What's new in pedagogy research?

How do you teach a student to play with expression? Most teachers find their experiences teaching musicianship can range from almost instant success with the "musical" student, to a long and frustrating road with the less musically gifted. In a recent study titled "Explaining Expressive Performance: Component Cognitive Skills in an Aural Modeling Task," (1) Robert Woody summarized past research in this area by listing three cognitive skills necessary for expressive playing. First is goal imaging, which is a mental/aural picture of what the music should sound like; second is motor production, or the ability to generate the physical movements necessary to make the dynamic and tempo changes; and the third is self-monitoring, being able to hear and evaluate the performance. (2) This study was designed to further explore the roles of goal imaging and motor production in expressive playing.

The subjects were twenty-five pianists who were music students, but not necessarily piano majors, at a university. They had taken piano lessons for an average of sixteen years, including college-level study. Two short phrases were used for this study. Three expressive models of each phrase were created on a Yamaha Disklavier, with each model varying in dynamics and tempo. Also, a fourth model for each phrase was created that was expressionless--the MIDI sequencer was programmed to have mechanically uniform levels of dynamics and tempo throughout the model.

Each subject was shown the unmarked scores and given the opportunity to sight read them. They then were asked to record the pieces, via a MIDI sequencer, in an expressionless manner. Next, the student heard the prerecorded deadpan model played twice and then one of the six expressive models played twice. The subject again performed the excerpt, attempting to imitate the expressive features of the model. The deadpan and expressive excerpts both were played again (two times each), and then students were given time to practice and record their imitation of the expressive model. The subject was then given a score of the music with a chart. On this chart, the student graphed the dynamic changes of each note he or she heard. This represented his or her goal imaging, or mental/aural picture, for each of the models. After the students had followed this procedure with all six models, they completed a survey about their history of practicing and lessons. These estimates were used to compute how many hours the students had practiced in their lifetimes. The average was 8,359 hours.

The study produced some very interesting results. When the students were asked to play with no expression, they were unable to give performances with no tempo or dynamic changes; instead, they simply played with reduced expressiveness. Woody deduced that even the deadpan performances were influenced by certain "rules of expressivity." (3) The students' graphic drawings of the models' dynamics changes represented their goal images--their mental/aural pictures of what they heard and were attempting to imitate. Woody wrote that if the students' drawings were

more descriptive of their own performance than the model's, their aural picture of the model may have been inaccurate. On the other hand, if the students' drawings were better pictures of the model than their imitative performance, there might be a problem with their motor skill ability to reproduce what they heard. Woody concludes:

   This finding may behoove music
   educators to increase the amount of
   concrete verbal communication
   used in their instruction. When
   providing students with an aural
   model, teachers might supplement
   it with comments specifying expressive
   variations in tempo or dynamics
   included in the model. Teachers
   might alternatively have students
   verbally identify the expressive features
   in a model before asking
   them to imitate it in their own
   performance.... Take, for example,
   a student whose performance is
   lacking in expression. If the student
   is unable to articulate an
   explicit plan for expressive features
   in performance, then goal imaging
   is the skill needing attention. If,
   however, the student can describe a
   detailed goal image--perhaps verbally
   identifying where tempo and
   dynamic changes should occur--then
   a failure to produce a matching
   performance is due to faulty
   motor production. With the insight
   provided by this approach, a
   teacher can prescribe appropriate
   remedial exercises for the student to
   practice. (4)

Reflections

This study urges us to go beyond the imitative, "Just do it like this," approach to teaching. In my own experience as a teacher, I have sometimes pointed to a particular phrase and asked, "What did you do here with the dynamics and tempo?" I am sad to report many of my students cannot clearly articulate what they have done, which means there has been no plan in mind and no evaluation of the product. I often reply, "Well, play it again, and we'll both listen this time!" I agree with Woody in his contention that discussing the expressiveness of a piece in concrete terms will not lessen the emotional content of the performance, but rather can help the student learn the common language of expressiveness in music. Students learn best when they clearly understand and articulate the goal.

NOTES

(1.) Woody, R., "Explaining Expressive Performance: Component Cognitive Skills in an Aural Modeling Task," Journal of Research in Music Education, 51 (2003): 51-63.

(2.) Ibid., 52.

(3.) Ibid., 60.

(4.) Ibid., 60-61.

Rebecca Grooms Johnson is the director of keyboard pedagogy at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. She is an experienced independent piano teacher and a past president of the Ohio MTA. Johnson holds a Ph.D. in piano pedagogy.