Effects of Excerpt Tempo and Duration on Musicians' Ratings of High-Level Piano Performances

Abstract

The purpose of this study war to determine how judgments of solo performances rpcorded at an internationalpiano coinpetition might be affeed by excerpt duration (20 uersus 60 seconds) and tempo (slow versus f a t ) . Musicians rated perfonmiices on six test item. Results indicated that piano majors rated slow exceqts higher than t h g rated fart excerpts, and that t h g rated slow excerpts higherthan nonpiano majors rated either slow or fast excerpts; undergraduates rated long excerpts the same as or slightly higher than thqr did short excerpts, but graduate students and faculty rated long excerpts markedly higher than short excerpts; and undeqpduate piano majors rated performances lower than did undergraduate nonpiano majors, but graduate piano m a j m and facuIty rated performances higher than did graduate/faculty nonpiano majors. Also, accuracy i t e m correlated Witia each other morz high4 than fhqr did with other item.s, and judge ratings were higher for accuracy i t e m than thqr were for other item. Finally, judge consisten9 was shown to be related to excerpt duration, excerpt tempo, instrumental majol; and level of education. Results generally show that ratings taken aJer 60 seconds differed frvin ratings taken after 20 seconds, and that ratings prvuided evidence that judges were able l o distinguish between dijjferent test items.

Sectional Versus Intact Evaluations of Four Versions of a Chopin Étude

“…Our results are consistent with previous research showing that expert performances are rated higher for longer excerpts than for shorter ones (Bergee, 1993, 1997; Fiske, 1975, 1979; Hewitt, 2007; Hewitt & Smith, 2004; S. Thompson et al, 2007; Wapnick et al, 2005). They are, in fact, strikingly similar to those of Geringer and Johnson (2007), who found that although university and professional wind band ensembles were rated higher for longer than for shorter excerpts, lower quality high school ensemble performances were rated lower for longer than for shorter excerpts.…”

“…However, they did find that professional- and university-level performances were rated higher when excerpt duration was longer, and that lower ratings of lower quality high school performances were associated with shorter excerpt durations. These results corroborate those of Wapnick et al (2005), who found that for experienced listeners, excerpts from performances of high-level pianists that were 60 s long were rated higher and more reliably than were 20-s excerpts. Participants in a study by S.…”

“…Excerpt duration recently has emerged as a variable of interest in music adjudication research (Geringer & Johnson, 2007; Geringer, Allen, MacLeod, & Scott, 2009; W. Thompson, Diamond, & Balkwill, 2007; Wapnick et al, 2005). Nevertheless, many issues concerning this variable have yet to be thoroughly addressed.…”

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for the Treatment of Music Performance Anxiety: A Pilot Study with Student Vocalists

“…This could explain why the agreement was so low between raters 1 and 3, ICC (3, 2) = 0.31. Considering how common it is for expert raters to disagree when rating music performance quality (Wapnick et al, 2005; Wesolowski et al, 2015), a future study should certainly use a scale with published psychometric data.…”

Eye of the Beholder: Stage Entrance Behavior and Facial Expression Affect Continuous Quality Ratings in Music Performance

“…These judgments are commonly provided by experts who are assumed to be able to provide consistent and objective indicators of quality. A growing body of research has examined this assumption, calling into question the reliability of expert judges' ratings (Wapnick et al, 1993, 2005), the consistency of interjudge agreement and rating severity (Wesolowski et al, 2015), the validity of the criteria used (Thompson and Williamon, 2003), raters' preexisting knowledge and impressions of the performer (Duerksen, 1972; Kroger and Margulis, 2017), and the influence of factors considered extraneous to traditional music performance quality judgment (for reviews, see McPherson and Schubert, 2004; Waddell and Williamon, 2017). …”