Coordination of Breathing and Various Movement Markers during Pianists' Performance Tasks

Abstract

Few investigations have analysed the relations of breathing and pianists' movements. In past studies, however, coordination of breathing with repetitive movements were examined. The current experiment explored the coordinative relations of breathing with three different finger-movement markers (pitch, meter, and thumb passage) during the performance of repetitive exercises at the piano. Eight pianists played the C major scale and arpeggio at different tempi. The Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) data were collected and the pianists' respiration was simultaneously monitored by inductive plethysmography. Analysis showed that the breathing varied between participants. Other than some exceptional cases for which movement markers coincided with the end of inspiration and the end of expiration of the breathing curve, no coordination or relation occurred between breathing and finger movement.