Aspetti analitici e gestuali nell’esecuzione musicale dei bambini

Aim of this article is to study analytical and gestural aspects of children’s perfor- mances with the purpose of helping instrumental teachers in taking more infor- med decisions regarding methods and repertorie, and to offer elements for com- parison with performances of advanced students and professionals. Three pianists, each 10 years of age, studied a piece which they did not previously know, taken from Barto?k’s Mikrokosmos, and suitable to their level of piano experience. During the learning process, the teacher annotated in a diary the indications given to the children. When they were able to play the piece from memory and with fluidity, a first videorecording was made during their lessons. Later on, after correcting any problems noted in the first video session, they videorecorded the performance of the piece in a public context with only a few people in the audience. At last, they made another video recording in front of an audience of about 50 people. The quan- titative and qualitative analysis of the recordings then took into account the for- mal structures of the pieces, the mistakes and the spontaneous gestures comparing them with the teacher’s diary. The results indicated a significant increase of the per- centage of errors and spontaneous gestures in the measures which frame the formal sections of the pieces.