Performance Biomechanics: Music To Scientists' Ears

Neurologist Frank Wilson’s first foray into music came at the age of 12, when he struggled through six months of the universal childhood ritual known as piano lessons. It wasn’t until many years later, however, while listening to his daughter rehearse for a piano recital around the time of her own 12th birthday, that his interests in music and the medical sciences converged. As she played Chopin’s “Fantasy Impromptu,” Wilson found himself for the first time really watching her hands. And the display of speed, dexterity, and timing he witnessed amazed him. His daughter’s fingers skipped across the keys in a blur. How could she make her fingers go so fast, he wondered. At least, that was his initial thought. His training in neurology soon led him to frame the question in terms more appropriate to his specialty: How does the brain control such highly skilled movement? Shortly after this episode, Wilson resumed piano lessons himself. But his quest to unravel the neuromuscular mysteries of music-making has induced him to make far more radical changes in his personal and professional life. Forsaking his clinical practice and teaching post at the University of California, San Francisco, Medical School, Wilson sold his house this past summer and accepted a year-long position in the University of Dusseldorf’s Neurophysiology Program. His project for the up coming months: a high-speed video analysis of piano players. Wilson’s research is representative of the growing symbiosis between science and the arts. Questions that have heretofore resided strictly in the domain of aesthetics— how a violinist plays a vibrato, for example—are now being investigated by researchers seeking to comprehend the scientific principles that underlie the artistic process. These studies originated in the explosion of interest during the early 1 980s in the medical problems of performing artists. The role scientists will take in this interplay with arts, however, is still an emerging one. The diverse array of professionals engaged in research on the subject defies easy typecasting. Their educational backgrounds range across the disciplines, from physics and biomedical engineering to mathematics and psychology. At the moment, their investigations appear largely geared toward gaining understanding of the physiological components of the artist’s craft—the pattern of muscle activity in a pianist’s hand or the pressure change in a singer’s lungs. This knowledge will prove invaluable in forestalling and treating performer injuries; but in examining the biology of music, song, and dance, scientists say they also stand to learn a great deal about how the body and mind function. And they see the implications of these findings as extending far beyond the realm of the artist. Thus far, researchers’ efforts to apply science to the arts have met with a mixed response. While musicians and other performers generally have welcomed their inquiries and applauded the results, educators involved in the arts have been less appreciative of the attention. And the toughest audience of all, at least in Frank Wilson’s estimation, has been other scientists. “It’s not taken seriously,” he says. “We have to establish that the investigation of musical skills deserves to be included in Se rious scientific discussion.” George Moore, a California biomedical engineer whose Sun Valley company, Music Research Associates, has studied how piano players perform trills, adds, “It’s a body of research that doesn’t have any history. It doesn’t have well-defined issues. It doesn’t really have the well- defined rules of evidence and conduct associated with more mature scientific fields.” For his part Wilson considers the musician an ideal subject for studies on the capabilities of the human neuromuscular system. He points to a study performed by the late physiologist Homer W. Smith of New York University, who calculated that an accomplished pianist may execute as many as 600 distinct motor actions per second in the course of playing a piece of music. The question that fascinates Wilson is how this kind of complex movement becomes programmed into the brain. The project he’s mapped out for the months ahead represents a first step in solving this riddle. Wilson will be looking at a cross section of piano players, including some who suffer from hand and arm ailments, Each will be tested on the piano and his or her performance filmed using high-speed video cameras in conjunction with infrared light-emitting place markers affixed to the subject’s body. These images will then be digitized, allowing Wilson to reconstruct on computer an accurate picture of each pianist’s movements. “The final goal for us will be to have a better idea of what the normal relationships are between the fingers, wrist, hand, forearm, upper arm, and shoulder and how those differ between people at various levels of training and with different kinds of material,” he says. Among the areas of inquiry he would like to pursue is research on how external factors affect the movement programs ingrained in the performer’s mind. For example, Wilson suggests experiments could be conducted by changing the responsiveness of the keyboard or even trying something as simple as lowering the piano stool. Wilson believes these kinds of inquiries will eventually lead to a deeper understanding of the workings of the brain. “We’re not simply trying to figure out how musicians do what they do,” he explains. “We are using musicians as a way of getting at some of the more. intriguing mysteries about the organization of highly skilled movement.” In the short term, Wilson hopes data that pilot studies such as the one he’s conducting, besides producing important data, will also go a long way toward overcoming the skepticism lingering in the minds of other scientists, as well as the funding community. “If we are able to do very carefully selected projects that do have scientific validity, then I think that there will be less nervousness about supporting work like this.” One, scientist who has managed to convince a private foundation that his work merits support is F.J. Bejjani. For five years, Bejjani, who holds degrees in medicine and occupational biomechanics, treated and studied artists at the Hospital for Joint Diseases in New York City. His inquiries cut across the spectrum of the arts: He analyzed the biomechanical behavior of flutists, violinists, trumpet players, and even flamenco dancers and painters. However, the lack of equipment and permanent lab space frustrated his efforts and often forced him to squeeze in his research on weekends or around his colleagues’ schedules. But those days have ended. Last year, the Pennsylvania-based Whitaker Foundation awarded Bejjani a $150,000 gramt, allowing him to outfit his own performance analysis lab at New York University. And he’s now on his way to realizing a long-held ambition: the assembly of a mass database containing biomechanical profiles of musicians playing every instrument in the orchestra. In the 16 months since the lab opened, Bejjani has ushered a parade of subjects through its doors. Thanks to its New York location and his affiliation with the university’s music department, he has been able to get top-flight musicians such as trumpeter William Vachiano and piano virtuoso Pierick Houdy to submit to his tests. In the experiment involving Houdy, a combination of high-speed cameras, surface muscle electrodes, and computerized sound processors monitored him as he performed selected bits of music using different hand techniques. Once analyzed, this electronic feedback enabled Bejjani to put together a portrait of the pianist’s muscle and joint activity and the sound energy he produced with each playing method. Bejjani shares Wilson’s belief that the best way to counteract the scientific reservations about research with artists is by producing work of sound quality. Music educators, however, have shown themselves to be less willing to submit to the voice of scientific reason. “I’ve had discussions with some teachers of piano and other instruments, and they are adamant about [the way instruments should be played]. Why? Because that’s the way they’ve done it,” he says: Making music educators familiar with the data he’s generating is a crucial concern, because “they have such an impact on young performers. They can deform them for life.” While the systematic study of musicians is just gathering momentum, research on singers has been moving along at top speed for some time now. In June, hundreds of doctors, teachers, singers, and scientists gathered in Philadelphia for the 18th annual symposium on Care of the Professional Voice. And at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, researchers in its recording lab have been probing the dynamics of sound and song for the past six years. Physicist Ingo Titze’s interest in singing dates back to his childhood. Today, as director of research at the Denver lab, he still maintains a private passion for what’s become the focus of his professional work. But in addition to enriching his personal life, Titze has found that his lifelong love of song has paid some important dividends in the laboratory. “Oftentimes scientists not trained in the voice will pose good questions, but the relevance is not there. You have to be in the studio or practice room to really understand what singers struggle with day in and day out. Then you can ask the questions that are at the forefront of what they’re concerned with,” Titze says. The project that’s absorbing his attention at present centers on the physiological mechanisms singers use to change the loudness of their voices. Six professional tenors participated in the study, which was headed by Johan Sundberg, a guest researcher from Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology. The preliminary findings suggest that singers boost volume primarily by increasing lung pressure and driving more air through the larynx. The critical question that underscores the study is what damage one might do to the vocal system in producing sound, Titze explains. “Getting the most for the least amount of effort in changing loudness—that’s the concept. If we can show that one method seems to be more efficient than another, then certainly we can make that recommendation.” But not everyone appears inclined to listen. Titze admits that efforts to spread the scientific gospel have not always met with a chorus of approval from voice teachers. “We have some divided opinion among voice teachers. Traditionally, they learned what they know from the person they studied with, and not all of them are yet in tune to research.” In any event, helping singers belt out a tune without straining their voices touches on only one application of the lab’s study of tenors.. Titze sees another of much broader impact: “We think what we learn here will be beneficial to people with voice disorders and particularly people who occupationally have to be in high-noise areas, like stockbrokers or construction workers. We hope to have some answers for them—here’s a way you can carry your voice through the day and even sing a song at the end.” Jeff Seiken is a freelance writer based in Pittsburgh.

Performance Biomechanics: Music To Scientists' Ears

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