While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
- In 2011, Keller and Schubert asked thirty-five musicians to rate syncopated and unsyncopated rhythms for complexity, arousal, tension, happiness, and enjoyment.
- Keller and Schubert: Syncopation “produces expectancy violations...by emphasizing weak temporal locations and de-emphasizing strong locations.”
- Keller and Schubert: “Complexity, arousal, and tension ratings did not correlate significantly with enjoyment...[but] happiness ratings did.”
- Keller and Schubert: “Syncopated rhythms were enjoyed more and considered happier than unsyncopated rhythms.”
- Ethan Hein: “If you place your rhythmic accents where listeners expect them, then the music gets boring fast. If you place them where listeners don’t expect them, that’s where the fun starts.”