Public Lecture: Towards a multimodal Analysis of Piano Performance
Public Lecture: Towards a multimodal Analysis of Piano Performance
05
Sep
Public Lecture: Towards a multimodal Analysis of Piano Performance
ABOUT THE TALK
This talk presents a framework to characterize representative performances by experienced pianists in order to determine main influential trends in performance, derived specifically from traditional piano practices referred to as National Piano Schools. The methodology of this exploratory research departs from a musicological empirical analysis in articulation with recent technological developments for metric methods. It allowed an analysis of gesture and musical semantics by applying a multimodal approach for capturing the pianist performance based on the extraction of features’ sets specifically targeted to each piano school. This technique combines acquisition of capture of movement and post-processing of data (it can appear as two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects) 9 pianists playing on a Disklavier Piano (Yamaha Grand Piano that provides logic data from finger stroke pressure) using MOCAP (Motion Capture). The figures extracted from MOCAP device show amplitudes (percentiles) for each pianist, on each piano piece performed, 4 piano mainstream repertoire works which have been chosen for the tests with the 9 pianists. The extraction of features continued, different percentiles calculated on the trajectories of different points of the body, on each axis allowing to compare pianists and reveal their national piano schools.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Sofia Lourenço is a pianista and piano Professor at the Superior School of Music and Performing Arts at Porto (Portugal). She received the Doctor Degree of Music and Musicology by the University of Évora on “Tendencies of European Piano Interpretation Schools”. She is dedicated to the dissemination of Portuguese music from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, having recorded 4 solo piano CD’s. she coordinated at CITAR the Musical Studies research group at CITAR (UCP) and has been supervising several Masters and PhD candidates.
