A Study of Ensemble Synchronisation Under Restricted Line of Sight

This paper presents a quantitative study of musician synchronisation in ensemble performance under restricted line of sight, an inherent condition in scenarios like distributed music performance. The study focuses on the relevance of gestural (e.g. visual, breath) cues in achieving note onset synchrony in a violin and cello duo, in which musicians must fulfill a mutual conducting role. The musicians performed two pieces – one with long notes separated by long pauses, another with long notes but no pauses – under direct, partial (silhouettes), and no line of sight. Analysis of the musicians’ note synchrony shows that visual contact significantly impacts synchronization in the first piece, but not significantly in the second piece, leading to the hypothesis that opportunities to shape notes may provide further cues for synchronization. The results also show that breath cues are important, and that the relative positions of these cues impact note asynchrony at the ends of pauses; thus, the advance timing information provided by breath cues could form a basis for generating virtual cues in distributed performance, where network latency delays sonic and visual cues. This study demonstrates the need to account for structure (e.g. pauses, long notes) and prosodic gestures in ensemble synchronisation.