Visual Information Pianists Use for Efficient Score Reading.

When sight-reading music, pianists have to decode a large number of notes and immediately transform them into finger actions. How do they achieve such fast decoding? Pianists may use geometrical features contained in the musical score, such as the distance between notes, to improve their efficiency in reading them. The aim of this study is to investigate the visual information pianists rely on when reading music.

Relationship between Musical Characteristics and Temporal Breathing Pattern in Piano Performance.

Although there is growing evidence that breathing is modulated by various motor and cognitive activities, the nature of breathing in musical performance has been little explored. The present study examined the temporal breath pattern in piano performance, aiming to elucidate how breath timing is related to musical organization/events and performance. In the experiments, the respiration of 15 professional and amateur pianists, playing 10 music excerpts in total (from four-octave C major scale, Hanon's exercise, J.

Music Memory Following Short-term Practice and Its Relationship with the Sight-reading Abilities of Professional Pianists.

This study investigated the relationship between the ability to sight-read and the ability to memorize a score using a behavioral experiment. By measuring the amount of memorization following short-term practice, we examined whether better sight-readers not only estimate forthcoming notes but also memorize musical structures and phrases with more practice. Eleven pianists performed the music first by sight-reading.