About my research

Growing up in my family, playing the piano was not optional.
My mother ensured that all of us practiced faithfully for an hour
every day. Although I practiced only half-heartedly to fill my
required time to meet my mother's demands, I still eventually
developed some level of competence. I was shocked to win the
Granite State Auditions piano competition in my senior year of
high school.

My mother's insistence finally paid off; in my sophomore year
of college, I decided to major in music/piano performance. My
practicing goals then changed dramatically. In each practice
session, I wanted to learn to play something better, rather than
just fill an hour making noise on the piano. I wanted to achieve
performance results, and in the shortest time possible. I began to
wonder how practice "works." That question -- how does
practicing "work"? -- eventually led me to the field of study in
which questions like these are addressed, experimental
psychology.

Researchers have found evidence that practicing leads to expert
performance at least in part by reorganizing the mental
representations that specify the performance (Palmer 2000,
Ericsson 1993). My research is aimed at yielding a better
understanding of these representations: how they are developed,
how they are structured, and how they are translated into
movements that create a musical performance.

Research has shown that the mental plans guiding the rapid
finger movements in playing scales are complex (MacKenzie &
Van Eerd, 1990). My current research is aimed at uncovering
specifics about those mental plans through studying the movements
made by the fingers during playing, as well as the resulting
keypresses. In addition, I compare the movements and keypresses
of novices learning to play scales with those of experts. The
Optotrak camera system in the Wright Lab makes it possible to
examine the movements pianists make as they play, to help analyze
the cognitive and biomechanical components of this complex task.