Grace note

Abstract: Strategies for the exploration of ornament performance Renee Timmers (r.timmers@sheffield.ac.uk) Department of Music, University of Sheffield 34 Leavygreave Road Sheffield, S3 7RD UK Makiko Sadakata (m.sadakata@donders.ru.nl) Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen Montessorilaan 3 6525 HR Nijmegen NL Peter Desain (p.desain@donders.ru.nl) Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen Montessorilaan 3 6525 HR Nijmegen NL Abstract Performing music is a creative process, even if notated music is performed. It is creative in the sense that performers have to establish and refine an interpretation of the music, given the under-specification of western notation and the aesthetic demands to provide an individual, but coherent, interpretation. Part of the practice is to explore interpretations and refine a chosen interpretation. Focusing in on this process, we asked student pianists to explore different ways of performing a musical ornament in order to improve their ability to imitate example performances of the ornaments, which was tested before and after the exploration training. Within the exploration training, participants showed a variety of strategies to explore ornament performance, varying the time-steal characteristics, the accenting pattern or the time inserted to add an ornament. Principle-component-analysis was used to define these strategies and loadings on the factors of exploration were used to define trajectories of exploration. This procedure highlighted strong differences between the tendencies of participants to explore the performance space defined by a factor. While some participants explored the entire factor, the performances of other participants remained within a specific area of interpretation. Wide exploration and jumps in interpretation were generally associated. Nevertheless, some participants combined small inter-trial changes with wide exploration, suggesting exploration through refinements. The results of the study are limited to the interpretation of a specific musical element. Nevertheless, parallel strategies seem to exist in music performance in general, opening educational possibilities for training these skills as well as providing direction for wider investigation of creative strategies in performance. Keywords: music performance; creativity; cognitive strategy; ornament timing. Introduction Creativity in performance of western classical music is related to the interpretation of music as it is notated in a score. Although music notation restricts the potential creativity of musicians compared to the creative possibilities in, for example, improvised music, performing music from a score nevertheless provides musicians considerable expressive freedom. Although the performed notes may be the same, the timing of simultaneous and sequential events is varied, as well as the intensity of events, the duration, and, for most instruments, the intonation of events. Taken together the combinatorial possibilities for expression are endless. To some extent, performers tend to explore only a particular area of the hypothetically possible performances. This is suggested by found performance rules (e.g. Sundberg, Askenfelt, Fryden, 1983; Todd, 1985; 1992; Repp, 1992a; 1992b). These performance rules define “styles of thought” or conceptual spaces, in the terminology of Boden (2004), that can in themselves be explored. Moreover, over the decades, performance styles change considerably (e.g. Philip, 1992) and even on an individual level, performers can markedly be innovative, indicating in Boden’s terms “transformations of the conceptual space”. A special instance of performance expression relates to the interpretation of musical elements whose notation is underspecified. This concerns music notation in general, however it concerns ornamental notes in particular. Ornaments are notated by symbols that indicate the kind of ornament, but do not contain an explicit rhythmic prescription that is otherwise used in music notation. Several conventions have been established by musicians related to the performance of ornaments. For example, it is common in performance treatises to distinguish between ornaments that are 1) accented and long, and conventionally performed “on the beat”, and 2) unaccented and short, and often performed “before the beat” (Neumann 1986; Donington, 1989). Indeed, recently, we showed that the timing of one-note ornaments (grace notes) clusters into two categories, even for the same musical fragment, that show distinct temporal positioning of the grace note and distinct durations of the grace note (Desain & Timmers, 2008). Having established an interpretation of the music, performers show amazing consistency over repeated