Measuring and Enhancing Expressive Musical Performance with Digital Instruments: Pilot Study and Research Workshop

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This collaborative project between members of the Centre for Digital Music (C4DM) at Queen Mary, University of London and the multi-institution AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (CMPCP) addresses the following questions:* How can digital technology help explain what makes a performance expressive?* How can an understanding of expressive performance guide the creation of new musical instruments and technologies?Two emerging trends, if combined, hold the potential for transformative change in musical performance practice. First, the latest digital musical instruments capture the performer's actions with unprecedented detail, allowing continuous, precise control over every aspect of the resulting sound. Second, the study of musical performance as a creative act has taken a central role in musicology, with performers and scholars producing a vibrant interaction between theory and practice.Music and technology have long been linked, but technology alone is not a driver of musical creativity. By extension, more dimensions of control do not make a digital instrument more expressive, and excessively complex interfaces can even become an impediment to expressive performance. The perspectives of performers and performance scholars are required to shape a new generation of digital instruments that are ideally suited to musicians' creative requirements.On the other hand, digital technology is indispensable in the measurement and modelling of musical performance. Controlled quantitative studies of performers' actions complement qualitative techniques such as interviews and questionnaires to produce a detailed, balanced picture of performance practice. Digital musical instruments, including traditional acoustic instruments augmented with electronic sensors, provide a valuable data source concerning a performer's physical gestures.This project promotes collaboration and knowledge exchange between performance scholars and digital music researchers through two main components:First, a pilot study will be conducted using a sensor-enhanced acoustic piano. The study will focus on the link between expressive intent and physical gesture at the keyboard, and it will serve as a model for future extended cross-disciplinary collaborations. A refereed article will be published on the results, contributing to longstanding debates on the nature of physical keyboard technique (commonly known as "touch").Second, a research networking event will take place as a special paper session of the Computer Music Modeling and Retrieval (CMMR) conference in June 2012. The event will draw academics, postdocs and students from musicological and technological disciplines with the goal of identifying areas of shared interest. A concert performance will be held afterward with submissions invited from composers, performers and musicologists. Performers and scholars will be encouraged to attend both paper session and performance, promoting a wide range of perspectives at each event. Following the event, the project investigators will draft a document outlining potential areas of collaboration emerging from the session.The proposed research will be directed by PI Andrew McPherson of C4DM with assistance from a postdoctoral researcher. Co-investigators Elaine Chew of C4DM and Daniel Leech-Wilkinson of King's College London/CMPCP will assist in the design of the pilot study and the organisation of the special session. All members of C4DM and CMPCP will be invited to contribute ideas on how digital technology can model and enhance expressive performance. Long-term impacts emerging from or influenced by this Research Development project include musical instruments that dynamically adapt to the abilities and tastes of the performer, interfaces for non-experts to express themselves musically, new pedagogical techniques and mathematical models of shape, phrasing and gesture in performance.