It is a widespread belief among musicians that a violin’s sound “opens up” or improves through regular playing. However, physical evidence for this “playing-in” effect remains elusive. This study revisited the phenomenon by testing two hypotheses: (1) the instrument undergoes physical evolution, or (2) the player undergoes behavioral adaptation. We conducted a longitudinal study centered on a seldom-played test violin played daily by a professional soloist for six months, alongside two stored control violins and a control group of ten violinists (N = 10). All three violins had been rarely played prior to the experiment. Assessments performed at the beginning (“Before” phase) and end (“After” phase) of the period included input admittance measurements via laser vibrometry, standardized sound recordings, and acquisition of the soloist’s bowing gestures via motion capture. Results revealed no acoustical evolution in the played violin exceeding the environmental drift observed in the control instruments. Furthermore, kinematic analysis showed no significant drift in the soloist’s bowing strategy (bow position, velocity, contact point). These findings suggest that the “playing-in” phenomenon is driven neither by macroscopic physical changes in the instrument nor by a fundamental reorganization of the player’s technique.

Abstract This chapter explores how modern orchestration techniques contribute to the establishment of relationships between instrumental and electronics in mixed works. To this end, I will refer to the recent theory on taxonomies of orchestral grouping effects (TOGE). In previous research, I have identified twelve prototypical relationships between instrumental and electronic sources grouped into three main classes: relations of communication, relations of identity, and relations of complementarity. Starting from this typology, and from some examples of representative mixed works for ensemble or large orchestra, I show how the principles of the TOGE allow to understand the perceptual issues involved in the relationship between the instrumental and the electronics.

The American composer Roger Reynolds has composed several musical portraits, including George WASHINGTON (2013). Requiring a large orchestra, three narrators, video projection on three large screens, pre-recorded and processed sounds and real-time sound spatialisation, the work immerses the audience in a continuous stream of sounds and images that represent the thoughts, memories, gaze and auditory perceptions of the first President of the United States. Reynolds renews the genre through the artistic and technological means he employs. Reynolds' portrait of George Washington is approachedfrom three complementary perspectives: the subject thinking, gazing and listening. The work is situated in the composer's output and in the history of the musical portrait in the 20(th) and 21(st) centuries.

Expertise is associated with a knowledge-driven information-processing approach. Experts benefit from long-term knowledge structures-chunks and retrieval structures/templates-leading them to formulate expectations about local stimulus characteristics and to extract information projected onto distant areas from the fixation location. In an attempt to shed light on the way knowledge-driven processing impacts eye movements during music reading, this study aimed to determine how expert musicians deal with local complexity in a sight-reading task. Thirty musicians from two expertise levels had to sight read 4 bar score excerpts. Local analyses were conducted to investigate how the gaze behaves prior to and during the sight reading of different score characteristics, such as alteration, location of the notes on the staff, note count, and heterogeneity of notes. The more experts (1) were less affected by the foveal load induced by local complexity, showing a lower increase in fixation durations between noncomplex features and local complexity compared to the less experts; (2) presented a saccadic flexibility towards the local complexity projected onto the parafoveal area, being the only group to exhibit shorter progressive incoming saccade sizes on accidentals and larger progressive incoming saccade sizes on new notes compared to noncomplex features; and (3) presented a visuo-motor flexibility depending on the played complexity, being the only group to exhibit a shorter eye-hand span when playing accidentals or distant notes compared to noncomplex features. Overall, this study highlights the usefulness of local analyses as a relevant tool to investigate foveal and parafoveal processing skills during music reading.

Classical music pianists of five different conservatory levels, from undergraduate to professional, were tested on a sight-reading task with eye-movement recording. They had to sight read both tonal classical scores that followed the rules specific to Western tonal music, and atonal contemporary scores, which do not follow these rules. This study aimed at determining the extent to which eye movements and musical performance metrics can account for the level of sight-reading expertise. First, the results indicated that with the acquisition of expertise, musicians process visual information more rapidly (increasing their played tempo while decreasing average fixation duration and their number of fixations), more structurally (tending to increase their eye-hand span), and more accurately (increasing their sight-reading accuracy). Second, when they sight read contemporary scores compared to classical scores, musicians decreased their played tempo, tended to be less accurate, increased their number of fixations, and tended to decrease their eye-hand span. Finally, expertise effects were moderated by the type of score. These results suggest (a) that visual perception is progressively shaped through music reading expertise and through domain-specific knowledge acquisition, (b) that tonal-specific cues play a significant role to use an efficient eye-movement behavior and (c) that the benefit conferred by expert prior music-specific knowledge seems to be even greater for sight-reading tonal rather than atonal scores. Our findings are discussed in the light of expert memory theories (long-term working memory theory; Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995; template theory, Gobet & Simon, 1996).

Comment les enseignants de musique pourraient-ils aider leurs élèves pour faire face aux aspects anxiogènes de la représentation en public ? L’objectif de cet article est d’apporter quelques éléments pour répondre à cette question. Il est important de considérer que la représentation en public est l’un des principaux aspects de la pratique musicale dès le début de l’apprentissage. Compte tenu de la forte prévalence de l’anxiété de performance musicale (apm) chez les musiciens de tous les niveaux et de tous les groupes d’âge, l’enseignant a un rôle important. À partir d’une révision de la littérature, les sources de l’apm sont analysées et dans chacune d’elles sont indiquées quelques stratégies qui pourraient être adoptées par l’enseignant. L’accent est mis sur la prévention et sur l’importance de la sensibilisation au sujet de l’apm chez les enseignants de musique.

Le Sacre du printemps constitue une oeuvre clé pour l’histoire de l’enregistrement et pour la musicologie de l’interprétation. Igor Stravinski considérait ses enregistrements comme établissant un modèle d’interprétation faisant autorité, mais c’est un fait connu qu’il ne respecte pas ses propres indications de tempo et fait un usage plus ou moins important du rubato. Ces incertitudes sur les tempi ont créé le doute et ont ouvert un espace de liberté pour les interprètes. Cet article s’est donné pour objectif d’examiner à nouveaux frais l’évolution de l’interprétation du Sacre des points de vue de la durée et du tempo. Le recours à un vaste corpus de 96 versions discographiques enregistrées entre 1929 et 2019 a permis d’obtenir une représentation claire de l’évolution de l’interprétation de l’oeuvre sur 90 ans, de dégager la marge de liberté dans les choix des tempi et d’établir une cartographie des styles d’interprétation.

Congenital amusia is a neurodevelopmental disorder of music processing, which includes impaired pitch memory, associated to abnormalities in the right fronto-temporal network. Previous research has shown that tonal structures (as defined by the Western musical system) improve short-term memory performance for short tone sequences (in comparison to atonal versions) in non-musician listeners, but the tonal structures only benefited response times in amusic individuals. We here tested the potential benefit of tonal structures for short-term memory with more complex musical material. Congenital amusics and their matched non-musician controls were required to indicate whether two excerpts were the same or different. Results confirmed impaired performance of amusic individuals in this short-term memory task. However, most importantly, both groups of participants showed better memory performance for tonal material than for atonal material. These results revealed that even amusics' impaired short-term memory for pitch shows classical characteristics of short-term memory, that is the mnemonic benefit of structure in the to-be-memorized material. The findings show that amusic individuals have acquired some implicit knowledge of regularities of their culture, allowing for implicit processing of tonal structures, which benefits to memory even for complex material.

Le travail instrumental quotidien des élèves des conservatoires et écoles de musique semble être une condition indispensable à une pratique musicale épanouissante et de qualité. Cette enquête par questionnaire, adressée aux enseignants des conservatoires et écoles de musique, tente de comprendre comment la pratique instrumentale est organisée à la maison du côté des élèves et familles. Elle traite de l’autonomie des élèves, du temps et de la charge de travail personnel, de la gestion des consignes orales, de l’utilisation des supports écrits, des méthodes utilisées pour aider des élèves en difficulté ainsi que de la place de la réprimande et de l’auto-évaluation pendant le cours instrumental. Elle pointe, côté enseignants, un recours important à la réprimande pour faire face à des situations de travail insuffisant et conclut à un manque de connaissances en psychologie de l’enfant et de l’adolescent. Côté élèves, elle souligne un manque manifeste de travail personnel ainsi qu’une certaine désorganisation de l’entraînement musical. Côté familles, elle met en lumière une absence de soutien quotidien dans le travail instrumental des enfants.

Abstract Although work in the sciences of musical perception did not wait until the 1970s to reach composers, those in the spectral movement were particularly attentive and used some aspects to fertilize their theoretical thought and their compositional practice. This chapter examines the different ways in which these composers appropriated the knowledge of sound and auditory perception. The chapter will first examine the paradigm shift that has led from note to sound culture and to an awareness of the role of perception in composition. It will then discuss the question of the appropriation of concepts from acoustics and psychoacoustics by spectral composers. Finally, it will focus on some scientific-inspired techniques of composition.

Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III, 1974) for two amplified pianos and percussion by George Crumb is one of the first works written after 1945 to use the same ensemble inaugurated by Béla Bartók in his Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. The aim of this article is to examine the relationship between temporality and texture in the performance of Music for a Summer Evening. The highly diversified textures in terms of colour and density, as well as the tempo palette offer performers a high degree of freedom in their interpretation. Seven recorded performances of the work, covering a period of more than forty years (1975–2017) are compared according to the methods I developed during previous studies (Lalitte, Philippe. 2015. Analyser l’interprétation de la musique du XXe siècle. Une analyse d’interprétations enregistrées des Dix pièces pour quintette à vent de György Ligeti. Paris: Hermann; Lalitte, Philippe. 2018. “L’interprétation de Sopiana pour flûte, piano et bande de François-Bernard Mâche.” In François-Bernard Mâche: Le poète et le savant face à l’univers sonore, edited by Geneviève Mathon and Marta Grabocz, 299–318. Paris: Hermann; Lalitte, Philippe, and Vincent Grepel. 2017. “Prêt-à-porter ou coupe sur mesure? Liberté et contraintes dans l’interprétation de la Sequenza III de Berio.” Filigrane 22.). The article sheds light on issues such as the fidelity to the score, the singularity of some interpretations, the impact of texture on the temporality of performance, and the potential effect of the number of musicians in the ensemble.

Le groupe Hatfield and the North figure parmi les plus représentatifs de la Scène de Canterbury : ses deux albums en constituent une production importante. Le premier album de 1974, simplement intitulé Hatfield and the North, est abordé ici essentiellement et selon plusieurs approches successives : contextualisation, forme des morceaux, analyse de l'enchaînement des morceaux pour chaque face du vinyle sur la base de la théorie des attentes musicales, les apports des différents musiciens et leurs spécificités dans le jeu instrumental, la pratique des métriques complexes dans « Shaving is boring » et « Lobster in Cleavage Probe », les différentes approches stylistiques des quatre membres du groupe et les interactions entre leurs conceptions musicales propres. Les contributions de trois musicologues convergent en une analyse détaillée et diversifiée des caractéristiques précises de cette musique. Le second album, The Rotter's Club, est abordé en fin d'article, ainsi que le devenir de chacun des musiciens après la dissolution du groupe. Un entretien avec Dave Stewart (en fin d'article) porte sur les questions de composition et de production du disque. Une telle exploration de cet album permet au lecteur de mieux saisir la richesse de cette production et de la situer dans un contexte plus large, en l'occurrence celui de la Scène de Canterbury.

Conceptual priming studies have shown that listening to musical primes triggers semantic activation. The present study further investigated with a free semantic evocation task, 1) how rhythmic vs. textural structures affect the amount of words evoked after a musical sequence, and 2) whether both features also affect the content of the semantic activation. Rhythmic sequences were composed of various percussion sounds with a strong underlying beat and metrical structure. Textural sound sequences consisted of blended timbres and sound sources evolving over time without identifiable pulse. Participants were asked to verbalize the concepts evoked by the musical sequences. We measured the number of words and lemmas produced after having listened to musical sequences of each condition, and we analyzed whether specific concepts were associated with each sequence type. Results showed that more words and lemmas were produced for textural sound sequences than for rhythmic sequences and that some concepts were specifically associated with each musical condition. Our findings suggest that listening to musical excerpts emphasizing different features influences semantic activation in different ways and extent. This might possibly be instantiated via cognitive mechanisms triggered by the acoustic characteristics of the excerpts as well as the perceived emotions.

Introduction: The objective of our study was to evaluate musical perception and its relation to the quality of life in patients with bimodal binaural auditory stimulation. Materials and Methods: Nineteen adult patients with a cochlear implant (CI) for minimum 6 months, and moderate to severe contralateral hearing loss with a hearing aid (HA), and 21 normal hearing adults were included in this prospective, cross-sectional study. Pure-tone and speech audiometry, musical test evaluating sound perception characteristics and musical listening abilities, Munich questionnaire for musical habits, and the APHAB questionnaire were recoded. Performance in musical perception test with HA, CI, and HA + CI, and potential correlations between music test, audiometry and questionnaires were investigated. Results: Bimodal stimulation improved musical perception in several features (sound brightness, roughness, and clarity) in comparison to unimodal hearing, but CI did not add to HA performances in texture, polyphony or musical emotion and even appeared to interfere negatively in pitch perception with HA. Musical perception performances (sound clarity, instrument recognition) appeared to be correlated to hearing-related quality of life (APHAB RV and EC subdomains) but not with speech performances suggesting that the exploration of musical perception complements speech understanding evaluation to better describe every-day life hearing handicap. Conclusion: Testing musical sound perception provides important information on hearing performances as a complement to speech audiometry and appears to be related to hearing-related quality of life.

Research has shown that regular rhythmic primes improve grammaticality judgments of subsequently presented sentences compared with irregular rhythmic primes. In the theoretical framework of dynamic attending, regular rhythmic primes are suggested to act as driving rhythms to entrain neural oscillations. These entrained oscillations then sustain once the prime has finished, engendering a state of global enhanced activation that facilitates the processing of subsequent sentences. Up to now, this global rhythmic priming effect has largely been shown with primes that are approximately 30 s or more. To investigate whether shorter primes also facilitate grammaticality judgments, two experiments were run on two groups of children aged 7 to 9 years (Ms = 8.67 and 8.58 years, respectively). Prime durations were 8 and 16 s in Experiment 1, and they were 16 and 32 s in Experiment 2. Rhythmic priming was observed in Experiment 2 for 32-s primes, as observed previously. Furthermore, positive correlations were found between reading age and performance level after regular primes for both 8-s and 16-s primes in Experiment 1 and for 32-s primes in Experiment 2. In addition, the benefit of the regular primes increased with chronological age for the 32-s primes in Experiment 2. The findings suggest that (at least) 32-s primes are optimal in global rhythmic priming studies when testing children in the current age range and that results may be modulated by chronological age and reading age. Results are discussed in relation to dynamic attending theory, neural oscillation strength, developmental considerations, and implications for rhythmic stimulation in language rehabilitation. (C) 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Regular musical rhythms orient attention over time and facilitate processing. Previous research has shown that regular rhythmic stimulation benefits subsequent syntax processing in children with dyslexia and specific language impairment. The present EEG study examined the influence of a rhythmic musical prime on the P600 late evoked-potential, associated with grammatical error detection for dyslexic adults and matched controls. Participants listened to regular or irregular rhythmic prime sequences followed by grammatically correct and incorrect sentences. They were required to perform grammaticality judgments for each auditorily presented sentence while EEG was recorded. In addition, tasks on syntax violation detection as well as rhythm perception and production were administered. For both participant groups, ungrammatical sentences evoked a P600 in comparison to grammatical sentences and its mean amplitude was larger after regular than irregular primes. Peak analyses of the P600 difference wave confirmed larger peak amplitudes after regular primes for both groups. They also revealed overall a later peak for dyslexic participants, particularly at posterior sites, compared to controls. Results extend rhythmic priming effects on language processing to underlying electrophysiological correlates of morpho-syntactic violation detection in dyslexic adults and matched controls. These findings are interpreted in the theoretical framework of the Dynamic Attending Theory (Jones, 1976, 2019) and the Temporal Sampling Framework for developmental disorders (Goswami, 2011).