PhD Research Project by Laura Bishop @ UWS

What a great morning spent with Laura Bishop assisting her in her PhD research project on 'musical expertise and the planning of expression during piano performance'.  Musicians often say that in order to play expressively, performers must focus on hearing the sound in their heads(audiation) that they want to produce.  The aim of Laura's study is to determine whether dynamics and articulation are a part of this imagined guiding sound.  In the context of the study performed today, Laura is determining whether experienced musicians are more successful in maintaining their own interpretation of a piece when expressive markings appear on the score that contradict what they intend to play.  They are also expected to be faster and more accurate at discriminating between markings that mach their intentions and markings that contradict them.  As part of the study I was asked to give performances under silent and imagined as well as normal sounded conditions.  The purpose was to see whether my imagery would be more vivid when no auditory or motor feedback was available.  Laura hypothesises that the imagery is more vivid during silent performances - when you can feel your hands moving but can't hear the music being created.  It was quite a difficult task to complete - to play expressively but perform silently (ie hear no sound as I played the piano).  For me there is an obvious connection with expression and emotion and sound.  It was an extremely interesting morning and I am grateful to Laura for the opportunity to participate in her research project.