The Experience of Trumpet Performance: An Amalgam of Emic and Etic Observations in Five Case Studies of Professional Musicians Tim Humphrey Monash University Department of Music – Conservatorium Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Monash University March 2002 Table of Contents Abstract..............................................................................................................................................ix Acknowledgements ...........................................................................................................................x Preface................................................................................................................................................xi List of compact disc video recordings..........................................................................................xii List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................xii Chapter One Introduction: a vision of trumpet performance ............................................................................1 Chapter Two Visual phenomena in musical performance: a review of selected literature .............................6 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................6 Musical performance and the motion of lived experience.....................................................7 Motion and ‘embodiment’ in musical sound ......................................................................8 Concepts of integration in performance ...........................................................................11 Integrated forms of performance within different cultural traditions .....................12 The integration of expressive modalities for individual performers........................13 The physiology of integration: motion and synaesthesia...........................................14 ‘Dance-like’ movements and the integrated movements of musicians.........................16 Summary.................................................................................................................................20 Movement and the consciousness of musicians....................................................................20 Movement as an indicator of consciousness.....................................................................21 Classifications of observed movement.........................................................................22 The classification of trumpeters’ movements as ‘non-verbal behaviour’................25 Verification of movement observations.......................................................................26 Models of musical consciousness..................................................................................28 Movement as consciousness ...............................................................................................30 Summary.................................................................................................................................33 The visual study of musical performance ...............................................................................33 Iconography, iconology and the visual study of musical performance.........................34 Experimental visual studies of musical performance ......................................................37 The visual ethnography of musical performance.............................................................39 Summary.................................................................................................................................42 Chapter summary .......................................................................................................................42 Chapter Three The theoretical background for a study of individual trumpet players: a discussion of issues of representation with reviews of selected literature ..................................................................49 Introduction ................................................................................................................................49 Representing musical performance: systems and models.....................................................50 Classification and hierarchies in complex systems...........................................................50 Explicit and implicit models................................................................................................52 Two explicit models of musical performance .............................................................53 An ideal model for classical musical performance ................................................53 An explicit model for movement in a musical performance ...............................54 An implicit model for ‘gesture’ in a musical performance ........................................58 Limitations of a ‘gestural’ model of trumpet performance..................................59 Summary.................................................................................................................................59 Representing trumpet performance.........................................................................................60 The representation of trumpet performance in the Western tradition.........................60 Trumpet performance as a physical system ......................................................................62 A holistic systemisation of variable factors in trumpet sounds......................................65 ii Conscious and unconscious variables .......................................................................... 69 Musical performance environments as cultural systems and related individual identities............................................................................................................................... 71 Three ethnographic studies of musical performance in the United States............. 71 Three examples of individual visual identity in a trumpet performance landscape72 The physical biography of performers......................................................................... 73 Chapter summary....................................................................................................................... 76 Chapter Four Establishing a method of research for a holistic study of trumpet performance .................. 79 Introduction................................................................................................................................ 79 An eclectic method.................................................................................................................... 79 Comparing methodological approaches............................................................................ 80 Differences in terms of description................................................................................... 81 The ‘unit of analysis’: a phrase common to three approaches ................................. 81 A special meaning for the term ‘artefact’..................................................................... 82 Contrasting descriptors of subjective experience....................................................... 82 Summary ................................................................................................................................ 83 Four phases of the fieldwork process..................................................................................... 83 Phase one: selection of participants................................................................................... 84 Phase two: discussions with the participants.................................................................... 85 Method for the discussions............................................................................................ 86 List of topics related to trumpet playing...................................................................... 86 The conduct of discussions and contact with participants ....................................... 87 Summary........................................................................................................................... 88 Phase three: video data collection and analysis of performer movements .................. 88 Two ways of utilising visual data .................................................................................. 88 Techniques for movement analysis .............................................................................. 90 Unseen movements: the limits of observation ........................................................... 91 Movements and the performance environment......................................................... 92 Summary........................................................................................................................... 92 Phase four: follow-up discussion and video recording................................................... 92 Summary ................................................................................................................................ 94 The representation of trumpet performance which arises from method of research ..... 95 The representation of experiential categories................................................................... 95 Shifting boundaries of the case studies ............................................................................