Piano Pieces Research Articles

An empirical analysis of the evolution of piano performance skills based on big data

Abstract The current hotspots of empirical analysis of piano performance skills mainly focus on the recognition of single notes, and there are some limitations in recognition accuracy and noise resistance performance. In this paper, to address this problem, firstly, on the basis of big data, we propose to realize the segmentation of the music section and noise section based on the single-port limit energy difference method and perform note onset and stop detection for the music section based on LMS adaptive filtering algorithm, using the musical characteristics of piano to identify the energy jumping point, which effectively improves the accuracy of note onset and stop detection and avoids the situation of missing and wrong diagnosis. Then the piano piece was played as an example, and the scientific evaluation of the piano performance skills was made based on the results of the determination of note types. The results showed that the errors of the eight notes of the piece were 0.9%, 0.30%, 0.24%, 0.28%, 0.34%, 0.11%, 0.63% and 0.28%. The correct rate of determining the types of notes in the performance technique of the music was 100%, and the error of determining all notes was controlled within 1%. This study provides a reference standard for evaluating the quality of music performance and has broad application prospects in the fields of family leisure, music tutoring, etc.

Музыкальное искусство России начала ХХ века: Энергетика

The essay considers the origin of such a phenomenon as dynamism in the Russian musical art of the 1910s. Dynamism “in general” (a powerful pressure of energy, a riot of forces) and constructive dynamism (the desire for organisation, for machine-type energy) coexisted and interacted in the works of the early XX century. The author consistently sheds light on the manifestations of dynamism in the creative work of S. Prokofiev, who began his career in the 1910s (piano piece “Diabolic Suggestion” Op. 4 No. 4 (1908), Étude in C Minor Op. 2 No. 4 (1909), Toccata Op. 11 (1912), Piano Sonata No. 3 (1907-1917)). The essay pays special attention to the Piano Sonata No. 2 (1912), with its dramaturgy based on a sharp comparison of two figurative spheres – the action-filled and the lyrical. As a result, the author concludes that the primary function of dynamism is to convey the eruption of colossal energy characteristic of the early XX century.

EXPLORING THE CONCEPT OF FREEDOM IN A STRICTLY NOTATED SCORE THROUGH THE AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH METHOD: CASE STUDY – KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN’S KLAVIERSTÜCK I

Autoethnography is a research method that focuses on the researcher’s personal experiences and, through the analysis of experiences, can contribute to a fuller understanding of a phenomenon on a wider cultural level. In music, personal experience, whilst unique, can be a relatable and reliable source for the community. I am researching the individual – myself – to show my perspectives and share my experiences with others. In this article, I aim to show how the autoethnographic research method, applied to the rather technical research question of how to understand and practice a strictly notated score, can lead to an attempt to understand the meaning of freedom in musical interpretation. The article presents my own research project, with the methodology and analytical process of the data, and describes one example of the practical work conducted in my research with the piano pieces of Karlheinz Stockhausen. I aim to examine the understanding of freedom in musical interpretation and discuss why precise notation that at first might not give an impression of free interpretation possibilities can in fact be an interesting way of finding oneself and one’s personal approach.

Chromatic Function in Schoenberg’s Little Piano Piece, op. 19, no. 1

The revival of Formenlehre studies has initiated a renewed interest in formal functions in atonal music. Schoenberg, who pioneered the study of formal functions, did not extensively analyze his atonal music from a formal point of view. Recent scholars, however, have drawn parallels between the formal construction of his atonal music and common-practice tonal music. One impediment to such analysis is the lack of a theory of counterpoint and harmony upon which formal-functional analysis rests. I propose a normative contrapuntal-harmonic structure for Schoenberg’s atonal music I call the “chromatic cadence.” I trace its origins to voice-leading techniques used by Schoenberg in his earlier tonal music and develop fundamental principles that guide the analysis and identification of the cadence in his atonal music. I conclude with a detailed analysis of Schoenberg’s piano piece, op. 19, no. 1, in which I examine the interrelationship of its motivic construction, contrapuntal-harmonic structure, and its formal functions.

Theodor Leschetizky as Pianist and Composer

The paper is devoted to the piano pieces and the characteristics of the performing style of Theodore Leschetizky, the head of the large piano school of the 20th century. It is emphasised that the composer’s miniatures are very original, refl ect the atmosphere of the era, have considerable artistic value and can certainly arouse interest among modern audiences, which is proven by artistic experiments undertaken today. The article analyses the problems facing modern performers of Leschetizky’s piano pieces.

NLP-based music processing for composer classification

Categorizing music pieces by composer is a challenging task in digital music processing due to their highly flexible structures, introducing subjective interpretation by individuals. This research utilized musical data from the MIDI and audio edited for synchronous tracks and organization dataset of virtuosic piano pieces. In this work, pitch and duration were the musical features of interest. The goal was to innovate an approach to representing a musical piece using SentencePiece and Word2vec, which are natural language processing-based techniques. We attempted to find correlated melodies that are likely to be formed by single interpretable units of music via co-occurring notes, and represented them as a musical word/subword vector. Composer classification was performed in order to ensure the efficiency of this musical data representation scheme. Among classification machine learning algorithms, k-nearest neighbors, random forest classifier, logistic regression, support vector machines, and multilayer perceptron were employed to compare performances. In the experiment, the feature extraction methods, classification algorithms, and music window sizes were varied. The results were that classification performance was sensitive to feature extraction methods. Musical word/subword vector standard deviation was the most effective feature, resulting in classification with a high F1-score, attaining 1.00. No significant difference was observed among model classification performances.

Impact of music performance anxiety on cardiovascular blood pressure responses, autonomic tone and baroreceptor sensitivity to a western classical music piano-concert.

Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) is a prevalent condition among musicians that can manifest both psychologically and physiologically, leading to impaired musical performance. Physiologically, MPA is characterized by excessive muscular and/or autonomic tone. This study focuses on the cardiovascular blood pressure responses, autonomic tone and baroreceptor sensitivity changes that occur during musical performance due to MPA. Six professional pianists perform a piece for piano written only for the left hand by Alexander Scriabin. The following parameters have been studied during the performance: ECG, non-invasive beat to beat continuous arterial blood pressure and skin conductance. Sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic flow was studied with Wigner-Ville analysis (W-V) from R-R ECG variability, and baroreceptor sensitivity with the Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT). During the concert a significant increase of heart rate, systolic, mean and diastolic arterial pressure were observed. No significant differences were found in skin conductance. The W-V analysis, which studies frequency changes in the time domain, shows a significant increase of sympathetic flow and a decrease of parasympathetic flow during the concert which is associated with a significant decrease in sympathetic and vagal baroreceptor sensitivity. The study of cardiac variability using the Wigner-Ville analysis may be a suitable method to assess the autonomic response in the context of MPA, and could be used as biofeedback in personalized multimodal treatments.

Метаморфозы музыкального языка А. Т. Гречанинова 1910-х годов. Цикл фортепианных пьес «Пастели» ор. 61

The research aims to shed light on the metamorphoses of the musical language of the famous Russian composer A. T. Gretchaninov, active in the late XIX century – the first half of the XX century, which occurred in the 1910s. The paper pays special attention to the identification of the stylistic singularity of “Pastels” Op. 61 (1912-1913), a cycle of piano pieces. The scientific originality of the research is connected with the fact that A. T. Gretchaninov’s creative work has not been previously considered in the context of the changes that took place in the composer’s musical style in the 1910s. As a result, it has been revealed that the novelty of Gretchaninov’s musical language in the period under consideration was due to both changes in Russian art in general (in particular, the influence of impressionism on the composer’s work turned out to be significant) and crises in Alexander Tikhonovich’s personal and creative life. In particular, this trend can be traced in the history of creation of the cycle “Pastels”: during a difficult, critical period, Gretchaninov turned to composing music for children, in which he would find solace, but the piano pieces in the cycle turned out to be generally sad in an unchildlike way and psychologically saturated with deeply “adult” feelings and experiences.

Impact of Walking Game Activity on Teaching of Asymmetrical Rhythms in Piano Education

This study aimed at examining to what extent the walking game activity is effective in teaching of asymmetrical (aksak) rhythm patterns in piano education. The study used the experimental method by setting up control and experiment groups each of which was composed of 11 people. In this practice that was conducted with students receiving the piano class in a private course whose ages ranged between 8 and 9, walking game activity was used to teach asymmetrical rhythm patterns. The practice was based on cards on which the rhythm patterns were written and repetition of the rhythm patterns formulated according to these cards with a walking game, and the final performances were measured with a given piano piece. A pre-test was also given to the students to measure the levels of students before the practice. Digital data obtained through the practice were statistically analysed. In pre-test and post-test measurements, the Man Whitney U test was used. It was concluded as a result of the measurements that, in the post-test process, the students in the experiment group who studied with the walking game activity performed better in understanding and vocalizing the asymmetrical rhythm patterns compared to the students in control group.

Russian and Chinese traditions in the piano piece by G. Ya. Ore “Fantasy of Southern China”

The subject of the research is the piece for piano solo "Fantasy of Southern China: Lady and the Flower Seller" (1931) by the Russian émigré composer Harry Yakovlevich Ore (Xia Like, 1885-1972), forgotten in his homeland. A graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, he lived most of his life in China, where he distinguished himself as a pianist, teacher and composer. Ore left a notable mark on the history of Chinese music, including as the author of the first piano arrangement of typical qupai melodies of the traditional Cantonese opera yueju. The purpose of the study is to consider Fantasia through the prism of the refraction of the Russian traditions of the St. Petersburg school (primarily The Russian Five) and the Chinese operatic traditions yueju. The article uses comparative typological and analytical research methods to substantiate the uniqueness of the selected piece as the first sample in the history of Chinese academic music that combines the melodies of Cantonese opera with the traditions of “New Russian school”. Piano piece “Fantasy of Southern China” by G. Ya. Ore is considered in Russian-language musicology for the first time. The main conclusions of the study are as follows. In the presented composition, the composer arranged four well-known tunes of the Cantonese yueju opera - "Ba Da Ban", "Toilet Table", "Product Sale" and " Narcissus flowers". The composer organically combined the national opera melodies of the Guangdong province in pentatonic modes with the writing techniques characteristic of the representatives of the St. Petersburg "New Russian School" (especially N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, M. P. Mussorgsky) and its followers (A. K. Lyadov): variability, trichords, parallel-variable modes, plagal harmonies, smooth voice leading, melodization of voices, "singing" piano texture.

In Search of Lost Time in Word and Sound: about the Influence of Marcel Proust on the Work of Reynaldo Hahn

In the late 19th century two young and original artists — Marcel Proust, who worked not only as a writer, but also as a journalist (a music critic, as well), and Reynaldo Hahn, a composer, music critic and public figure, — fall into the orbit of mutual influences. Having remained friends (which can be seen, in particular, from their correspondence) up until Proust’s death, they have maintained their artistic dialogue in one way or another. As a result of this, a number of Hahn’s compositions dedicated to Proust appear at that time, as well as the cycle Portraits d’artistes – four piano pieces by Hahn with declamation of texts from Proust’s early cycle with the same title. The composition presents a peculiar double ekphrasis, since it portrays four baroque artists (Albert Cuyp, Paulus Potter, Anthony van Dyck and Antoine Watteau), using poetic and musical means, generating synthetic images-metaphors. Hahn’s other compositions permeated with Proust’s aesthetics is his piano cycle Le Rossignol éperdu, the pieces of which were composed at the same time as the first volume of In Search of Lost Time was written. Unifying into a certain resemblance to a cycle, Hahn’s pieces are in effect miniature sketches of images that are different in their nature (poetic, pictorial, architectural, natural, mythological, etc.), affixed with epigraphs and other verbal commentaries. The composition demonstrates the stylistic features essential to the French Belle Époque: passéisme, ornamentality, impressionistic hearing of sound-color, as well as a special attitude towards time. In the outcome, this results in a compilation-cycle continuing the romantic tradition of the traveler’s album (Franz Liszt), turning out to be concordant with compositions of Hahn’s contemporaries (in particular, Debussy’s Preludes) and, in addition, presenting an original musical metaphor of Proust’s novel.

The Role of Piano Pieces in Kodály’s Life

"This study summarizes the composer’s piano works for the occasion of Kodály’s 140th anniversary. It introduces the role of the piano in Kodály’s life, the works he became acquainted with during his studies, and whether he had the opportunity to perform them in concert during his lifetime. Other questions include which study trips could have influenced the composition of his piano pieces, in which period were the piano pieces written, and who were the performers of the first performances. The research method is documentary analysis. As a result of the research, it can be concluded that Kodály had no formal piano teacher. He acquired his knowledge through lessons from his sister. He was driven by curiosity to become acquainted with all of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. He later used the instrument in his composing. We also found examples of him accompanying his songs in concerts. The piano pieces were influenced by his study trip to France. The piano pieces were composed in 3 periods. Keywords: Kodály, piano study, piano pieces, dawn, performers"

Kodály and Impressionism. The Influence of Debussy

"The paper examines Debussy’s influence on the young Kodály. First, it enumerates those historical events, that link Kodály to Debussy’s music, then it compares his newly developed style with that of his earlier and later works. By analyzing the piano works Méditation, sur un motif de Claude Debussy and Épitaphe (Seven pieces for piano, Op. 11, No. 4) the paper highlights a few impressionistic compositional techniques that appear in these works, then examines those ones, which Kodály takes on and fits in his latter, predominant neoclassical-folkloric style. Keywords: Kodály, Impressionism, Debussy, style, compositional techniques, analysis"

SANI FANTASIA: AN EXAMINATION ON YUNNAN YI CHARACTERISTICS IN PIANO MUSIC ADAPTATION

Incorporating Yunnan Yi music elements into piano compositions is a growing trend in Chinese piano music, and Yi piano adaptations serve as an important representation of Yunnan piano music’s ethnic style and development. However, a lack of systematic investigation and observation means that little research has been done on the composition of Yi piano adaptations. This presents a challenge for aspiring piano students looking to interpret the Yi characteristics of these works. This study aims to provide a systematic discourse on prior research and investigate the relevance and contribution of Yi piano adaptations in reducing the existing gap. Literary research and musical analysis will be employed to analyze the Sani Fantasia adaptation. A literature analysis will classify relevant piano adaptation works and appreciate Yi piano music’s overall growth pattern, while a systematic examination of Sani Fantasia will reveal how Yi’s music elements are expressed and translated in the piano pieces while maintaining the original folk song’s ethnic style. The researchers hope the study will deepen academics’ understanding of the cultural significance and worth of Yi piano adaptations and piano compositions in the Yunnan ethnic styles.

Scriabin and Kodály in the Reading of Antal Molnár, Imre Molnár and Emil Haraszti

"This study examines how Kodály, his student Antal Molnár and his colleague Imre Molnár, and their adversary Emil Haraszti saw Scriabin’s music throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Audiences were responsive, as seen by the continuous performance of his works by Hungarian and international musicians beginning in 1906. There was a great deal of curiosity in his orchestral pieces, but only four of them were played ten times throughout the course of a century. Rêverie and Le Poème Divin debuted in Budapest in 1910, followed by Le Poème de l’extase in 1919, although Prometheus did not make its appearance until 2001. Kodály found his music peculiar and disinteresting, judging it to be a poorer disciple of Richard Strauss and Claude Debussy. However, following the composer’s death, his pupils discovered new values in him, characterizing him as mythical (like A. Molnár A.) and mystical (like I. Molnár). And Haraszti thought it was excellent music. A different interpretation referred to Scriabin as the ""Russian Bartók."" He was regarded as ""one of the most inventive experimenters of his time,"" which was a mixed acclaim. After 1945, newspapers mostly complimented his piano pieces and symphony conductors. Marxist aesthetes after 1949 saw his work as a failure due to his spiritual goals, which A. Molnár regarded as a distinctive value. Two pioneering conductors, who considered Kodály their distant teacher, Z. Kocsis and A. Ertüngealp, gave the first performances of his hitherto unperformed pieces after 1990. Keywords: Kodaly, Scriabin, Antal Molnár, Imre Molnár, Emil Haraszti, impressionism, ecstasy"

S. A. SHEVCHENKO’S HERITAGE IN FUTURE MUSIC TEACHER PIANO TRAINING

The article highlights the issue of future music teacher piano training in a higher education institution. It has been established that its essential aspect is taking into account the scientific foundations of the process of learning to play the piano and using the repertoire of Ukrainian composers of the past, Poltava artist S. A. Shevchenko in particular.
 It has been determined that S. A. Shevchenko’s piano works should be included in individual educational programs for students with different levels of basic instrumental training. Thus, the works from the collection “Piano Pieces” have an accessible texture (“The Clock”, “The Golden Pipe”, “Evening”, “Spring Day”, “Fun”, etc.), bright dynamics (“Spring Day”), folk sources (“Song”), and fiery character (“Tarantella”) and provide an opportunity to enrich students’ repertoire with an initial level of instrument mastery. The undisputed pinnacle of the composer’s piano legacy should be considered the Concerto for Piano with the orchestra in c-moll in 3 parts, presented by the author in piano form, which can be offered to students with a high level of training.
 The article analyzes the scientific foundations of the piano learning process developed by S. A. Shevchenko. In his writings, issues of the development of the pianist’s motility, finger mobility, sound production, work on passages, the author's method of performing scales, etc. are revealed.
 It is proved that S. A. Shevchenko’s scientific and creative heritage has a didactic orientation and can be used in the modern process of future music teacher piano training in order to improve it and popularize the work of Ukrainian composers.

Joint-optimized feature selection and classifier hyperparameters by salp swarm algorithm in piano score difficulty measurement problem

This study proposes the semantic-explicit features that characterize difficulty, and jointly optimizes feature selection and classifier hyperparameters by the salp swarm algorithm (SSA) to deal with the corresponding mixed-integer programming problem with constructing large-scale piano score difficulty level datasets. The difficulty level of piano scores is essential for piano learners to choose the appropriate piece, especially for beginners and amateurs. However, the previous studies lack an open-access baseline dataset and sufficient difficulty-related features, as well as the separate optimization of and feature and model hyperparameter. To address such problems, this study constructs large-scale difficulty-level datasets, proposes novel difficulty-related features, and jointly optimizes feature selection and classifier hyperparameters due to the coupled effect of feature selection and model optimization. The search space of the joint optimization is complex due to the strong mutual constraint relationship of difficulty levels in the piano-score difficulty measurement (PSDM) problem. SSA is adapted to the joint optimization scheme of the PSDM problem with the advantages of only one main controlling parameter and less computation complexity involving the gradual SSA movement approach to balance global exploration and local exploitation in an unknown and complex search space. The joint-optimization mechanism by SSA achieves an overall accuracy of 78.80% and 60.68% on two datasets of 677 and 2040 piano pieces with difficulty levels of four and nine, respectively. The results of recognition accuracy obviously validate the distinguished performance of our joint-optimization scheme compared to the successive optimization and joint optimization by other seven optimization algorithms in terms of the PSDM problem.

Slip or fallacy? Effects of error severity on own and observed pitch error processing in pianists

Errors elicit a negative, mediofrontal, event-related potential (ERP), for both own errors (error-related negativity; ERN) and observed errors (here referred to as observer mediofrontal negativity; oMN). It is unclear, however, if the action-monitoring system codes action valence as an all-or-nothing phenomenon or if the system differentiates between errors of different severity. We investigated this question by recording electroencephalography (EEG) data of pianists playing themselves (Experiment 1) or watching others playing (Experiment 2). Piano pieces designed to elicit large errors were used. While active participants’ ERN amplitudes differed between small and large errors, observers’ oMN amplitudes did not. The different pattern in the two groups of participants was confirmed in an exploratory analysis comparing ERN and oMN directly. We suspect that both prediction and action mismatches can be coded in action monitoring systems, depending on the task, and a need-to-adapt signal is sent whenever mismatches happen to indicate the magnitude of the needed adaptation.

Kindlich experimentelles Komponieren wider die Schablonen

The compositional experiments and exercises written by eight-year-old Mozart in London in 1764 show original musical ideas which he went on to pursue later, making him an anti-classic par excellence. His London sketchbook was created in a sphere of intense encounters with old and new models of vocal and instrumental music and had a long-lasting effect. The special circumstances surrounding its creation – Leopold Mozart was ill and could not assist Wolfgang in editing the music – make the notebook appear as a collection of raw versions of piano pieces, which, however, go beyond compositions intended for a keyboard instrument. Previous editions of the London sketchbook, especially those produced by Wolfgang Plath for the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, did not reproduce the 43 piano pieces authentically, but rather marred them with emendations. Two examples, an alleged “Siciliano” and an alleged “Prelude”, are used to hold Mozart’s musical texts against these untenable assessments

Temporal Cues in the Judgment of Music Emotion for Normal and Cochlear Implant Listeners.

Several studies have established that Cochlear implant (CI) listeners rely on the tempo of music to judge the emotional content of music. However, a re-analysis of a study in which CI listeners judged the emotion conveyed by piano pieces on a scale from happy to sad revealed a weak correlation between tempo and emotion. The present study explored which temporal cues in music influence emotion judgments among normal hearing (NH) listeners, which might provide insights into the cues utilized by CI listeners. Experiment 1 was a replication of the Vannson et al. study with NH listeners using rhythmic patterns of piano created with congas. The temporal cues were preserved while the tonal ones were removed. The results showed (i) tempo was weakly correlated with emotion judgments, (ii) NH listeners' judgments for congas were similar to CI listeners' judgments for piano. In Experiment 2, two tasks were administered with congas played at three different tempi: emotion judgment and a tapping task to record listeners' perceived tempo. Perceived tempo was a better predictor than the tempo, but its physical correlate, mean onset-to-onset difference (MOOD), a measure of the average time between notes, yielded higher correlations with NH listeners' emotion judgments. This result suggests that instead of the tempo, listeners rely on the average time between consecutive notes to judge the emotional content of music. CI listeners could utilize this cue to judge the emotional content of music.