Perceptual analysis of the musical expressive intention in a clarinet performance

Abstract

Usually, in the spoken language, a speaker can give different meanings to his words by introducing variations in the prosodic factors of the sentence. In a musical performance, the player can also introduce different expressive intentions within, naturally, the limitations of the score. Attention here, is turned towards the analysis how these intentions are communicated to the listeners. Perceptive tests were used to determine how some listeners’ impressions arranged the musical pieces heard within a hypothetical n-dimensional space. Factor Analysis, Multi-Dimensional Scaling and Cluster Analysis applied to the subjects’ replies verified that groups of listeners with different cultural preparation, could recognize the performer’s intentions. It was then possible to reduce the size of the problem, in that the subjects had created a space into which the pieces were set, so that these could be subdivided into a reduced number of clusters. The synthesis of some performances and the successive perceptive analysis of the same, verified the results emerging from this study.