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Rhythmic precision in the performance of piano scales: Motor psychophysics and motor programming.
Abstract
the present study investigated rhythmic precision in the performance of piano scales
we had two related goals: first, to provide motor psychophysical functions for scales performance, and second, to make inferences about motor programming
we asked how tempo and unimanual or bimanual playing conditions would affect piano performance (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
... the present study approaches this question by investigating piano scale playing. Piano scale playing has been used successfully to study expert motor control in musicians because it is well trained among pianists (Wagner 1971;MacKenzie and Van Eerd 1990;Jabusch et al. 2004Jabusch et al. , 2009van Vugt et al. 2012van Vugt et al. , 2013a. additionally, understanding the scale playing movement is important in itself since it is frequently used as a metric of severity of musician's dystonia (Jabusch et al. 2004;van Vugt et al. 2014). ...
... the present study did not find evidence for this prediction. timing deviations were qualitatively different at fast and slow tempi, as suggested by previous findings (MacKenzie and Van Eerd 1990). the distributions of the temporal deviations vary strongly between different notes in the scales, in line with previous findings (van Vugt et al. 2012Vugt et al. , 2013b. ...
Humans are capable of learning a variety of motor skills such as playing the piano. Performance of these skills is subject to multiple constraints, such as musical phrasing or speed requirements, and these constraints vary from one context to another. In order to understand how the brain controls highly skilled movements, we investigated pianists playing musical scales with their left or right hand at various speeds. Pianists showed systematic temporal deviations away from regularity. At slow tempi, pianists slowed down at the beginning and end of the movement (which we call phrasal template). At fast tempi, temporal deviation traces consisted of three peak delays caused by a thumb-under manoeuvre (which we call neuromuscular template). Intermediate tempi were a linear combination trade-off between these two. We introduce and cross-validate a simple four-parameter model that predicted the timing deviation of each individual note across tempi (R
2 = 0.70). The model can be fitted on the data of individual pianists, providing a novel quantification of expert performance. The present study shows that the motor system can generate complex movements through a dynamic combination of simple movement templates. This provides insight into how the motor system flexibly adapts to varying contextual constraints.
... However, even metronomic playing has been shown to contain the same timing patterns as expressive playing, but to a lesser extent (Repp, 1999a). To avoid this problem, we instead investigated the playing of musical scales (Wagner, 1971;MacKenzie and Van Eerd, 1990). When participants are instructed to play a scale as regularly as possible and in a legato style, there is a clear auditory target of perceptual evenness and it is understood that the task at hand is not to play scales in one's own particular way. ...
... Yet, it is found that musical scales show systematic temporal deviations (MacKenzie and Van Eerd, 1990;van Vugt et al., 2012). These deviations are thought of as the result of perceptual distortions (Drake, 1993), residual expressive timing (Repp, 1999a), or of some note transitions involving more difficult movements (Engel et al., 1997). ...
Whatever we do, we do it in our own way, and we recognize master artists by small samples of their work. This study investigates individuality of temporal deviations in musical scales in pianists in the absence of deliberate expressive intention. Note-by-note timing deviations away from regularity form a remarkably consistent "pianistic fingerprint." First, eight professional pianists played C-major scales in two sessions, separated by 15 min. Euclidian distances between deviation traces originating from different pianists were reliably larger than traces originating from the same pianist. As a result, a simple classifier that matched deviation traces by minimizing their distance was able to recognize each pianist with 100% accuracy. Furthermore, within each pianist, fingerprints produced by the same movements were more similar than fingerprints resulting in the same scale sound. This allowed us to conclude that the fingerprints are mostly neuromuscular rather than intentional or expressive in nature. However, human listeners were not able to distinguish the temporal fingerprints by ear. Next, 18 pianists played C-major scales on a normal or muted piano. Recognition rates ranged from 83 to 100%, further supporting the view that auditory feedback is not implicated in the creation of the temporal signature. Finally, 20 pianists were recognized 20 months later at above chance level, showing signature effects to be long lasting. Our results indicate that even non-expressive playing of scales reveals consistent, partially effector-unspecific, but inaudible inter-individual differences. We suggest that machine learning studies into individuality in performance will need to take into account unintentional but consistent variability below the perceptual threshold.
... Previous scale playing studies computed the SD of the intervals between the subsequent onsets of the keystrokes as a measure of playing unevenness (Seashore, 1938;Wagner, 1971;MacKenzie and Van Eerd, 1990). More recently, this unevenness metric has been shown to be an indicator for pianistic expertise (Jabusch et al., 2009) as well as for sensorimotor coordination deficits in pianists (Jabusch et al., 2004). ...
... Irregularity corresponds to what most previous studies have investigated. We found the irregularity trace is roughly an arc ( Figure 1B), in agreement with widespread findings in the timing literature (Palmer and Krumhansl, 1987;MacKenzie and Van Eerd, 1990;Friberg et al., 2006). That is, playing is slower in the beginning, then speeds up and finally slows down at the end. ...
We investigated how musical phrasing and motor sequencing interact to yield timing patterns in the conservatory students’ playing piano scales. We propose a novel analysis method that compared the measured note onsets to an objectively regular scale fitted to the data. Subsequently, we segment the timing variability into (i) systematic deviations from objective evenness that are perhaps residuals of expressive timing or of perceptual biases and (ii) non-systematic deviations that can be interpreted as motor execution errors, perhaps due to noise in the nervous system. The former, systematic deviations reveal that the two-octave scales are played as a single musical phrase. The latter, trial-to-trial variabilities reveal that pianists’ timing was less consistent at the boundaries between the octaves, providing evidence that the octave is represented as a single motor sequence. These effects cannot be explained by low-level properties of the motor task such as the thumb passage and also did not show up in simulated scales with temporal jitter. Intriguingly, this instability in motor production around the octave boundary is mirrored by an impairment in the detection of timing deviations at those positions, suggesting that chunks overlap between perception and action. We conclude that the octave boundary instability in the scale playing motor program provides behavioral evidence that our brain chunks musical sequences into octave units that do not coincide with musical phrases. Our results indicate that trial-to-trial variability is a novel and meaningful indicator of this chunking. The procedure can readily be extended to a variety of tasks to help understand how movements are divided into units and what processing occurs at their boundaries.
... The principal aim of the present study was to examine the effects of performance tempo on pianists' finger movements and on properties of the sounded tones (tone intensity and temporal variability). Pianists tend to play louder and with greater temporal variability at faster tempi [17,18,19,20], but it is not known how finger movements bring about these effects. Interestingly, musicpedagogical techniques usually promote a principle of economy of finger movement on various instruments [21,22,23], in which performers are encouraged to keep their fingers close to the keys during fast passages in order to conserve energy. ...
... Larger amplitudes of motion at faster tempi may partially compensate for the observed trade-off between speed (tempo) and accuracy (spatial and temporal accuracy) [41]. Fast tempi in piano performance usually entail lower spatial accuracy (more wrong keys pressed; [1,2]) and higher temporal variability [17,18,19]. Skilled performers may adopt movement strategies (e.g., increasing movement amplitude) aimed at containing the deleterious effects of speed on spatial and temporal accuracy at very fast tempi, in order to achieve error-free performances. ...
We examined the effect of rate on finger kinematics in goal-directed actions of pianists. In addition, we evaluated whether movement kinematics can be treated as an indicator of personal identity. Pianists' finger movements were recorded with a motion capture system while they performed melodies from memory at different rates. Pianists' peak finger heights above the keys preceding keystrokes increased as tempo increased, and were attained about one tone before keypress. These rate effects were not simply due to a strategy to increase key velocity (associated with tone intensity) of the corresponding keystroke. Greater finger heights may compensate via greater tactile feedback for a speed-accuracy tradeoff that underlies the tendency toward larger temporal variability at faster tempi. This would allow pianists to maintain high temporal accuracy when playing at fast rates. In addition, finger velocity and accelerations as pianists' fingers approached keys were sufficiently unique to allow pianists' identification with a neural-network classifier. Classification success was higher in pianists with more extensive musical training. Pianists' movement "signatures" may reflect unique goal-directed movement kinematic patterns, leading to individualistic sound.
... The first parameter, t′, was designed to address differences in motor skills. The introduction of t′ was motivated by research suggesting that individual performers differ in the maximum possible speed of performance (MacKenzie & Van Eerd, 1990; R. K. Meyer & Palmer, 2003;Palmer & Meyer, 2000), and that noise in the motor system may contribute to speed-accuracy trade-offs in general (Schmidt, Zelaznik, Hawkins, Frank, & Quinn, 1979). We reasoned that differences in motor abilities may be borne out in different error rates at the fastest tempi. ...
... The first parameter, t′, was designed to address differences in motor skills. The introduction of t′ was motivated by research suggesting that individual performers differ in the maximum possible speed of performance (MacKenzie & Van Eerd, 1990; R. K. Meyer & Palmer, 2003; Palmer & Meyer, 2000), and that noise in the motor system may contribute to speed–accuracy trade-offs in general (Schmidt, Zelaznik, Hawkins, Frank, & Quinn, 1979). We reasoned that differences in motor abilities may be borne out in different error rates at the fastest tempi. ...
The production of complex sequences like music or speech requires the rapid and temporally precise production of events (e.g., notes and chords), often at fast rates. Memory retrieval in these circumstances may rely on the simultaneous activation of both the current event and the surrounding context (Lashley, 1951). We describe an extension to a model of incremental retrieval in sequence production (Palmer & Pfordresher, 2003) that incorporates this logic to predict overall error rates and speed-accuracy trade-offs, as well as types of serial ordering errors. The model-assumes that retrieval of the current event is influenced by activations of surrounding events. Activations of surrounding events increase over time, such that both the accessibility of distant events and overall accuracy increases at slower production rates. The model's predictions were tested in an experiment in which pianists performed unfamiliar music at 8 different tempi. Model fits to speed-accuracy data and to serial ordering errors support model predictions. Parameter fits to individual data further suggest that working memory contributes to the retrieval of serial order and overall accuracy is influenced in addition by motor dexterity and domain-specific skill.
... Ainsi les travaux de Ortmann [4], plus récemment ceux de Wagner [5], Bejjani et al [6] ou Harding et al. [7], s'intéressent tous aux mouvements de la main et des doigts du pianiste. Les travaux de Ortmann [4] et McKenzie et VanEerd [8] montrent ainsi l'influence que peut avoir le choix d'un doigté, en analysant la performance pianistique en fonction des doigts utilisés par le pianiste. Ils utilisent notamment des exercices à base de gammes, où le doigté utilisé est conventionnel. ...
... Nous avons reproduit une expérience menée par MacKenzie et VanEerd [8], en demandant à un pianiste de jouer des gammes avec la main droite, sans expressivité, à des tempi différents. Nous avons analysé les déviations temporelles observées entre la performance musicale et le rythme théorique ainsi que les écarts d'amplitude. ...
Le choix d'un doigté a une influence certaine sur le jeu au piano. S'il est généralement un compromis entre des contraintes physiques et interprétatives, la composante physique a la priorité quand il s'agit de passages musicaux très rapides et techniques. Cet article présente une méthode originale pour trouver automatiquement le doigté optimal d'une mélodie dans ce contexte. En se fondant sur des travaux de biomécanique, nous jetons également les bases d'une méthode d'analyse de la performance pour retrouver le doigté utilisé par l'interprète. Elle utilise la programmation dynamique et intègre des contraintes physiques liées aux enchaînements des doigts.
... The five pianists were found to introduce much larger IOI deviations from nominal than those reported by Repp (1997) and MacKenzie and Van Eerd (1990). ...
Articulation strategies applied by pianists in expressive performances of the same score are analysed. Measurements of key overlap time and its relation to the inter-onset-interval are collected for notes marked legato and staccato in the first sixteen bars of the Andante movement of W. A. Mozart’s Piano Sonata in G major, K 545. Five pianists played the piece nine times. First, they played in a way that they considered (optimal). In the remaining eight performances they were asked to represent different expressive characters, as specified in terms of different adjectives. Legato, staccato, and repeated notes articulation applied by the right hand were examined by means of statistical analysis. Although the results varied considerably between pianists, some trends could be observed. The pianists generally used similar strategies in the renderings intended to represent different expressive characters. Legato was played with a key overlap ratio that depended on the inter-onset-interval (IOI). Staccato tones had approximate duration of 40% of the IOI. Repeated notes were played with a duration of about 60% of the IOI. The results seem useful as a basis for articulation rules in grammars for automatic piano performance.
... Deviations from the musical notation are expected in Western tonal music as part of a performer's artistic license, and it is often difficult to distinguish these artistic deviations from actual errors. For example, the variability of timing and velocity measures in keyboard performances often increases with playing speed ( MacKenzie & Van Eerd, 1990). Therefore, most references to musical errors refer to pitch events, because pitch is relatively fixed by the compositional notation of Western tonal music. ...
The units of knowledge that form cognitive plans for music performance were examined in production errors. In Experiment 1, pianists performed multivoice homophonic music (containing strong across-voice associations) and polyphonic music (containing strong within-voice associations). Pitch errors reflected more chordal (across-voice) units in homophonic performances and more single-note units in polyphonic performances. Error instructions were harmonically and diatonically related to their intended pitches more often than chance, which demonstrates retrieval-based influences on planning. In Experiment 2, pianists conceptualized one of several voices as melody. Both the melody and the voice controlled by outer right-hand fingers (a common location of melody) contained fewer errors, which implies that there are conceptual, retrieval-based, and articulatory influences on units of knowledge that contribute to planning music performance.
... Finally, it is clear that sight readers will need to have acquired adequate motoric skills to perform a piece accurately and expressively. A number of studies have examined the nature of motor programming in piano performance (e.g., MacKenzie & van Eerd, 1990;Shaffer, 1981). ...
Two experiments are described that make use of a pattern-matching paradigm to investigate perceptual processing of music notation. In Experiment 1, it is reported that the speed of comparing two visually presented musical sequences is related to the sight-reading skill of the subjects. The effect of the temporal and pitch structure of the comparison stimuli is also assessed. In Experiment 2, eye-movement recordings were taken as subjects performed the task. These data demonstrated that more experienced musicians are able to perform the comparisons with fever, and shorter, glances between the patterns. These and other findings suggest that skilled sight-reading is associated with an ability to rapidly perceive notes or groups of notes in the score, and confirm that the pattern-matching paradigm is a useful tool in examining expertise in music reading.
... The complexity effect has been replicated many times in various types of tasks, including some that tested alternative explanations for the effect (Anson, 1982; Christina, Fischman, Vercruyssen, & Anson, 1982). However, one prediction of the memory-drum (or phonograph) metaphor – that performance rate for all sequence elements should uniformly slow or quicken – has been falsified in multiple studies of human performance (Heuer, 1988; MacKenzie & van Eerd, 1990; Verwey, 2003b). A distinct line of research has examined skilled performance. ...
A wave of recent behavioral studies has generated a new wealth of parametric observations about serial order behavior. What was a trickle of neurophysiological studies has grown to a steady stream of probes of neural sites and mechanisms underlying sequential behavior. Moreover, simulation models of serial behavior generation have begun to open a channel to link cellular dynamics with cognitive and behavioral dynamics. Here we review major results from prominent sequence learning and performance tasks, namely immediate serial recall, typing, 2 x N, discrete sequence production, and serial reaction time. These tasks populate a continuum from higher to lower degrees of internal control of sequential organization and probe important contemporary issues such as the nature of working-memory representations for sequential behavior, and the development and role of chunks in hierarchical control. The main movement classes reviewed are speech and keypressing, both involving small amplitude movements amenable to parametric study. A synopsis of serial order models, vis-a-vis major empirical findings leads to a focus on competitive queuing (CQ) models. Recently, the many behavioral predictive successes of CQ models have been complemented by successful prediction of distinctively patterned electrophysiological recordings. In lateral prefrontal cortex, parallel activation dynamics of multiple neural ensembles strikingly matches the parallel dynamics predicted by CQ theory. An extended CQ simulation model--the N-STREAMS neural network model--exemplifies ongoing attempts to accommodate a broad range of both behavioral and neurobiological data within a CQ-consistent theory.
... The similarities suggest that it would be worthwhile to explore the perception of legato and staccato in formal listening experiments The plots for T dsu correspond to walking at step frequency as reported by Nilsson and Thorstensson [10] [11]. The KOT curves are the same as in Figure 1, reproducing data reported by Repp [12], Bresin and Battel [9], MacKenzie and Van Eerd [13]. Step and key detached time ...
The control of sound synthesis is a well-known problem. This is particularly true if the sounds are generated with physical modeling techniques that typically need specification of numerous control parameters. In the present work outcomes from studies on automatic music performance are used for tackling this problem.
In expressive music performance, tempo is known to be a fundamental parameter. In this article, we explored effects of changes in musical tempo on performers’ movement articulations. Eight duos (piano– violin) played two pieces at a predefined tempo, after which this start tempo was gradually increased and decreased. Throughout the different performances, we measured acceleration of the violinists’ head and right wrist, together with the downward force applied by their body to the ground surface. We calculated periodicities in downward force using fast Fourier transform (FFT) analyses and tested whether differences occurred across different tempi. Also, we clustered acceleration and force patterns across different tempi using self-organizing maps (SOMs) and k-means clustering. The results show that a continuous change in performance tempo leads to distinct “performance states” with characteristic bodily behavior in terms of periodic body movement and co-articulated gestures, which supports theories of tempo-variant motor control.
It is generally assumed that the score gives a very detailed description of music. However, in the 30:s the music psychologist Carl Seashore and his collaborators showed that musicians departed considerably from the durations and fundamental frequencies nominally given in the score (Seashore 1938). Some 30 years later the Swedish musicologist Ingmar Bengtsson, who untimely passed away last year, resumed in collaboration with Alf Gabrielsson the analysis of music performance and corroborated and complemented these observations.
In this chapter, we explore what happens in the brain of an expert musician during performance. Understanding expert music performance is interesting to cognitive neuroscientists not only because it tests the limits of human memory and movement, but also because studying expert musicianship can help us understand skilled human behavior in general. In this chapter, we outline important facets of our current understanding of the cognitive and neural basis for music performance, and developmental factors that may underlie musical ability. We address three main questions. (1) What is expert performance? (2) How do musicians achieve expert-level performance? (3) How does expert performance come about? We address the first question by describing musicians' ability to remember, plan, execute, and monitor their performances in order to perform music accurately and expressively. We address the second question by reviewing evidence for possible cognitive and neural mechanisms that may underlie or contribute to expert music performance, including the integration of sound and movement, feedforward and feedback motor control processes, expectancy, and imagery. We further discuss how neural circuits in auditory, motor, parietal, subcortical, and frontal cortex all contribute to different facets of musical expertise. Finally, we address the third question by reviewing evidence for the heritability of musical expertise and for how expertise develops through training and practice. We end by discussing outlooks for future work.
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
The present article reports two experiments addressing the question of how we achieve bimanual coordination. The simple reaction time (RT) paradigm was used, employing a repetitive tapping task involving sequences of five taps in which speed and force of tapping were manipulated. In the first experiment, subjects were required to tap synchronously with the right and left index finger. In Experiment 2, subjects were required to produce alternating taps with the right and left index fingers. Three force conditions and four speed conditions were employed in both experiments. Subjects were required to tap all five taps with the same force (no-stress condition), or they were required to accentuate the force on either Tap 2 (stress Tap 2 condition) or Tap 4 (stress Tap 4 condition) with the left hand only. They were instructed to maintain the interval between the taps at either 150, 250, 350, or 450 ms. The results suggest that in synchronous tapping the two hands are coupled temporally and that there is entrainment of force across the two hands. That is, the two hands appear to be under the control of one motor program. Although the hands appeared to be temporally coupled when the subjects were required to perform alternating tapping, there was no evidence of a coupling with force gradation. The implication of these results for motor program theory are discussed.
In simple motor tasks such as finger tapping at different constant rates, within-trial variability of response interonset
intervals (IOIs) increases with IOI duration (which varies between trials). In expressive piano performance, the rate of key
depressions is not constant, in part due to compositional structure and in part due to expressive timing, so that IOIs of
many different durations occur within a single “trial.” Nevertheless, across repeated performances of the same music (Schumann’s
“Träumerei” and Debussy’s “La fille aux cheveux de lin”) at the same intended tempo, the standard deviations of individual
IOIs tend to increase linearly with their average duration. This is also true when the variation is due to expressive timing
alone and when unintended differences in basic tempo between performances are taken into account. In the music studied here,
at least, there was no evidence of compensatory timing. The results suggest that the pianists employed a continuously variable
tempo governed by a flexible internal timekeeper whose variability follows a generalized Weber’s law (for IOIs longer than
about 300 msec).
Music performance is a large subject that can be approached in many different ways. This chapter focuses on empirical research of music performance and related matters. Most of this research is concerned with Western tonal music and mainly art music. Excellence in music performance involves two major components like a genuine understanding of what the music is about, its structure and meaning, and a complete mastery of the instrumental technique. Evaluation of performance included many studies which are reviewed earlier. Evaluation occurs in the everyday activity of music critics, music teachers, and musicians. An overall evaluation is considered as a weighted function of the evaluations in the specific aspects. In order to maintain the tempo and to achieve perceived synchrony, musicians should therefore play a small amount ahead of the beat they hear. With sharp attacks the delay is less, and instruments with sharp attacks may therefore serve as “beat-definers” for the rest of an ensemble. In addition, some attempts are made to predict evaluation of music performances from the physical characteristics of the performances.
Cet article est une contribution au développement d’un champ de recherche peu connu, celui de la didactique de la musique, dans le cadre d’une perspective comparatiste. Dans un premier temps, nous rappelons la relative nouveauté de la didactique de la musique au sein des différentes didactiques disciplinaires, mais aussi de l’adoption du point de vue comparatif ; dans un second temps, nous interrogeons le champ de pertinence d’une théorie qui a été développée en didactique des mathématiques – celle de la transposition didactique – pour le domaine de la didactique de la musique. Plus précisément, nous questionnons un objet particulier des savoirs pianistiques – le doigté – en s’appuyant sur la notion d’organisation praxéologique.
Taxonomy of philosophical theories of Sound: proximal theories; medial theories; distal theories. A distal theory: The Located Event Theory (LET) of sound. Understanding sound and the cognition of sounding objects; ontology of sound according to the LET; epistemology of the perception of sound and sounding objects; auditory images according to the LET; conceptual revisions entailed by distal theories and the LET; replies to objections.
Music performance is based on demanding motor control with much practice from young age onward. We have chosen to investigate basic bimanual movements played by violin amateurs and professionals. We posed the question whether position and string changes, two frequent mechanisms, may influence the time interval bowing (right)-fingering (left) coordination. The objective was to measure bimanual coordination, i.e., with or without position changes and string changes. The tendency was that the bimanual coordination was statistically only slightly increased or even unchanged but not perceptible. We conclude that the coordination index is limited up to 100 ms intervals, without any erroneous perception. Although the mentioned position changes and string changes are movements with their timing, they are executed in parallel rather than in series with the bow-fingering coordination.
The authors examined how timing accuracy in tapping sequences is influenced by sequential effects of preceding finger movements and biomechanical interdependencies among fingers. Skilled pianists tapped sequences at 3 rates; in each sequence, a finger whose motion was more or less independent of other fingers' motion was preceded by a finger to which it was more or less coupled. Less independent fingers and those preceded by a more coupled finger showed large timing errors and change in motion because of the preceding finger's motion. Motion change correlated with shorter intertap intervals and increased with rate. Thus, timing of sequence elements is not independent of the motion trajectories that individuals use to produce them. Neither motion nor its relation to timing is invariant across rates.
This study investigated the perception and production of legato ("connected") articulation in repeatedly ascending and descending tone sequences on a digital piano (Roland RD-250s). Initial measurements of the synthetic tones revealed substantial decay times following key release. High tones decayed faster than low tones, as they did prior to key release, and long tones decayed sooner than short tones because of their more extensive prerelease decay. Musically trained subjects (including pianists) were asked to adjust the key overlap times (KOTs) of successive piano tones so that they sounded optimally, minimally, or maximally legato. The results supported two predictions based on the acoustic measurements: KOTs for successive tones judged to be optimally or maximally legato were greater for high than for low tones, and greater for long than for short tones, so that auditory overlap presumably remained more nearly constant. For minimal legato adjustments the effect of tone duration was reversed, however. Adjusted KOTs were also longer for relatively consonant tones (three semitones separation) than for dissonant tones (one semitone separation). Subsequently, KOTs were measured in skilled pianists' legato productions of tone sequences similar to those in the perceptual experiment. KOTs clearly increased with tone duration, an effect that was probably motoric in origin. There was no effect of tone height, suggesting that the pianists did not immediately adjust to differences in acoustic overlap. KOTs were slightly shorter for dissonant than for consonant tones. They also varied with position in the ascending-descending tone sequences, indicating that the pianists exerted strategic control over KOT as a continuous expressive dimension.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
This study addressed the question of whether the expressive microstructure of a music performance remains relationally invariant across moderate (musically acceptable) changes in tempo. Two pianists played Schumann's "Träumerei" three times at each of three tempi on a digital piano, and the performance data were recorded in MIDI format. In a perceptual test, musically trained listeners attempted to distinguish the original performances from performances that had been artificially speeded up or slowed down to the same overall duration. Accuracy in this task was barely above chance, suggesting that relational invariance was largely preserved. Subsequent analysis of the MIDI data confirmed that each pianist's characteristic timing patterns were highly similar across the three tempi, although there were statistically significant deviations from perfect relational invariance. The timing of (relatively slow) grace notes seemed relationally invariant, but selective examination of other detailed temporal features (chord asynchrony, tone overlap, pedal timing) revealed no systematic scaling with tempo. Finally, although the intensity profile seemed unaffected by tempo, a slight overall increase in intensity with tempo was observed. Effects of musical structure on expressive microstructure were large and pervasive at all levels, as were individual differences between the two pianists. For the specific composition and range of tempi considered here, these results suggest that major (cognitively controlled) temporal and dynamic features of a performance change roughly in proportion with tempo, whereas minor features tend to be governed by tempo-independent motoric constraints.
A review of the research on anatomical and functional asymmetries in human primary motor cortex suggests that the area of hand representation is greater in the dominant than in the non-dominant hemisphere and that there is a greater dispersion of elementary movement representations with more profuse horizontal connections between them. The more profuse interconnections in motor cortex (M1) of the dominant hemisphere might form a neural substrate which favors the formation of experience-dependent excitatory and inhibitory interactions between elementary movement representations. Motor practice might lead to more precise spatiotemporal coordination of the activity of the elementary movement representations in M1 of the dominant than that of the non-dominant hemisphere, thus leading to more dexterous behavior of the dominant than that of the non-dominant hand.
People produce long sequences such as speech and music with incremental planning: mental preparation of a subset of sequence events. The authors model in music performance the sequence events that can be retrieved and prepared during production. Events are encoded in terms of their serial order and timing relative to other events in a planning increment, a contextually determined distribution of event activations. Planning is facilitated by events' metrical similarity and serial/temporal proximity and by developmental changes in short-term memory. The model's predictions of larger planning increments as production rate decreases and as producers' age-experience increases are confirmed in serial-ordering errors produced by adults and children. Incremental planning is considered as a general retrieval constraint in serially ordered behaviors.
A perceptual performance paradigm was designed to disentangle the timing variations in music performance that are due to perceptual compensation, motor control, and musical communication. First, pianists perceptually adjusted the interonset intervals of three excerpts so that they sounded regular. These adjustments deviated systematically from regularity, highlighting two sources of perceptual biases in time perception: rhythmic grouping and a psychoacoustic intensity effect. Then the participants performed the excerpts on the piano in the same regular way. The intensity effect disappeared, and some variations due to motor constraints were observed in relation to rhythmic groups. Finally, the participants performed the excerpts musically. Variations due to musical communication involved additional group-final lengthening that reflected the hierarchical grouping structure of the excerpts. These results underline the nuclear role of grouping in musical time perception and production.
Sequential actions such as playing a piano or tapping in synchrony to an external signal put high cognitive and motor demands on producers, including the generation of precise timing at a wide variety of rates. Tactile information from the fingertips has been shown to contribute to the control of timing in finger tapping tasks. We addressed the hypothesis that reduction of timing errors is related to tactile afferent information in pianists' finger movements during performance. Twelve pianists performed melodies at four rates in a synchronization-continuation paradigm. The pianists' finger motion trajectories toward the piano keys, recorded with a motion capture system, contained different types and amounts of kinematic landmarks at different performance rates. One landmark, a finger-key (FK) landmark, can occur when the finger makes initial contact with the key surface and changes its acceleration abruptly. Overall, there were more FK landmarks in the pianists' keystrokes, as the performance rate increased. The pianists were divided into two groups: those with low percentages of FK in the medium rates that increased with increasing performance rate and those with persistently high FK percentages. Low-FK pianists showed a positive relationship between increased tactile feedback from the current keystroke and increased temporal accuracy in the upcoming keystroke. These findings suggest that sensory information available at finger-key contact enhances the timing accuracy of finger movements in piano performance.
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