Practice makes less imperfect: the effects of experience and practice on the kinetics and coordination of flutists' fingers
André Almeida, Marie M. Devillers, Renée Chow, John R. Lindsay Smith, Joe Wolfe · 2010
The key systems of woodwind modern instruments minimise the need for cross fingering in lower registers. Nevertheless, performance often requires near-simultaneous movements of several fingers, often with some digits rising while others fall, especially in performance in the high registers. We measured the individual finger movements of a group of amateur and professional flutists as they played an original piece unseen before the experiment. They played a modified flute with a position detector mounted below each key. The detectors, via an interface and computer, gave the timing and speed of each key, as reported in an earlier study (Almeida et al., 2009). Here we report the changes in speed and coordination between sight-reading and performance after a short session of practice. We also report the variability among players within each group, and the differences between amateurs and professionals