A structurally guided method for the decomposition of expression in music performance.

A method for separating, profiling, and quantifying the contributions of different structural components to expressive musical performance is described. The method is demonstrated through its application to a set of expert piano performances of a short piece from the classical period. The results show that the output of the method aids in the understanding of how the different structural components in a piece of music combine in the generation of an expressive performance.