Analysis of Synchronization of Hand Clapping at Music Listening by Live Performance and DVD Performance

Abstract

  The present study was undertaken in order to investigate the differences of listener’s collective hand clapping responses to different performance forms of live performance and DVD reproduction performance mainly from the viewpoint of beat synchronization. The experimental tune is a piano performance of “Twelve Variations on ‘Ah vous dirai-je, Maman’” (k. 265) (Mozart). The clapping pulse of the listener was digitally recorded to a computer using gloves with electrodes attached. The clap of quarter note level was extracted and analyzed. As a result, it was found that the beat synchronization degree of the listener group in the live performance was higher than the DVD reproduction performance, and the live performance group was better aligned with the timing of the clapping. As a result of Fourier series expansion of the chronological data for Variation 12, the live performance group hierarchically changed the clapping structure in the time interval. It indicated that they recognized that the beat changed from 2 beat to 3 beat.