51黑料

Rainer Polak

Associate Professor
Image of Rainer Polak
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Email rainer.polak@imv.uio.no
Room 323
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Visiting address Department of Musicology ZEB Building 2nd floor Sem S忙lands vei 2 0371 OSLO
Postal address Department of Musicology P.O. Box 1017 Blindern 0315 51黑料

Bio

Rainer Polak is Associate Professor in Interdisciplinary Rhythm Research at the RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion and at the  at the University of 51黑料. Prior to that, he held researcher positions at RITMO (2022鈥2024), MPI for Empirical Aesthetics (2017-2022), and HfMT K枚ln (2011-2016). His study background is in social anthropology and African studies (MA 1996 and PhD 2002, University of Bayreuth).

At RITMO, Polak leads a research project funded by the Research Council of Norway, DjembeDance&苍产蝉辫;(2023鈥2027).

Publications

* joint first authors

Polak, R. (2025). From Mali to Ghana: Pulsation Non-Isochrony in West African Percussion Music Genres. Analytical Approaches to African Music, 1(1). 

Lenc, T., Lenoir, C., Keller, P. E., Polak, R., Mulders, D., & Nozaradan, S. (2025). Measuring self-similarity in empirical signals to understand musical beat perception. European Journal of Neuroscience, 61(2), e16637. 

Jacoby, N., Polak, R., Grahn, J. A., Cameron, D. J., Lee, K. M., Godoy, R., Undurraga, E. A., Huanca, T., Thalwitzer, T., Doumbia, N., Goldberg, D., Margulis, E. H., Wong, P. C. M., Jure, L., Rocamora, M., Fujii, S., Savage, P. E., Ajimi, J., Konno, R., . . . McDermott, J. H. (2024). . Nature Human Behaviour. 

London, J., Jacoby, N., & Polak, R. (2022). . In D. Shanahan, J. A. Burgoyne, & I. Quinn (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Music and Corpus Studies. Oxford University Press.

Polak, R., & London, J. (2022). T. In L. Shuster, S. Mukherji, & N. Dinnerstein (Eds.), Trends in Word Music Analysis (pp. 143鈥159). Routledge.

Polak, Rainer, & Doumbia, Noumouk茅 (2022). . In A. v. B. Wharton & D. Urbanavi膷ien臈 (Eds.), Dance and Economy, Dance Transmission: Proceedings of the 31st Symposium of the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) Study Group on Ethnochoreology (pp. 282鈥290). Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.

Jakubowski, Kelly*; Polak, Rainer*; Rocamora, Mart铆n; Jure, Luis & Jacoby, Nori (2022). . Cognition, 227, 105205.

Polak, Rainer (2022). . In M. Doffman, E. Payne, & T. Young (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Time in Music (pp. 252鈥274). Oxford University Press. 

Jacoby, Nori*; Polak, Rainer* & London, Justin* (2021). . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B,376(1835).

Polak, Rainer (2021). . In V. Apjok, K. Poved谩k, V. Sz艖nyi, & S. Varga (Eds.), Dance, Age and Politics: Proceedings of the 30th Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Ethnochoreology (pp. 67鈥82). University of Szeged.

Polak, Rainer*; Jacoby, Nori*; Fischinger, Timo; Goldberg, Daniel; Holzapfel, Andre & London, Justin (2018). . Music Perception, 36(1), 1鈥23.

Polak, Rainer (2017). . Empirical Musicology Review, 12(3-4), 205鈥226.

London, Justin*; Polak, Rainer* & Jacoby, Nori* (2017). . Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 24(2), 474鈥480.

Polak, Rainer*; London, Justin*; & Jacoby, Nori* (2016) . Frontiers in Neuroscience, 10, 285. 

Polak, Rainer & London, justin (2014) . Music Theory Online 20(1). 

Polak, Rainer (2010) . Music Theory Online 16(4).

Polak, Rainer (2007). . Anthropos 102(1), 3鈥18.

Polak, Rainer (2004) Festmusik als Arbeit, Trommeln als Beruf. Jenbe-Spieler in einer westafrikanischen Gro脽stadt. Berlin: .

Polak, Rainer (2000). . The World of Music, 42(3), 7鈥46.  Reprint (2006) in J. Post (ed.), Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader (pp. 161鈥185), NY: Routledge Press.

Published June 9, 2022 12:07 PM - Last modified June 27, 2025 12:12 PM

Projects

External links

  • Profile on
  • Field recordings from Mali on 
  • with lots of audio, video, and other stuff

Research interests

  • Music and dance from Mali;

  • Biological constraints, social learning, and cultural variation in rhythm perception and production;

  • Multimodality in rhythm performance and perception;

  • Performance and audiency beyond the concert hall.

Performance as a research method: Polak plays accompaniment in the context of apprenticing to master djembe drummer Jeli Madi Kuyate, at a name-giving celebration in Bamako (1994).

Research approach

Polak's research focuses on case studies of drumming and dance practices from West Africa, while at the same time also developing comparative perspectives on cross-cultural variation in human rhythm perception and production. This research aims at integrating approaches from the humanities and the social, computational, and cognitive sciences. Such breadth requires support and close collaboration with colleagues, including music theorist and music cognition researcher , computational scientist and cognitive scientist , (ethno)musicologist , and cognitive neuroscientist , among others.

Parallel to his career as a researcher, and especially during gaps in his academic career, Polak also worked as a freelancer and taught djembe drumming. Throughout his career, he has worked as closely and sustainably as possible with Malian artists. First and foremost,  due to their enormous artistic generosity. At the same time, he has endeavored to provide platforms for their artistic work in the Global North, e.g., in the form of  and the repeated organization of concert and workshop tours.