Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The perception of beat and meter is fundamental to the perception of rhythm, yet modeling this phenomenon has proven a formidable problem. This paper outlines a dynamic model of beat perception in complex, metrically structured rhythms that has been described in detail elsewhere (Large, 1994; Large & Kolen, 1994). A study is described in which pianists performed notated melodies and improvised variations on these same melodies. The performances are analyzed in terms of amount of rubato and rhythmic complexity, and the model's ability to simulate beat perception in these melodies is assessed.