0000000001331010
AUTHOR
John A. Sloboda
Performers’ experienced emotions in the construction of expressive musical performance: An exploratory investigation
Does a performer feel sad when s/he performs a sad piece of music, or does s/he perform sadness? Not much is known about the relationship between felt and performed emotions in performing musicians. Some studies emphasize the importance of feeling the emotions; others underline the idea of planned expressiveness. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between a performer’s experienced emotions and the construction of a musically expressive performance. Eight music students (mean age: 20.9, SD: 1.13) completed an introductory, semi-structured interview; a monitoring period during which they filled out an Individual Playing Diary; and an in-depth, semi-structured inter…
Emotions in Concert : Performers' Experienced Emotions on Stage
Music is often said to be expressive of emotions. Surprisingly, not much is known about the role of performers’ emotions while performing. Do musicians feel the musical emotions when expressing them? Or has expressive playing nothing to do with the emotional experiences of the performer? To investigate performers’ perspectives on the role of emotions in performance, we conducted qualitative in-depth interviews with nineteen musicians teaching or studying at a European conservatoire. In the interviews, musicians were first asked to de-scribe a recent performance experience in as much detail as possible, then to make a visual representation of their experiences on stage, and finally, to answe…