Once More, with Feeling: Revisiting the Role of Touch in Performer-Instrument Interaction

Abstract

The dynamical response of a musical instrument plays a vital role in determining its playability. This is because, for instruments where there is a physical coupling between the sound-producing mechanism of the instrument and the player’s body (as with any acoustic instrument), energy can be exchanged across points of contact. Most instruments are strong enough to push back; they are springy, have inertia, and store and release energy on a scale that is appropriate and well matched to the player’s body. Haptic receptors embedded in skin, muscles, and joints are stimulated to relay force and motion signals to the player. We propose that the performer-instrument interaction is, in practice, a dynamic coupling between a mechanical system and a biomechanical instrumentalist. We take a stand on what is actually under the control of the musician, claiming it is not the instrument that is played, but the dynamic system formed by the instrument coupled to the musician’s body. In this chapter, we suggest that the robustness, immediacy, and potential for virtuosity associated with acoustic instrument performance are derived, in no small measure, from the fact that such interactions engage both the active and passive elements of the sensorimotor system and from the musician’s ability to learn to control and manage the dynamics of this coupled system. This, we suggest, is very different from an interaction with an instrument whose interface only supports information exchange. Finally, we suggest that a musical instrument interface that incorporates dynamic coupling likely supports the development of higher levels of skill and musical expressiveness.