Musicians’ Descriptions of Their Expressive Musical Practice

Rosenthal, R., Durairaj, M. and Magann, J.

Published in No. 181, Summer 2009

Abstract

This study analyzes the language used by 18 musicians (Professionals, Music Education and High School students) to explain what they were thinking and doing while practicing the expressive aspects of a musical composition. Transcripts (word count = 25,881) of verbal descriptions were organized into Segments (units roughly equivalent to a sentence) (n = 1,100) and classified with respect to their Content and Function. In addition, each instance of a metaphoric or conventional musical word or word-phrase (n = 3,406) was extracted and coded. Findings demonstrate that advanced musicians’ language focused primarily on the structural and expressive aspects of music, tended to be more goal-oriented and less evaluative, and contained more metaphoric vocabulary than the language of younger, less experienced subjects. All subjects used metaphors of motion. Despite commonalities, musicians varied widely in their focus of attention and approach to practice.