Preparation of a Public Piano Performance: The Relation between Practice and Performance

Abstract

This study investigated an expert pianist's nine-month preparation for a public music performance (recital) through the collection of practice diaries and MIDI recordings of the eight scheduled pieces. Recordings were made under the experimentally varied conditions of solitary performance and public performance. The practice diaries revealed that the expert (an advanced student performer) allocated practice time consistently across the entire preparation period and tended to use mornings to practice the pieces perceived as being more difficult. Total preparation time for each of the pieces could be predicted on the basis of the pianist's subjective ratings of complexity and independent ratings of complexity given by other experts. An analysis of the performance data showed that, near the time of the recital, variability in performance tempo was large between pieces but very small for multiple renditions of the same piece, even under the different experimental conditions. Thus, to attain a highly reproducible public performance, the expert allocated practice time in response to task demands and engaged in specific preparations that would safeguard the performance against unexpected problems.

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