If you’ve ever played music with someone, even just tapping a beat on a table, you’ve probably felt a sense of connection. And now, researchers are confirming what many musicians and music lovers already suspected: you don’t have to be perfectly in sync to feel close to someone while drumming.
A recent study, published in Frontiers in Cognition, looked at how different ways of drumming together might affect how people feel about each other. Do we feel more connected when we drum at the same time? Or does it still work if we take turns? The answer, it turns out, is both.
The study involved 106 university students, paired into 53 duos. Each pair was randomly assigned to one of three groups. Some participants drummed solo. Others drummed together in perfect unison (what researchers call “in-phase”). A third group drummed in an alternating back-and-forth rhythm (“anti-phase”). The drumming exercises were intentionally kept easy so even people with no musical experience could join in without stress.
Before and after the drumming activity, everyone completed short surveys that asked about trust, emotional connection, and how similar they felt to their partner. They also participated in a trust-based game involving small amounts of money to see whether the experience influenced how generous or cooperative they were.
What did the researchers find? While behavior in the trust game didn’t change much, most people were pretty cooperative from the beginning: the participants who drummed together reported something different: they felt closer. Whether they were in perfect sync or taking turns, those who played as a pair felt more trusting, more emotionally positive, and more connected than those who played alone.
One of the more surprising findings was that it didn’t seem to matter whether people were drumming together at the exact same time or alternating rhythms. Both approaches led to similar levels of connection. This challenges an older idea that only synchronized movement builds social bonds. In fact, the researchers suggest that just doing something rhythmic together, regardless of exact timing, can spark a sense of unity.
This might help explain why so many musical traditions around the world include call-and-response patterns or staggered rhythms. It’s not always about matching beats; it’s about sharing the experience.
Of course, like any study, there were some limits. Since most participants were already pretty trusting in the beginning, there wasn’t a lot of room for change in the game itself. And small tempo differences between groups might’ve influenced how things felt. But overall, the takeaway is simple and meaningful.
Even if your timing is a little off, sharing rhythm with someone can still bring you closer. And in a world that often feels out of sync, that’s a pretty beautiful thing.