Abstract:
Is the stimulus for music perception an abstract form of a musical piece, or a particular performance of it? As with language, music reflects a communication of structure among its users (composers, performers, and listeners), which suggests the existence of some shared musical knowledge. Music performance may be an indispensable source of evidence for theories of that shared knowledge, because the particular expression given in each performance guides our musical understanding. Different sources of knowledge in music performance that contribute to a theory of the stimulus for perception will be described. Evidence from both expressive nuances of performance and from production errors (unintended mistakes) converge on the same knowledge sources. These performance findings have correlates in both music perception and in other production domains, such as speech. [Work supported by NIMH and NSF.]