Effect of reverberation time on the accuracy of keeping tempo in drum performance

This study examined how the accuracy of keeping tempo in drum performance changes with varying room acoustics using electronic drum performance tasks. Tempo accuracy was quantified by the difference between the time the drum was struck and the “perfect timing” based on the task's tempo (BPM; beats per minute). A positive value indicates that the performance was slower than the ideal tempo; conversely, a negative value indicates a faster performance. A larger absolute value of it shows that the performance was inconsistent, while a smaller absolute value shows an accurate performance. In the task, room reverberation time (RT), type of drum sound (Sound), and BPM were used as explanatory variables, while tempo accuracy was the objective variable. As a result, an Aligned Rank Transform ANOVA showed that RT, BPM, and Sound were significant factors influencing tempo accuracy. A significant interaction was also found between RT and BPM, indicating that varying room acoustics affect tempo accuracy. To further classify tempo accuracy, clustering was performed using the k-means method. The clustering revealed groups strongly influenced by the performer, suggesting that whether a performance is faster or slower than the ideal tempo depends on individual performance tendencies.