Alumni

Abstract: Mastering the physical aspect of piano technique has long been a topic of great interest and importance to pianists. This is borne out in the numerous pedagogical approaches on the topic of piano technique. Despite the many contributions from pedagogues and scholars in developing an understanding of piano technique, many conflicting approaches often cause more confusion than clarity. After reviewing the literature on pedagogical approaches to piano technique, this study determined that problematic language might lie at the root of the confusion. Core concepts identified in the review of literature as recurring areas of misunderstanding were tension, relaxation, co-contraction, arm weight, and hand and finger shape.

The purpose of this study is to seek where issues of language exist in contemporary piano pedagogical approaches and to show how these problems may contribute to the systemic confusion in piano technique. To do this, the language that is used to describe and define the core concepts identified in the review of literature is analyzed in five modern pedagogical approaches. Five authors who have developed approaches that reflect current trends in piano technique have been selected for this study: Barbara Lister-Sink; Dorothy Taubman; Thomas Mark; Fred Karpoff; and Alan Fraser. The first step of this study entails collecting data from each of the five pedagogical approaches. The data is then analyzed for consistency and accuracy. Problems in language that contribute to the inconsistencies and inaccuracies are examined and illustrated with material from the data collection.

This study concludes by identifying the main sources of confusion in the use of language: inconsistent and inaccurate use of terms; wavering between scientific, common, and invented language; challenges in describing opposing qualities that come from tension and relaxation; and failing to discern between the individual subjective experience and the mechanics of movement. By recognizing where the problems in language exist, this study represents an important first step in for the pedagogical community to reach a common understanding of the language used to describe the physical aspect of piano technique.

Abstract: Playing the piano involves a variety of cognitive, auditory, visual and motor skills. Mastering the coordination for all these skills requires intensive effort, repetition and persistence through increased and sustained practice sessions over several years. These sessions allow the students to make continuous improvements and enhance their music development (Ericsson et al., 1993; Hallam, 1998; Sloboda, Davidson, How, and Moore, 1996). Nonetheless, a major concern in music education is the challenge of motivating students to continue learning the piano. In the Music Teachers National Association 2006 survey, the biggest challenge cited was to “maintain the student’s interest, keeping enthusiasm high and getting students to practice on their own” (p. 83).

A first step in learning any musical instrument is to believe in one’s own ability to achieve personal goals. This belief is called “self-efficacy” in the field of psychology. It involves a generative ability in which cognitive, social and behavioural subskills are incorporated into coherent courses of action to serve individual purposes (Bandura, 1986; Maddux, 2002).

Abstract: Prominent piano pedagogues present co-contradictions as being potentially injurious while playing the instrument. However, maintaining proper arm posture requires co-contradiction. The goal of this study is to quantify changes in active muscles stiffness and co-contradiction in university-level pianists who played a scale, two triad exercises and a composition by Ann Southam. Co-contradiction was calculated from EMG measurements of the FCU, ECU, FDS and EDC muscles.

In the scale task significant but steady levels of co-contradiction were measured. Co-contradiction in the triad exercises was not directly related to feelings of discomfort. During the performance of a piece composed by Ann Southam for this research subjects showed significant variations in co-contradiction that corresponded to faster note rates and increased loudness. Additional experiments to further clarify relationships between note rate, dynamic level, posture and co-contradiction are proposed.
Results from this study indicate the presence of co-contradiction is fundamental to piano playing.

Abstract: Markerless motion capture, in contrast to marker-based gesture analysis. consists of extracting high-level human body kinematic information using passive vision only. The goal of markerless motion capture is to remove severe cumbersomeness issues regarding current commercial, and state-of-the-art, marker-based systems. In particular, marker-based solutions require the wearing of uncomfortable markets, which can interfere with natural gesture of performers. on the counter-part, markerless solutions lack robustness and tend to impose unacceptable constraints into the working environment for many applications. Currently, these limitations prevent markerless motion capture to replace marker-based systems in most real-world markets. Addressing these issues, the thesis presents a framework for markerless motion capture with specific interest on increasing the robustness of early topics within the chain of modules that compose such an application. In particular the topics of multi-camera system design, multi-camera calibration and volumetric reconstruction and coloring are studied.

The main goal of the project is to perform a complete system design analysis that will lead to the development of a reconfigurable synchronized multi-carnera system which is optimized for the specific application of motion capture. A solid high-level software framework for multi-view application is also developed and is effective to encapsulate low-level interactions with the camera hardware. The designed acquisition setup is calibrated using a convenient framework for multi-camera calibration that allows free camera positioning. The proposed multi-camera calibration approach is able to reach precision up to an average reprojection error below 1/2 pixel. The use of a novel and reconfigurable dual-marker target is proposed to achieve complete calibration with no scale factor ambiguity (i.e. metric calibration). The full registration of all cameras composing the network enables shape-from-silhouette volumetric reconstruction using voxel data. The proposed implementation is effective at computing the binary voxel occupancy information even in the presence of imperfect silhouette data. Beyond voxel occupancy computation, foreground voxels are also augmented with color texture. The color information contained in the multiple streams of video is effectively mapped onto the voxel data with proper visibility test to detect situations of occlusion. Experimental results presented at the end of this thesis demonstrate successful 3D human body reconstruction with adequate accuracy for motion capture. The example of motion capture for piano-playing performance evaluation is used to show the capability of the proposed framework to effectively reconstruct complex, self-occlusive, human postures

Abstract: Segmentation is an important first step in many computer vision applications. The identification of key regions within an image or video allows for a higher level analysis of the media content. This thesis explores the application of the low level process to the monitoring of human performance. In such context, a proposed segmentation algorithm would be required to impose a minimum of constraints in order to assure thee integrity of the performance and the proper transfer of key data to higher level analysis components.

Classical approaches to the segmentation problem either make assumptions on the content of the media or impose unreasonable constraints on their targets and environments. In doing so, the integrity of performance measurements cannot be assured and semantic interpretation therefore becomes skewed. The method presented within this thesis allows for unconstrained environments by using a spatiotemporal colour-texture segmentation routine that represents the media content as a set of homogenous texture regions. The routine is assisted by a non-parametric clustering algorithm in order to produce an initial colour-texture representation. The regions obtained from this algorithm undergo a merging and tracking process in order to produce a final segmented representation of a target. Experimental results reveal that the system is robust for complex environments and provides several advantages over current segmentation processes.

Abstract: Evidence indicates that 30-60% of professional piano players suffer from pain and playing-related injuries at some point in their career. Most piano teachers emphasizes the need for a relaxed wrist during playing to avoid these injuries. Existing information regarding actions that might trigger a stiffness change during playing is experiential. Many studies are conducted with a limited knowledge of either biomechanical principles of technical piano skills. The disciples are integrated through a review of pedagogical approaches to piano technique, the clarification of terminology common to both disciplines and the application of biomechanical analyses to scientific data.

A review of pedagogical approaches showed that much of the information available regarding piano technique relies on metaphor to convey information from teacher to student on the feeling and actions required. Interpreting the biomechanical requirements of these techniques identified similarities and inconsistencies among them. Many imply specific biomechanical constraints on limb stiffness when describing a relaxed wrist.

Four specific concepts integral to the study of piano biomechanics are explained. Stiffness and co-contradiction are represented as injurious in piano pedagogy, even though they are in fact necessary to the proper functioning of joint movements. Relaxation is touted as the solution to injury when in fact complete relaxation would not allow the limb to be held in the proper position for playing. Concepts are often approached from a single-joint point of the view when in reality motions of the human body are interconnected. The change in position of a finger can affect all the joints in the arm.

A new approach is developed to give an indication of changes in impedance at the wrist during piano playing. Experiments are conducted using a haptic device to apply force perturbations to the wrist during playing and to record the position of the wrist in three-dimensional space. The displacement of the wrist due to the applied perturbations is quantified and analyzed as a measure of impedance at the wrist.

These experiments are unique because they are the first to regard changes in impedance at the wrist during piano playing and because the point of measurement is not at the endpoint but at a second point on the limb. The study is designed to create changes in impedance by increasing the dynamics (sound level), tempo and duration of playing. Subjects play music by Toronto composer Ann Southam written according to specifications of this study.

Statistical analysis of the data demonstrates the success of the force perturbations for the study of stiffness at the wrist. Data analysis was limited to one-dimensional motion in the vertical direction. The work demonstrates the practicality of measuring impedance during piano playing, however the music did not induce impedance changes in the two experienced piano players who underwent testing.