Analysis of musical rhythm complexity measures in a cultural context

Eight measures of musical rhythm complexity are compared to each other using two families of real-world rhythms: subsaharan African timelines and North Indian talas. The complexity measures that are designed to measure syncopation, and that agree with human judgements, also agree with each other across the two families. Thus they may be considered as culturally robust measures, at least for these two families of rhythms. Furthermore, according to these measures the African timelines are more complex than the North Indian talas. On the other hand, the more mathematical measures of complexity are less culturally robust, and suggest that some North Indian talas are more complex, in this sense, than the African timelines.

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