Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
J Neurophysiol. 2012 Oct;108(7):2060-8. doi: 10.1152/jn.00378.2012. Epub 2012 Jul 18.
Independent control of finger movements characterizes skilled motor behaviors such as tool use and musical performance. The purpose of the present study was to identify the effect of movement frequency (tempo) on individuated finger movements in piano playing. Joint motion at the digits was recorded while 5 expert pianists were playing 30 excerpts from musical pieces with different fingering and key locations either at a predetermined normal tempo or as fast as possible. Principal component analysis and cluster analysis using an expectation-maximization algorithm determined three distinct patterns of finger movement coordination for a keypress with each of the index, middle, ring, and little fingers at each of the two tempi. The finger kinematics of each coordination pattern was overall similar across the tempi. Tone sequences assigned into each cluster were also similar for both tempi. A linear regression analysis determined no apparent difference in the amount of movement covariation between the striking and nonstriking fingers at both metacarpo-phalangeal and proximal-interphalangeal joints across the two tempi, which indicated no effect of tempo on independent finger movements in piano playing. In addition, the standard deviation of interkeystroke interval across strokes did not differ between the two tempi, indicating maintenance of rhythmic accuracy of keystrokes. Strong temporal constraints on finger movements during piano playing may underlie the maintained independent control of fingers over a wider range of tempi, a feature being likely to be specific to skilled pianists.
独立控制手指运动是熟练运动行为的特征，例如使用工具和演奏音乐。本研究的目的是确定运动频率（节奏）对钢琴演奏中个体化手指运动的影响。当 5 位专家钢琴家以预定的正常速度或尽可能快的速度演奏具有不同指法和键位的 30 个乐曲片段时，记录了手指的关节运动。使用期望最大化算法的主成分分析和聚类分析确定了在两种节奏下，每个索引、中指、环指和小指的按键有三种不同的手指运动协调模式。在两种节奏下，每个协调模式的手指运动学总体上相似。为每个集群分配的音序列在两种节奏下也相似。线性回归分析确定在两个节奏下，打击指和非打击指在掌指关节和近指间关节处的运动变化量之间没有明显差异，这表明节奏对钢琴演奏中手指的独立运动没有影响。此外，两次敲击之间的键间隔的标准偏差在两种节奏下没有差异，这表明敲击的节奏准确性得到了保持。在钢琴演奏过程中，手指运动受到强烈的时间限制，这可能是手指在更广泛的节奏范围内保持独立控制的基础，这一特征可能是熟练钢琴家所特有的。
