To what extent is musical performance multitasking?

TulipAcid

I know I’ve never been able to maintain strict focus no matter how well I know the piece. However, this study and my own experience in driving a car gives me hope. I just have to play a piece correctly often enough for oh, I don’t know … YEARS. At 67, I guess I’ll have to get real selective about what I play if I want to perform it flawlessly.

🤣

https://direct.mit.edu/jocn/article/doi/10.1162/JOCN.a.2618/136691/Extensive-Experience-Remodels-Neural-Task

On the more hopeful side, I have experienced a certain amount of skills transfer between works in similar genres/eras. so, if I focus on things with broad commonality, that would help. If boredom doesn’t set in.

pseudonym58

I've often felt that it's the rescue that really counts. Same for errors during performance. I always tell my students that mistakes are inevitable so the ability to recover quickly is the important thing (ideally quickly enough so that my audience doesn't notice and thoroughly enough so that I am not thrown by the event). Same goes for momentary lapses in attention. I don't think I've ever been able to play without realizing at some point that my mind has wandered a slight bit, if only for a second or two. Perhaps other people are different.

ShiroKuro

pseudonym58 I've often felt that it's the rescue that really counts. Same for errors during performance. I always tell my students that mistakes are inevitable so the ability to recover quickly is the important thing (ideally quickly enough so that my audience doesn't notice and thoroughly enough so that I am not thrown by the event).

Yep. This has been my approach. I've gotten much better at the rescue/recovery. The "recovery quickly" part is always a challenge (and a quick recovery is what prevents a mistake from becoming what I call a fatal flaw). Each piece requires that kind of performance prep once the piece is to that point... Hopefully this skill is something I can continue to develop.

thepianoplayer416

Giving a flawless performance depends on the setting. When I'm playing in front of an audience watching in total silence I'd be so nervous that I can hardly play. In an informal gathering of friends & relatives or at a public piano I can play with few issues.

Have to learn to stay focus, breath deeply and normally to keep the heart rate stable. Learn your pieces well that you make fewer mistakes and know how to recover from them. The last thing is to visualize yourself in front of an audience that you lose performance anxiety.

ranjit

I wish there was research into it. I imagine that a lot of multitasking must be involved in piano performance, but also so much of it can become automatic by the time you actually perform that it's possible it's just executing a well-known sequence of events at that point which doesn't probably require as much multitasking.

MRC

Multitasking usually means performing two or more unrelated tasks consecutively. Like reading the news while playing the piano. Or arguing while driving a car.

The sort of "multitasking" that happens when playing the piano isn't like this, since all the tasks are related. Everything we are doing is geared to one goal and needs to be carefully coordinated, whereas there is no specific coordination in normal multitasking.

ranjit

MRC Multitasking usually means performing two or more unrelated tasks consecutively. Like reading the news while playing the piano. Or arguing while driving a car.

Yes, but if you practice doing those tasks together, it wouldn't be multitasking anymore, right? Is Billy Joel multitasking when he sings and plays the piano? If you are always livestreaming while driving your car, they will eventually "kind of" become one activity. Then, is it necessarily all that different from piano performance? You might be taking in information from a score, nodding at the conductor, imagining flipping pages in your head, etc. which are all somewhat related to playing, but the relation gets more and more tenuous.

ShiroKuro

ranjit Is Billy Joel multitasking when he sings and plays the piano?

I want to say yes to this. I get what @MRC is saying, but maybe it's better to think of multitasking as layered or something, in terms of complexity...

So what's a single task? Play one note, with one figure...

Now, if I'm playing piano with both hands, that's one level of multitasking. How complex are the two lines of music? More voices maybe bumps it up a level.

Add the pedals, add a bluetooth foot pedal, that adds a layer.

Singing is different from playing two hands IMO, so I would that at a higher level (and higher than the foot pedal)...

Sure the actions are related, and all are in the service of music making, but you have to direct your attention to multiple tasks.

What's the classic multitasking? Brushing you teeth while frying an egg? Ok, maybe that's what most people think of when they think of multitasking, but I still think a complex instrument like the piano counts...

ETA: what about score reading? Should that be considered its own task? I'm not sure because I never play without reading, so...

KevinM

Does it in some way require a skill level?

I remember as a kid if I knew a piece well I could talk and play it. The idea of that is incomprehensible to me now.

For a skilled pianist playing both hands independently is no longer multi-tasking because all their attention is no longer needed for that task. It becomes a single task. For a less skilled pianist they perhaps can play both hands independently but it consumes all their concentration and they have nothing left for adding to the music or being aware of what is happening around them.

But this applies everywhere. Practising inevitably makes a mentally challenging task easier such that the multiple aspects of performing the task become one process.

pseudonym58

KevinM I can most certainly talk while I'm playing, but I'll end up playing rather badly! 😀

ShiroKuro

In the last few years, I've noticed that I can talk a little bit and play at the same time a bit more, esp. with a well-known piece. Like maybe I'll call out to my spouse or something. Although if it's something I'm still learning, even that's not possible!

To @KevinM 's larger point... it makes me think that neither the description of "multitasking" nor "single-tasking" fits well for piano. It's a complex task, but again back to what @MRC wrote and what @KevinM wrote, it's highly integrated...

Maybe we could call it a multi-layered, complex, single task activity? or multi-layered, single task complex activity?

😅

TC3

There's probably some official academic definition for multitasking, but I'm not really sure what it is ... I think that's going to cause a lot of disagreement and confusion in this thread, but I'll take a stab anyway.

When my students use the term "multitasking," they seem to mean two or more completely unrelated activities, each of which would require full conscious attention, and yet somehow performed simultaneously. Like when they say "I can listen to your lecture and text my cousin at the same time!" Um, no. I'm pretty sure the brain doesn't work that way. What they're really doing is switching their attention back and forth, and missing out on one while they think of the other.

I think that's different than a complex activity that can involve a lot of different things but are still related as a whole. I'd say piano is more like that. I've heard good pianists say that it's not like using two hands with five fingers each so much as one big hand with ten fingers. 😃 Just like when I play guitar, my left hand chunks the movements of the individual fingers into chord shapes rather than thinking of putting down each finger individually.

As someone who sings and plays, I'd say that all still works as one complex activity: just like practicing hands separately and then putting them together, my voice is just one more "hand." Other things can probably be added to that too: pedaling, general performance motions and expressions, etc.

There are some times when I do have to multitask a bit though. Using various foot controls on my synth to change programs on the fly is an example. Psychologically (for me, anyway), those always feel like separate things from playing, so I have to put my playing on autopilot / muscle memory for a minute while I mess around with the other stuff.

ranjit

ShiroKuro I do feel like I'm multitasking during lessons, when teachers go: "make sure you have this pedaling here, make sure the phrase here works, make sure you have this voicing here, and imagine this line or aim for this note in your head as you go about the whole thing." I don't know if it counts as classic multitasking but seems similar enough at some level. Like if I'm playing an arpeggio across both hands, that is one thing, but if I'm playing accompaniment in the left hand and some denser writing in the right hand along with pedal indications, it's using pretty much as much of my simultaneous-processing brainpower as I have available.

I can talk or sing somewhat while playing the piano even with say Chopin if it's not too difficult or if it's very well-learned. I feel like it just depends on how much working memory is available.

ShiroKuro

TC3 When my students use the term "multitasking," they seem to mean two or more completely unrelated activities, each of which would require full conscious attention, and yet somehow performed simultaneously.

Yes, I think this what most people mean when they say multitasking, and I think that “single goal” aspect of music-making is the key difference (e.g., as compared to the student in a lecturing on their phone)

What they're really doing is switching their attention back and forth, and missing out on one while they think of the other.

Right, this switching back and forth is missing in music-making — or at least, it should be missing!

I've heard good pianists say that it's not like using two hands with five fingers each so much as one big hand with ten fingers.

Oooh I love this description! Especially for music with inner voices in the middle of the keyboard, where there are phrases that normally would be played by one hand or the other but because of the rest of the music, you have to distribute them across both hands.

Interestingly enough, I think I’m pretty good at playing the piano with both hands, IOW, just basic playing with both hands isn’t a cognitive burden. But a piece that has that “middle of the keyboard inner voice” (along with an upper melody line and lower bass accompaniment) is still often a huge challenge for me, and requires a lot of work upfront to decided in advance which hand to give to which notes etc. So maybe in rep that’s less challenging, I have one hand with 10 fingers, but in more challenging rep, suddenly I’m back to having two separate hands again….

There are some times when I do have to multitask a bit though. Using various foot controls on my synth to change programs on the fly is an example. Psychologically (for me, anyway), those always feel like separate things from playing, so I have to put my playing on autopilot / muscle memory for a minute while I mess around with the other stuff.

I have written elsewhere about the cognitive burden of using the Bluetooth foot pedal to turn pages in the score. I often find that the spot in the music where I have to pedal to turn the page is a spot where I get tripped up in the music. As if that extra cognitive burden is just enough to make my playing unstable. I hadn’t thought about it this way before, but it’s interesting that using the damper pedal does not feel like a cognitive burden (although I think in the early days of learning piano it did) but the page turner pedal does. Even though I’ve been using a Bluetooth page turner for well over ten years now. And even though the page turner pedal is still part of one complex activity in service of the same goal (music making). Of course at the polishing stage, this problem is generally eliminated, and using my left foot to turn the page is so automatic these days that I often move my foot to turn the page even when I’m looking at a physical book. But it still also feels like an extra cognitive burden that I don’t feel with pedaling the damper pedal…

ShiroKuro

ranjit I do feel like I'm multitasking during lessons, when teachers go: "make sure you have this pedaling here, make sure the phrase here works, make sure you have this voicing here, and imagine this line or aim for this note in your head as you go about the whole thing." I don't know if it counts as classic multitasking but seems similar enough at some level. Like if I'm playing an arpeggio across both hands, that is one thing, but if I'm playing accompaniment in the left hand and some denser writing in the right hand along with pedal indications, it's using pretty much as much of my simultaneous-processing brainpower as I have available.

To me this is what @KevinM is talking about as something that is increasingly automated as you internalize the specific piece and/or the specific techniques you’re working on. So maybe it’s ok to not call that multi-tasking, but at the same time recognize it as elements of technique that initially require much more focused attention (e.g., on the physical movements) and then eventually settle in so that you can focus on them as musical tasks rather than physical/muscle tasks… maybe?

I feel like it just depends on how much working memory is available.

Having read all the comments in this thread, I now think that the idea of amount of available working memory, and my idea of degree of cognitive burden, are probably much more relevant than the idea of multitasking.

ranjit

ShiroKuro I would say we are actively multitasking when playing polyphonic music when we listen to what we are playing. If you notice closely, I think you would find that you switch between the different voices based on what's important very quickly while listening, and don't literally listen simultaneously to everything. The muscle memory is more automated.

pianoloverus

People are going to have very different opinions on the meaning of multitasking as this thread has demonstrated over and over. Since those opinions differ, the question if piano playing qualifies as multitasking has no clear answer.

rsl12

OK, I ran into this article about brain activity while improvising on piano. They use the term "multimodal" instead of multitasking:

Music is what we call multimodal. It activates all sorts of domains in the brain: the listening center, pattern perception, visual, emotional, motor and proprioception areas. It is biologically powerful that way.

Of course this is different from what is being discussed here--they're not talking about 10 different fingers lighting up 10 different parts of the brain. They're talking about the different types of processing the brain has to handle while producing music.

At the risk of derailing the discussion (but also bringing the discussion back to the original post, because the article TulipAcid presented was about brain response to repeated experience, and nothing about multitasking, despite the title of this thread), these are the interesting bits of the article:

The MRI scans, rather than showing areas of the brain lighting up when improvising, mostly showed areas of the brain deactivating. In particular, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for self-judgement.
When adult jazz pianists play, the medial prefrontal cortex activates, an area associated with "artistic voice". But when kids who didn't play piano are asked to improvise, this area does not activate. (Which to me makes sense--how can you have an artistic voice on any instrument you don't really know how to use? They should have tried this experiment on non-musical adults as well.)
Comparing the two groups again, they found that the reward centers of the brain activated much more for kids than the adults. The study author concludes that kids have nascent neural creativity networks that develop as they become older. In other words, kids are born with the ability to enjoy creativity.

WieWaldi

rsl12 Comparing the two groups again, they found that the reward centers of the brain activated much more for kids than the adults. The study author concludes that kids have nascent neural creativity networks that develop as they become older. In other words, kids are born with the ability to enjoy creativity.

Interesting. I guess this is true for the majority of adults, but there are some exceptions. Those who do a lot of composing on the one hand and the improvisers on the other. As for pianists, both groups make up only 10%. Please correct me, if my percentage guess is wrong.

ShiroKuro

rsl12 thanks for this post! I’m going to read that article you linked later, but it looks interesting, and I note it was just published last month, cool!