ABSTRACT

Investigating Musical Performance considers the wide range of perspectives on musical performance made tangible by the cross-disciplinary studies of the last decades and encourages a comparison and revision of theoretical and analytical paradigms. The chapters present different approaches to this multi-layered phenomenon, including the results of significant research projects. The complex nature of musical performance is revealed within each section which either suggests aspects of dialogue and contiguity or discusses divergences between theoretical models and perspectives. Part I elaborates on the history, current trends and crucial aspects of the study of musical performance; Part II is devoted to the development of theoretical models, highlighting sharply distinguished positions; Part III explores the relationship between sign and sound in score-based performances; finally, the focus of Part IV centres on gesture considered within different traditions of musicmaking. Three extra chapters by the editors complement Parts I and III and can be accessed via the online Routledge Music Research Portal. The volume shows actual and possible connections between topics, problems, analytical methods and theories, thereby reflecting the wealth of stimuli offered by research on the musical cultures of our times.

part I|32 pages

Overviews/perspectives

chapter 1|16 pages

Empirical methods in the study of music performance

An interdisciplinary history

part II|50 pages

Listening/positioning

chapter 4|13 pages

The performer’s experience

Positional listening and positional analysis

chapter 5|20 pages

Music’s techno-chronemics

part III|48 pages

Sign/sound

chapter 6|11 pages

Who’s keeping the score?

chapter 7|22 pages

Judging Chopin

An evaluation of musical experience

chapter 8|13 pages

Towards a consideration of the contemporary musical work as ‘a work in progress’

Closing the gaps between the score, the form and the work’s ‘becoming’

part IV|98 pages

Gesture/shape

chapter 9|19 pages

Between music and noise

The discussion of portamento and its socio-aesthetic implications during the long nineteenth century

chapter 11|14 pages

The physiognomy of the voice

Vocal gestures in Italian experimental music (1960–1970)

chapter 14|15 pages

Lokapañca

Analysing structure, performance and meanings of a temple song in Nepal