How to explain the process of creating a musical interpretation: The development of a methodology

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1 International Symposium on Performance Science ISBN The Author 2013, Published by the AEC All rights reserved How to explain the process of creating a musical interpretation: The development of a methodology Isabelle Héroux 1, Marie-Soleil Fortier 2, and Laurence Lambert-Chan 2 1 Department of Music, Quebec University in Montreal, Canada 2 Faculty of Art, Quebec University in Montreal, Canada Our research aimed to develop a methodology in order to analyze the entire creative process in the work of interpreting a musical piece. We conducted a pilot study with a single case. The first step of our study was to collect our data according to the instrumental work validated by different researchers (rehearsal recordings, verbalization of reflexive questionnaires, observations). Then, we conducted a content analysis of the previously gathered data. As a second step, we used an interview technique inspired by the self-confrontation interview method. All of the data collected were then analyzed through a grounded-theory analysis. Although we used work stages previously mentioned in the scientific literature, we have observed a new work stage we described as appropriation artistique or artistic appropriation. In this stage, the subject would associate the abstract sense of musical discourse to his own life experience through the use of analogies and narratives in order to give a more convincing interpretation. The results of our research cannot be generalized, however the methodology developed will lead us, in future research observing several subjects, to study the entire creative process in the work of interpreting an original musical piece. Keywords: creativity; interpretation; methodology; phenomenology; practice When interpreting music, the professional musician must demonstrate technical mastery, expressiveness, and originality. To understand how to create a musical interpretation is essential to train future musicians, who will be judged in part for creative interpretation. While research on the work of expert musicians has identified the concepts of deliberate practice (Ericsson et

2 434 al. 1993), effective learning strategies (Parncutt and McPherson 2002, Jørgensen and Lehmann 1997), elements which constitute expression (Williamon et al. 2002, Juslin and Sloboda, 2010), and described the stages of practice (Chaffin et al. 2003), few have explored the creative aspect of interpretation. While Webster (2002), in his general model of creative thinking, has proposed four types of creative products including interpretation, he did not explain the creative process underlying the work of interpretation. However, it should be noted that some authors have studied creativity in the context of musical performances or recordings in a musicological angle (Clark 2012, Rink 1995), though none of them have studied in situ the creative process of the work of musical interpretation by expert musicians. The purpose of this exploratory research was to determine a methodology to study the creation of an interpretation from expert musicians. Thus, the objective of this paper is to present the methodology and results of a case study to describe the creative process of musical interpretation. Participants METHOD One of the researchers, also a professional performer, recorded and videotaped himself while practicing an unfamiliar musical piece, in order to identify the contents of each rehearsal. Materials We observed the work of interpretation of a piece for guitar entitled Why by Andrew York. The musician did not know the piece, which helped to avoid the presence of a mental model prior to the first reading. We chose a piece of medium difficulty in order to present all the work stages. The piece was also short to reduce the time spent on rehearsals. The subject was instructed to end the experimentation when he would judge the results of his interpretation satisfying. Procedure Data collection was conducted, in the first instance, by videotaping 14 rehearsals with verbalization, combined with reflexive response to a questionnaire. We completed our data collection with the viewing of all video footage by an external observer who described the actions taken by the subject as well as the elements the subject worked on during the rehearsals. The first data collection was then codified (Nvivo8) and subjected to content analysis (Bar-

3 INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON PERFORMANCE SCIENCE 435 din 2007). To start, we split the data collected during the rehearsals (content of verbalizations and descriptions of actions performed by the external observer) into four broad categories based on the length of the passages worked on by the subject, drawing from research conducted by Chaffin et al. (2003): short passages (4 bars maximum), medium length passages (5-14 bars), long passages (15-34 bars), and full cleave (35 bars). Subsequently, we identified the actions performed by the subject and then regrouped them by themes: reading, structure analysis, selection, evaluation, assimilation, memorization, and visualization. These themes are associated with more specific work elements: dynamics, attacks, fingerings, tone, voicing, phrasing, tempo, expression, and inspiration drawn outside of a musical context. The identification of the object and the length of the passages worked on by the subject allowed us to link the work of the subject to the work stages identified by Chaffin et al. The answers to the questions were related to the content of the rehearsals. Furthermore, a second data collection was conducted by self-confrontation interviews (Theureau 2010). To obtain additional data on certain moments where elaboration was necessary or when the subject forgot to verbalize his actions, we conducted interviews using this technique, encouraging the verbalization of the action a posteriori, stimulated by viewing excerpts of videotaped rehearsals. To analyze all of the data obtained through content analysis of the rehearsals and the self-confrontation interviews, we used grounded theory analysis (Paillé 1994). The main tool of this approach is the creation of conceptual categories, allowing us to "...raise the analysis to a level of understanding of a behaviour, a phenomenon, an event or an element part of a psychological or social context" (Paillé 1994, p. 160). RESULTS The qualitative content analysis of the first data collection revealed the presence of four specific steps: scouting-it-out, section-by-section, gray stage, and maintenance, supporting previous studies (Chaffin et al. 2003) but also denoting the presence of a new phase of appropriation artistique (artistic appropriation). We also found the formation of a global image of the musical piece guiding the work. Moreover, between rehearsals, the subject began to hear passages of the piece in his head. These memories eventually became longer and more accurate to the point where the subject could reproduce the whole piece in his head. Then, the memories subsided when the subject entered the maintenance stage. This suggests that there is "something" happening between rehearsals akin to a form of incubation of the mental representation of the piece, in terms of the creation of the interpretation. Also,

4 436 when the subject created a clear and stable mental representation of the structure of the piece and of the right sound, we have identified a stage absent from the literature that we called appropriation artistique. In the stage of artistic appropriation, our subject would seek a feeling of accuracy in the expression (phrasing, dynamics, tone, etc.), corresponding to his global image of the piece. To achieve the expressiveness sought after, the subject connected extra-musical analogies and narratives to the music, making his interpretation more convincing. For example, he used the analogy of grayness to designate the sound of a specific chord and the character of the piece, thus improving his technical execution through a gesture corresponding to the emotion (sadness, in this particular case). He also associated emotions (sorrow, regret) to the music and used metaphors to make the musical interpretation more personal and emotional. For the subject, the emotions emerging from these analogies and metaphors during the interpretation of the piece were indicators that the choices he made were relevant, accurate, and coherent. The feeling of authenticity and accuracy of the expressiveness in the interpretation was used by the subject as a criterion of validation of the quality, authenticity, and legitimacy of musical interpretation. DISCUSSION What seemed to be most likely to inform us about our subject s creative process in the work of interpreting a musical piece was the stage of artistic appropriation, characterized by the search for a sense of accuracy and the use of extra-musical material (analogies, narratives) to facilitate expressiveness. Moreover, according to Lubart (2011), analogies and metaphors are the product of emotional connections between a task (in this case, a work of interpretation) and past emotions felt in different situations (in this case, grayness and regret). Thus, we can assume that the character, with sorrow, and the title of the piece, Why, triggered a form of significance in the subject, and generated what the authors call a creative association. Also, according to Guilford (1968), the creation process is characterized by a constant back and forth between convergent thinking (evaluation and analysis) and divergent thinking (analogies and metaphors). Thus, in the construction of his interpretation, we noted that our subject used divergent thinking to generate analogies and narratives, but also used convergent thinking when evaluating his choices of extra-musical materials, before validating with the score or with the title of the piece. Additionally, as these materials allowed the subject to give a personal sense to the musical text and therefore a convincing interpretation of the piece, we can conclude that there are physical effects to the in-

5 INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON PERFORMANCE SCIENCE 437 strumental execution. Indeed, researchers argue (Damasio 2010, Bosse et al. 2008), that emotions have physical impacts measurable by somatic indicators such as heartbeat, sweating, muscle tone, etc. Consequently, we can explain the role of extra-musical materials in our subject, with the emotions they triggered, as materials that would have altered muscle tone to achieve the expressiveness sought, as was the case to find the sound of the first chord and the character of the piece. The methodology we used (the entire data collected through the videotaped rehearsals, reflexive questionnaires, videotapes described by an external observer, self-confrontation interviews, content analysis, and grounded theory analysis) led us to identify a new stage in the instrumental work. We believe it is reasonable to think that what we call an artistic appropriation of the piece by our subject is an important part of the creative process of interpretation. Although the results of our case study are not transferable, the methodology developed will allow us to explore in future research the entire creative process of several subjects in the work of interpreting an original musical piece. Address for correspondence Isabelle Héroux, Music Department, Quebec University in Montreal, CP.8888, Succ. Centre-ville, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3P8, Canada; heroux.isabelle@uqam.ca References Bardin L. (2007). L'analyse de contenu. Paris: Presse Universitaire de France. Bosse T., Jonker C. M., and Treur J. (2008). Formalisation of Damasio's theory of emotion, feeling and core consciousness. Consciousness ans cognition, 17, pp Chaffin R., Imreh G., Lemieux A. F., and Chen C. (2003). ''Seeing the big picture'': Piano practice as expert problem solving. Music Perception, 20, pp Clarke E. F. (2012). Creativity in performance. In D. Hargreaves, D. Miell, and R. MacDonald (eds.), Musical Imaginations: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Creativity, Performance and Perception. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Damasio A. R. (2010). L'autre moi-même: Les nouvelles cartes du cerveau, de la conscience et des émotions. Paris: Odile Jacob. Ericsson K. A., Krampe R. Th., and Tesch-Römer C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100, pp Guilford J. P. (1968). Intelligence, Creativity and Their Educational Implications. San Diego, California, USA: R.R Knapp.

6 438 Jørgensen H. and Lehmann A. (1997). What do we know about practicing? Toward a model synthesizing the research literature. In H. Jørgensen and A Lehmann (eds.), Does Practice make Perfect? Current Theory and Research on Instrumental Music Practice. Oslo: Norges Musicchogskole Juslin P. N. and Sloboda J. A. (2010). Handbook of Music and Emotion: Theory, Research, Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lubart T. I. (2011). Psychologie de la créativité. In C. Mouchiroud (ed.), Psychologie différentielle. Paris: Presse Universitaire de France. Paillé P. (1994). L analyse par théorisation ancrée. Cahiers de recherche sociologique, 23, pp Parncutt R. and McPherson G. E. (2002). The science & psychology of music performance. In R. Parncutt and G. E. McPherson (eds.), The Science and Psychology of Music Performance: Creative Strategies for Teaching and Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rink J. (1995). The Practice of Performance: Studies in Musical Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Theureau J. (2010). Les entretiens d'autoconfrontation et de remise en situation par les traces matérielles et le programme de recherche cours d'action. Revue d'anthropologie des connaissances, 4, pp Webster P. (2002). Creative thinking in music: Advancing a model. In T. Sullivan and L. Willingham (eds.), Creativity and Music Education. Edmonton, Canada: Canadian Music Educators' Association. Williamon A., Valentine E., and Valentine J. (2002). Shifting the focus of attention between levels of musical structure. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 14, pp

The influence of performers stage entrance behavior on the audience s performance elaboration

International Symposium on Performance Science ISBN 978-2-9601378-0-4 The Author 2013, Published by the AEC All rights reserved The influence of performers stage entrance behavior on the audience s performance