Congruence in Music and Movement Enhances the Perception of Sports Routine Quality

Resumen

Most studies of music and sports relate to the ergogenic effect of synchronization between music and movement in repetitive sports activities. As in dance, music is clearly important for sports routines that involve choreography. This study performs an experiment involving a rhythmic gymnastics routine to investigate whether increasing the congruence between music and movement enhances the quality of sports routines from a musical perspective. In preparing the video stimulus, the original music accompaniment was replaced with a new composition to increase the congruence between music and movement using six musical parameters that parallel dance, including tempo, rhythm, phrasing, accent, direction and dynamic. Fifty-two undergraduate music majors participated in the study and evaluated two videos of the same routine, one with the original music and the other with the new music. The participants completed a three-part questionnaire: the first part evaluates the perceived congruence between music and movement in terms of the six parameters, the second part evaluates acrobatic qualities, and the third part evaluates athletic qualities. The results show that the intended congruence was perceived as significantly improved in the routine with the new accompaniment, and both the acrobatic and sports qualities were also perceived as significantly improved.

Keywords: perceived congruence, sports routine, music and movement, choreomusical, music and sports

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS  

The research was funded by the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) FRGS/1/2016/SS107/UPM/02/2, Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia.