Eye-tracking technology has uncovered the complex strategies musicians use to learn musical scores.
The study, by Professor Laura Ritchie and Dr Benjamin T Sharpe from the University of Chichester, focuses on how an expert musician learns a new piece of music.
The study, called "Gaze Behaviour of a Cellist: From Sight-Reading to Performance" will be published in Musicae Scientiae.
It looked at how musicians view scores as they progress from learning to performance.
The research recorded information from the first sight-reading of the score to a performance run-through.
It found that initially, the musician's eyes moved systematically across every note, evenly scanning the score.
By the final session, the gaze had shifted, focusing on the beginning of each musical line.
The study focused on the second movement of "Introspection" from "Resonance," a contemporary classical cello piece by Jill Jarman.
Unlike previous studies, this research combined physiological data analysis and the musician's reported thoughts to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the learning-to-performance journey.
Dr Benjamin T Sharpe, senior lecturer in cognitive psychology at the University of Chichester, said: "As an exploratory single-case study, the findings are tentative but reveal intriguing patterns that challenge assumptions about musical learning.
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"Later sessions revealed sustained fixations on sections requiring interpretative nuance, long sustained notes demanding expressive control rather than technical precision.
"By the final session, the musician’s gaze had shifted dramatically, concentrating almost exclusively at the beginning of each musical line, using the score as cognitive navigational anchors rather than detailed roadmaps."
The study also recorded the musician's cognitive effort throughout the learning process.
The findings tentatively align with established theories about expert learning, where structure is prioritised first, followed by technique and then expression.
Professor Laura Ritchie, professor of learning and teaching at the university, said: "I am very pleased to contribute this unique, longitudinal eye-tracking study to the music learning literature.
"This study presents a unique look into the learning process, and it was fascinating how the eye-tracking data told the story of both focused effort and attention, which was very different to how it was perceived as the performer.
"This research has the potential to open the door to our understanding of how we focus effort and cognition to learn music and musicality."
The study's preliminary findings suggest implications for music education, although larger-scale studies are needed to confirm these patterns.
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