A microcosm of musical expression: II. Quantitative analysis of pianists’ dynamics in the initial measures of Chopin’s Etude in E major.
| Number | 1111 |
|---|---|
| Year | 1999 |
| Drawer | 21 |
| Entry Date | 11/22/1999 |
| Authors | Repp, B.H. |
| Contact | |
| Publication | Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 105, 1972-1988 |
| url | http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL1111.pdf |
| Abstract | Patterns of expressive dynamics were measured in bars 1–5 of 115 commercially recorded performances of Chopin’s Etude in E major, op. 10, No. 3. The grand average pattern (or dynamic profile)was representative of many performances and highly similar to the average dynamic profile of a group of advanced student performances, which suggests a widely shared central norm of expressive dynamics. The individual dynamic profiles were subjected to principal components analysis, which yielded five Varimax-rotated components, each representing a different, nonstandard dynamic profile associated with a small subset of performances. Most performances had dynamic patterns resembling a mixture of several components, and no clustering of performances into distinct groups was apparent. Some weak relationships of dynamic profiles with sociocultural variables were found, most notably a tendency of female pianists to exhibit a greater dynamic range in the melody. Within the melody, there were no significant relationships between expressive timing [Repp, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 104, 1085–1100 (1998) and expressive dynamics. These two important dimensions seem to be controlled independently at this local level and thus offer the artist many degrees of freedom in giving a melody expressive shape. |
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