The Imitation of Perceived Rubato: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

Studies of expressive performance have generally focussed on the analysis of spontaneously generated expressive features. The prevailing model to emerge from this research considers expression to be generated from musical structure at the time of performance. The studies reported in this paper require performers to imitate the rubato of short musical phrases in which the relationship between structure and expression is varied. Performers are able to imitate the rubato they hear with some success, though their attempts to do so are less accurate and stable when structure and expression conflict than when they are consistent with one another. This demonstrates that although expressive timing may have a generative origin in spontaneous performance, performers have some ability to encode and reproduce rubato even when it is not structurally anchored. However the greater instability of structurally arbitrary rubato suggests that convincing expressive performances can only be reliably achieved when the underlying musical structure has been understood and assimilated.