Technologies for investigating large ensemble performance

Empirical research into large ensemble performance has crossed many disciplinary boundaries from music education to management studies, and has included the investigation of musicians’ interpersonal coordination and communication, group creativity and decision-making, conductors’ gestures, group musical expression, the social organization of large groups and their leadership, audience perceptions of performances, the individual and social benefits of participation, and rehearsal practices. However, there are still relatively few empirical studies of large ensemble performance, due to the social and practical factors that make it challenging to collect research data from large numbers of people engaged in a complex musical activity. Technological developments have increasingly expanded the research methods available to include sophisticated audio capture and analysis, web-based video-stimulated recall, and motion capture. This chapter discusses the challenges faced by researchers investigating large ensembles and describes some of the technological solutions that are opening up new avenues for data collection and analysis.

Beyond synchronization

In the Western art music tradition, among many others, top ensembles are distinguished on the basis of their creative interpretation and expressivity, rather than purely on the precision of their synchronization. This chapter proposes that visual cues serve as social motivators during ensemble performance, promoting performers’ creative engagement with the music and each other. This chapter discusses findings from a study in which skilled duo musicians’ use of visual cues (eye gaze and body motion) was examined across the course of a rehearsal session. Results show that performers are driven to interact visually: (1) by temporal irregularity in the music and (2) by increased familiarity with the music and their co-performer. Synchronization success was unimpaired during a “blind” performance where performers could not see each other. Ensemble musicians thus choose to supplement their auditory interactions with visual cues despite their visual interactions offering no apparent benefit to synchronization.

Ensembles for wellbeing

The value of ensemble music-making for wellbeing is addressed in this chapter, with an emphasis on amateur musicians. Previous research on musical development over the lifespan suggests that long-term engagement might be motivated by individual wellbeing benefits. Although negative health implications are also noted, amateur musicians report fewer adverse health effects associated with musical participation compared with their professional counterparts. However, the research literature on amateur musicians has tended to focus on choir members, raising questions as to whether the predominantly positive implications of choral singing also apply to instrumental ensemble performance. Recent studies have begun to fill this research gap, but there is still uncertainty with respect to the specific factors contributing to wellbeing and health in amateur ensembles. In conclusion, tentative models to foster hypothesis-driven research are needed as well as a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms that connect long-term musical engagement and wellbeing.

Ensemble timing and synchronization

Timing and synchronization represent fundamental elements of ensemble playing. Empirical research has demonstrated remarkably tight synchronization in ensembles, including instrumental and classical singing formations. Nevertheless, asynchronies between co-performers during ensemble playing are inevitable and, to some extent, desirable: musicians deliberately co-vary their timing and synchronization to attain mastery in expressive ensemble performance. By reviewing published studies on ensemble synchrony, the contextual factors that may impact synchronization are presented. Considerations of ensemble timing are then broadened to better recognize variations by musical tradition. Ultimately, the chapter reflects on the relationships between intrapersonal and interpersonal synchrony in ensemble, from the lowest levels of the temporal hierarchy, including neural activity, to the higher levels comprising breathing and cardiac activities, and musicians’ body gestures. This overview provides a conceptual framework to explore aspects of context as well as the physiology and the psychology of collective music-making, suggesting a fruitful avenue for further investigations.

Using performance sociograms to investigate inter-performer relationships in music ensembles

Performance sociograms provide a means with which to visualize and investigate relationships between musicians during ensemble performance as they are subjectively experienced. This chapter presents a case study with a contemporary music ensemble, exemplifying a methodological approach that provides insights on a phenomenological level by minimally affecting the performance itself. Relationships between co-performers as experienced by individuals in three performances were assessed via questionnaires, interviews, and self-created sociograms. Performance sociograms were also generated based on a qualitative content analysis of these data. Each performance sociogram provides a view on the respective performance situation from an individual musician’s perspective. Comparing sociograms reveals insights into individual differences and developments from concert to concert. Enabling integration of qualitative and quantitative data, which can be combined with a variety of approaches from ethnography to computational approaches, sociograms are a promising tool for future research into understanding relationships between players in music ensembles.

Ensemble singing for wellbeing and social inclusion of street children

With international agencies tapping music as a channel to address the social needs of marginalized populations, this study explored the outcomes of ensemble singing on the health and social integration of street children in the Philippines. Using mixed methods, perceived effects of ensemble singing on the wellbeing and social inclusion of street children were investigated, as well as the challenges of ensemble singing as a type of intervention for the health and social integration of marginalized groups and the implications of such music-based social action research for ensemble performance studies. Although challenges to ensemble singing were revealed by the children, both choristers and facilitators perceived a range of social, physical, psychological, and spiritual benefits. Facilitators reflected on the transformative potential of ensemble singing for the wellbeing of marginalized populations. This investigation anticipates further exploration on the transnational spectrum of ensemble music in relation to health, social inclusion, and music-based social action research.

Embodiment, process, and product in ensemble expression

To what extent do musicians need to have a common idea about the music in order to give a coherent, joint performance? An expressive performance is traditionally seen as generated from a cognitive representation of music, which predicts that a shared musical idea should be central. An embodied and enactive perspective on performance, in contrast, emphasizes the emergent and externalized character of performance, as “togetherness” is achieved in the sounds, movements, and material performed. Reconsidering cognitive processes from an embodied perspective challenges us to find new ways to measure and conceptualize ensemble performance. This includes how we measure musical coordination as something that is achieved not between pairs of individuals, but in relation to the joint sonic output. It also includes how we conceive of expression and aesthetics in performance contexts, as an emergent product that is the outcome of embodied processes and ways of interacting.

Gestures in ensemble performance

Gestures, defined as meaning-bearing bodily actions, play important and varied roles in ensemble performance. This chapter discusses how the term “gesture” differs from physical “motion” and perceived “action.” The functional differences between sound-producing, sound-facilitating, sound-accompanying, and communicative actions are presented, alongside how these can be performed and/or perceived as meaning-bearing gestures. The role of gestures in ensemble performance is examined from four perspectives: (1) ensemble size and setup; (2) the musical degrees of freedom of the ensemble; (3) the musical leadership; and (4) the role of machines in the musicianship. It is argued that the use of gestures varies between different types of ensembles and musical genres. The common denominator is the need for meaning-bearing bodily communication between performers, with such gestures also playing an important part in the musical communication with the audience.

An historical perspective on ensemble performance

Recordings made in the early part of the twentieth century suggest a great deal of historical diversity in musicians’ attitudes to ensemble performance. The ensemble style of the Czech (formerly Bohemian) String Quartet, traces of which were captured on record in the 1920s, offers an intriguing example of an approach to “togetherness” that is strikingly unlike that of our own time. Drawing on their recording of the Lento movement of Dvorak’s famous String Quartet in F Op.96, this case study investigates aspects of the Czech Quartet’s unusual ensemble playing, and in particular the way they combine expressive asynchrony with coordinated, large-scale shaping strategies. By situating these practices in aesthetic and theoretical context, this chapter shows how the evidence of early recordings might contribute valuable nuance to our understanding of the conventions of (good) ensemble performance.