Analysis of Mimed Violin Performance Movements of Neophytes

Body movement and embodied knowledge play an important part in how we express and understand music. The gestures of a musician playing an instrument are part of a shared knowledge that contributes to musical expressivity by building expectations and influencing perception. In this study, we investigate the extent in which the movement vocabulary of violin performance is part of the embodied knowledge of individuals with no experience in playing the instrument. We asked people who cannot play the violin to mime a performance along an audio excerpt recorded by an expert. They do so by using a silent violin, specifically modified to be more accessible to neophytes. Preliminary motion data analyses suggest that, despite the individuality of each performance, there is a certain consistency among participants in terms of overall rhythmic resonance with the music and movement in response to melodic phrasing. Individualities and commonalities are then analysed using Functional Principal Component Analysis.