performance without preparation: structure and ...

Psychomusicology, 15, 1-29 ©1996 Psychomusicology

PERFORMANCE WITHOUT PREPARATION: STRUCTURE AND ACQUISITION OF EXPERT SIGHT-READING AND ACCOMPANYING PERFORMANCE Andreas C. Lehmann & K. Anders Ericsson Department of Psychology Florida State University Theories arguing that specific skills are acquired through extended practice cannot easily account for some musicians' ability to perform unfamiliar music without preparation at first sight (sight-reading). This study identified the source of individual differences in this ability among expert pianists by relating component abilities of sight-reading and biographical indicators of skill acquisition to actual sight-reading performance. Sixteen advanced pianists of comparable skill played music without rehearsal (sight-reading) and after brief rehearsal (accompanying). Performances were paced by a recorded melody line. Pianists then performed experimental tasks designed to capture isolated subskills of sight-reading such as improvisation, recall, and kinesthetic ability. Sightreading and accompanying performance correlated significantly with performance on the component tasks and with interview data on subjects' training background, including the accumulated amount of time spent with accompanying-related activities and the size of accompanying repertoire. After controlling for the effects of subskills, age, professional specialization, and an indicator of general pianistic skill, accumulated accompanying experience and size of accompanying repertoire still accounted for significant unique variance in sight-reading and accompanying performance. Individual differences in unrehearsed performance among expert pianists reflect the consequences of domain-relevant activities (accompanying) and deliberate skill-building efforts (increase in size of relevant repertoire). The focus of the performing community is on public performance and in particular on solo performance. Thus today's training of musicians is carefully designed to improve their level of technical skills and the quality of musical expression. Typically, solo performers intensively study and rehearse their selected programs for a long period prior to public performances. Recent studies have shown that the individual differences in the level of solo performance that musicians attain after extended preparation is related to the amount of deliberate practice accumulated since the start of instrumental training by experts (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Romer, 1993) and by music students (Sloboda, Davidson, Howe, & Moore, 1996). Although the performance of extensively prepared music in public may be the most important activity in the musical profession, there are a number of other activities in which opportunities for prior preparation are much more limited. For example, many professional pianists accompany singers, instrumentalists and dancers under circumstances in which there is very limited time for becoming familiar with the music to be performed. Sometimes, as Lehmann & Ericsson

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in the case of auditions, there may not be any time at all for the musician to prepare for the performance of some requested music. In such cases, accompanists are forced to play—upon the first encounter—an unfamiliar piece of music that other pianists would need many hours of preparation to give a similarly good performance. But sight-reading is not restricted to pianists; many types of instrumentalists employed in recording studios or the film industry perform regularly with little or no preparation. Their skill of performing at first sight has gained an almost legendary reputation. At times the ability to sight-read has been awarded a special status as indicator of musical skill, because its acquisition or origin is poorly understood. As Bean (1938) noted, the "successful learning of the skill of efficient reading seems to involve a trick of which neither teacher nor pupil is conscious" (p. 3). In addition, unlike the training of general performance skills, which is associated with many hours of structured training activities, good sight-readers do not report activities that are linked obviously to the acquisition of their superior skills. Despite the conspicuous absence of specific training activities, some trainability is usually acknowledged and musicians are encouraged to improve their skills for reading unfamiliar music (e.g., Bryant, 1997, p. 42; Hofmann, 1920/1976, p. 117; Roth, 1977, p. 41; Spillman, 1985,1990). However, some still contend that "teachers are merely guessing when they invent remedies for [enhancing sight-reading skills] that are based on no good sound theory" (Bean, 1938, p. 3). In this article we examine the structure of sight-reading skills by measuring individual differences on selected component skills that should facilitate sight-reading performance. Furthermore, we try to identify relevant training activities that benefit the development of sight-reading. In essence, we investigate whether this specialized skill is deliberately acquired through engagement in relevant training activities or whether it is simply a function of talent or general level of instrumental proficiency. First, we review the evidence for individual differences in sight-reading ability among pianists, show that the relationship between solo and sightreading performance differs as a function of the level of pianistic skill, and report the results of a previous study (Lehmann & Ericsson, 1993) that demonstrated individual differences in sight-reading even among pianists with uniformly high skill levels. Next, we examine the characteristic task demands of sight-reading and isolate component skills that seem to be part of the intact task of sight-reading; for example, when there is not enough time to read all the notes carefully, sight-reading performers benefit from the ability to improvise and infer written notes in a passage. The final section of this article reviews the available evidence on the acquisition of sight-reading skills and shows that some improvements as a function of relevant experience have been demonstrated. Individual Differences in Sight-Reading Ability Superior sight-reading abilities have been regarded often as a curiosity, and individual differences in sight-reading performance have been explained 2

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by reference to innate talent and necessary basic aptitudes for that activity (e.g., Gordon, 1995, p. 40). Leopold Mozart, father of the great composer Wolfgang Amadeus, advertised his young son's sight-reading ability as if it were a circus act (see Solomon, 1995, p. 47). Biographers found it noteworthy to mention that outstanding pianists, such as Liszt, Czerny, and Mendelssohn, sight-read works in public early in their lives. However, not all outstanding pianists excel at sight-reading. There are several reported cases of expert pianists with deficient sight-reading skills (cf. Wolf, 1976, p. 143). Thus, there is considerable anecdotal evidence for the existence of large individual differences in the ability to sight-read among expert pianists. At first glance, these observations appear to be inconsistent with the high correlation between sight-reading and general performance level among representative samples of pianists and other musicians. The following section reexamines this evidence and reports on a previous study that studied sightreading in a sample of expert pianists. Sight-reading ability below the expert level. Research on sight-reading with sub-expert populations has found high correlations between level of performance without prior preparation (sight-reading) and after extensive preparation (rehearsedperformance) (e.g., McPherson, 1995; Watkins, 1942; see Lehmann & Ericsson, 1993, for areview). In McPherson's (1995) study, the correlation between rehearsed performance and sight-reading ability for the entire sample was .75; Watkins (1942, p. 81) found a correlation of .97 between sight-read and practiced performances. McPherson used an independent measure for rehearsed performance, namely ratings by the Australian Music Examination Board. Conversely, Watkins instructed subjects to practice using the test material for the sight-reading assessment. However, Watkins also cited a correlation between sight-reading and combined number of months of instruction of .63. This correlation is closer to McPherson's value and relied on length of training as an independent indicator of skill level. Sight-reading ability of expert pianists. Lehmann and Ericsson (1993) measured sight-reading and accompanying ability of expert pianists of comparable general skills who varied in their professional specialization. Half the subjects were prospective accompanists and the other half were studying for solo performance degrees (performers). The authors designed a representative situation that pianists encounter regularly as accompanists of soloists. During the experiment, subjects performed two written accompaniments to prerecorded solo parts, which were used to pace the performance. After the first trial with the pacing solo voice, subjects were given two practice trials during which they could play through the pieces at their own speed. This was followed by another paced trial. Sight-reading ability was assessed from the first and fourth renditions by counting the number of correct notes in notational printouts of computer recorded performance files (MIDI). This index of accuracy correlated highly with the listening evaluation by expert judges. Also, the performances on the two pieces were highly correlated, indicating that sight-reading ability can be viewed as a generalized ability. Lehmann & Ericsson

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Accompanists and performers differed significantly with regard to the number of correct notes played, even after four trials, with accompanists scoring significantly higher than performers. In addition, a significant statistical interaction between trial and group showed that gains in performance accuracy from the first to the fourth trials were larger for the performers, as compared to those of the accompanists. Thus, large individual differences in unrehearsed performance among expert pianists in a representative situation exist; the better performance was found for the specialized group of accompanists. Summarizing, in samples with musicians of varied skill levels, rehearsed performance skills are closely related to sight-reading skills and the correlation between the two types of performance is high. However, when more homogeneous groups of advanced players are studied there is evidence for a dissociation between rehearsed performance skills and sight-reading ability, which points to specific abilities that mediate each of the two types of performance. The following two sections explore the unique demands for the task of sight-reading and examine the available evidence for the specific structure of sight-reading skills and their acquisition and development. Sight-Reading: Characteristic Task Demands and Corresponding Component Skills Studies in expert performance suggest that experts adapt maximally to the task constraints of the most representative conditions in their respective domains of expertise (Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996, for a review). For the experts to perform successfully under typical conditions, multiple constraints of the tasks must be satisfied simultaneously and the experts have to acquire an organized structure of skills. Ericsson and Smith (1991) called for the investigation of the intact expert performance as well as the study of how isolated task components relate to the intact performance. Accordingly, in the following we review some of the task components and demands of sightreading which differ markedly from those encountered in the performance of rehearsed music. In sight-reading, the musician is faced with the problem of having to extract the correct notes and rhythms and then translate them into the appropriate motor responses in real-time. These task conditions prevent the use of traditional methods of preparation such as committing the piece of music to memory, solving various performance problems, or iteratively developing a coherent performance plan. The structure of sight-reading under real-time constraints: Cognitive mechanisms. The demands on working memory are strikingly different for solo performers and accompanists. During an unrehearsed performance, the expert must recognize musical patterns and generate adequate performance plans using the music notation as cues, anticipating how the music continues. In contrast, rehearsed performance is based on free recall and knowledge of the sequence in which the notes occur. Experts in other domains have been shown to overcome processing limitations by increased planning and anticipation (see Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996, for a review; Salthouse, 4

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1991). The available evidence suggests that expert sight-readers have developed similar mechanisms to overcome real-time constraints. Researchers have found that better sight-readers look further ahead in the music score and that their eye-hand span (the difference between the notes fixated and the notes played in an instant) is larger than that of less proficient sight-readers (Bean, 1938; Goolsby, 1994b; Sloboda, 1984, for a review). Some authors have argued that the increased eye-hand span is due to the superior ability of the skilled sight-readers to recognize large patterns of notes (chunks), which would reduce the information load (Wolf, 1976). In support of that hypothesis, studies of musicians' eye-fixations during sight-reading show that novice sight-readers tend to fixate on each note while better readers distribute their fixation over all areas of the score (Goolsby, 1994a). It has also been suggested that superior knowledge about principles of music theory facilitates the efficiency of encoding of patterns and chunks (e.g. Wolf, 1976, p. 158; see also Burmeister, 1991, p. vi; Nuki, 1984). Other research in the reading of music found that better sight-readers take advantage of structural groupings (Clifton, 1986, p. 102; Sloboda, 1977) and extract contours in single line melodies before relating notes to each other (Clifton, 1986). There is also evidence that skilled performers infer or anticipate note sequences based on previous knowledge rather than extracting the exact notes. For example, Sloboda (1976) showed that pianists commit "proof reader's errors" by substituting inferred correct notes for improbable notes that were actually notated in the score. Similarly, Bean (1938, p. 53) and Wolf (1976, p. 149) suggested that knowledge in music theory (harmony) facilitates sight-reading through informed guessing and better pattern recognition. All of these findings show that skilled sight-readers are able to encode the structure of the music played, thus going beyond the method of less proficient readers (in which each note is fixated and played). In our experiment with expert pianists, we attempted to measure individual differences in the ability to remember and infer the structure of performed music. Visual monitoring of motor movements. By looking at the keyboard and their hands, pianists can monitor the execution of technical challenges such as large leaps or hand-crossings. In a situation where the score has been rehearsed and largely memorized, musicians need not see the notated music and can monitor visually their hand movements. During sight-reading, however, eye contact with the score is essential for gathering information about upcoming musical events. Furthermore, relocating a current position in the music after looking at the keyboard and refocusing the eye might disrupt the continuously ongoing encoding process. Accordingly, Banton (1995) found that when visual contact with hands and fingers was completely prevented during sight-reading, melodic and overall errors increased as compared to a control condition. However, the issue is not simply the presence or absence of eye-movements. Rather, Lannert and Ullman (1945, p. 97) claimed that it is the quality of eye movement that is important in sight-reading. Some eye movements do not break visual access to the music score. Thus, the ability Lehmann & Ericsson

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to control movements during performance—based solely on kinesthetic cues and feedback or through reduced head movements— would facilitate sightreading performance (e.g., Bach, 1753/1994, p. 13; Bryant, 1997;Burmeister, 1991; Spillman, 1990, p. 27). Researchers and teachers have consistently claimed that good sight-readers show fewer large eye movements and head movements than less proficient readers (Fuszek, 1990; Lannert & Ullman, 1945). Even brief regular practice of sight-reading is alleged to result in a decrease of head movements (Sorel & Diamond, 1969, p. 29). However, Fuszek (1990) suggested that some gross eye movements are made after the relevant key has been depressed, thereby ruling out that it could successfully guide the movement to the desired location. It is conceivable that many of these movements are behavioral remnants from playing rehearsed music, and that the observed correlation between sight-reading and head movements may only be true for sub-expert pianists. In this case, good and bad sight-readers—when sampled among expert pianists—would not differ systematically with respect to their ability to orient solely based on tactile cues. One of the experimental tasks in the present study attempted to assess subjects' tactile-orientation skills. In sum, the demands imposed by piano performance under sight-reading conditions differ from those encountered by musicians who perform rehearsed music. In particular, sight-readers must quickly identify the specific musical patterns to be able to produce the corresponding key strokes within the specified tempo. To facilitate the speed and accuracy of these encodings, the skilled sight-readers rely on their general knowledge of music and draw inferences from the structure of the current piece of music. Also, sight-readers are limited in the extent to which they can visually guide their hand and finger movements because fixating the keyboard and fingers with the eyes would break the visual access to the score and disrupt the continuous encoding of the music. To assess whether the above mentioned component skills are involved in expert sight-reading, we measured them in isolation. The Acquisition of the Skill of Sight-Reading Individual differences in skilled performance have traditionally been explained in terms of innate talent. However, in recent years this type of explanation has been challenged by the notion that deliberate practice is the central mediating mechanism to acquire skills at all levels and in different domains of expertise (Ericsson, 1996; Ericsson & Charness, 1994). In different domains of expertise (including music), there is a close relationship between the level of performance individuals have attained and the amount of practice time they have accumulated during training in the domain (Ericsson et al., 1993, for expert musicians; Krampe, 1994, for pianists; Charness, Krampe, &Mayr, 1996, p. 67, for chess; Starkes, Deakin, Allard, Hodges, & Hayes, 1996, p. 87, for wrestling; Sloboda et al., 1996, for music students). Even for populations of musicians below the expert level, various indicators of training, such as length of training or number of music lessons, have 6

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revealed monotonic relations between amount of training and performance (e.g., Brennan; 1927; Cramer, 1958; Watkins, 1942, see Lehmann, 1997, for a review). If it is possible to explain individual differences in sight-reading ability among expert pianists in a similar fashion (through the mediation of relevant training activities), then the question is: What type of relevant practice activity promotes the improvement of sight-reading performance? Judging from anecdotal evidence, most expert musicians do not engage in large amounts of deliberate practice in sight-reading, although they report that sight-reading performance improves by engaging in it (cf. Rogers, 1989, p. 251; Kornicke, 1989, as cited in Kornicke, 1992, p. 21). Similarly, music teachers advise their students to sight-read as a method to improve their sight-reading performance (Hofmann, 1920/1976, p. 117; Spillman, 1990). Although our data show that improving one's sight-reading ability is not as simple as the anecdotal evidence suggests, preliminary evidence from prior studies supports the basic notion that sight-reading ability improves as experience with this type of music performance increases. Improvement of sight-reading skills through specific short-term training. Several studies have been concerned with the development of sightreading ability in sub-experts. In particular, two studies have imposed realtime demands by pacing subjects' performances to approximate the actual conditions of sight-reading. The experimental group in a study by Watkins and Hughes (1986) practiced fof a total of five hours over ten weeks during which they sight-read piano accompaniments of pre-recorded solo parts. This training improved only rhythmic scores on a sight-reading test without any significant gains in pitch and expression scores. Streckfuss (1984) found that music students training with a "pacer machine" for six weeks increased their scores on a sight-reading test compared to the control subjects who did not use the device. Finally, Bean (1938) stated that his subjects' sight-reading ability had improved through practice with a tachistoscopic method of stimulus presentation. In conclusion, these findings suggest that sight-reading ability can be improved even through short-term training activities. Effects of sight-reading experience on sight-reading skills. We are only aware of two studies (Banton, 1995; Kornicke, 1992) that have studied this issue. In her study with a cross-section of college level pianists, Kornicke (1992) measured the sight-reading ability of her subjects by asking them to play five pieces at their own pace. The audio-taped performances were evaluated by the researcher and an expert pianist using a 26 item scale. Experience in sight-reading was assessed after the sight-reading performance with a questionnaire containing items regarding pre-college/college involvement in sightreading and accompanying activities. The composite score for the sightreading experience questionnaire correlated significantly with performance on the sight-reading test, r(71) = .41. Furthermore, in Banton's (1995) study, better sight-readers reported higher levels of sight-reading practice on a Likert-type scale. Those subjects who reported practicing sight-reading occasionally or often made fewer melodic errors than those subjects who reported practicing sight-reading rarely. Lehmann & Ericsson

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The goal of the present study was to examine whether sight-reading is an acquired skill. If so, it should be possible to explain individual differences in expert pianists' ability to sight-read with regular engagement in relevant practice activities. We analyzed the individual differences in sightreading performance among expert pianists (Lehmann & Ericsson, 1993) and related them to biographical information about their practice history and their engagement in activities related to sight-reading. In addition, we explored the relationship between subjects' ability to sight-read and their performance on several tasks designed to measure potential components of the sight-reading skill. Method Subjects Sixteen piano students from the Florida State University participated in the data collection (Lehmann & Ericsson, 1993). With the help of the piano faculty and announcements on bulletin boards, subjects of comparable pianistic skills were recruited. Half of the subjects were accompanying majors, coaches, or graduate assistants; the other half consisted of solo-performance majors and advanced piano principals. Subjects consented and were paid for their participation. Procedure Subjects attended to an interview at which they provided information about their musical background, named all the pieces in their current solo and accompanying repertoire, estimated hours of piano practice and accompanying activities since the start of instruction, and indicated the number of public performances during the last 15 months. All subjects completed the interview before they took part in the two-part experiment. The first part assessed their sight-reading skills (Lehmann & Ericsson, 1993); the second part, on which the present paper is largely based, measured performance on selected component tasks. The basic experimental setting was designed to resemble a real-life situation in which the pianist accompanies a soloist (see Lehmann & Ericsson, 1993, for details on the procedure). To assess experts' sight-reading ability within this "accompanying paradigm," subjects played the piano accompaniment of several pieces for solo instrument and piano while listening to the prerecorded solo part played with a flute sound. The two testing stimuli and a warm-up piece were excerpts from compositions that were moderately difficult but well below the subjects' typical level of rehearsed performance.1 The excerpts were presented to all subjects in the same order and were two pages long. The subjects performed each piece four times; the first and fourth times were played with the solo part, and the second and third times were done without it. All sight-reading trials and performances on the following component tasks were recorded in MIDI format. After the fourth trial for each piece the subjects were given unexpectedly two tasks regarding selected component skills. The first task was a 8

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Recall Task. In this Recall Task subjects were presented one page of the piece they had just played and were informed that they would have to play this page again with the pacing solo part. However, this time the music score was edited so that some segments had been deleted from the music score of the accompaniment. During the periods with the missing segments subjects were asked to play whatever they could remember from the previous trials. In preparation for the actual recall trial they were given another opportunity to play through the page for explicit memorization. The second task, the Improvisation Task,2 was similar to the Recall Task, except that it used a related but unfamiliar piece. 3 Again, subjects had to accompany a solo part at first sight and improvise ("fake") in the blank spots (where the experimenters had deleted segments in the musical notation). There was no preparatory trial and the subjects performed the same material twice. At the end of the experiment subjects performed the last component task, called the Leap Task, which assessed the subjects' "tactile orientation" on the keyboard. In this task, subjects played a specially designed piece which was three lines long and included large leaps in one hand or both hands (see Figure 1). In an initial learning phase, the subjects studied and memorized the underlying simple chord progression (C minor, B-flat major, A-flat major, G major7). Then, they played the piece twice while being paced by a metronome (M.M. «P = 70). During the first trial, subjects were free to monitor the keyboard visually as needed; during the second trial they wore a pair of goggles designed to preclude a peripheral view of the keyboard. In order to see their hands on the keyboard while wearing the goggles, subjects would have to move their heads quite conspicuously (subjects were instructed not to do so). The experimenter carefully monitored head movements during performance of this task and found that all pianists had adhered to the instruction. Apparatus. The recording and playback equipment used is described in more detail in Lehmann and Ericsson (1993). A computer recorded the keystrokes that were produced on a full-size electronic keyboard with touchsensitive keys. The sound of the metronome and of the pacing solo part were played by a computer over standard playback equipment. The subjects also heard their own performance while playing. No headphones were used. The goggles used in the Leap Task were adapted from commercially available "Safety Goggles" (ProductNo. 117C) by ERB (Safety Way; Woodstock, GA 30188-1237). The goggles could be comfortably worn over regular eye glasses. To inhibit subjects from looking at the keyboard, the lower half of the goggles' frame was painted black. Two 0.5 inch, black tubular extensions were attached to the lenses, allowing no vision other than directly ahead. The cardboard tubes followed the perimeter of the lens. Although the goggles inhibited peripheral vision, they did not prevent the subjects from looking at the musical score in front of them.

Lehmann & Ericsson

K K

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Figure J.. Music notation for the experimental task (Leap Task) designed to capture subjects' kinesthetic ability at the keyboard..

Scoring of the performance data. The recorded performances were transcribed to music notation using commercially available music editing software. Correct notes were scored in the notational printouts. A note was scored as correct if it was played within the time window prescribed by the music notation. Deviations by a sixteenth note (the smallest value in the music) were allowed, as long as part of the note fell into the prescribed time window. This prescribed time window was unambiguous in the printout because the pacing voice had been transcribed along with the performed piano accompaniment and provided an exact timeline (see Lehmann & Ericsson, 1993, for details on the scoring procedure). Scoring of the recall and the improvisation tasks was done by counting only the exact note matches between the original and the performed versions for the critical passages where notes had been erased by the experi10

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menters. Both trials of the Improvisation Task were added together. The Leap Task was scored by adding correctly performed target notes in the 62 leaps separately for the performance with and without goggles. Analysis of the data. Two reliable sight-reading measures were taken from Lehmann and Ericsson (1993). First, sight-reading performance without any prior practice (sight-reading score) was captured by the combined accuracy scores of the two unfamiliar pieces for the first reading. Second, the combined accuracy score for the fourth readings (accompanying score) of both pieces was viewed as a more representative measure of accompanying performance under the conditions with some limited opportunities for review and practice. Both scores were combined later to form an overall sight-reading and accompanying measure. During the interview subjects estimated for each year, starting from the beginning of their piano playing, how much they had practiced the piano by themselves and had engaged in accompanying-related activities during an average week. From this information we calculated accumulated yearly estimates by multiplying the weekly amount by 52 or 40, taking into consideration whether the activity was carried out year round (e.g., church activities, piano practice) or during the academic year (e.g., accompanying high school chorus). By adding all the accumulated yearly estimates we arrived at a lifetime figure. The total amount of accumulated hours was log-transformed (cf. Ericsson et al., 1993). During the interview, subjects also provided detailed information about the sizes of their current solo repertoires and their accompanying repertoires. Separate indices were computed for each repertoire according to the following rules: Single movement pieces such as art songs were assigned one point, concerti and sonatas were given three points, and entire operas and song cycles were counted as 25 points. This procedure took into account the varying lengths of the pieces. In the following results section, accumulated practice alone and accompanying experience are referred to as Acquisition Variables, because they capture information on the long-term process of skill acquisition. The information about frequency of performances and size of repertoires are termed Professional Knowledge and Experience (Professional K & E). The latter reflect current achievements of the subjects with regard to solo performance or accompanying careers. Finally, performance scores on the three component tasks described above are referred to as Component Skills, because they constitute hypothesized components of the intact sight-reading performance. Results The data analysis is presented in three parts. First, we analyze the performance on component tasks and its relation to the intact expert sightreading and accompanying, thus trying to address issues relevant to the structure of expert sight-reading skills. We also compare accompanists and performers with respect to Component Skills. In the second part, we examLehmann & Ericsson

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ine some biographical data about the specialized pianist groups regarding the acquisition of their pianistic skills and Professional K & E. The third section presents data about the acquisition of sight-reading skills. We explore whether the evidence related to the acquisition of expert sight-reading and accompanying skills is consistent with an expertise perspective. For this, Acquisition Variables, Professional K & E, and Component Skills are used to predict sight-reading and accompanying performance. All correlations are summarized in a table in the Appendix. The Structure of Expert Sight-Reading Component skills and their relation to the intact performance. On the Recall Task subjects scored between 8 and 23 out of 26 possible notes. The correlation between recall scores for each of the test pieces did not reach statistical significance, r(16) = .322. However, the subjects' combined recall scores for both pieces were significantly related to performance in a subsequent memory experiment in which all subjects participated (Lehmann & Ericsson, 1995). The correlation between the combined recall score and the first sight-reading trial was not significant r(14) = .30, but the correlation with the accompanying score was significant, r(14) = .52, p < .05. Scores on the Improvisation Task ranged from 11 to 46 out of 80 possible notes. Successive improvisation trials were highly correlated r(14) = .675, p < .01, and there was a significant effect of trial with more correct inferences made in the second trial, F(l, 14) = 7.43,p < .025. Also, improvisation scores for each of the two pieces were reliably related, r(14) = .63, p