Timmers, R. and Ashley, R. (1999) Influences of musical context and pianist stategy on the timing of a melody. In Proceeding of the 1999 SMPC, 82. Evanston.
Abstract
Different pieces of music offer different expressive possibilities. Even a single piece of music offers the possibility to be treated in several expressive ways (see Repp 1998). How much of this variety of possible interpretations returns in actual performances of the music? Do pianists make use of the different parameters of the piece to shape their performance? Do variety in performances and variety in musical parameters relate to each other? These are the main questions addressed in the study, focussing on onset timing. Previous studies stress the relation between timing variations and musical structure (see Clarke 1985), but provide no clear answer to the freedom that is allowed within this regularity, especially when multiple structural descriptions play a role simultaneously.In an experiment the melody of Variation op. 21 by Brahms, is set in different musical contexts derived from the Theme. Three pianists are asked to perform the melody in the different settings from a score. They repeat each performance several times. The settings are 1) the melody without bar-lines, 2) the melody with bar-lines, 3) the counter-melody, 4) the melody with the counter-melody, 5) the melody with block chords, 6) the theme. The theme contains all material of previous settings (the melody, countermelody and block chords). The settings are presented in a fixed order and the pianists do not know the pieces before hand. The onset timing of the recorded performances is measured and analyzed on consistency and use of tempo rubato. The results show a significant similarity between the timing patterns of performances of the melody in the same setting. This similarity is much less when timing patterns of melodies in different conditions are compared. It turns out that pianists change the timing of the melody in respect to the musical context in which the melody is presented. In the timing pattern aspects of the context are imbedded, which shows that pianists take different parameters of the music into account. The melody proves to be the primary expressive source, while the counter melody is a good second one. We conclude that the interpretation of pianists is directed and constrained by the musical structure and that variety in performances is often related to either few musical constraints or richness of musical structure.
More on timing, tempo