'MELODIC POTENTIALS' AND 'REAL-TIME ACOUSTICS': THEIR EFFECTS ON THE SHAPING OF MELODIC CONTOURS IN PIANO PERFORMANCE (CYBERNETICS, AESTHETICS, TAXONOMY)

This is a two-pronged study of how "melodic potentials" (the artistic element of piano interpretation) and "real-time acoustics" (the cybernetic monitoring of the actual sound) work together during performance. The discussion is directed toward students and teachers of the piano.; The study is organized into three chapters. The first contains a discussion of the nature and medium of melodic communication among composer, pianist, and auditor, with some emphasis on the pianistic limitations of that communication.; The second chapter addresses the challenge of reconciling artistic freedom with the composer's intent. Here the author proposes a taxonomical approach to melodic interpretation, beginning with the most objective data and progressing toward the more subjective: score, historical and theoretical context, individual's theory of performance, and cybernetic monitoring. Thus each "screen" of the interpretive process is nested in and disciplines the next, insuring that the more subjective details of the performance do not violate the "canon of appropriateness" for a given work. The object of this exercise is for the student to begin to develop a sense of the stylistic; the author's intent is not to deny intuition or spontaneity, but to call for a sense of methodology to guide them.; In the last chapter examples are selected from three style periods of the keyboard repertory; one or two aspects of the interpretive taxonomy are then highlighted in each, in order to show how a well thought-out approach can both solve a performing problem and yield a convincingly stylistic result.