Expressive Timing in a Debussy Prelude: A Comparison of Student and Expert Pianists

The expressive timing of 10 famous pianists' performances of Debussy's prelude, La fille aux cheveux de lin, was measured from acoustic recordings and compared to the expressive timing of performances by 10 graduate student pianists, recorded after only a brief rehearsal on a Yamaha Disklavier in MIDI format. Despite the-large differences between the two groups in preparation, experience, age, date of birth, and national origin, their average expressive timing profiles were extremely similar. Although individual differences tended to be more pronounced among the experts than among the students, the similarity of the average timing profiles suggests a common standard of expressive timing. Since this standard evidently can be approximated by graduate student pianists after only minimal rehearsal, it may be considered the default result of an encounter between a trained musician and a particular musical structure—the timing implied by the score.