Looking passionate while playing makes bad performances good!

[faulty_damper]

Looking good while performing trumps actually playing good.  In fact, how you look while playing is more important than what you actually sound like, even if you play like sh*t.  Even professional experts are fooled with shitty performances when the performer looked good doing it.  So the next time you're taking a sh*t, be certain to smile and be passionate about what's coming out of you.  You'll fool everyone into thinking it's sprinkles and daisies!

I learned this several years ago.  I can play a piece better than someone else, but because I make difficult pieces look absurdly easy, powerful or difficult music doesn't seem powerful nor difficult.  Whereas someone else with inferior ability and musicianship can struggle through it and be met with large roaring applause, my performance was met with more of a "meh".


Piano Streets article on it with audio and video test to see this for yourself:
https://www.pianostreet.com/blog/articles/do-we-judge-music-by-sight-more-than-sound-6207/

You can download the scientific article here, click "full text" on the right side Access panel:
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/08/16/1221454110.abstract

[ted]

On the other hand, if you are like me, play pieces a jolly sight more sloppily than most people, and also look remarkably goofy at the instrument into the bargain, then there remains little but a profound gratitude for the small mercies of personal improvisation and modern recording devices.

[iansinclair]

and this is partly why I much prefer to listen to the music -- either live or on good recordings -- without having to look at the performer!  Even if the performer isn't looking madly passionate, he or she is almost always distracting (there are exceptions, but not many).

[Bob]

Showmanship.

Or... It helps the listener hear things in music. 

What about Bernstein for conducting?

[pianoplunker]

Looking good while performing trumps actually playing good.  In fact, how you look while playing is more important than what you actually sound like, even if you play like sh*t.  Even professional experts are fooled with shitty performances when the performer looked good doing it.  So the next time you're taking a sh*t, be certain to smile and be passionate about what's coming out of you.  You'll fool everyone into thinking it's sprinkles and daisies!

I learned this several years ago.  I can play a piece better than someone else, but because I make difficult pieces look absurdly easy, powerful or difficult music doesn't seem powerful nor difficult.  Whereas someone else with inferior ability and musicianship can struggle through it and be met with large roaring applause, my performance was met with more of a "meh".


Piano Streets article on it with audio and video test to see this for yourself:
https://www.pianostreet.com/blog/articles/do-we-judge-music-by-sight-more-than-sound-6207/

You can download the scientific article here, click "full text" on the right side Access panel:
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/08/16/1221454110.abstract

It is all about emotions, guts , and feelings. the technical crap is for prima donnas - when it comes to perfoming.

[dima_76557]

In fact, how you look while playing is more important than what you actually sound like, even if you play like sh*t.  

I don't think this is actually and generally true. Lousy playing is lousy playing, and people (even untrained listeners) will recognize that. What I agree with is that people may become more forgiving towards someone who falls within their taste of what "good looks" are, or towards someone who knows how to present him/herself.

What we call "charisma" and visual stimuli are an essential part of performance and it would be foolish to even wish to take that away. It is quite interesting to note that the CD recordings of some of the great performers (ALL types of music) are merely a glimmer of the metaphysical experience their live performances are, so if judging without seeing the person became the norm (playing behind a curtain, for example), we would most certainly miss a lot.

Competition judges who are fooled by good visual presentation and don't hear the lousy playing accompanying it are simply incompetent and should not be taken as "the norm" for all all competition judges as the "research" seems to suggest.

[faulty_damper]

... It is quite interesting to note that the CD recordings of some of the great performers (ALL types of music) are merely a glimmer of the metaphysical experience their live performances are, so if judging without seeing the person became the norm (playing behind a curtain, for example), we would most certainly miss a lot.

Competition judges who are fooled by good visual presentation and don't hear the lousy playing accompanying it are simply incompetent and should not be taken as "the norm" for all all competition judges as the "research" seems to suggest.

You do realize that you just contradicted yourself?  You say that:

1. a recording can't capture their live performances and then you
2. accuse judges of being fooled by histrionics of live performances

Does not compute.  All your bases are belongs to us.
And that is the norm, btw.  Both from her experiences and the results of her research.  Just because you don't like it doesn't make the research invalid.  And if you payed attention to competitions, you'll notice that the best musicians don't usually win.  Think of the Cliburn competition of the past few years.  That blind pianist was subpar and yet he was a co-winner.  His concerto performance was terrible.  And yet he still won.  I guess he was awarded metaphysical points for not being able to see out of both eyes.   <--- look at these eyes.  They actually work to convey sarcasm.

[dima_76557]

You do realize that you just contradicted yourself?  You say that:

1. a recording can't capture their live performances and then you
2. accuse judges of being fooled by histrionics of live performances

Does not compute.  All your bases are belongs to us.

I'll try to help you make it compute then.

Please, tell me if I missed something, but as far as I understood, the experiments were conducted with video and audio RECORDINGS only. What happens in life performance in terms of energetic interaction between performer and public CANNOT be captured by either, that's why I question the value of the research.

A "winner" based on an audio/video recording only may lack the charisma to work with the public. This has absolutely NOTHING to do with the visual or audio aspect of his/her performance. In the hall, one can feel what's going on in terms of chemistry without visual clues (bad seat, eyes closed, etc.). Great examples are Katsaris and Sokolov, who do stuff that you can't "feel" on YouTube or hear on their discs.

[faulty_damper]

So, in other words, stage presence has an effect that can't be captured by recording... thus the music isn't as important as stage presence.  So a subpar musical performance can definitely be augmented by a good theatrical performance.  Since judges picked winners that closely correlated when the subjects saw ONLY video without music, how do you explain that?

Again, this phenomenon is what I've experienced in the past.  Someone who makes a performance visually exciting (but musically dull) will get a much larger applause/reaction from the audience than someone who makes music aurally exciting but visually dull.

This is why I don't like performing because I look dull. I don't make obnoxious facial expressions or have undue body tension; I'm completely relaxed at all times even when the music is tense or exciting.  This induces cognitive dissonance since what they hear and what they see are completely different.

Most people prioritize their vision to make sense of their experiences even when there is contradictory information.  This is well-supported in the psychological literature.  You can show nice pictures and say terrible things but people will think what you said was nice and have no memory of the terrible things.  This is why you should smile when you tell people terrible news.

[iansinclair]

So, in other words, stage presence has an effect that can't be captured by recording...

[snip]

Again, this phenomenon is what I've experienced in the past.  Someone who makes a performance visually exciting (but musically dull) will get a much larger applause/reaction from the audience than someone who makes music aurally exciting but visually dull.

So true.  However, once in a long long time you will encounter someone who has terrific stage presence and also terrific musicianship -- and that's when you get the true super stars.  I can't think of any instrumentalists in that group just at the moment, but the sort of person I'm thinking about (and yes I'm going to date myself!)(in no particular order): Leontyne Price.  Birgit Nilsson.  Seiji Ozawa.  Arturo Toscaninni.  Ezio Pinza.  Placido Domingo.  Maria Callas.  Dimitri Mitropolous.  George Szell.  Bryn Terfel.

[dima_76557]

So, in other words,

No. The key to understanding the discrepancy in the "research" is that in the experiment, the judges were asked to do someting they NEVER do at a real competition.

Here is how GOOD competitions work:

1) The jury looks for qualities that go far beyond a "musical" performance. The one who has such qualities is the winner, and this has NOTHING to do with cheap theater at the expense of good music making. The quality of a winner can be felt immediately with the first single note he/she sends to the listeners.
2) The jury will NEVER be fooled by a "crappy" performance, at least not at the competitions where I have been. Mistakes *may* be forgiven if the rest of the performance is exceptionally good.
3) The jury is most often busy writing, looking through their materials, looking around to where the public is sitting, or whispering something to their neighbor jury member, most probably not to be distracted by the visual element of the performance. Rarely do they follow a contestant with their eyes from beginning to end as you would do when you watch a video.

P.S.: What the research document describes *may* happen in the preliminary screening stage of the competition, but there, the "jury" is not the one that will actually be judging you "live". I agree that this stage is an extremely unfair one, because the parameters for filtering out potential contestants are often dubious.

[faulty_damper]

the judges were asked to do someting they NEVER do at a real competition.

You mean listen to the performance only?

Anyway, I don't think you actually read the article.

When you criticize research, there are usually two places where it is possible: methodology or interpretation of the results.  You can disagree but you need evidence to support your disagreement.  You're evidence is an opinion, based on assumptions about what is occurring.  You have no evidence that what you think is occurring is actually occurring. Thus, it's just an assumption.

As for the results of the research, it has scientific validity.  The results are supported by long established research in the psychological literature.  To say that the results are wrong is to also go against this long-established research, not just one study.  Now, it's possible that psychologists have been wrong about prioritizing visual information to auditory ones, but this is highly improbable as experiment after experiment has come to the same conclusion.  This conclusion is also supported by recent neuroscience research that shows that visual information is processed much more efficiently than auditory ones.  In fact, auditory information often takes a back seat.

BTW, do you sometimes practice with your eyes closed?  Does it sound different when you close your eyes than when they are open?  Should they sound different?  And yet it does sound different.  Why?  Are you actually playing it differently with your eyes closed than when they are open?  Or is it because when your eyes are closed, you are processing the auditory information more acutely because the visual information is no longer a distraction?

[dima_76557]

@ faulty_damper

What the "research" does NOT take into account is the following.

What jury members really look for is:

1) projection of the pianist's tone into the hall - any element in the pianist's playing, even the softest whisper should "carry" up to the last seats in the hall (cannot be recorded with a microphone);

2) pressure of the artistic personality upon the listeners in the hall (cannot be recorded with a microphone). This is akin to a NEW teacher coming into class and suddenly all children are silent, even if he doesn't say or do anyting in particular. They simply know on a very basic level that this is someone you'd better not **** with. Others, who don't have that energetic quality will have a hard time keeping the crowd of children silent, and nothing they do will help. The difference is that good artists/pianists evoke such obedience in the audience with their hands from the moment they touch the keys.

Nothing in terms of visual elements can help here. It works like a tornado: silent in the center (where the pianist and the instrument are), and with the power working on the periphery (the audience). The underlying powerful issue is this: Even if you as a jury member do not agree with me musically, am I able to "twist your artistic arm", so that you have no choice but to obey?

These are the key factors that mark the true artists the jury members are trying to find, and not whether they play technically and musically "correctly" or "well". Both qualities are transmitted through the pianist's TOUCH.

If neither of those factors is present in your playing, you will not win a contest, even if you play technically and musically perfectly. They may even decide not to grant a first and/or second prize if these qualities are not present in any of the participants. No evidence required on my part. Ask them if you like. It's not very difficult to find contact info of people who judge GOOD competitions regularly.

What the "research" seems to suggest: "How you look while playing is more important than what you actually sound like, even if you play like sh*t" (c) is seriously uninformed. That's why the "research" cannot be taken seriously.

[faulty_damper]

You seem to have totally missed the point of the research.  The research was about comparing visual and auditory cues in piano performance, as well as determining which of the two is more important.  Audio was more important to more than 95% of participants (both novices and expert musicians) yet they couldn't identify competition winners based on sound alone.  Only when they saw video, without any sound, were they able to identify the actual competition winners.  This directly implicates that the judges of those competitions drastically overemphasized visual cues to music quality.  (Or the judges for all ten of those competitions were deaf.)

It doesn't even seem like you read the research and instead are arguing opinion.  And you set up strawman arguments to attack (i.e. hall acoustics and personality) to try to criticize the research when that wasn't even the research question.  By your standards, a giant panda who walks onto stage and plays the piano will win all of the competitions since a giant panda has superb stage presence and charisma and because his growls would be gosh darn cute and carry throughout the hall.

[Bob]

(Very informative comment goes here, showing I actually read the thread.) 

No, no.  No need to thank me for this great piece of wisdom.  I only hope it doesn't revert back to the placeholder I had in earlier while I was typing up my real response in Word and spell checking (and stuff).   

[dima_76557]

@ faulty_damper

I'll just split up the parts of what I'm saying with minimum text. Please try to follow me. Take time between phrases if necessary.

+++++++

1) Microphones/CD's CANNOT CAPTURE the most essential in a musician's sound.


2) The researcher DOESN'T KNOW that this is exactly what makes a WINNER.


3) That's why she makes the wrong assumption that visual clues must be the key TO PICKING A WINNER, even for professional judges, but they're not.

4) Even a blind man can pick a WINNER correctly, but he will have to listen IN THE HALL ITSELF, NOT FROM A CD.

+++++++

My conclusion: Research and experiments based on wrong assumptions PROVE NOTHING. The only thing one could say for sure is that for people who can see, visual clues are an important factor in most situations. I wouldn't call that a revelation.

[faulty_damper]

Do you really think that she pulled her research out of thin air without support from the literature?  It has already been long established that people make decisions based on visual cues alone which she cites in her research.  (Read her sources.)  Political candidates can be correctly identified through video recording alone, not what they say.  In fact, when people are asked to pick a winner of political candidates, only the video is needed.  When audio or audio+video is included, people are worse at picking the actual winner.  This is EXACTLY the same results that Tsay found about competition performances.  Coincidence?  I think not.

This is how you're going to respond:
"Well, that's not right.  Because the people watching the candidates on TV weren't there at the debate.  Thus, they missed all the nuances of the halls acoustics because microphones can't capture the essence of their speeches.  That's why people watching debates on TV can't pick winners based on what they say or what they say and how they act.  In fact, even a blind man can pick the winner, as long as he was in the hall, not at home listening to the TV."
 

[faulty_damper]

https://www.pnas.org/content/110/36/14580.abstract?sid=070ac5ea-b640-4342-b030-adbd15d4da96

You do realize that I posted the same link to the article in the title post?

[dima_76557]

Do you really think that she pulled her research out of thin air without support from the literature?

Yes. She makes total idiots not only of the (professional) participants in the experiments, but also of all the readers of this epic-fail "research", and most importantly: of herself as a serious researcher because she doesn't have a clue about the subject she is researching: How to pick a winner on a piano competition.

She should try the experiment with the Leeds piano competition 2012. All males in the finales, and as you may know, males VISUALLY give the impression of playing more "technically". They reveal minimal emotions through movement and body language. She will have a hard time determining the winner there with mute videos if she doesn't know in advance who he was.

There's also a thread on PianoWorld about the Van Cliburn Competition this year. Many people on the forum picked THE WRONG WINNER, although they had more than enough visual clues, because it was all transmitted live with huge close-ups. Some of the videos are still available on YouTube if you are interested.

The researcher should also try involving people like Nobuyuki Tsujii (the famous blind Japanese pianist; a Cliburn Competition winner himself) in her research to get the real picture of what makes WINNERS IN MUSICAL COMPETITIONS. As I said, in the hall, not from a CD.

[faulty_damper]

Oh my god, for the last time, she wasn't researching how to pick a winner of a piano competition.  And if you read it, you'd know that.

Many people on the forum picked THE WRONG WINNER, although they had more than enough visual clues, because it was all transmitted live with huge close-ups.

And oh my god... about the Cliburn comp, do you realize that is exactly what the research showed?  That when people view video and sound, they aren't going to pick the winner.

And did you even listen to his concerto performances?  It sucked; he was out of sync with the orchestra half the time.  He didn't deserve to co-win.  He only won because he was blind.

[dima_76557]

Oh my god, for the last time, she wasn't researching how to pick a winner of a piano competition.  And if you read it, you'd know that.

Maybe I was mislead then by the introduction you wrote to the document? No doubt about how you want us to interpret the results, especially the "even if-you-play-like-sh*t" part.

P.S.: The Lang Lang picture on npr.org (from the PianoStreet article you linked to to help us interpret the results) and the suggestion there that he would nail ANY competition with his theatrics, even if the judges didn't listen to him, clearly tell us how we are to interpret the results of this "research": "Don't be ashamed if you were fooled into liking Lang Lang, because professional judges are also easily fooled." This is simply disgusting demagogy. Not your fault, but it would have been better if you had just linked to the research article without all the surrounding fuss.

And oh my god... about the Cliburn comp, do you realize that is exactly what the research showed?  That when people view video and sound, they aren't going to pick the winner.

Winning a piano competition (or making a good impression in a LIVE concert if you want) is synergy (the result is more than the sum of all its parts). It is therefore useless to test the separate elements out of context, certainly

1) outside the premises the competition/LIVE concert is held in (most listeners/spectators - including the jury - simply sit too far away to even perceive visual cues), and most certainly

2) by taking away the essential part of what sound in a hall consists of. You can't possibly know who a performer is in terms of SOUND until you have been to at least one live concert by that performer. Even if you close your eyes there, you'll notice the difference. Vinyl records, audio CDs, etc. don't do much to give you a correct impression, and neither do video, DVD, etc., even if you play them in "mute" mode in order not to be "distracted" by the sound the performer makes.

Selling the results of such useless tests as "research" is simply misleading, and therefore does a disfavor to the good name of genuine scientific research.

And did you even listen to his concerto performances?  It sucked; he was out of sync with the orchestra half the time.  He didn't deserve to co-win.  He only won because he was blind.

I did not evaluate HIS performance. I meant to say that he will be quite capable of determining the winner if you put him in the hall.

[faulty_damper]

Maybe I was mislead then by the introduction you wrote to the document?

Okay, so now you just admitted that you didn't even read the article.  When, or if, you do, come back and say something based on your understanding of the research.

Here's a quiz:
1. What was the hypothesis of the study?
2. What was the methodology?  (How did the study test the hypothesis?)
3. How many experiments were conducted to arrive at her conclusions?
4. How much prior research did she cite to provide background information?
5. Does her conclusion have scientific validity?  (Is the conclusion supported by prior research?)

[Bob]

(No, I didn't read the whole thread.)

Sound changes based on what you see and what you think you're going to hear.  The listener is probably having a different experience if someone is moving around highlighting certain elements of the performance.  It probably actually does register as different/better if they see the performer pointing things out vs. just hearing the sound.

[dima_76557]

@ faulty_damper

Your "expert" status is impressive, I admit, but would you care to explain to the crowd
1) why the thread is called: "Looking passionate while playing makes bad performances good!"
2) and what your introduction has to do with the pseudo-scientific article you sought to introduce?
Thank you.

Looking good while performing trumps actually playing good.  In fact, how you look while playing is more important than what you actually sound like, even if you play like sh*t.  Even professional experts are fooled with shitty performances when the performer looked good doing it.  So the next time you're taking a sh*t, be certain to smile and be passionate about what's coming out of you.  You'll fool everyone into thinking it's sprinkles and daisies!

I learned this several years ago.  I can play a piece better than someone else, but because I make difficult pieces look absurdly easy, powerful or difficult music doesn't seem powerful nor difficult.  Whereas someone else with inferior ability and musicianship can struggle through it and be met with large roaring applause, my performance was met with more of a "meh".


Piano Streets article on it with audio and video test to see this for yourself:
https://www.pianostreet.com/blog/articles/do-we-judge-music-by-sight-more-than-sound-6207/

You can download the scientific article here, click "full text" on the right side Access panel:
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/08/16/1221454110.abstract

Clearly two links IN SUPPORT of what was stated earlier.

P.S.: I have read the paper 3 times. No need to test me.
More importantly, I have also read about how this pseudo-research was received. The whole Internet already "knows" by now how judges purportedly pick competition winners, and the level of UNcritical thinking in the readers is so alarmingly high that everybody seems to agree with that utterly stupid conclusion.

[faulty_damper]

I've sat in a number of recitals where the performer just wasn't very good and had a host of technical issues that were never resolved.  However, they looked really passionate about it.  Umph!  And the crowd went roaring.. YEA, WooHOO...    In fact, that passion really covered up a lot of their mistakes.  So I learned a long time ago that how you perform is more important than the actual musical performance.  This research just confirms my experiences.

And again, you seem to slide back into your shell without ever addressing the real reasons.  You say something without ANY support, no evidence, no alternative.  All you do is attack.  It is you who are NOT thinking.  Anyway, I'm done with you.

[dima_76557]

And again, you seem to slide back into your shell without ever addressing the real reasons.  You say something without ANY support, no evidence, no alternative.  

I have given ample evidence. I have addressed the underlying assumptions in the "research" and shown to people who have their eyes open how "valid" the conclusion is. Let everybody decide for themselves what to make of it. I have no need to prove a status I do not have.

EDIT: As an alternative to YOUR story: You seem to suggest that perfect TECHNICAL execution and a good musical experience are one and the same thing. This is not necessarily true. While you were listening for technical perfection, most listeners in the hall may have been LISTENING for something else, and went "YEA, WooHOO".

Plausible? And no visual elements needed to convince people that music is music, and that technique is technique. For me personally, if a performer has not worked on his/her touch, then he/she is not worth listening to at all, even if he/she plays perfectly in all other aspects. It is a matter of focus in the listener, and not of the performer "fooling" someone with visible and faked "passion".

P.S.: Here is a much better topic for Chia-Jung Tsay to research: "If you play "like sh*t" (= not in accordance with the listener's focus and expectations), you'll be punished, and no theatrics in the world can save you." The more elements you introduce to compensate for what is lacking, the harder you will be punished.

And how about: "Listeners are not as stupid as some researchers assume they are"?

[j_menz]

Looking good while performing trumps actually playing good.  ....

I learned this several years ago.  I can play a piece better than someone else, but because I make difficult pieces look absurdly easy, powerful or difficult music doesn't seem powerful nor difficult.  Whereas someone else with inferior ability and musicianship can struggle through it and be met with large roaring applause, my performance was met with more of a "meh".

Or you could be just delusional about the merits of your own playing. 

[dima_76557]

Or you could be just delusional about the merits of your own playing.  :-

Although that thought also crossed my mind, I did not write that explicitly because it could have looked as if I were trying to hurt/offend the opponent.

= = = = =

@ faulty_damper

My problem with the research is that it uses ARTIFICIAL selection to describe how NATURAL selection works. That is NOT science; it's pornography, and most importantly: it is "sold" as "science" merely because the procedures were carried out formally correctly. Research that initially makes the wrong assumptions CANNOT reveal the truth about anything, no matter how many samples were tested, or how many test takers took part.

[faulty_damper]

Or you could be just delusional about the merits of your own playing. 

I'm not.

[dima_76557]

My problem with the research is that it uses ARTIFICIAL selection to describe how NATURAL selection works. That is NOT science; it's pornography, and most importantly: it is "sold" as "science" merely because the procedures were carried out formally correctly. Research that initially makes the wrong assumptions CANNOT reveal the truth about anything, no matter how many samples were tested, or how many test takers took part.

It's even worse than I initially thought:

The research simply confirms the power of intuitive first impressions (6-second rule) about confidence in people. It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the selection criteria for what we appreciate as a "good live performance" in classical music! It also expresses the researcher's attitude towards competitions, and that's where the "science" ends. The media coverage of the article all over the Internet is simply disgusting, and we should seriously ask ourselves if science should be abused in such a way.
P.S.: Give a "researcher" the chance, and he/she will suck all the magic out of anything that is Good, Beautiful, and Divine for the wrong reasons!

[gvans]

I gave the paper a pretty close read; I've printed it and plan to re-read it. I've also read most of this thread. While the six-second bits were pretty short as presented to both expert musicians (competition judges or equivalent) and amateurs, the data are convincing. Video only, that is without sound, clips enabled both experts and rank amateurs to pick musical contest winners at a statistically higher rate than video with sound or sound alone. Longer clips up to 60 sec. were also tested and showed similar results.

The hard-fought battle to get orchestras to audition prospective applicants behind screens led to women becoming much better represented members of the professional orchestral community (see footnote five or six in the study). This is another aspect of the same phenomenon. Unlike dolphins, who are primarily auditory creatures (and possess huge temporal lobes), humans seem, as faulty-damper states, to be much more visually oriented.

By the time finalists are chosen for a competition, my guess is all are very musical, very talented and all play their repertoire like true virtuosi. By the final round, it is showmanship and flair--visual, theatrical attributes--that elevate winners.

I guess contests would only be truly, acoustically fair if all contestants played behind screens.

[dima_76557]

the data are convincing.

You have just fallen into the trap that was set up for you, because although the data are convincing, they do NOT describe, illustrate, or prove what they were set out to describe, illustrate, or prove (see Reply # 29). The research paper should be either retracted, rewritten, and/or renamed.

Allow me to make this clear first: Science itself is supposed to DESCRIBE and ILLUSTRATE only. It never proves anything. Whenever someone tells you that "science has just proven X", you face charlatans and manipulators whose goal it is to:

1) (gently) destroy any (moral, cultural, spiritual or other) values you had;
2) (gently) make you think the way they want you to think (critical reasoning and life experience are dismissed by default as arguments, and if you cannot cite a "scientific" source against the theory (often IMPOSSIBLE to do), you are disqualified as a partner in conversation);
3) (gently) force you either into submission or into some kind of self-destruction.

The data have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with how judges pick winners, and theatrics in competitions will work AGAINST you if you don't meet the listeners' expectations, even in the finales. Besides, in a hall, competition judges sit TOO FAR AWAY to be able to pick up the kind of visual cues you get when watching a video clip. If the competition were broadcast from the place where the jury members usually sit, it would be a VERY DISAPPOINTING program for the spectators at home, in ALL respects.

P.S.: If in doubt, go to the first available piano competition and get a seat right behind the jury. Come back to report your impressions here; your impressions about what the jury members do during the performance, and your impressions of what you were able to catch from the contestants in terms of visible cues. Members of the Data Dictatorship and Manipulation Cult are, of course, recommended to block audio signals from reaching their ears, so that nothing can disturb the validity and reliability of the experiment.

This "research" is simply BS in both meanings: Bull Sh*t and Bad Science.

The literal consequence of giving in to the suggestion this "research" seeks to create is that we admit that we like classical piano music for the wrong reasons (mere snobbism and such), and that if we don't want to look like idiots, we'd better watch the wave length meter in our player than listen to the beautiful music recorded on the disc or file we play.

All piano students at Juilliard and other renowned high-level musical institutions (where people are taught HOW TO LISTEN, but obviously in vain) are also strongly advised to get their money back and go to some kind of theater school, because only there, they teach you how to win a competition. If that isn't an unrealistic and unfair strike below the belt of any self-respecting classical musician (both contestants and jury members), then I don't know.

[gvans]

 "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."  W. Shakespeare

[dima_76557]

@ gvans

"None are so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes."
-Johann von Goethe

EDIT:

the findings demonstrate that people actually depend primarily on visual information when making judgments about music performance

In the past, the SAT achievement test used to be a very good parameter for judging, but since all major institutions require a high score, it has become virtually useless. That same problem we have with the way the research was conducted - only very high quality audio material was used, and it is no surprise that experts have nothing to judge on; they can only guess (50% "right" judgements based on visual cues is not that high).

In the finales of real competitions, however, the audio level is NEVER as equal as the researcher wants us to believe. Herein lies the unforgivable confusion she causes in people who don't know how things work in reality. It is an attack on one of the purest arts of communication humans have, and it comes as a shock to me that even trained musicians who truly love their art do not hear the sound of bunk when they read what is being fed as "research".

For the research results to be true, the researcher should at least have used some samples that show people whose audible performance is clearly different level, although they make a VERY confident visual impression (please, do the test with only audio and only video):

Although he may LOOK impressive and confident, on the Liszt Competition I give this guy not more than half a minute before he is sent home:

[kalirren]

The author of the paper is not claiming that looking good while playing makes bad performances good.  The author makes no claims of any situations where a superior auditory performance was passed over in favor of less auditorially impressive, but more visually impressive performance.

The author is claiming that in a field of auditorially good performances, the final discriminant that makes the winner of a competition is often visual, specifically, "looking passionate."  I find this claim very well supported by the rest of the paper.

What this shows is that if you want to win a competition, it is not enough to play well - you must also perform well.  The audience and the jury both need hand-holding.

Edit:  Musically speaking, I suppose what this means for the field is that we should in general give more weight to who was a finalist in every competition, and not who won.  The process of picking a winner is ultimately not very informative.

[dima_76557]

The author of the paper is not claiming that looking good while playing makes bad performances good.  The author makes no claims of any situations where a superior auditory performance was passed over in favor of less auditorially impressive, but more visually impressive performance.

The author of the paper should have written what she REALLY meant in the conclusion. It's after all supposed to be a research paper, and not some tabloid journal. The conclusion is as follows:

the findings demonstrate that people actually (!) depend primarily (!) on visual information when making judgments about music performance

See what she has wrought upon the Internet, where other "experts" with great "authority" claim that we indeed don't listen; we actually watch, just like 14-olds who think that all those chicks on the stage in poorly constructed pop music really sing through their butts, and she used strongly manipulated data to say just that:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Sight+over+sound+in+the+judgment+of+music+performance

[kalirren]

"Strongly manipulated data?"  You're making a big claim there.  I'd like to hear your justification.  Which data, and how?  Is it in the Supplementary info?  I didn't read those at all, I would have missed it if it were there.

See what she has wrought upon the Internet, where other "experts" with great "authority" claim that we indeed don't listen; we actually watch, just like 14-olds who think that all those chicks on the stage in pop music really sing through their butts, and she used strongly manipulated data to say just that:

Look, you read the paper too.  If you're going to say that by taking a result derived from competitions close in quality and generalizing to all performance, the author has over-represented the results, say so, and be precise.

That said, the findings are that expert judgments between (presumably) accomplished finalists are statistically reproducible by musically untrained, functionally deaf people, and that both untrained and trained people do worse at predicting the winners that were chosen by the juries when they attempt to consider both audio and video components of the performances.  I have re-stated these results without any interpretation.  Now make up your mind - Given that you disagree, are you going to dispute the author's interpretation of those results, or are you going to identify a weakness in the assumptions and methodology that generated those results, and propose a revised study?  Anything else is invalid.

For the research results to be true, the researcher should at least have used some samples that show people whose audible performance is clearly different level, although they make a VERY confident visual impression (please, do the test with only audio and only video):

No, such an experiment would only be necessary if the author were trying to show (as claimed by the OP) that looking passionate while playing makes an otherwise bad performance good.  The author has more rigor than the OP, and makes only the considerably more narrow claim that looking most passionate while presumably playing well is enough to be declared winner.

[dima_76557]

"Strongly manipulated data?"  You're making a big claim there.  I'd like to hear your justification.  Which data?  Is it in the Supplementary info?  I didn't read those at all, I would have missed it if it were there.

1) Six-second fragments that may not even contain a sensible musical phrase to conclude anything sensible with the ears (excellent phrasing in, for example, Rach 3 would IMMEDIATELY give the winner away);

2) Audio fragments that contain only one type of high-quality level of playing of those same fragments, and not the strongly diversified qualities of touch and phrasing one can generally hear on such competitions (what actually determines the winner was removed from the test!).

The testing was therefore not judging, but a GUESSING spree. That's why the research DOES NOT describe what happens in real life.

Please check, for example, the last Cliburn Competition. Vadym Kholodenko won NOT because of his theater (he moved VERY modestly with maximum economy), but because of his
1) superb rendition of the music
2) magic touch that never left him regardless of the difficulties in the music, and that could be recognized with eyes closed even through such a poor medium as YouTube. He was the ONLY one in those finales who had the whole package of what makes a winner. While with the other contestants the piano sounded as if it had been beaten up, when he performed, it became a LIVING instrument that filled the hall with a high-quality listening experience. In short: an artist at work; that's why they picked him and not someone else.

[kalirren]

1) Six-second fragments that may not even contain a sensible musical phrase to conclude anything sensible with the ears;

Doesn't this make the argument stronger that visual cues are very informative?  If the audio is so short as to be meaningless, but the video clearly isn't, then video signal is very informative for untrained people to be able to reproduce expert judgment.  This is not manipulating data.  You might argue beforehand, during study design, that you expect it to be meaningless data and not worth collecting, but the data have been reported, and there -is- signal in them.

2) Audio fragments that contain only one type of high-quality level of playing of those same fragments, and not the strongly diversified qualities of touch and phrasing one can generally hear on such competitions.

Both of the above are potential explanations for why the people listening to audio were unable to reproduce the judgment of the jury.  Neither is an explanation for why the people with visual-only stimuli were able to reproduce that judgment with only 6 seconds of footage, or even less. That said, I too would have been happier with the study if the 60 seconds had contained a complete miniature piece, and if longer recordings were to be added.  It is worth hypothesizing that there is a critical point when audio becomes just as informative as video. (As a musician, I would certainly hope that such a point exists.)

Please check, for example, the last Cliburn Competition. Vadym Kholodenko won NOT because of his theater (he moved VERY modestly with maximum economy), but because of his
1) superb rendition of the music
2) magic touch that never left him regardless of the difficulties in the music, and that could be recognized with eyes closed even through such a poor medium as YouTube. He was the ONLY one in those finales who had the whole package of what makes a winner.

The author never claimed that visual cues were limited to what we would call "theater."  My piano teacher told me he once had a friend who was tone-deaf even if you held a gun to her head, but could all the same look at a pianist during a competition and see a mistake coming a good 6 seconds before it was made.  Wasn't necessarily a wrong note - sometimes it was an insecure entrance, or a clearly missed dynamic, but a mistake nonetheless.

I am open to the possibility that even musically untrained people are capable of visually judging the kinesthetic qualities that result in good auditory performance - the pianists' touch, as you put it.  That is to say, possibly it need not look flashy, but it must look right in order to be right.

[dima_76557]

Doesn't this make the argument stronger that visual cues are very informative?  If the audio is so short as to be meaningless, but the video clearly isn't, then video signal is very informative for untrained people to be able to reproduce expert judgment.

All this research tells us is that it is easier to GUESS from six-second visual clues than it is to GUESS from six-second distorted aural clues. (I find the 53% "correct" for visual GUESSING not so convincing to tell you the truth). What does that have to do with the conclusion about JUDGING something as good, beautiful and divine? That's what the research claims to have been proven. That's why it is bunk, and not science.

[kalirren]

Guessing may be guessing, but if order-100 untrained people lacking any audio are statistically capable of reproducing a panel of order<10 jurists, what does that say about competitions?  The insinuation is that whatever jurists are agreeing on in their decision to award prizes, it's at least some part visual. And inasfar as that jury controls the outcome of the competition, that is a process of judgment.  And that ought to be enough to affront any musical purist.

Despite musicians’ training to use and value sound in their evaluations, only 20.5% of experts identified the
winners when they heard sound-only versions of the recordings, t(34) = −6.11, P < 0.001. However, 46.6% did so upon viewing silent video clips, t(34) = 4.05, P < 0.001.

Incidentally, the p-values are all reported, so you can decide for yourself if you find any reported margin convincing: for both of these results, P<0.001, less than 1 chance in 1 thousand.  If anything, this shows that the only thing that jurists agree on is the visual component, but experts like different things in their audio, and so pick different winners.  Which makes sense, given that this is art being judged, not engineering.  The broader the consensus, the more it suits the least common denominator, and the less it reflects any individual taste.

Personally, I have a more optimistic interpretation of all this. Fundamentally, most musicians do have something to say. I honestly think that in this competition, as in most competitions, the judging of good, beautiful, and divine happens before the final round.  The final round judgment was an agreement by a jury, and that agreement was made on visual grounds, now we know.  So certainly, inasfar as the art is pure, the greater artistic achievement in whichever competition was examined in this study was in qualifying for the finals, not in winning the prize.

[dima_76557]

Guessing may be guessing, but if order-100 untrained people lacking any audio are statistically capable of reproducing a panel of order<10 jurists, what does that say about competitions?

In the test, it's GUESSING WITHOUT CONTEXT.
In a good competition, it's JUDGING IN CONTEXT.

One does NOT describe the other. The research is simply one of the many examples of "publish or perish" as we have seen so often lately with poorly thought-out scientific research that clearly did not go through enough qualitative peer-review to be of any value to mankind.
P.S.: She's a pianist herself, for heaven's sake. Why didn't she at least consult some professionals in the "business"?

[kalirren]

In the test, it's GUESSING WITHOUT CONTEXT.
In a good competition, it's JUDGING IN CONTEXT.

I understand having respect for process.  But what is the judging process worth if half the time, the judging process returns the same result as an untrained, deaf observer with 6 seconds of video?  And chances are better than 999 out of 1000 that 100 deaf people guessing followed by plurality vote will return the same result as the process?

[dima_76557]

I understand having respect for process.  But what is the judging process worth if half the time, the judging process returns the same result as an untrained, deaf observer with 6 seconds of video?  And chances are better than 999 out of 1000 that 100 deaf people guessing will return the same result as the process by plurality vote?

No. If you let DEAF people TOUCH the piano, they will quite accurately determine a winner by the vibrations if the test is within a given CONTEXT. Visual clues are not their strongest asset to determine QUALITY of sound.

[kalirren]

That wasn't an answer to the question.

[dima_76557]

That wasn't an answer to the question.

Your question is related to what was found in a TESTING ENVIRONMENT, not to what we can say about real life. If in future, competitions are organized in exactly the same way as the experiments (guessing for data out of context), then the conclusions in the research will be accurate. I don't see that happen anytime soon. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to continue our yes-no-yes-no game here.

P.S.: I'd rather remain a happy noble savage, than become an unhappy neurotic wreck, but some "scientists" don't seem to understand such a point of view.

[kalirren]

Your question is related to what was found in a TESTING ENVIRONMENT, not to what we can say about real life. If in future, competitions will be organized in exactly the same way as the experiments (with data out of context), then the conclusions in the research will be accurate. I don't see that happen anytime soon.

My question was related to both.  It was related precisely to the concordance between what was found in testing and what was found in real life.  If in the future, competitions are conducted in exactly the same way as these experiments were conducted, then the experimental results of this publication will be IRRELEVANT.  The point of this study was that a surprising amount of signal relevant to competition outcome as competitions are currently run gets transferred through absurdly short snippets of video-only footage, despite the obvious lack of most of the musical context that we would assume relevant.  If the musical context is what is being judged, then the signal ought to vanish if that musical context is destroyed.

But that does not describe the data that were collected.  In this case, apparently the primary piece of context that anyone really needed to know is that they were watching competition footage, and maybe secondarily that people like looking for passion in music.  That was enough contextual information for the visual-only participants in the study to replicate expert judgment as a population by straight-up guessing.  As musicians, I think we are both equally frustrated by this outcome, but I find your reaction to it to be far less honest than mine.

Now, I have not watched the Van Cliburn competition.  If you think this latest Van Cliburn competition was such a blow-out, then we may have a good test-case for the idea that sometimes a candidate's strengths only come out in full competition context.  I might also suggest the 2005 Chopin competition, where the judges decided not to award second place because first place so far exceeded the rest of the field.  You could do follow-up studies to see if destroying the musical context of these competitions caused more substantial loss of signal.

In these follow-up studies I would be very curious to see if the visual-only test subjects continued to have an advantage over audio-only and audio+visual test subjects in prediction, and at what time length of footage the advantage starts to disappear, if ever. But in God's name, whatever happens with the visual data, I hope that experts converge in judgment in audio-only prediction at shorter footage lengths than untrained people.  Because if not, then experts are useless, and that would be far worse news than anything about competitions.

[dima_76557]

The point of this study was that a surprising amount of signal relevant to competition outcome as competitions are currently run gets transferred through absurdly short snippets of video-only footage, despite the obvious lack of most of the musical context that we would assume relevant.  If the musical context is what is being judged, then the signal ought to vanish if that musical context is destroyed.

What you describe is 1) the video footage of the competition for the spectators at home or 2) the video clips for the judges at the pre-screening stage (before the competition actually starts); judges who are NEVER the judges that will actually judge the competitors live. It does not describe what happens with people (including the judges) in the hall. I already wrote that the pre-screening stage is a very suspicious one.

At home. Spectators who don't change channels after seeing a glimpse of a competition will most likely be experienced, interested listeners, but they miss a lot of what happens in the hall. How inexperienced listeners react to distorted data in a test environment has no significance for how reality works.

In the hall. People in the hall who have the patience to follow the competition from beginning to end are by definition experienced listeners. They may have a very bad seat and not be able to judge at all about any visual aspects in the performance. How inexperienced listeners react to distorted data in a test environment has no significance for how reality works.

We don't even know for sure whether the inexperienced listeners that participated were actually and sincerely interested in classical music because there was a "bounty" of 8$ for each "correct" guess, which may be a very important factor for some to participate in the experiments.

P.S.: The deeper underlying problem with this kind of "science" is that what we are told and what we see in real life DOESN'T MATCH. That's why this world is gradually going crazy from all that science-based brainwashing.

[dima_76557]

The deeper underlying problem with this kind of "science" is that what we are told and what we see in real life DOESN'T MATCH. That's why this world is gradually going crazy from all that science-based brainwashing.

[rant]

In this respect, I would like to remark the following: how visual are we actually initially, and in how far are we forced into THINKING that "what we can't see does not exist"?

It has been "scientifically proven" that we pick politicians by visual parameters voluntarily, but is that really so? We all know that they're lying, and the pack of lies they usually sell us goes so fast that we can't verify the data, understand the logic, etc., so we have but one way out to protect ourselves: disable audio input and use our eyes. Forced.

It has been "scientifically proven" that we "like" pop music and its performers in live concerts mainly with our eyes and voluntarily, but is that really so? The music is often so loud that you can feel the vibrations in your bones. The sound can also be modified, so that certain sound qualities work on the subconscious, and 14-year olds become hysteric, they faint, etc. We have only one way to protect ourselves: disable audio input and look at the butts and the boobs of those who want to convince us that they're actually singing. Forced.

Our whole society (especially advertising) works on the principle of "what you can't see does not exist" and "if you heard it, you simply imagined it" (just think of the spiritual consequences of such a philosophy!), and if you repeat that message often enough, people even start BELIEVING it. That's why we see so many abusers of "scientific research" DENY that anything else than visual impulses could ever exist. This is then subconsciously translated by the victims into "What I see is true", a strong basis for manipulating behavior successfully.

[/end of rant]

[dima_76557]

One last thing to explain about the findings of this research and then I'll let it rest:

1) audio only under testing conditions: useless -> no effective guessing possible.
2) audio + video under testing conditions: although the audio is still useless, it now becomes a disturbing facture for the visual (eyes and ears don't work effectively together, and neither do eyes and touch) -> no effective guessing possible.
3) video only under testing conditions: tells us someting about the confidence of the person we see. It says NOTHING, however, about the music he/she plays. -> guessing is possible, but it doesn't tell us anything about JUDGING a piano competition.

This research was set up to PROVE a preconceived opinion, and it's a shame that the findings are not only abused to tell us how the researcher feels about competitions, but it also generalizes its findings for ALL classical piano performance. Music is essentially judged with the EARS and NOT with the eyes.