite several research on interactions, such as musical duets, Professor Palmer claims that no one has been able to figure out how to assess synchronisation in bigger groups.

In the course of a performance, musicians frequently form altering subgroups, and within these altering subgroups, various performers frequently assume various roles. All of this has an impact on synchrony, which is why the professors suggest a novel approach to understanding it that combines social theory, which is used to investigate groups, with nonlinear dynamical theories, a branch of mathematics used to comprehend complicated systems.

Alexander Demos and Caroline Palmer’s article “Social and nonlinear dynamics unite: musical group synchrony” appeared in Trends in Cognitive Sciences.