Temporal Control and Hand Movement Efficiency in Skilled Music Performance

Skilled piano performance requires considerable movement control to accomplish the high levels of timing and force precision common among professional musicians, who acquire piano technique over decades of practice. Finger movement efficiency in particular is an important factor when pianists perform at very fast tempi. We document the finger movement kinematics of highly skilled pianists as they performed a five-finger melody at very fast tempi. A three-dimensional motion-capture system tracked the movements of finger joints, the hand, and the forearm of twelve pianists who performed on a digital piano at successively faster tempi (7-16 tones/s) until they decided to stop. Joint angle trajectories computed for all adjacent finger phalanges, the hand, and the forearm (wrist angle) indicated that the metacarpophalangeal joint contributed most to the vertical fingertip motion while the proximal and distal interphalangeal joints moved slightly opposite to the movement goal (finger extension). An efficiency measure of the combined finger joint angles corresponded to the temporal accuracy and precision of the pianists' performances: Pianists with more efficient keystroke movements showed higher precision in timing and force measures. Keystroke efficiency and individual joint contributions remained stable across tempo conditions. Individual differences among pianists supported the view that keystroke efficiency is required for successful fast performance.