Knowledge Bank

Is beat salience an accurate way to measure groove? Does personal identification with the music affect groove ratings? Weigl (2016) lists 24 17-second clips from Rock/Pop/Electronic Dance Music genres in categories of high, medium, and low beat salience. To determine if beat salience influences groove perception, participants in my pilot study completed a Likert scale for each of Weigl's clips, ranging from "1 = no need to move" to "7 = dance party!"; the results suggest that this phrasing is an effective operationalized proxy for groove and beat salience. Participants also filled out social surveys to see if a propensity towards social connectedness would influence groove perception (GP). There was a weak correlation between GP and feeling connected to the musical environment. This connected feeling was correlated with prior emotional engagement with music. Self-construal as an independent or interdependent person did not have any correlation with GP; this result suggests that the intersection of musical and social elements in groove should focus on the musical environment, rather than self-construal elements.