The purpose of this study is to research sympathetic arousal of professional pianists during musical performance. We measured the electrodermal activities of professional pianists who were performing both an original and an arranged score of the same piece of music by attaching electrodes to their left feet. For the data analysis, normalized skin resistance change per beat was used to analyze the electrodermal activities of the pianists originally. We could show a change in electrodermal activities at the onset of the music and at the motif of the music. Comparing the two performance conditions, we could show significant changes in electrodermal activity in dynamic arranged sections and octave up sections. The sympathetic arousal of the pianists changed dynamically in accordance with musical structure
