Browsing by Author "Vidal, Marc"
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- Knee flexion of saxophone players anticipates tonal context of musicPublication . Moura, Nádia; Vidal, Marc; Aguilera, Ana M.; Vilas-Boas, João Paulo; Serra, Sofia; Leman, MarcMusic performance requires high levels of motor control. Professional musicians use body movements not only to accomplish and help technical efficiency, but to shape expressive interpretation. Here, we recorded motion and audio data of twenty participants performing four musical fragments varying in the degree of technical difficulty to analyze how knee flexion is employed by expert saxophone players. Using a computational model of the auditory periphery, we extracted emergent acoustical properties of sound to inference critical cognitive patterns of music processing and relate them to motion data. Results showed that knee flexion is causally linked to tone expectations and correlated to rhythmical density, suggesting that this gesture is associated with expressive and facilitative purposes. Furthermore, when instructed to play immobile, participants tended to microflex (>1 Hz) more frequently compared to when playing expressively, possibly indicating a natural urge to move to the music. These results underline the robustness of body movement in musical performance, providing valuable insights for the understanding of communicative processes, and development of motor learning cues.
- Relationships of prediction and alignment between musicians' movement and rhythmical and tonal contexts of musicPublication . Vidal, Marc; Moura, NádiaMusic performance requires high levels of motor control to express musical intentions. In this study, we analysed motion and audio data of 20 expert saxophone players performing four musical fragments varying in the degree of technical difficulty. Using a computational model of the auditory periphery, we extracted emergent acoustical properties of sound to inference critical cognitive patterns of music processing and relate them to motion data. Results showed that knee flexion is causally linked to real-time tone expectations as measured by our auditory model and correlated to rhythmical density, a likelihood measure on rhythmic events that relies on the roughness properties of the sound. These findings underline the robustness of body movement in musical performance, providing valuable insights for the understanding of musical expression and development of motor learning cues.