Welcome to tap the groove study!

Do you find yourself tapping your fingers to the rhythm of a song? We're fascinated by this everyday experience and want to understand how we translate the sounds of a drum kit (kick, snare, cymbals, etc.) into simpler tapping patterns. Imagine tapping a beat with one hand—do certain drum parts stick in your mind more than others? To explore this, we have designed an experiment where you'll listen to eleven different drum grooves and replicate them by tapping the space bar on your keyboard.

This will take ~20 min., depending on how many tapping entries you wish to submit.

Here is an overview of the study parts:

Parts 2-4: Concept, consent, and questionnaire
Part 5: Instructions
Parts 6-16: Play time! Listen & tap the grooves
Part 17: Final questionnaire and the end.

For any issues or clarification, feel free to contact Dr Çağrı Erdem

What's this all about?

Music makes us move. When you hear or think of a groovy song, you might find yourself nodding your head or swaying to the rhythm. Sometimes, we don't just follow the beat—we actively play the rhythm in our own way.

How so? Well, it's quite common to tap on a table or drum on your body to the beat of a song stuck in your head. Even if you haven't done it yourself, you've probably seen someone else doing it.

Picture this: you're driving to work, stopped at a red light. The car next to you is blasting a catchy song, and the drum beat hooks you instantly. The light turns green, they drive off, but that beat sticks with you. Before you know it, you're tapping out that groove on your steering wheel with one hand.

How does that happen? What parts of the rhythm do you remember the most? How do you manage to tap a whole drum beat with just one hand?

In our tap the groove study, we're diving into this exciting phenomenon. We want to see how people from different musical backgrounds, cultures, and age groups recreate drum grooves through simple tapping on a non-musical interface like a computer keyboard.

Consent Form

Are you interested in taking part in the tap the groove study?

Please read the consent form (Ref. #303868) below carefully. You must agree to the terms and conditions contained within to participate in this study.

Purpose of the project

You are invited to participate in a research project whose main purpose is to understand how we tap rhythms based on a drum groove we listen to. In this study, the user accesses a website, listens to a drum groove, tries to tap the rhythmic pattern they perceive on the computer keyboard, and repeats that process a couple of times.

This study is a crucial step in an ongoing larger project on developing musical AI bots and continuously assessing users’ quality of experience during interaction. In particular, the knowledge from this study will help us develop perceptually-based loss and accuracy metrics for the machine learning models we create for musical purposes.

Which institution is responsible for the research project?

The Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo is responsible for the project (data controller).

Why are you being asked to participate?

You volunteered to participate upon hearing about this study in your social networks. The only requirement to participate is to have a normal hearing and having access to a computer with a physical keyboard. In particular, we designed this study to be conducted on the web to reach a wide range of users from different countries and cultures, age and gender groups, varying experience in music-making, and expertise in music technology tools.

What does participation involve for you?

Following this consent form, you will fill out a questionnaire on your demographics, health condition, and experience in music-related topics.

You will then proceed to an 11-step data collection part of the study. In each step, you will listen to a 2-bar drum groove as often as you wish and then play & record rhythms by tapping on the computer keyboard’s space bar. Again, you can record as many takes as you want to in every step.

The study is fully anonymized from the beginning. As you see on the screen's top-right corner, you are randomly assigned a unique “participant ID.” Every tapped rhythm you play & record will be added to a database with your participant ID, the groove ID, the take number, timestamp, and geo-location (city and country).

Participation is voluntary.

If you choose to participate, you can withdraw your consent at any time without giving a reason. All information about you will then be made anonymous. You will have no negative consequences if you choose not to participate or later decide to withdraw.

Your personal privacy – how we will store and use your data?

We will only use your data for the purpose(s) specified here, and we will process your personal data in accordance with data protection legislation (the GDPR). The database is secured in an NREC (Norwegian Research and Education Cloud) virtual machine.

What will happen to your personal data at the end of the research project?

The planned end date of the project is March 2027. The data, which is already fully anonymized, will be available to fellow researchers for further investigation and analysis.

Your rights:

Access the personal data that is being processed about you
Request that your personal data be deleted
Request that incorrect personal data about you be corrected/rectified
Receive a copy of your personal data (data portability)
Send a complaint to the Norwegian Data Protection Authority regarding the processing of your personal data

What gives us the right to process your personal data?

We will process your personal data based on your consent.

Based on an agreement with The Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, The Data Protection Services of Sikt – Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research has assessed that the processing of personal data in this project meets requirements in data protection legislation.

Where can I find out more?

If you have questions about the project or want to exercise your rights, contact:

The Department of Informatics, University of Oslo via Dr. Çağrı Erdem.

Our Data Protection Officer: Roger Markgraf-Bye.

If you have questions about how data protection has been assessed in this project by Sikt, contact:

Email: personverntjenester@sikt.no
or by telephone: +47 73 98 40 40.

Yours sincerely,

Project Leader
Dr. Çağrı Erdem

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I have received and understood information about the project [insert project title] and have been allowed to ask questions. I give consent to participate in the data collection and questionnaire(s).

(Please click on the checkbox below to sign the form)

I have read and agree to the consent form.

Please fill out the questionnaire:

Instructions

Thank you for participating in our tap the groove study! In the upcoming parts, you will experience various drum grooves. Listen to each groove, then use the space bar on your keyboard to tap the rhythm you remember, and finally rate your performance. You will begin with a test session, then proceed through eleven study steps, each featuring a different drum groove.

Here is a detailed video explanation:

You are done with all the steps!

Thank you for your participation.

Finally, please fill out the following form:

Thank you for your participation. You can now leave.