Exploring relationships between pianists’ body movements, their expressive intentions, and structural elements of the music

Abstract

Body movements during music performance have been found to be indicative of the performer’s musical intentionality, and contribute to an observer’s perception of expressive playing. This study investigates the effect of structural elements of the score, and the playing of different levels of expression on body movements during a piano performance. Pianists were required to play the same piece in four different performance conditions. Their movements were tracked by an optical motion capture system, and the comparisons that were made between specific parts of the body used, performance condition, and musical score locations were subsequently statistically examined. We found that the head and shoulders exhibited more movement per measure, as well as larger differences between each condition, than the fingers, wrists and lower back. Differences between performance conditions were observed primarily at structurally significant portions of the score, and biomechanical factors also played a role. Moreover, our data supports the view that performers equate playing without expression to playing without nonessential movements.