Research into rhythmic deficits in Parkinson’s:

Previous research has demonstrated that people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) have difficulties with the perceptual discrimination of rhythms, relative to healthy controls…. insight into how people with PD process and perceive rhythm can refine our understanding of the well known problems of temporal processing in the disease

Subjective judgments of rhythmic complexity in Parkinson’s disease

In this study, conducted over the internet,

People with PD rated all rhythms as more complex across tempi, with significant group differences in complexity ratings at 120 and 150bpm, but not at 90bpm. Our analysis found a uniform elevated baseline for complexity judgments in the PD-group, and a strong association between the two groups’ rank-ordering the rhythms for complexity. This indicates a preserved ability to discriminate between relative levels of complexity. …we speculate that Parkinson’s disease affects judgment of complexity but not judgment of likeability.

So if I understand this correctly, folks with PD find rhythms, especially faster rhythms, to be more complex than do “normal” people.

As for me, I will still prefer syncopated rhythms, especially calypso, maybe because I heard them when I was too young to remember. Military marches in 2/4 time no longer appeal to me. In fact, I believe that the march that I wrote in high school during band camp, “To The Rear March, ” had a syncopated melody, but I can’t swear to it. Guess I’ll have to dig up the old sheet music and take a look.

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