Desain, P., & Honing, H. (1991). Tempo curves considered harmful. A critical review of the representation of timing in computer music. In Proceedings of the 1991 International Computer Music Conference. San Francisco: Computer Music Association

Abstract

In the literature of musicology, computer music research and psychology of music, timing and tempo measurements are mostly presented in the form of continuous curves. The notion of these tempo curves is dangerous, despite its widespread use, because it gives its users the false impression that a continuous concept of temporal flow has an independent existence - a musical or a psychological reality, and that time can be perceived independent of the events carrying it. But, if one bases a transformation or manipulation of timing on the implied characteristics of such a notion, this is doomed to fail.

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