Toward empirical analysis for stylistic expression in piano performance

In the performance for Western art music, musicians apply various strategies to manipulate the performed sound, and communicate their musical interpretations via these subtle acoustic variations. It is a common practice for musicians to use typical conventions to express each compositional style (e.g. Baroque, Classical, or Romantic compositions). However, such stylistic expressive conventions has yet been fully discussed in previous research. In this initial foray, we systematically compare the expressive strategies for different piano compositions. A series of piano performance data are recorded with a controlled experimental setting (3 compositions × 8 pianists × 3 repeated trials = 72 recordings), and expressive acoustic elements are derived using Music Information Retrieval techniques. In our analysis, we reveal that expressive manners in music performance exhibit stable and systematic features corresponding to each music composition, and those stylistic trends serve as empirical observations for typical performance conventions in different music styles.