Analyzing Expressive Qualities in Movement and Stillness: Effort-Shape Analyses of Solo Marimbists' Bodily Expression

Abstract

laban movement analysis, specifically effort-shape analysis, is offered as a system to study musicians' bodily expression. It proposes others' intentions are manifest in expressive bodily activity and understood through shared embodied processes. The present investigation evaluates whether the basic components of Laban analysis are reflected in perceptual judgments of recorded performances and, specifically, evaluates interjudge reliability for effort-shape analysis. Sixteen audio-visual excerpts of marimba pieces performed by two professional solo marimbists' (female and male) served as stimuli. Effort-shape analyses and interjudge reliability thereof were assessed through three different tasks: 1) verification task, 2) independent analysis task, 3) signal detection yes/no task. Professional musicians — two percussionists, a violinist, and a French hornist — acted as participants. High interjudge reliability was observed for transformation drive and shape components, but less so for basic effort action components. Mixed interjudge reliability results for basic effort actions, and differences between frequency observations, point to differences in participant's embodied expertise, task implementation, and training issues. Effort-shape analysis has potential to drive comparative and predictive research into musicians' bodily expression. Effort-shape provides a fine-grain temporal analysis of ecologically valid performance sequences.

Seeing, Sensing and Recognizing Laban Movement Qualities

“…Moreover, from the LMA perspective, the BEAs, when performed by a CMA and subsequently validated as accurate by another CMA, can then be unambiguously recognized with no significant variations across any other number of CMAs. This is also corroborated by previous studies cited in our related works [5].…”

“…LMA's inter-rater reliability among expert observers has been assessed in early works of psychologist Martha Davis [8]. Stevens et al also showed a significant inter-rater reliability of the Effort Factors on observation of curated video specimen of solo Marimbists' bodily expression [5]. These studies have shown that LMA can be considered as a reliable expert observational model of movement qualities.…”

Action and familiarity effects on self and other expert musicians’ Laban effort-shape analyses of expressive bodily behaviors in instrumental music performance: a case study approach

“…Furthermore, the movements necessary to play the marimba are obvious, occurring external to the body, and thus closely allied to the produced sounds. Self-analysis, using the effort-shape analytical system ( Broughton and Stevens, 2012 ), is compared to analyses conducted by two other expert musicians – one a percussionist, the other a singer. We expect that individual differences in embodied expertise to help explain differences between participants’ effort-shape analyses.…”

“…The present study focuses on embodied expression, as a facet of performance quality, and uses effort-shape analysis as the assessment scheme. The effort-shape analysis system has previously been subjected to inter-judge reliability assessment ( Broughton and Stevens, 2012 ). The present study not only uses this analytical system, but also generates new data to add to the evaluation of its efficacy as a tool for analyzing musicians’ expressive bodily behaviors.…”

“…An inter-judge reliability study investigated effort-shape analysis as a system of analyzing musicians’ expressive bodily behaviors ( Broughton and Stevens, 2012 ). Results suggested that professional musicians’ reliable implementation of a component of the system required specialist motor expertise, or embodied knowledge, of the same type as the instrument being performed and being observed.…”