Independent practice approaches for expressive piano performance: modeling, structural understanding, and narrative imagery

This study compared three practice approaches for expressive performance, modeling, structural understanding, and narrative imagery, among 54 undergraduate and graduate piano majors. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three practice conditions and completed a pretest, practice, posttest protocol using the opening excerpt from Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9, No. 2. During a 60-min practice session, participants practiced according to their assigned condition while annotating their scores and recording and reviewing their performances. Pretest and posttest performances were evaluated by three expert pianists across multiple dimensions, including phrasing, tone color, dynamics, tempo rubato, balance, articulation, overall expressiveness, and accuracy. Participants also completed a postsession questionnaire assessing goal clarity, perceived improvement, cue awareness, personal interpretation, engagement, and transfer intention. Mixed-design ANOVAs revealed significant Time × Group interactions for tone color, dynamics, tempo rubato, and articulation. The modeling group showed greater improvement than the narrative imagery group in tone color, tempo rubato, and articulation, and both the modeling and structural understanding groups showed greater improvement than the narrative imagery group in dynamics. Learner-reported outcomes, however, favored structural understanding and narrative imagery. Specifically, narrative imagery yielded higher perceived improvement than modeling, and both structural understanding and narrative imagery yielded higher cue awareness, personal interpretation, and transfer intention than modeling. Goal clarity and engagement did not differ significantly across groups. Open-ended responses indicated that modeling heightened awareness of specific expressive cues but was sometimes experienced as restrictive, whereas narrative imagery was reported to enhance engagement and interpretive agency. Taken together, these findings suggest that expressive performance is multidimensional and that different practice approaches may support different aspects of expressive development, with implications for how expressive performance is taught and evaluated comprehensively.