Abstract

During the act of performing, visible cues between duo pianists are of necessity kept to a minimum. Since this is a factor not characteristic of most other performing ensembles, it offers an exceedingly fruitful medium for studying the cultivation of communication between players--in particular, the internalizing processes so crucial to the nonverbal experience. This thesis--supported by bibliographical evidence, as well as recent inquiries into the realm of nonverbal communication and my own experimental foray into the area of communication between duo pianists--questions whether quantitatively-based methodologies by themselves can grasp the implicit meanings being communicated without losing a sense of the experience as a whole. In the search for an alternative approach, I examined a number of recently-developed methodologies in the areas of sociology, ethnography and communication that address precisely those questions that arise when the indivisibility of the experience must be retained. The modified ethnographic/metacommunicative approach that I finally adopted allowed me to both participate in and observe the cultivation of communication between two pianists in their preparation and execution of virtuoso works from the duo piano repertoire.

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