Towards Automated Analysis of Joint Music Performance in the Orchestra

Preliminary results from a study of expressivity and of non-verbal social signals in small groups of users are presented. Music is selected as experimental test-bed since it is a clear example of interactive and social activity, where affective non-verbal communication plays a fundamental role. In this experiment the orchestra is adopted as a social group characterized by a clear leader (the conductor) of two groups of musicians (the first and second violin sections). It is shown how a reduced set of simple movement features - heads movements - can be sufficient to explain the difference in the behavior of the first violin section between two performance conditions, characterized by different eye contact between the two violin sections and between the first section and the conductor.