Shared performance cues in singing and conducting: a content analysis of talk during practice

Abstract

How do musicians performing together coordinate their actions to achieve a unified performance? We observed a singer (the first author) and pianist/conductor (the third author) as they prepared for two performances of Ricercar 1 from Stravinsky's Cantata, one for voice and piano and one for voice and ensemble. This article reports a content analysis of the musicians’ verbal commentaries made in two individual practice sessions and their discussions during two joint rehearsals at the beginning and end of the rehearsal period. In their individual sessions, the musicians began identifying features of the music to use as performance cues that would serve as landmarks to guide their performances. In their joint sessions, some of these features were turned into shared performance cues that could be used to coordinate their actions. The musicians’ comments show how they resolved differences in their conceptualizations of the compositional structure of the piece and how they coordinated their music-making through the use of shared performance cues.

Review of "Practicing Perfection: Memory and Piano Performance"

“…Different performance cue strategies do seem to be adopted by experts depending on the genre of music with which the musical expert is involved. The strategy Imreh uses is different to that employed by the jazz pianist (Noice, Jeffrey, Noice & Chaffin 2008) and the conductor and soloist (Ginsborg, Chaffin & Nicholson 2006).…”

“…It would be interesting to compare those features/cues that Imreh marked on the Presto with features/cues marked by an objective expert musician blind to the hypotheses of the experiment and see if there were any discrepancies. The method of generating the list of performance cues in Ginsborg, Chaffin and Nicholson (2006) is even more (deliberately) circular than in the Imreh studies: in that study, musicians' comments made in practice were classified as relating to performance cues only if they matched the musicians' later (post-performance) report of where those cues were (p.169).…”

“…Chaffin, Imreh and Crawford (2002a) provide the most comprehensive statement of Chaffin's research programme with Imreh in their book Practicing Perfection: Piano Performance As Expert Memory, however other aspects of this work have been thoroughly developed in many other publications (Chaffin 2002(Chaffin , 2007Chaffin & Imreh 1997Chaffin & Logan 2006;Chaffin, Lemieux & Chen 2004;Chaffin, Imreh, Lemieux & Chen 2003). Chaffin's work with Imreh has also formed the basis of research investigating areas of specific interest such as memorisation strategies employed by a jazz musician (Noice, Jeffrey, Noice & Chaffin 2008) and a cellist (Lisboa, Chaffin, Logan & Begosh 2007), the use of shared performance cues by a soprano soloist and conductor (Ginsborg, Chaffin & Nicholson 2006), and broader areas such as issues of gender and subjectivity in music research (Chaffin & Crawford 2007;Chaffin, Imreh & Crawford 2002b).…”

Importance of Communication Cues in Music Performance according to Performers and Audience

“…Verbal interaction among performers before a live performance is important for an ensemble in practice session. Effective communication among ensemble members enhances the quality of performance (Ginsborg, Chaffin, & Nicholson, 2006;Ginsborg & King, 2012).…”

“…Subsequently, verbal information in practices and body movement and facial expressions in performances obtained a higher significance. The importance of verbal interaction (Ginsborg et al, 2006) may be one of the salient discrepancies between practices and performances. Due to performance etiquette, performers refrain from exchanging information verbally specifically in performances of classical music.…”