Expressive Timing

Different Principles of Timing Variations

Microtiming is the variation of timing within a small context of a few notes. One example of a performance principle is duration contrast, which emphasizes the difference between different duration categories by lengthening relatively long notes and shortening relatively short notes. Another example is double duration, which represents a special case, only occurring in duration patterns of 2:1 (e.g., a half note followed by a quarter note). In this case, the long note is shortened and the short note is lengthened. A third example is local melody accents. A prominent note such as the peak in a melodic phrase is often accentuated by making local increases of dynamics and note duration.

Metrical patterns are repeated timing patterns that are limited to a specific metrical level, for example, the measure. One example is Viennese waltz, where a characteristic expressive variation is found regarding the duration of the three beats [Page 441]in the bar. The pattern for the three beats in this case is typically short-long-intermediate and seems to be specifically connected to this musical style.

Another, very common metrical variation is the long-short pattern found in traditional jazz (swing), in folk music, and in baroque music (notes inégales). In jazz, this applies to eight notes that divide the beat in two notes. It has been notated either as even eight notes marked “swing” or by a dotted eight note followed by a sixteenth note. Both are just approximations of the actual ratio of the long-short pattern, which typically is played somewhere in between these extremes depending on tempo, style, instrument, and personal playing style (for example, the measurements by Anders Friberg and Andreas Sundström).

Phrasing is the relatively longer variation of tempo and dynamics over phrase units. This expressive device is particularly prominent in music from the Romantic period often exhibiting large variations in both tempo and dynamics. Phrasing is typically realized in terms of an arch-like variation of tempo, thus starting slow, speeding up in the middle, and then slowing down toward the end of the phrase. Different phrasing levels are typically expressed with a more pronounced ritardando for longer phrase units. Thus, this expressive device is to a large extent used for conveying the musical structure.

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