Disrupting Musical Time, c. 1300–1600

ongoing

The organization of time is fundamental to how we perceive and understand music. Different aspects of musical time have been extensively studied (such as how meter and rhythm relate, the connection between musical time and memory, the continuity of musical time, etc.), but so far limited scholarly attention has been given to syncopation, a way of disrupting the regularity of musical time. Specifically, modern scholars and musicians understand syncopation as the shifting of a stressed beat before or after its normal position. But the definition and perception of syncopation actually underwent dramatic changes between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries. This project will reevaluate the early history of syncopation (c.1300–1600) in notated Western music, exploring the relevant theoretical sources and connecting them to musical practice in contemporaneous compositions, in order to create a more detailed and accurate representation of the phenomenon. Thus it will broaden our knowledge of how musical time was conceived and will further our understanding of meter and rhythm in music as a whole.