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Expressiveness in Music Performance:

Empirical Approaches across Styles and
Cultures

Book · July 2014

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199659647.001.0001

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Dorottya Fabian
UNSW Australia
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 Expressiveness in Music Performance: Empirical Approaches across
Styles and Cultures

What does it mean to be expressive in music performance in diverse historical and

cultural domains? What are the means at the disposal of a performer in various time
periods and musical practice conventions? And what are the conceptualisations of
expression and the roles of performers that shape expressive performance? For the
first time a wide variety of perspectives are assembled in one volume investigating
expressiveness in performance in various styles and cultures, including in what ways
the improvisations of Louis Armstrong, studio fashioned Electronic Dance music, and
the songs of Bedzan Pygmies can be considered expressive. The volume is unique in
combining historical, systematic, computational and phenomenological approaches to
performance and in including empirical investigations of western and non-western
classical music as well as western and non-western popular and folk music. The
highlighted conceptualisations and materialisations of expressiveness in performance
are as diverse as one would hope them to be. More awareness of and focus on oral
traditions and player interaction is needed for performance research to break away
from the dogma of notation. While this challenges existing methods, computational
and empirical approaches are nevertheless not only crucial, but may become central to
furthering our understanding of what makes music performance expressive.

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