Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T00:11:22.472Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Speaking of your own repertoire: an investigation of music performance during practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2020

Moo Kyoung Song*
Affiliation:
Yonsei University, 50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 03722, South Korea
You Jin Kim
Affiliation:
Chonnam University, 77 Yongbong-ro, Buk-gu, Gwangju, 61186, South Korea
*
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore musicians’ approaches to performance during practice and identify the factors that underpinned their approaches. We hypothesised that musicians would be able to recall their focus, knowledge and thoughts of their own repertoire during music performance and that such data would reveal musicians’ cognitive behaviours during the performance. By analysing musicians’ retrospective verbal protocols, we found that musicians used four main reasoning processes – study, static analysis, intuition and performer’s analysis – in their approach to music performance. The findings show that musicians utilise multiple cognitive behaviours for music performance. The implications for instrumental music teaching are discussed.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BANGERT, D., FABIAN, D., SCHUBERT, E. & YEADON, D. (2014) Performing solo Bach: A case study of musical decision-making. Musicae Scientiae, 18(1), 3552.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BENT, I. & DRABKIN, W. (1987) Analysis. New York: Norton & Company.Google ScholarPubMed
BERRY, W. (1989) Musical Structure and Performance. New Haven: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
COOK, N. (1994) A Guide to Musical Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
COOK, N. (1999) Analysing performance and performing analysis. In Cook, N. (ed.), Rethinking Music (pp. 239261). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
DUNSBY, J. (2002) Performers on performance. In Rink, J. (ed.), Musical Performance: A Guide to Understanding (pp. 225236). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DE VAUS, D. A. (2002) Analysing Social Science Data: 50 Key Problems in Data Analysis. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
ERICSSON, K. A., KRAMPE, R. Th. & TESCH-RÖMER, C. (1993) The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100, 363406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GABRIELSSON, A. (1987) Once again: The theme from Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A Major (K. 331): A comparison of five performances. In Gabrielsson, A. (ed.), Action and Perception and in Rhythm and Music (pp. 81104). Stockholm: Royal Swedish Academy of Music.Google Scholar
FONTEYN, M. E., KUIPERS, B. & GROBE, S. J. (1993) A description of think aloud method and protocol analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 3, 430441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HALLAM, S. (1992) Approaches to learning and performance of expert and novice musicians. Doctoral Dissertation. London: Institute of Education, University of London.Google Scholar
HALLAM, S. (1995a) Professional musicians’ orientations to practice: Implications for teaching. British Journal of Music Education, 12(1), 319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HALLAM, S. (1995b) Professional musicians’ approaches to the learning and interpretation of music. Psychology of Music, 23(2), 111128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HALLAM, S. (2001) The development of expertise in young musicians: Strategy use, knowledge acquisition and individual diversity. Music Education Research, 3(1), 723.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HALLAM, S., RINTA, T., VARVARIGOU, M., CREECH, A., PAPAGEORGI, I., GOMES, T. & LANIPEKUN, J. (2012) The development of practising strategies in young people. Psychology of Music, 40(5), 652680.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HATTEN, R. (2004) Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
HATTEN, R. (2005) Four semiotic approaches to musical meaning: Markedness, topics, tropes, and gesture. Musicological Annual, 41, 530.Google Scholar
HATTEN, R. (2010) Performance and analysis-or synthesis: Theorizing gesture, topics, and tropes in Chopin’s f-minor Ballade. Indiana Theory Review, 28, 4566.Google Scholar
HATTEN, R. (2012) Musical forces and agential energies: An expansion of Steve Larson’s model. Music Theory Online, 18(3), 19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KRAMPE, R. Th. & ERICSSON, K. A. (1996) Maintaining excellence: Deliberate practice and elite performance in young and older pianists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 125(4), 331359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KUUSELA, H. & PAUL, P. (2000) A comparison of concurrent and retrospective verbal protocol analysis. The American Journal of Psychology, 113, 387404.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
LESTER, J. (1995) Performance and analysis: Interaction and interpretation. In Rink, J. (ed.), The Practice of Performance: Studies in Musical Interpretation (pp. 197216). New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LINCOLN, Y. S. & GUBA, E. G. (1985) Naturalistic Inquiry. Newbury Park: Sage Publications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MIKLASZEWSKI, K. (1989) A case study of a pianist preparing a musical performance. Psychology of Music, 17(2), 95109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
NARMOUR, E. (1988) On the relationship of analytical theory to performance and interpretation. In Narmour, E. & Solie, R. A. (eds.), Explorations in Music, the Arts, and Ideas: Essays in Honor of Leonard B. Meyer (pp. 317340). Stuyvesant: Pendragon Press.Google Scholar
NOLAN, C. (1993) Reflections on the relationship of analysis and performance. College Music Symposium, 33/34, 112139.Google Scholar
PALMER, C. (1997) Music performance. Annual Review of Psychology, 48(1), 115138.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
PASK, G. (1976) Style and strategies of learning. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 46, 128148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
RINK, J. (1995) Playing in time: Rhythm, metre and tempo in Brahms’s Fantasien Op. 116. In Rink, J. (ed.), The Practice of Performance: Studies in Musical Interpretation (pp. 254282). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
RINK, J. (2002) Analysis and (or?) performance. In Rink, J. (ed.), Musical Performance: A Guide to Understanding (pp. 3558). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ROTHSTEIN, W. (1995) Analysis and the act of performance. In Rink, J. (ed.), The Practice of Performance: Studies in Musical Interpretation (pp. 217240). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SLOBODA, J. A. (1985) The Musical Mind: The Cognitive Psychology of Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
SLOBODA, J. A., DAVIDSON, J. W., HOWE, M. J. A. & MOORE, D. G. (1996) The role of practice in the development of performing musicians. British Journal of Psychology, 87(2), 287309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SUWA, M., PURCELL, T. & GERO, J. (1998) Macroscopic analysis of design processes based on a scheme for coding designers’ cognitive actions. Design Studies, 19(4), 455483.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SWANWICK, P. K. (1994) Musical Knowledge: Intuition, Analysis and Music Education. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
TODD, N. (1992) The dynamics of dynamics: A model of musical expression. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 91, 35403550.CrossRefGoogle Scholar