ABSTRACT
According to K. Newell’s (1986) definition of action as emerging from the interaction between organism, environment and task, music performance may be viewed as resulting from the interplay between performer, interpretative tradition, instrument and musical work. Three groups of violinists of roughly equal expertise participated in the study (high level students of Paris Conservatories). The first group consisted of musicians specializing in ancient instruments (i.e. baroque violin) and is considered as the control group. The second group involved musicians specializing in both baroque and modern instruments. Lastly, the third group was composed of modern violinists who have never tried to play an ancient instrument. A specific method of sound analysis based on acoustical correlates of interpretative styles was developed to assess the imitation task of interpretative styles. The kinematic analysis was based on a 3D reconstruction of the movement from the video recordings.
