Scientific explanation of "groove"

[S1dewinder]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groove_%28music%29

This article on wikipedia prooves that when something is beyond man's understanding, he tries to explain it with a lot of way too complex sounding words, in the end making no sense at all.

Do you think groove can actually be interpreted scientifically? Or can it only be "felt"?

[Time Consumer]

Yeah, i love how every explanation is basically the same, that whole thing could be just one or two sentences.

[J.D.B.]

Hmm. Reminds me of the famous quote:"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture".(FZ).
Josh

[IanStephenson]

I'm sure it CAN be analysed scientifically. Just because it hasn't been done well (or at leatst the WP version sucks), doesn't mean it's not possible.

For example you could take a good drummer playing simple beat with different feels, on an electronic kit, against a click track. You'd be able to measure EXACTLY which beats he was pushing or pulling, and by how much. You could then take that information, and apply it to a computer generated version, demonstrating that moving the beats around in that specific way generates the required feel. You might find that thought the drummer pushes the high hat, it in fact only required a push in the bass/snare.

Of course whether a groove has been acheived is subjective, but there are plenty of soft-sciences which deal with subjective opinions. From there you could add a bass player, and measure his feel against a drum machine, then start pushing/pulling parts of the drum pattern, and see how he reacts to stay "in the pocket".

It has a hypothesis (that groove is in micro-adjustments in timing), and an experiment which tests it. That's science... Of course such a simple experiment doesn't tell you everything about groove - but then one experiment never tells you everything anyway. There's always more to discover about anything - particularly something as elusive as "groove".

Ian

[matthewbrown]

The study of psychoacoustics has advanced considerably, and yes, groove can be explained, or at least described. But like pitch acuity, the ability to sense rhythm and the passage of time varies. I find it odd that so much dance music today is so dependent on electronic metronomic time, which is so relentless. Disco and hip-hop/rap sound like machine hammers to me because the time is so unvarying (along with the repetition of short melodic motifs). Any style that moves away from human time, with all its flaws, winds up leaving me cold, although it certainly gets dancers on the floor, so what do I know?

[Questor]

Originally Posted by J.D.B.

Hmm. Reminds me of the famous quote:"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture".(FZ).
Josh

LOL This is a good one.

[Correlli]

bit like trying to reinvent the wheel.

Groove = Rhythm + Melody

[Tommy el Gato]

I find that the Wiki article isn't so far off, except that the comparison to swing is a tad misleading. I guess I just like reading stuff that's really wordy.

[Jazzdogg]

Originally Posted by [url

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groove_%28music%29[/url]

The term groove is used to describe the sense of propulsive rhythmic "feel" or sense of "swing" created by the interaction of the music played by a band's rhythm section (drums, electric bass or double bass, guitar, and keyboards). The term is mainly used in the context of genres outside of Western art music, such as funk, rock music, power groove, fusion, and soul.

While some musicians have called the concept of "groove" a subjective and elusive notion, they acknowledge that the concept is well-understood by experienced musicians at a practical, intuitive level. Funk and latin musicians refer to "groove" as the sense of being "in the pocket", and jazz players refer to groove as the sense that a jam session is really "cooking" or "swinging."

Musicologists and other scholars began to analyse the concept of "groove" in the 1990s. They have argued that a "groove" is an "understanding of rhythmic patterning" or "feel" and “an intuitive sense" of "a cycle in motion" that emerges from "carefully aligned concurrent rhythmic patterns" that sets in motion dancing or foot-tapping on the part of listeners.

Looks fairly succinct and straightforward to me.
Perhaps S1dewinder needs to do a better job of explaining exactly why he finds this WP entry objectionable.

[Correlli]

No mention of melody anywhere in the article.

[S1dewinder]

Originally Posted by Jazzdogg

Looks fairly succinct and straightforward to me.
Perhaps S1dewinder needs to do a better job of explaining exactly why he finds this WP entry objectionable.

What you quoted is the better part of the wiki article. What really explained the groove to me (yes, I didn't really know what the word means before:-P) is the following part:

Bernard Coquelet argues that the "groove is the way an experimented musician will play a rhythm compared with the way it is written (or would be written)" by playing slightly "before or after the beat." Coquelet claims that the "notion of groove actually has to do with aesthetics and style"; "groove is an artistic element, that is to say human,...and "it will evolve depending on the harmonic context, the place in the song, the sound of the musician's instrument, and, in interaction with the groove of the other musicians", which he calls "collective" groove." Minute rhythmic variations by the bass can dramatically change the feel as a band plays a song, even for a simple singer-songwriter groove.

In that matter, the article is OK. But have you read further down? Check the "Theoretical analysis" paragraph, that's what caught my attention, and left me wondering, whether something, that comes to you instinctively, can be summed in some cold, scientific article (maybe the scientist even isn't musician, and knows the groove only from listeners perspective?)

Theoretical analysis

UK musicologist Richard Middleton (1999) notes that while "the concept of groove" has "long [been] familiar in musicians' own usage",musicologists and theorists have only more recently have begun to analyze this concept. Middleton states that a groove "... marks an understanding of rhythmic patterning that underlies its role in producing the characteristic rhythmic 'feel' of a piece." He notes that the "feel created by a repeating framework" is also modified with variations. "Groove", in terms of pattern-sequencing, is also known as "shuffle" - where there is deviation from exact step positions.

When the musical slang phrase “Being in the groove” is applied to a group of improvisers, this has been called "an advanced level of development for any improvisational music group" which is "equivalent to Bohm and Jaworski’s descriptions of an evoked field", which systems dynamics scholars claim are "forces of unseen connection that directly influence our experience and behaviour.[8]Peter Forrester and John Bailey argue that the "chances of achieving this higher level of playing" (i.e., attain a "groove") is improved when the musicians are "open to other’s musical ideas", "complemen[t] other participant’s musical ideas", and "taking risks with the music".[9]

Turry and Aigen cite Feld's definition of groove as “an intuitive sense of style as process, a perception of a cycle in motion, a form or organizing pattern being revealed, a recurrent clustering of elements through time." Aigen states that “when [a]groove is established among players, the musical whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts, enabling a person […] to experience something beyond himself which he[/she] cannot create alone (Aigen 2002, p.34). "[10]

Jeff Pressing's 2002 article claimed that a "groove or feel" is "a cognitive temporal phenomen emerging from one or more carefully aligned concurrent rhythmic patterns, charaterized by...perception of recurring pulses, and subdivision of structure in such pulses,...perception of a cycle of time, of length 2 or more pulses, enabling identification of cycle locations, and...effectiveness of engaging synchronizing body responses (e.g. dance, foot-tapping)” [11]

It just seems like an overkill to me, as I said in my first post, "when something is beyond man's understanding, he tries to explain it with a lot of way too complex sounding words, in the end making no sense at all. "

SO, what I wanted to ask is, what is your opinion? Can groove be 100% explained theoretically or not? It is kinda supposed to be a phisolophical debate=)

[Festus]

Groove is the space between your butt cheeks.

[Deacon_Blues]

A groove has very much to do with dynamics as well.

[Jazzdogg]

Originally Posted by S1dewinder

SO, what I wanted to ask is, what is your opinion? Can groove be 100% explained theoretically or not? It is kinda supposed to be a phisolophical debate=)

First of all, Wikipedia is not a rigorous "scientific" encyclopedia; anyone can make an entry, irrespective of its correctness or perspective: it's up to other Wiki readers to proof-read and correct Wiki entries - which is why its content is often more subjective than objective.

Secondly, your initial post was more of a snarky comment than an objective evaluation - the pot calling the kettle black, if you ask me. If you do a search of TalkBass you'll find several threads that have attempted to answer such questions as what constitutes groove. Human beings have always attempted to use language to describe and define the world around them; to do so in a Wiki entry is human nature.

Do you have a specific disagreement with something the Wiki author said? Is it your argument that "groove" cannot be defined or accurately described in writing? Or is it that you simply do not care for the way the author expressed himself?

"Can groove be 100% explained theoretically or not?" Do you believe this is what the Wiki author was trying to do? I find the premise of your question overly simplistic; IMO, people looking for simple answers to complex questions are seldom satsfied.

[Chebass88]

That wiki article is hardly a scientific explanation of anything, much less an elusive quality that musicians define as "groove".

A definition of groove as something that "... marks an understanding of rhythmic patterning that underlies its role in producing the characteristic rhythmic 'feel' of a piece." is so generic that it can describe ANY piece of music. Edgar Varese's "Ionisation" can be said to "groove", or Crum's 20th century compositions can be said to "groove". So, as long as you understand the rhythmic patterns, it is a groove. I can map out the rhythmic patterns of the diesel truck outside in the driveway at work - is that sufficient?

Yes, it is possible to create a definition of "groove" for a particular style of music, but given the human element, it is damn near impossible. You could define a series of polyrhythms and patterns that, when played toegther, would constitute a given style of music, however, this is not the mystical, ethereal quantity we refer to as "a groove", or "to groove".

If given a bottomless funding source, I would gladly devote my life to the careful and scientifically verifiable definition of the "groove".

imp

[MarkTAW]

Originally Posted by matthewbrown

The study of psychoacoustics has advanced considerably, and yes, groove can be explained, or at least described. But like pitch acuity, the ability to sense rhythm and the passage of time varies. I find it odd that so much dance music today is so dependent on electronic metronomic time, which is so relentless. Disco and hip-hop/rap sound like machine hammers to me because the time is so unvarying (along with the repetition of short melodic motifs). Any style that moves away from human time, with all its flaws, winds up leaving me cold, although it certainly gets dancers on the floor, so what do I know?

+1

Aretha can get me on the dance floor far easier than an electronic 120 bpm pseudogroove.

What's even worse is when Aretha gets me on the dance floor, but I realize it's Aretha sped up to match the 120 bpm pseudogroove of the other songs. BAD DJ. BAD. Now go sit in the corner.

[bluehevy75]

We are all taking a great deal about the subjectivity in music/groove. And the subjectivity is definetly there. That said, when we talk about sound (groove does have something to do with sound) though there is an element of physics involved.

Sound travels in a wave and waves can be studied by physics. I haven't studied sound waves a lot. But I know from my own playing and listening to others that if a bass note is cut off wrong on the back end it tends to be muddier and not have as much groove. But if it is cut off right is has that round, punchy, and consistent sound.

You know you have to cut the sound wave off when it is getting back to zero. Maybe think about it like a sine curve. You don't want to cut it off at the highest or lowest point in the vibration. You want to cut it off so that the front end (again at zero) and the back end sound and look the same.

Someone who knows more about physics could explain it better but I know some of you know what I'm talking about.

[Blueszilla]

Meh.

IMO I don't see any possibility on a definition that would satisfy everyone, since groove apparently has several components, each with varying degrees of importance. As others stated, mostly subjective.

I like the articles assertions and personally can identify with several points, so arguably, it's at least as good a definition as any, probably better than most.

As far as the OP's question, I'm sure it can be interpreted scientifically, as the wiki article is certainly an interpretation.

This is a non-question, rhetorical. Ponder away fellas, but for me, I don't need an analysis. Why?

[Audiophage]

Originally Posted by MarkTAW

+1

Aretha can get me on the dance floor far easier than an electronic 120 bpm pseudogroove.

What's even worse is when Aretha gets me on the dance floor, but I realize it's Aretha sped up to match the 120 bpm pseudogroove of the other songs. BAD DJ. BAD. Now go sit in the corner.

DJ's actually do that? That's terrible.