This page displays the tempo curves for two performances of Chopin's
Mazurka in A minor, Op. 7, No. 2. The first row displays a performance by
Ignaz Friedman in 1930, and the second row displays the tempo curve
for Frederic Chiu in 1999.
Each plot represents 8 bars of music. The red/blue dots show the actual tempo
for each beat measured fairly accurately directly from the audio file.
The black middle curve represents the average of 20 tapping trials trying
to identify the tempo. The light gray outer curves are the minimum and maximum
tempo values tapped during the 20 trials. The dark gray lines in between
each of the outer lines and the central line is the 95% confidence level of the
true average of the 20 tapping trials.
When the dots are outside the range of the light gray lines, it is probable that this represents a sort of surprise for the listener, or in this
particular case the person tapping to the music. Even after listening to the
performance for twenty times, the tapper could not match the tempo around
those particular beats.
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