Musical Performance

1. Musical Performance • Musical performance in broad sense • Children’s play songs, hymn or folk singing, dancing to music • All merit investigation in own right • Musical performance in narrow sense • Performer or group of performers self-consciously enact music for audience • In Western culture performed music often not written by person involved in performance • Talk about this sense of performance • Most contemporary research about this type of performance • There is an objective record of performer’s “intentions”

2. Introduction • Performance Planning • Representation and performance planning • Practising • Sight Reading • Practising • General characteristics • Eye movements • Sight reading and memorizing • Relation to musical structure • Improvisation • Feedback in performance • Motor processes in performance • General questions • Motor exercises • Theories of motor skill • Empirical investigations • Eye movements • Expressive movements • Measurements of performance • Measurement procedures and data analysis • Early investigations • Contemporary investigations • Comments • Models of music performance • Models based on measurements • Models based on Intuitions • Comments • Physical factors in performance • Medical problems • Hearing impairment • Stress factors • Psychological and social factors • Development • Personality • Music as occupation • Performance anxiety • Performance evaluation Musical Performance Organizational structure of empirical research on musical performance Gabrielsson (1999)

3. Musical Performance Number of papers in different areas of music performance research Gabrielsson (1999)

4. Measurement of Music Performance Measurement procedures and data analysis Types of note durations • Internote interval, interonset interval, dii: • The duration from the beginning of one tone to the beginning of the next tone • Duration in-out, dio: • The duration from the beginning of one tone to its end • Note articulations: • Legato – Successive notes overlap. Thus, dio > dii • Staccato – The first tone ends before the second tone begins. Thus, dio < dii

5. Measurement of Music Performance Timing and dynamics • Hypothesized duration relations

6. Measurement of Music Performance Percent deviation from mechanical regularity in note duration Gabrielsson (1987)

7. Measurement of Music Performance Reasons for deviations from mechanical regularity • Helps to make musical structure clear • Helps make clear performers’ musical intentions • Study by Palmer (1989)

8. Measurement of Music Performance Performer’s intentions and musical performance Palmer (1989)

9. Models of Music Performance Models based on measurements Todd (1989)

10. Models of Music Performance Models based on intuitions • Johann Sundberg’s performance rules • Manfred Clynes (Clynes, 1987) • Hierarchical pulse: One can feel a specific pulse in music, with the nature of the pulse unique to each composer • Hierarchical pulse for Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn:

11. Models of Music Performance Models based on intuitions • Johann Sundberg’s performance rules • Manfred Clynes (Clynes, 1987) • Hierarchical pulse: One can feel a specific pulse in music, with the nature of the pulse unique to each composer • Predictive amplitude shaping: The amplitude of each tone depends on what tone follows it, and when

12. Performance Planning Representation and performance planning Schematic illustration of serial distance and phrase structure manipulations Palmer and Van de Sande (1995)

13. Performance Planning Representation and performance planning Musical excerpt manipulating serial distance and phrase structure planning Palmer and Van de Sande (1995)

14. Sight Reading Eye movements in sight reading

15. Sight Reading Proof-reader’s errors in sight reading

16. Motor Processes In Performance Theories of motor skill • Closed-loop theory • Sensory information produced from movement is fed back to central nervous system and compared with internal referent o check for discrepancies • Open-Loop or motor programming theory • All movement parameters are specified in a motor command, and the movement runs to its completion without alteration • All movement parameters are specified in a motor command, and the movement runs to its completion without alteration

17. Motor Processes In Performance Theories of motor skill • Schema theory • There are abstract representations of classes of motor actions, generalized motor programs, out of which a wide variety of movements can be generated • Bernstein’s degrees of freedom approach • The number of combinations of muscle settings for different movements is too large to be managed by a controlled executive • Thus, muscles are not individually controlled but function in muscle linkages or coordinated structures, which act as functional units