physiology of internal timing?

Well, humans have a pretty impressive circadian rhyhtm, which influences many functions in our body. For example, the temperature inside our body is always fluctating in a 24-hour cycle, even if there is no clue at all to the body what time of the day it is.
I seem to recall that it wasn't 24 hours but was closer to 25 hours but it gets reset/synched up with exposure to light (this is why light exposure at the right time can help with jet lag). There were studies done with volunteers who spent weeks (months?) in a cave with no indication of what time it was and their "day" IIRC was somewhere around 25 hours.

On the point of the "internal metronome", I agree that it requires training for most (all?) of us to develop but the basic ability is built-in. The human brain is basically just a great pattern recognition engine and a beat or rhythm is just a pattern in time rather than space. Brains, human and otherwise, have evolved to detect patterns as that is the way to survive. Even short term pattern detection is useful - if you can synch yourself up with the loping gait of the antelope or the up/down beat of a bird's wings then it would be easier to catch it and eat it and so eventually procreate.

I seem to recall that it wasn't 24 hours but was closer to 25 hours but it gets reset/synched up with exposure to light (this is why light exposure at the right time can help with jet lag). There were studies done with volunteers who spent weeks (months?) in a cave with no indication of what time it was and their "day" IIRC was somewhere around 25 hours.

The cycle is, on average, slightly longer then 24 hours but it's not exactly the same for each person. Exposure to experimental light treatment can increase the cycle to almost 25 hours and decrease it to somewhere between 23 and 24 hours. If you stretch it beyond those limits by introducing artificial days of 22 or 26 hours the circadian rhythm can't keep up anymore and falls out of sync, often getting closer to the original, natural, circadian rhythm. The results of this are pretty dramatic and cause plenty of problems, for example, in the utmost northern regions of scandinavia. With such minimal exposure to sunlight things get really messed up pretty fast.

BTW, as far as I know psychology hasn't used caves too much lately, we use laboratories for that. ;)

Psychology so simple a caveman can do it!

BTW, as far as I know psychology hasn't used caves too much lately, we use laboratories for that. ;)

No, I'm pretty sure that caves and underground bunkers were used for the sleep cycle experiments becaue they could be pretty much guaranteed to be free from day / night cycle signals - the light was blocked and so was the heating/cooling cycle that accompanies the diurnal cycle. At least that's what I remember from the articles that I had read.

In fact. in just a quick Google search I came across quite a few such experiments where caves were used ranging from the early days of sleep research by Kleitman who did experiments in Mammaoth Cave in 1938 to more recent ones done for NASA in Carlsbad Cavern in 2001. It sure seems like caves are in use for certain kinds of sleep research.

thx u friends,great things talked here..thx u n thx u..keep talking about cicardian ryhthm...i am interested... :)

some of us have it, and some of them don't

I was introduced to an idea of anti-rhythmic music. I thought about it for a while and then attempted it. Extremely dificult for me. Very wierd concept.

Example: try keeping the beat to the sticks playing in the background in the scene when the crazy marine kills the sargent in boot camp in "Full Metal Jacket".

Humans tend to do everything a little too short if they don't use a metronome to practice. Especially sustained notes and rests, they will almost never be the right length if the person doesn't use a metronome and then count while playing.

Counting is the real secret. Most everyone will count the notes that they play, but the really good people count every pulse, even the rests.

That is why it can be harder to perform a slow song correctly. If the song is fast then there is no time to mess up, but if you have 2 second rests and 3 second sustains then things can be very tricky, and next to impossible if you don't count.

And then of course once you learn how to play with perfect time they tell you that playing with perfect time is actually bad in most classical songs. Chopin's noturnes for example were written to be performed with strict rubato (tempo changes) that is left up to the performer to interpret, it is literally wrong to play them in perfect time.

Humans tend to do everything a little too short if they don't use a metronome to practice. Especially sustained notes and rests, they will almost never be the right length if the person doesn't use a metronome and then count while playing.

Yes and no - it's fairly easy to slot into a groove, a certain rhythm at so many BPM - but it is hard to gauge the exact BPM without a metronome or drummer! A couple of years ago, Wes Inman posted a tab for the rhythm guitarist's part to "Reelin' In The Years" by Steely Dan..... it took me a couple of weeks to get the changes nice and smooth, I practised it every day because I REALLY wanted to be able to play that song. I had to adapt certain chords slightly and make it easier for me - but it's not that different to the tab. Then when I put a CD in to play along with, I noticed I was WAY too slow - at least 20 BPM.

Nowadays, if I'm learning a new song, I'll put the original on and try and play along - it'll be sloppy at first, but once I get the timing right, it's fixed in my head. I'll know, if I'm playing the song with another guitarist, whether I'm too fast or too slow. But - all it takes is practise!

:D :D :D

Vic

Its easy if someone else is keeping time for you. (like a drummer or a CD) Try playing that same thing alone.

I wasn't talking about playing the song at 100 bpm if thats what the artist did. I meant that even if you end up playing it at 80 bpm, you won't stay at exactly 80 bpm. You will make your sustains and rests too short. In the classical world the rests are the parts that are performed wrong most frequently.

Not trying to sound rude, but even if you THINK your playing in perfect time you most likely are not. Even if you are playing with someone else and you play in sync with them, that does not mean that you were keeping perfect time. Unless you've put the work in with a metronome, most humans simply do not naturally keep perfect time. I certainly don't.

It is certain we have internal clocks, if I fail to set my alarm I will almost always wake up within 2 minutes of when it would have gone off anyway. That cannot be coincidence. That said, our timing is not perfect, and some people have a better sense of time than others.

I agree with Dneck, very slow songs can be the most difficult to keep good time on. Keeping good time involves careful listening and feeling the pulse of the music. I think it is important to tap your foot to keep good time. During long rests or long sustained chords I will always tap my foot and pay attention to it to come back in on the beat.

Super fast music gives me problems too, but I think this is more physical. It is difficult (for me anyway) to play sixteenth notes consistently at beats of 160 BPM or higher. It is not that I can't follow the pulse of the music, I simply have difficulty picking uniformly at speeds like this.

As for the 24 hours day, that was not an invention of man's, a day is very close to 24 hours long. If you check the weather you will see that the sunrise is almost 24 hours after the last sunrise (varies according to the season, but usually not by more than 2 minutes per day).

Don't believe in evolution, it is based on pure chance. The Sun rising every 24 hours and the Earth revolving around the Sun
approx. every 365 1/4 days is evidence of structure and order, not chance.

Well you know some scientists would argue that sleep is a purely evolutionary response designed to keep us away from predators during the night time, when we are at a severe disadvantage.

Humans don't really need to sleep for any special reason, we simply do.

Take bears for example, they hibernate for months at a time. They certainly don't need 2 months of sleep, but it keeps them from starving to death during the winter when hunts would be scarce. Every animal's sleep pattern can be traced back to a competitive advantage.

As for the 24 hours day, that was not an invention of man's, a day is very close to 24 hours long

But that is only considered "true" because we all agree that 60 seconds make a minute, and 60 minutes make an hour, which fits very neatly into each 24 hour day.

I could argue that *my* day is actually 30 hours long, because each of *my* hours is only 48 minutes long; this covers the exact same quantity of time, just in a different method.
Everyone would immediately say that this is wrong; that there are 24 hours in a day, and 60 minutes in an hour - but this is only because we all agree to adhere to this structure. Ask yourself the question;
Why is an hour 60 minutes long?

I'll bet the only answer anyone can come up with is "because it just is!" which is just our blind acceptance of this 'fact' that we are all taught as children.

There is no actual, hard-written rule that states "an hour is 60 minutes" beyond our complete acceptance of it, because the entire concept of an hour is a purely human creation.

I'm not saying that TIME is a human creation (although, technically it could be) - obviously, time moves forwards. But the way in which we LABEL this passage of time, is created entirely by us.

This is the case for how everything we have a name or structure for is the way it is - we give a label to an object or observation, and all agree to use that label from now on (which is actually the very essence of having a communicable language).

I know this is off-topic (completely!) and sorry if that seems like a rant, its not meant to be! :lol:

Pete

OK, I said the 24 hour day is not man's invention. Yes, man could deem 30 minutes to be an hour and then the day would be 48 hours long. But the Earth rotating once, going through the cycle of daylight and nightime is really a very sensible and practical way to measure time. Man did not invent the "day". How the day came to be measured in seconds, minutes, and hours would be an interesting subject to study. I am sure that different civilizations used different systems to measure time in the past.

And ancient peoples used the stars and cycles of the Moon to know when to plant and harvest crops. The Moon has a 28 day phase, and many ancient peoples used the cycles of the Moon to measure months and years. Later the position of the Sun in the Zodiac was used, found to be more accurate. The Sun was found to be in the same exact location against the background stars of the Zodiac roughly every 365 days. This is where the modern year came from.

As far as accepting the standard modern measurements of seconds, minutes, and hours, you do not have to accept them if you wish to use another system. But keeping the same units of times helps society operate in a more orderly and efficient manner.

When you go to work Monday, show up whenever you feel like it, and just tell your boss you have a different standard and measurement of time. I'm sure he or she will be completely accepting of your time system. :D

You are right though, we all agree to follow this system. And it is a good system that benefits all of society in general.

I'm sure there are some who object to following anybody's system or rules. They should probably be self-employed or they will run into problems. Customers might object as well.

Not trying to get into any philosophical or religious type discussions (this is not the place), but the Universe itself shows order and complexity. For instance, the Sun is 400 times larger than our Moon, but also happens to be 400 times further from the Earth so that they appear almost exactly the same size in our sky. During a solar eclipse one can see this remarkable fact.

This is astounding when you think about it, that it appears almost exactly the same to us earthbound humans. This cannot be found with any of the other planets and their moons that we have knowledge of. Coincidence?? I have a hard time with that.

But, that is not the discussion, the discussion is time. And music is based on time. Music is complex and orderly, not random and chance.

Last year I was at a workshop presented by Victor Wooten, and one of the things he did was to set up a 4 bar loop (looping pedal) with a single note in it.

A single 1/4 note, followed by 15 quarter rests.

Then he proceeded to jam with no other rhythm or timing reference, and he hit that note in the loop bang on, every time it came around.

It's quite a site to see a room full of musicians with their jaws on the floor.

here's a link to a sample chapter of his book, where he talks about timing, and the exercise he showed us. (the relevant part starts on page 115)

Last year I was at a workshop presented by Victor Wooten, and one of the things he did was to set up a 4 bar loop (looping pedal) with a single note in it.

A single 1/4 note, followed by 15 quarter rests.

Then he proceeded to jam with no other rhythm or timing reference, and he hit that note in the loop bang on, every time it came around.

It's quite a site to see a room full of musicians with their jaws on the floor.

here's a link to a sample chapter of his book, where he talks about timing, and the exercise he showed us. (the relevant part starts on page 115)

That excerpt is great! I can only imagine the rest of the book is just as good. Thanks for posting it.

Jeff