Effects of Excerpt Tempo and Duration on Musicians' Ratings of High-Level Piano Performances

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine how judgments of solo performances recorded at an international piano competition might be affected by excerpt duration (20 versus 60 seconds) and tempo (slow versus fast). Musicians rated performances on six test items. Results indicated that piano majors rated slow excerpts higher than they rated fast excerpts, and that they rated slow excerpts higher than nonpiano majors rated either slow or fast excerpts; undergraduates rated long excerpts the same as or slightly higher than they did short excerpts, but graduate students and faculty rated long excerpts markedly higher than short excerpts; and undergraduate piano majors rated performances lower than did undergraduate nonpiano majors, but graduate piano majors and faculty rated performances higher than did graduate/faculty nonpiano majors. Also, accuracy items correlated with each other more highly than they did with other items, and judge ratings were higher for accuracy items than they were for other items. Finally, judge consistency was shown to be related to excerpt duration, excerpt tempo, instrumental major, and level of education. Results generally show that ratings taken after 60 seconds differed from ratings taken after 20 seconds, and that ratings provided evidence that judges were able to distinguish between different test items. November 23, 2004 April 27, 2005.