Behavioral Quantification of Audiomotor Transformations in Improvising and Score-Dependent Musicians

Abstract

The historically developed practice of learning to play a music instrument from notes instead of by imitation or improvisation makes it possible to contrast two types of skilled musicians characterized not only by dissimilar performance practices, but also disparate methods of audiomotor learning. In a recent fMRI study comparing these two groups of musicians while they either imagined playing along with a recording or covertly assessed the quality of the performance, we observed activation of a right-hemisphere network of posterior superior parietal and dorsal premotor cortices in improvising musicians, indicating more efficient audiomotor transformation. In the present study, we investigated the detailed performance characteristics underlying the ability of both groups of musicians to replicate music on the basis of aural perception alone. Twenty-two classically-trained improvising and score-dependent musicians listened to short, unfamiliar two-part excerpts presented with headphones. They played along or replicated the excerpts by ear on a digital piano, either with or without aural feedback. In addition, they were asked to harmonize or transpose some of the excerpts either to a different key or to the relative minor. MIDI recordings of their performances were compared with recordings of the aural model. Concordance was expressed in an audiomotor alignment score computed with the help of music information retrieval algorithms. Significantly higher alignment scores were found when contrasting groups, voices, and tasks. The present study demonstrates the superior ability of improvising musicians to replicate both the pitch and rhythm of aurally perceived music at the keyboard, not only in the original key, but also in other tonalities. Taken together with the enhanced activation of the right dorsal frontoparietal network found in our previous fMRI study, these results underscore the conclusion that the practice of improvising music can be associated with enhanced audiomotor transformation in response to aurally perceived music.

Conscious and non-conscious perception and action in musical performance

“…Actual keyboard performance by both groups of musicians was assessed in a subsequent behavioural study (Harris et al 2016). Participants listened, through headphones, to short phrases taken from the unrehearsed excerpts they had heard once during the fMRI experiment, and played along or replicated them by ear on a digital piano, either with or without aural feedback.…”

“…Ideomotor learning may be held responsible for the ability of the general populace to sing in tune, and is one of the factors contributing to the superior ability of improvising keyboard players to replicate the pitch and rhythm of aurally perceived music (i.e. to play by ear) (Harris et al 2016). The brain's prediction of the sequence of aural events it encounters in music is dependent on implicit knowledge of the musical syntax behind sequential patterns, as prevalent within a given culture.…”

“…In an initial study, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to identify differences in brain activations between the two groups (Harris and de Jong 2015). In a follow-up study, music information retrieval technology was used to quantify differences in the ability of both groups to replicate and transpose music at the keyboard on the basis of aural perception alone (Harris et al 2016).…”

Musicians’ use of harmonic cognitive strategies when playing by ear

“…The relatedness of multiple performance abilities can be seen as an indicator of the underlying cognitive mechanisms of music performance: goal imaging , creating a mental representation of what the music should sound like; motor production , generating physical actions on an instrument; and self-monitoring , accurately hearing one’s performance (Lehmann & Davidson, 2002; Woody, 2003, 2006; Woody & Lehmann, 2010). Instrumental music performance depends upon linking goal image to motor production, that is, musical ear–hand coordination (Baily, 1985; Harris, van Kranenburg, & de Jong, 2016). McPherson and Gabrielsson (2002) illustrated this with the comment of a music student participant in a previous research study, whose strategy was explained with “I just sing it in my head while I finger it through on my instrument” (p. 109).…”