Integrating music information retrieval into performers’ reflective practice: an interdisciplinary approach to performance learning

Music performance analysis increasingly aims to address measurable acoustic features alongside performers’ ways of understanding, internalizing, and applying expressive knowledge within culturally grounded traditions. Although Music Information Retrieval (MIR) techniques have advanced considerably in their capacity to quantify expressive parameters such as vibrato extent and rate, much of this scholarship has continued to privilege technically oriented examinations of performance This study examines expressive vibrato as a locus where performer individuality, lineage-based style, and reflective learning converge. Focusing on a historically informed sanjo recording by the virtuoso Kim Juk-pa, the study integrates music information retrieval (MIR)–based acoustic analysis with professional performers’ interpretive reflections. Quantitative analyses revealed systematic variation in vibrato rate and extent across melodic structures and jo idioms (i.e., mood or affective states), indicating that vibrato shaping is closely aligned with expressive and structural contexts, while no clear interactive effects emerged between the two parameters. Analysis of coefficients of variation further revealed stable internal relationships among vibrato parameters that characterize the expressive logic of the virtuoso’s sanjo . Performers interpreted these findings as reflective resources rather than prescriptive technical norms; the vibrato profiles rendered tacit, embodied lineage knowledge more explicit, enabling performers to re-engage with stylistic archetypes, refine micro-expressive control, and negotiate the balance between fidelity to inherited style, pedagogical influence, and personal artistic identity. The analytical profiles were described as landmarks within a broader expressive terrain in support of stylistic recentering while preserving creative agency. The study demonstrates how MIR-based music performance analysis can acquire pedagogical and artistic significance when embedded within performers’ culturally situated learning practices and offers a transferable framework for reflective performance learning across musical genres.