Are you in sync?

Last Sunday a group of girls and I were talking (ie, I was monologuing) about Microrhythms (Although I was wrongly calling them Biorhythms. Nice, Sara ).

I couldn't remember where I had read about them first, so I promised to put some links together (not sure if anyone really cares but this is going to make it a lot easier to find them the next time I want to refresh my memory or want to sound smart ;) ...). I couldn't remember where I had read about them first. But after some memory prodding (mine and others) I figured out it was from The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, which by the way, is an excellent read.

And then while searching for a good article to describe it, I found the actual book on Google reader and it even contains the pages where he describes Microrhythms. So lo and behold, The Tipping Point: Microrhythms (Pages 81-83)

One of the things that makes me love the idea of microrhythms is that it ties in nicely with Nate Wilson's book, Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl. Nate Wilson (if I remember correctly!) talks about God singing the world into existence and preserving it through song. Song means beat, and as micro rhythms make clear, we all have a beat. Thus every time we cough, stretch or fidget, not only may we be doing it in response to someone else's nonverbal cue, we are really participating in the grand song of life, God's song.

And if you want to read more...

Microexpressions is the same theory related to facial expressions.

There is also The Wizards project that found people who were adept in telling if someone was lying by looking at their facial and body movements.

Want to know how this applies to marriage and spouses? Then, of course, there's John Gottman. He studied micromovements of couples arguing. Laurie Abraham writes that, "he (Gottman) could pick out future divorcees 91 percent of the time based on coding a mere five-minutes of tape."

And if you really want another link, here's a paper dealing with Microrhythms and empathy.