The Effects of Temporal Action-Sound Congruence on Evaluations of Conductor Quality

Abstract

Vision serves a fundamental role in the human experience of musical performance. In conducting, this particular heuristic influences both expressive and coordinative aspects of musical activity. Ensemble conductors present a special case of musical gesture, as their activities are coordinative rather than directly sound-producing. While the influence of vision on evaluations of musical expressivity has been well studied, less attention has been paid to the temporal aspect of conductors’ gestures. Given anecdotal observations of a flexibly congruent relationship between conductor gesture and ensemble response and the ability of entrainment to promote preference, we theorize that alterations to natural action-sound congruence in conductor-to-ensemble settings may influence evaluations of conductor quality. Naturalistic performance video of five conductors was left intact or adjusted to an audio- or video-lead condition by a percentage of each excerpt tempo (intact, ±15%, ±30%) and fully crossed into stimuli orders. Participants were asked to rate the quality of the conductor, the ensemble, and the performance overall using a Likert-type scale bound by “ poor” and “ excellent.” Our results indicate that any offset, whether audio- or video-led, resulted in a lower level of conductor quality than intact, unaltered performance. While our effect size was small (η p2 = .02), participant ratings reinforce the role of action-sound congruence on observers’ perceptions and overall evaluation of conductors’ activities.

An examination of collegiate musicians’ ability to discern conductor intent

“…Given research indicating that many listeners often hear changes in music performances that do not actually occur (Morrison et al, 2009; Silvey, 2013), and also given that none of those who helped pilot-test our procedures commented upon the mismatched audio track for the videos, we wonder if our prompt that “the audio you hear may or may not be from the actual performance that was led by Rattle” (which we did not provide in the pilot-test) may have primed our participants to search for any number of differences that did not exist. Nevertheless, participants’ comments highlighted the fact that they attended to issues of conductor and ensemble synchronization while observing these videos—findings that are consonant with Meals et al (2019) and, more broadly, with Madsen et al (2007, 2009). It may bear mentioning that in those studies and in both experiments of our current investigation, participants were afforded a frontal view of the conductor, which has been found to affect perception (Napoles, 2013) and is a perspective usually only ensemble musicians have, and that they were given a particular evaluative task, unlike what is typical in performance scenarios for either musicians or audience members.…”

“…In ensemble performance, conductor-ensemble synchronization varies between orchestras and wind bands (with the latter generally being more temporally congruent), and among ensembles of different experience levels (Meals, 2020). Experimental manipulations of conductor-ensemble synchrony (i.e., presentations of video recordings with either a slight audio lag or a slight video lag, or with no such temporal adjustment) revealed a preference among musician-observers for intact (unadjusted) performances as reflected in participant evaluations of both the ensemble and especially the conductor (Meals et al, 2019). Such findings could be interpreted as further evidence of conductor intent, with temporal misalignment being perceived as a threat to conductor efficacy and to overall musical effect.…”

Focus of alignment and performance accuracy among wind band musicians in situations of audio-visual asynchrony

“…This tapping task occurred across two varying audio-visual conditions: one in which audio gradually increased in tempo by 7.5% while video decreased in tempo by 7.5% (A+/V−), and a contrasting condition in which video gradually increased in tempo by 7.5% while audio decreased in tempo by 7.5% (A−/V+). The total offset of 15% is a lag rate consistent with that utilized in previous research on conductor/ensemble synchrony (Meals et al, 2019). In a third condition, unaltered fully synchronous excerpts were used as a control.…”

Temporal Coordination in Piano Duet Networked Music Performance (NMP): Interactions Between Acoustic Transmission Latency and Musical Role Asymmetries

“…This also affects audiences' perceptions. When a temporal offset is introduced between the video of a conductor and the audio of the ensemble performance, audiences perceive conducting quality to be lower (Meals et al, 2019). As a result, while "networked" music performance (NMP) offers intriguing opportunities for experimental music and novel compositional techniques (e.g., Chafe, 2011), it also poses significant challenges to the achievement of robust, gratifying ensemble performance.…”