Clemens Wöllner

An exploratory study of the role of performance feedback and musical imagery in piano playing

Musicians experience various forms of sensory feedback when practising and performing. By studying the extent to which musicians rely on such auditory, visual and kinaesthetic information, insight can be gained (albeit indirectly) into the content and strength of their mental imagery for the music they play. While in previous empirical research, impaired auditory feedback has not been shown to affect performance outcome, the significance of visual and kinaesthetic feedback is less well-understood. In the current study, performance feedback was systematically removed in a repeated measures (within-subjects) design. Eight skilled pianists performed from memory under a normal condition and under three further conditions without auditory, visual and kinaesthetic feedback, one of which included tapping along with the beat of an imagined performance. Differences and similarities in the expressive timing and intensity (dynamic) microstructure were analyzed and compared across conditions. Performance consistency in both timing and intensity profiles was highest for conditions with kinaesthetic feedback, even in the absence of auditory and visual feedback. The results are discussed in relation to their implications for mental imagery and mental practising.

The Effects of Distracted Inner Hearing on Sight-Reading:

The importance of inner hearing in musical sight-reading was investigated with an interference paradigm. In a repeated measures design, 20 music students sight-sang two melodies, one of those while listening to distracting music. Participants answered aspects of sight-reading ability and strategy in questionnaires and in semi-structured interviews. The number of mistakes in the sung melodies was calculated; in addition, expert listeners rated continuity/fluency and overall quality. Distracted inner hearing only led to significantly worse rating results for overall quality. Nevertheless, participants found inner hearing to be significantly more difficult with distracting music, and the number of mistakes is highly correlated with the experienced difficulty of inner hearing. Possible explanations and implications for further research are discussed.

How to quantify individuality in music performance? Studying artistic expression with averaging procedures

In artistic fields such as western music performance of the past 200 years, individuality is highly valued as a performers expression of his or her aesthetic concepts. Yet characterizations of individual performance qualities have largely remained on a descriptive level. In this opinion article, it is argued that if researchers aim at quantifying individuality, then the only feasible approach is to determine the baseline from which individual performances diverge. Rather than using a computer-generated “deadpan performance” with no expressive features, this baseline should refer to average features comprising a number of different human performances in a given cultural context.

Music researchers’ musical engagement

There is an increasing awareness of the importance of reflexivity across various disciplines, which encourages researchers to scrutinize their research perspectives. In order to contextualize and reflect upon research in music, this study explores the musical background, current level of musical engagement and the listening habits of music researchers. A total of 103 respondents of 17 different nationalities, working in music psychology, music science and related areas at various academic levels (e.g., doctoral students, professors and independent researchers), completed an internet survey. Questions addressed four major areas: (1) detailed demographic information and research interests; (2) musical training; (3) current musical activities (e.g., composing, conducting, improvising, listening, performing); (4) musical preferences and listening habits. Findings indicate that nearly all respondents to the survey had studied one or more musical instrument(s), and around 90% still enjoy performing music to some extent. A relatively high number of researchers had composed or improvised music, thus engaging in particularly creative musical activities. Respondents show stronger preferences for classical music and jazz/blues/RnB as compared with other musical genres. Contrary to notions of expert listening, emotional listening styles were rated as more important than analytical listening. Strong relationships between respondents’ musical practice and research were found, leading to the conclusion that music research is a highly practice-informed field.