A cross-cultural comparison study of the production of simple rhythmic patterns

It has been argued that Japanese and western musicians give different impressions to the listener when performing western music (Saito, 1999; Shibata, 1987). However, these claims are mostly based on subjective impressions and very few studies provide corroborative empirical evidence. The aim of the present study is to compare Japanese and western musicians with regard to timing. Japanese and Dutch percussionists performed nine kinds of rhythmic patterns consisting of two intervals, under two conditions, in three tempi. There seemed to be a tendency for the Japanese participants to perform 4:1, 5:1, 1:4 and 1:5 patterns with a smaller duration ratio than instructed, although performance of patterns with ratios closer to 1 were similar between the participant groups.