Unraveling mysteries of personal performance style; biomechanics of left-hand position changes (shifting) in violin performance.

Peter Visentin,Shiming Li,Gongbing Shan,Guillaume Tardif

doi:10.7717/peerj.1299

Peter Visentin, Shiming Li + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1299

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Abstract

Instrumental music performance ranks among the most complex of learned human behaviors, requiring development of highly nuanced powers of sensory and neural discrimination, intricate motor skills, and adaptive abilities in a temporal activity. Teaching, learning and performing on the violin generally occur within musico-cultural parameters most often transmitted through aural traditions that include both verbal instruction and performance modeling. In most parts of the world, violin is taught in a manner virtually indistinguishable from that used 200 years ago. The current study uses methods from movement science to examine the “how” and “what” of left-hand position changes (shifting), a movement skill essential during violin performance. In doing so, it begins a discussion of artistic individualization in terms of anthropometry, the performer-instrument interface, and the strategic use of motor behaviors. Results based on 540 shifting samples, a case series of 6 professional-level violinists, showed that some elements of the skill were individualized in surprising ways while others were explainable by anthropometry, ergonomics and entrainment. Remarkably, results demonstrated each violinist to have developed an individualized pacing for shifts, a feature that should influence timing effects and prove foundational to aesthetic outcomes during performance. Such results underpin the potential for scientific methodologies to unravel mysteries of performance that are associated with a performer’s personal artistic style.

Highlights

Instrumental music performance ranks among the most complex of learned human behaviors
Results of the current study revealed that, among the highly trained subjects of the current study, average end of shift timing (EST) accuracies ranged from 27 to 68 milliseconds (Table 2)
This result adds to the findings of Repp (1994), where a key concept in studies of motor behavior—proportional duration—was tested for two performers playing Robert Schumann’s piano composition “Traumerei.” Repp found that proportional duration for main elements of expressive microstructure generally held across the tempi tested

Summary

Introduction

Instrumental music performance ranks among the most complex of learned human behaviors. Classical western music pedagogy continues to perpetuate its traditions mainly through a one-on-one apprenticeship learning model. In such a model, conventions and aesthetic values are transmitted from teacher to pupil via aural tradition and, as part of the process, the learner must practice many hours of repetitive exercises to perfect complex motor control sequences. Shifting, moving from one position to another, compounds the complexity of finger placement because a performer’s hand starts in one non-linear special orientation and ends in another. The most common control strategy for performers is to use a “guide” finger (Dounis, 1921), normally the finger played just before the shift, which remains in contact with the string (1) creating a subtle but audible sonic reference during the shift, and (2) intensifying somatosensory bio-feedback via multiple finger and hand contact points with the instrument, both of which aid the triangulation of distances and positioning of the hand

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