RHY.7:11 - SoTA-Echoing

Toussaint’s The Geometry of Musical Rhythm (2020), chapters 8 and 17, supplies interval constructions and distinctions among mathematical, cognitive and performance complexity. Adopt the constructions with their declared equivalences; do not promote a geometric feature into a universal perceptual or educational result.

Senn and colleagues (2024) found no overall effect of perceived complexity on urge-to-move ratings for their forty idiomatic drum patterns. Their comparison with earlier syncopation studies makes stimulus selection and the operational meaning of complexity consequential. This limits a universal “choose medium complexity” instruction; it neither disproves every earlier inverted-U result nor establishes the best pattern for a particular performance.

The ordered-gap and actuator cases here are constructions from stated inputs. The general comparison and choice disciplines remain A.19.CPM and C.11, with C.16 for measurement interpretation. The rhythmic contribution is selecting and relating features that matter to the performance question.

Spiech and colleagues’ meter comparison (2025) found different complexity–groove relationships for common and less-common meters among Western listeners. This reinforces retaining the metrical reference and relevant preparation in :4.2–:4.4. Familiarity is an explanatory interpretation, not a universal causal result or a recommendation to choose medium complexity.