Eighth-notes performances

Abstract

From a technical perspective the impression of inégalité in musical pulse mainly refers to aspects of timing, loudness, and duration. Musicians tend to model these performance parameters intuitively and listeners seem to perceive them, to a certain degree, unconsciously.Expert musicians and non-experts were asked to interactively tune performance parameters in a short four-bar phrase. A recently developed performance synthesis tool furnished the technical base for this analysis. The results give insight into the relationships between performance parameters and give rise to discuss the role of expertise and skill in a slightly different light. Although the analysis of appropriate performance parameters is difficult, the need for it is still beyond question for the improvement of liveliness in synthetic performances.