Groove: A Phenomenology of Rhythmic Nuance

Notice that, on my view, the role of body movement is very different from the way these movements are often characterized, where a movement is considered to be an effect caused by the music.

The noncognitive grasping of a groove by moving to the pulse, and the feel that informs this motor-intentional activity, are two sides of the same coin: to “get” a groove just is to comprehend it bodily and to feel that comprehension.

vis-à-vis

I will claim that hearing, grasping, understanding, “getting” a groove requires actual body movement.

A perfect example of this is the song “What About Us?” by Brandy.

First, as I have already indicated, grooves have a feel; to put this another way, a groove has a conspicuous affective dimension.

We can render grooves effable by: (a) describing them via metaphor and comparison; (b) describing the perceptions in terms of the figure/ground structure (where the grooves are gestalts, and the timing variations are a part of the background); and (c) clarifying how the background features show up and function in experience in terms of Merleau-Pont

through bodily activities

The fourth intuition combines those above: feeling a groove, and understanding it, does not occur in thought, nor in listening alone, but through the body.