Publications
"Elucidating Musical Structure through Empirical Measurement of Performance Parameters" Jennifer MacRitchie
This thesis can be found on the University of Glasgow website here http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2357/
"Linking multi-modal Analysis of Performance to Perception of Musical Structure" Jennifer MacRitchie, Bryony Buck and Nicholas J Bailey
To be published in the proceedings of the International Symposium of Performance Science, 15th-18th December, Auckland, New Zealand, 2009
A two-tiered experiment was conducted to assess the communication of phrasing structure from performance nuance to audience perception. Nine solo piano performances of two selected Chopin Preludes, comparable in musical structure and complexity, were recorded multi-modally through audio, MIDI and the Vicon motion capture system. Analyses of performance parameters such as tempo, dynamics and movement were then conducted with reference to the notated score. Videos of each performance were presented to observers with musical knowledge who used a slider to determine the shape of each musical phrase. Having previously been presented performances in visual only mode, participants were now presented the performances in three modalities: visual, audio, and audiovisual. Further to findings that occurrence of performance gestures correlated with notated and perceived phrase boundaries, multi-modal analysis of performance parameters confirmed that performers conveyed musical structure as intended in auditory as well as visual elements of performance.
"Visualising Musical Structure through Performance Gesture" Jennifer MacRitchie, Bryony Buck and Nicholas J Bailey
To be published in the proceedings of the 10th International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference, 26th-30th October, Kobe, Japan, 2009
A musical performance is seen as the performer’s interpretation of a musical score, illuminating the interaction between the musical structure and implied emotive character (Shaffer). It has been demonstrated that performers’ physical gestures correlate with structural and emotional aspects of the piece they are performing and that this information can be decoded by an audience when presented with a visual-only performance (Vines).
This paper investigates the relationship between direction of physical movement and underlying musical structures. The Vicon motion capture system is used to record 3D movements made by nine university-level pianists performing Chopin preludes op.28 Nos 6 and 7. The examination of several pianists provides insight into the similarity and differences in gestures between performers and how these relate to structure.
Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of these performances and consequent analysis of variance reveals a relationship between extrema of the first six significant components and timing of phrasing structure in Prelude 7 where motion troughs consistently lag behind the occurence of phrase boundaries in the audio. This relationship is then examined for Prelude 6 which encompasses longer, expanded phrases and changes in rhythm. These expanded phrases are associated with elongated or split gestures, and variations of the motif with changes in movement.
Shaffer(1995): "Musical Performance as Interpretation" Psychology of Music 23, 17-38
Vines, Wanderley, Krumhansl, Nuzzo and Levitin (2003): " Performance Gestures of Musicians: What Structural and Emotional Information Do They Convey " in Gesture Based Communication in Human-Computer Interaction, 468-478 Camurri, A and Volpe, G (Eds)
"Perceptual Recognition of Embodied Musical Structure" Bryony Buck, Jennifer MacRitchie and Lukasz Piwek
Abstract in proceedings of the Institute for Musical Research Conference - The Musical Body: Gesture, Representation and Ergonomics in Musical Performance, 22nd-24th April, London, UK, 2009
A performing musician’s interpretation can be seen as an integration of the structural information and the emotive character of the piece (Shaffer,1995). Recently, several studies have investigated whether a performer conveys aspects of the music visually to the audience by means of gestural expression (Davidson,1993). To date, the majority of embodiment studies have focused on the emotional expression conveyed during a performance. The authors focus instead on the structural element of performance gestures (following on from Vines et al) investigating whether specific expressive movements may be attributed to particular compositional structures. A two-tiered experiment will be used to ascertain whether this structural content, namely phrase structure, is recognised through perceptual observation.
Initially nine performances of two selected Chopin preludes, that are comparable in musical structure and complexity, are recorded using the VICON 3-D motion capture system. Subsequently they are presented to observers with musical knowledge who are asked to determine where phrase endings occur. Performances are initially presented in visual-only mode with a planned follow-up experiment involving all three modalities: audio, visual, and audio-visual. The motion capture analysis will reveal any recurrent physical gestures for each performer corresponding to structural phrasing. Taking individual differences into consideration, these gestures may vary with performer. To accommodate this, the two selected Chopin preludes are: Prelude Op.28 No.7, used as control as it has very rigid structure and definitive rhythmically identical phrasing; and the test prelude, Op.28 No.6 which begins to depart from this rigidity whilst maintaining a similarly identifiable phrase structure and therefore may be used to compare gestural movements at phrase endings.
It is proposed that gestures will be effectively recognised as conveying structural information to the observers. These hypotheses are developed based on structural analyses of the preludes themselves and discussed in terms of embodied musical structure and perceptual gesture recognition.
References: Davidson (1993): "Visual Perception of performance manner in the movements of solo musicians" Psychology of Music.21, 103-113
Shaffer(1995): "Musical Performance as Interpretation" Psychology of Music 23, 17-38
Vines, Wanderley, Krumhansl, Nuzzo and Levitin (2003): " Performance Gestures of Musicians: What Structural and Emotional Information Do They Convey " in Gesture Based Communication in Human-Computer Interaction, 468-478 Camurri, A and Volpe, G (Eds)
"Extracting Musical Structure from Multi-Modal Performance Analysis" Published in proceedings of 4th International Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology, Thessaloniki, Greece, 2008
Abstract
Background in computing/performance analysis: Past analyses of performance has utilised solely audio [Lindstedt,2004] or MIDI recordings, but further research into the importance of bodily movements and physical gestures [Davidson,2005] has since exposed a wealth of untapped information. The use of multi-dimensional recordings has only recently become prominent [Camurri,2003], transcending the shortcomings of each individual data stream. Performance information can be used to emphasise higher-level compositional issues that may not be obvious through traditional analysis methods.
Background in music theory: The finale of Chopin's B flat minor piano sonata Op.35 has long proved problematic for traditional musical analysts and recently for computer-assisted analysis [Lindstedt,2004]. In this composition, the search for immanent structural elements such as the initiation of new musical themes, arrival points and climax points is not immediately obvious from simply looking at the score. The quantitative methods and multi-modal view of this proposed performance analysis provides tools to view the music beyond the score and so enable an extended analysis of the piece.
Aims: We aim to analyse a number of live professional piano performances of first Chopin's Prelude in A Major Op.28 No.7 and secondly the finale of the B Flat minor sonata Op.35, the former providing control results enabling accurate analysis of the latter. These performances are recorded through audio, MIDI and video, making use of data storage technologies developed at Glasgow University's Centre for Music Technology, to investigate issues in thematic/harmonic structure in an otherwise structurally ambiguous composition.
Main Contribution: Method: Each performance is recorded using microphones, an optical motion capture system and a Moog Piano bar. The bar rests on top of any 88-key piano and using infra-red beams, converts movements of keys into MIDI. Timing information is retrieved from MIDI using a note-matching algorithm [McGilvray,2008], dynamics from the spectrum of the audio and movements from image-processing software. The exact duration of notes are calculated from the combination of audio and MIDI. The information is stored as performance data in PML [McGilvray,2008] – an extension of MusicXML enabling the inclusion of performance information - and movement data in the GMS(Gesture,Motion,Signal) format [Luciani,2006]. These files are stored alongside the score in a PostgreSQL database [Pullinger,2007] within which queries are performed based on points of agreement and change within the performances. The results are then displayed over the score in a format readable to musical analysts.
Implications: This work will provide further insight into the correlation of performance parameters with structural form and enable more extensive musical analysis of structurally ambiguous pieces. The intricate measurements of each performance require expertise in such areas as signal processing, image processing and physical modelling, whilst storing and manipulating the gathered data requires extensive database and computer systems knowledge. Expertise in music theory and performance is crucial to the design of all aforementioned systems and analysis of the results, making inter-disciplinary collaborations essential to project.
"Multi-modal Analysis of Performance Parameters in Chopin's B Flat Minor Piano Sonata Finale Op.35" Presented at DRMN+1 Workshop at Queen Mary University, London, December 2006
Abstract: The finale of Chopin's B flat minor piano sonata Op.35 has confounded traditional musicological approaches and there exists little serious analysis of the piece. However, there are many recorded and live performances of the work, so a fruitful approach to compensating for the lacunae is to use engineering techniques to proceed directly to the sound of the piece. Previous approaches to performance analysis measure variables such as tempo and dynamics, and this is usually done without much consideration of the musical structure. The approach to be discussed involves the collection of audio, video and MIDI data over several performances covering different interpretations of the composition and how they illuminate aspects of the musical structure. Collected multi-variate performance data will then be correlated, with care being taken that the analysis exposes the musical semantics in a quantifiable manner. The results of this are then to be compared with traditional score-based music analysis to establish a better understanding of the piece, as well as developing and innovating technology for the better representation of music by computational means.