Nonverbal auditory and visual communication helps ensemble musicians predict each other’s intentions and coordinate their actions. When structural characteristics of the music make predicting co-performers’ intentions difficult (e.g., following long pauses or during ritardandi), reliance on incoming auditory and visual signals may change. This study tested whether attention to visual cues during piano–piano and piano–violin duet performance increases in such situations. Pianists performed the secondo part to three duets, synchronizing with recordings of violinists or pianists playing the primo parts. Secondos’ access to incoming audio and visual signals and to their own auditory feedback was manipulated. Synchronization was most successful when primo audio was available, deteriorating when primo audio was removed and only cues from primo visual signals were available. Visual cues were used effectively following long pauses in the music, however, even in the absence of primo audio. Synchronization was unaffected by the removal of secondos’ own auditory feedback. Differences were observed in how successfully piano–piano and piano–violin duos synchronized, but these effects of instrument pairing were not consistent across pieces. Pianists’ success at synchronizing with violinists and other pianists is likely moderated by piece characteristics and individual differences in the clarity of cueing gestures used.

Skilled ensemble musicians coordinate with high precision, even when improvising or interpreting loosely defined notation. Successful coordination is supported primarily through shared attention to the musical output; however, musicians also interact visually, particularly when the musical timing is irregular. This study investigated the performance conditions that encourage visual signaling and interaction between ensemble members. Piano and clarinet duos rehearsed a new piece as their body motion was recorded. Analyses of head movement showed that performers communicated gesturally following held notes. Gesture patterns became more consistent as duos rehearsed, though consistency dropped again during a final performance given under no-visual-contact conditions. Movements were smoother and interperformer coordination was stronger during irregularly timed passages than elsewhere in the piece, suggesting heightened visual interaction. Performers moved more after rehearsing than before, and more when they could see each other than when visual contact was occluded. Periods of temporal instability and increased familiarity with the music and co-performer seem to encourage visual interaction, while specific communicative gestures are integrated into performance routines through rehearsal. We propose that visual interaction may support successful ensemble performance by affirming coordination throughout periods of temporal instability and serving as a social motivator to promote creative risk-taking.

Music performance is inherently social. Most music is performed in groups, and even soloists are subject to influence from a (real or imagined) audience. It is also inherently creative. Performers are called upon to interpret notated music, improvise new musical material, adapt to unexpected playing conditions, and accommodate technical errors. The focus of this paper is how creativity is distributed across members of a music ensemble as they perform these tasks. Some aspects of ensemble performance have been investigated extensively in recent years as part of the broader literature on joint action (e.g., the processes underlying sensorimotor synchronization). Much of this research has been done under highly controlled conditions, using tasks that generate reliable results, but capture only a small part of ensemble performance as it occurs naturalistically. Still missing from this literature is an explanation of how ensemble musicians perform in conditions that require creative interpretation, improvisation, and/or adaptation: how do they coordinate the production of something new? Current theories of creativity endorse the idea that dynamic interaction between individuals, their actions, and their social and material environments underlies creative performance. This framework is much in line with the embodied music cognition paradigm and the dynamical systems perspective on ensemble coordination. This review begins by situating the concept of collaborative musical creativity in the context of embodiment. Progress that has been made toward identifying the mechanisms that underlie collaborative creativity in music performance is then assessed. The focus is on the possible role of musical imagination in facilitating performer flexibility, and on the forms of communication that are likely to support the coordination of creative musical output. Next, emergence and group flow–constructs that seem to characterize ensemble performance at its peak–are considered, and some of the conditions that may encourage periods of emergence or flow are identified. Finally, it is argued that further research is needed to (1) demystify the constructs of emergence and group flow, clarifying their effects on performer experience and listener response, (2) determine how constrained musical imagination is by perceptual experience and understand people's capacity to depart from familiar frameworks and imagine new sounds and sound structures, and (3) assess the technological developments that are supposed to facilitate or enhance musical creativity, and determine what effect they have on the processes underlying creative collaboration.

Ensemble musicians often exchange visual cues in the form of body gestures (e.g., rhythmic head nods) to help coordinate piece entrances. These cues must communicate beats clearly, especially if the piece requires interperformer synchronization of the first chord. This study aimed to (1) replicate prior findings suggesting that points of peak acceleration in head gestures communicate beat position and (2) identify the kinematic features of head gestures that encourage successful synchronization. It was expected that increased precision of the alignment between leaders’ head gestures and first note onsets, increased gesture smoothness, magnitude, and prototypicality, and increased leader ensemble/conducting experience would improve gesture synchronizability. Audio/MIDI and motion capture recordings were made of piano duos performing short musical passages under assigned leader/follower conditions. The leader of each trial listened to a particular tempo over headphones, then cued their partner in at the given tempo, without speaking. A subset of motion capture recordings were then presented as point-light videos with corresponding audio to a sample of musicians who tapped in synchrony with the beat. Musicians were found to align their first taps with the period of deceleration following acceleration peaks in leaders’ head gestures, suggesting that acceleration patterns communicate beat position. Musicians’ synchronization with leaders’ first onsets improved as cueing gesture smoothness and magnitude increased and prototypicality decreased. Synchronization was also more successful with more experienced leaders’ gestures. These results might be applied to interactive systems using gesture recognition or reproduction for music-making tasks (e.g., intelligent accompaniment systems).

HighlightsPeriods of temporal instability prompt duo musicians to monitor each other visually.Bidirectional gaze between musicians occurs at piece onset and in the final beats.Duo musicians watch each other increasingly as they become familiar with a piece.Patterns of uni- and bidirectional gaze across duo performances are similar.Gaze behaviour reflects leader/follower roles implied by the score.