Timing and synchronisation of professional musicians: A comparison between orchestral brass and string players
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1
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
Background
Musicians have to coordinate complex rhythmic movements when playing their musical instruments. They need years of deliberate practice to learn how to adjust their timing behaviour as good as possible to the acoustic characteristics of their own instrument as well as to the spatial position in the orchestra respectively. Since most research on sensorimotor synchronization behaviour has mainly focused on the analysis of finger tapping tasks (see Repp, 2005, for a review), we conducted an experiment using a novel experimental paradigm to investigate the timing skills of professional musicians by playing their own musical instruments.
Aims
Two different experimental paradigms were used to investigate the timing skills of professional musicians. The aim was to examine whether orchestral brass and string players show differences in synchronization performance under varying conditions.
Method
21 professional musicians from a professional orchestra in Germany were asked to participate in the study. In the first experiment subjects had to synchronise by playing their own instrument (violin, viola, trumpet, trombone) with a simple metronome sequence (in each case the stimulus sound was the same as the instrument sound) in varying trials with different interstimulus-onset intervals (IOI) = 300, 400, 500, 600, and 1000 ms. In a second experiment, subjects had to perform the classical finger tapping synchronisation task to metronome sequences on a drum pad (same IOI’s as in the first experiment, for setup details, see Fischinger, 2011).
Results
Overall, the results show considerable differences in synchronisation performance: Subjects show a very low synchronisation error in the first experiment, when they have to synchronise by playing their own instrument compared to the second experiment with the classical tapping task (means of the asynchronies in ms with standard deviations: Exp.1: -2.06 ms, SD = 10.92 vs. Exp.2: -12.60 ms, SD = 8.38; t test for paired samples on the mean values of the asynchrony among subjects: p < .002 and effect sizes for all IOIs taken together: .78). The results also show that brass players perform slightly more precise than string players (Exp.1: brass: -1.78 ms vs. strings: -2.42 ms; Exp. 2: brass: -9.71 ms vs. strings: -14.25 ms).
Conclusions
Timing skills of professional musicians differ with regard to experimental conditions. This could be due to the fact that subjects are highly trained experts on their own musical instrument, but are not used to the classical tapping condition respectively. Synchronisation precision of professional musicians also seems to be depending on the acoustic characteristics of their instrument (transients and perceptual onsets) as well as on the spatial position in the orchestra (see Hall, 1997 and Meyer, 1999).
Acknowledgements
I like to thank Jan Stoklasa and Christoph Liebermann for their help in data collection and data analysis.
References
Fischinger, T. (2011). An integrative dual-route model of rhythm perception and production. Musicae Scientiae, 15 (1), 97-105.
Hall, D. E. (1997). Musikalische Akustik. Ein Handbuch. Mainz: Schott.
Meyer, J. (1999). Akustik und musikalische Aufführungspraxis. Leitfaden für Akustiker, Tonmeister, Musiker, Instrumentenbauer und Architekten. Frankfurt am Main: Edition Bochinsky.
Repp, B. H. (2005). Sensorimotor synchronization: A review of the tapping literature. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 12 (6), 969-992.
Keywords:
Synchronisation,
timing of action,
tapping task,
professional musicians,
transients,
perceptual onsets
Conference:
14th Rhythm Production and Perception Workshop Birmingham 11th - 13th September 2013, Birmingham, United Kingdom, 11 Sep - 13 Sep, 2013.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Rhythm Production and Perception
Citation:
Fischinger
T
(2013). Timing and synchronisation of professional musicians: A comparison between orchestral brass and string players.
Conference Abstract:
14th Rhythm Production and Perception Workshop Birmingham 11th - 13th September 2013.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.214.00021
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Received:
19 Jul 2013;
Published Online:
24 Sep 2013.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Timo Fischinger, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany, timo.fischinger@aesthetics.mpg.de