Synchronization

Synchronization generally entails the alignment of two or more events in time. Synchronization in musical contexts pervading the world’s cultures takes diverse forms. Ensemble musicians synchronize the sounds that they produce and the expressive body movements that accompany their performances. Orchestral musicians synchronize with the gestures of a conductor. Dancers in pairs and larger groups synchronize their body movements with respect to one another and a musical accompaniment. People march in synchrony with music in military parades and religious processions. These examples illustrate that although synchronization is primarily a temporal process, in musical behaviour it often also involves the coordination of actions in terms of spatial arrangement and intended goals, which may be aesthetic, communicative, and social in nature. Empirical research on musical synchronization has adopted multiple perspectives, drawing on theoretical concepts and investigative methods from fields within the humanities, the psychological sciences, and the biological sciences.