A Case Study of a Pianist Preparing a Musical Performance

Abstract

A volunteer piano student video recorded the first stage of his work on Debussy's Prelude Feux d'Artifice and then commented upon the initial 69 minutes of his practising on synchronised audio tape. The distribution of musical material, performer's behaviour, and reported goals of activity in time were subsequently analysed. The following features were found to characterise the work in this case study: independence of the fragments into which the composition was divided during elaboration; a negative relationship between the difficulty of fragments and the span of material divisions; systematic lengthening of fragments taken for elaboration through sessions; and an internal structure of trial-and-error work similar to TOT(E). The subject's utterances indicated stability of his general objectives (to build up an internal representation of the music and to acquire the basic skill to perform it without interruptions) and flexibility of short-term goals related to the diagnosis of actual ability to perform particular fragments.