Developing Familiarity in a New Duo: Rehearsal Talk and Performance Cues

Abstract

Context and Aims: Social and cognitive processes underlying individual classical musicians' and duo performers' preparation for performance have been explored using longitudinal case studies. Social processes can be inferred from rehearsal talk and recent studies have focused on its content and nature. Cognitive processes can be inferred from score annotations representing musicians' thoughts while practicing, rehearsing (rehearsal features), and playing or singing from memory (performance cues). We report three studies conducted by two practitioner-researchers: (1) of rehearsal talk; (2) of rehearsal features and thoughts while performing; and (3) a triangulation (as it were) of the two kinds of data to gauge the potential for rehearsal talk to predict the use of performance cues.Methods: A singer and viola player formed a new duo to prepare two songs, new to them both, for two performances on the same day and a third performance 10 months later. Their practice and rehearsal sessions, over the course of seven days, were recorded and transcribed. The musicians annotated copies of the scores after rehearsing and after each performance. Each musician performed one of the two songs from memory. First, verbal data were coded and analyzed using two frameworks for categorizing socio-emotional interactions and musical dimensions, respectively. Second, their annotations were categorized and compared, and finally the frameworks were combined so that correlations between rehearsal talk and performance cues could be calculated.Results: The musicians' verbal interactions were positive and task-related; significant changes over time were observed only in the extent to which they showed solidarity toward each other. Analysis of their annotations illustrates similarities and differences between their attention to specific features of the music while rehearsing and performing, particularly from memory. Rehearsal talk predicted performance cues in the third performance, but not the first or second.Conclusion: Musicians' talk cannot be assumed to reflect musicians' actions. The study of musicians' verbal interactions may be less useful for determining cognitive than social processes underlying preparation for performance. Nevertheless, the study provides a detailed snapshot of classical musicians' “real world” preparation for performance, highlighting the role of spontaneity in performance, and underlining differences between what happens in the studio and what can happen on stage.

11. Memory for Music

“…Multiple regression analyses using PCs as predictor variables and practice behaviour as outcome variables show how musicians' mental representations of music determine their approaches to practice and performance (e.g., Ginsborg & Chaffin, 2011a), and their long-term memory for the music that has been memorised ( Ginsborg & Chaffin, 2011b). Content analyses can be made of individual musicians' spoken verbal commentaries while practising (e.g., Fonte, 2020), and of the rehearsal talk of two musicians working together (e.g., Ginsborg & Bennett, 2021, 2022.…”

“…My musical partner was my husband, the composer, conductor, and pianist George Nicholson. For Study 3, I formed a new duo with the viola player Dawn Bennett ( Ginsborg & Bennett, 2021, 2022-hitherto unknown to me other than as an academic living on the other side of the world-so that we could explore our developing familiarity with each other as well as the music: settings by Boris Tchaikovsky of two poems by the English poet Rudyard Kipling, translated very loosely into Russian.…”

Leadership dynamics in musical groups: Quantifying effects of musical structure on directionality of influence in concert performance videos

“…In musical ensembles, these ancillary movements, whether consciously intended or reflexive, serve as visual cues that bolster communication and aid co-performers in synchronising their actions. Visual cues become especially beneficial at points of heightened uncertainty (e.g., tempo changes or periods of silence) [17][18][19], complementing auditory information by providing continuous visual feedback that co-performers can utilize to anticipate each other's sounds [20], across multiple timescales reflecting the hierarchical musical structure [21].…”

10. Memorisation of Twentieth-Century Piano Music

“…Core PCs are features that are identified during practice and retained as retrieval cues in each performance, while non-core PCs are the features retained as retrieval cues only in some performances. Spontaneous thoughts about the music being performed also appear and may be retained as PCs in subsequent performances ( Ginsborg & Bennett, 2021;Ginsborg et al, 2012).…”