Case study: A look of performance expression

Abstract

For most of the time, we enjoy and appreciate music performances as they are. Once we try to understand the performance not in subjective terms but in an objective way and share it with other people, visualizing the performance parameters is indispensable. In this paper, a figure for visualizing performance expressions is described. This figure helps people understand the cause and position of the performance expression as it has expressive cues, which coincide with the cognitive meaning of musical performance, and not by using only MIDI parameter values. The differences we hear between performances are clarified by visualized figures.