Ecologies of Practice in Musical Performance

This article presents an ecological model of musical performance drawn from the field of Gibsonian Ecological Psychology and the techniques of Actor-Network Theory as explicated by Bruno Latour and others. Citing a wide body of empirical research, it is argued that musicians and their musical instruments exist in an ecological relationship at the level of embodied gesture. Furthermore, it is proposed that every act of musicking amounts to a construction of a network of actors that define an “Ecology of Practice,” a thick description more fully encompassing the complexities of musicking than traditional notions of performance practice.Cet article présente un modèle écologique de l’interprétation musicale inspiré du champ de la psychologie écologique gibsonienne et des techniques de la théorie de l’acteur- réseau telle que définie par Bruno Latour et d’autres. Sur la base d’un large corpus de recherche empirique, il avance que les musiciens et leurs instruments existent dans une relation écologique au niveau du geste incarné. En outre, il propose que chaque acte consistant à jouer de la musique corresponde à la construction d’un réseau d’acteurs qui définissent une « écologie de la pratique », description dense qui englobe plus pleinement les complexités du fait de jouer de la musique que les notions de pratiques performancielles

Mapping Out Instruments, Affordances, and Mobiles

This paper reviews and extends questions of the scope of an interactive musical instrument and mapping strategies for expressive performance. We apply notions of embodiment and affordance to characterize gestural instruments. We note that the democratization of sensor technology in consumer devices has extended the cultural contexts for interaction. We revisit questions of mapping drawing upon the theory of affordances to consider mapping and instrument together. This is applied to recent work by the author and his collaborators in the development of instruments based on mobile devices designed for specific performance situations

Geometry and Effort in Gestural Renderings of Musical Sound

As may be seen at concerts and in various everyday listening situa- tions, people often make spontaneous gestures when listening to music. We believe these gestures are interesting to study because they may reveal important features of musical experience. In particular, hand movements may give us information on what features are perceived as salient by listeners. Based on various current ideas on embodied cognition, the aim of this paper is to argue that gestures are integral to music perception, and to present research in support of this. A conceptual model of separating geometry and effort is presented in order to better understand the variety of music-related gestures we may observe, lead- ing up to some ideas on how to apply this conceptual model in present and future research. The final publication is available at link.springer.com

Effort in gestural interactions with imaginary objects in Hindustani Dhrupad vocal music

Physical effort has often been regarded as a key factor of expressivity in music performance. Nevertheless, systematic experimental approaches to the subject have been rare. In North Indian classical (Hindustani) vocal music, singers often engage with melodic ideas during improvisation by manipulating intangible, imaginary objects with their hands, such as through stretching, pulling, pushing, throwing etc. The above observation suggests that some patterns of change in acoustic features allude to interactions that real objects through their physical properties can afford. The present study reports on the exploration of the relationships between movement and sound by accounting for the physical effort that such interactions require in the Dhrupad genre of Hindustani vocal improvisation. The work follows a mixed methodological approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse interviews, audio-visual material and movement data. Findings indicate that despite the flexibility in the way a Dhrupad vocalist might use his/her hands while singing, there is a certain degree of consistency by which performers associate effort levels with melody and types of gestural interactions with imaginary objects. However, different schemes of cross-modal associations are revealed for the vocalists analysed, that depend on the pitch space organisation of each particular melodic mode (rāga), the mechanical requirements of voice production, the macro-structure of the ālāp improvisation and morphological cross-domain analogies. Results further suggest that a good part of the variance in both physical effort and gesture type can be explained through a small set of sound and movement features. Based on the findings, I argue that gesturing in Dhrupad singing is guided by: the know-how of humans in interacting with and exerting effort on real objects of the environment, the movement–sound relationships transmitted from teacher to student in the oral music training context and the mechanical demands of vocalisation

Le lien réciproque entre musique et mouvement étudié à travers les mouvements induits par la musique

Music and movement are inseparable. The movements that are spontaneously procuded when listening to music are thought to be related to the close relationship between the perceptual and motor system in listeners. This particular link is the main topic of this thesis. A first approach was focused on the impact of music-induced movements on music cognition. In two studies, we show that moving along to music neither enhances the retention of new musical pieces (Study 1) nor the retention of the contextual information related to their encoding (Study 2). These results suggest a shallow processing inherent to the expression of musical affordances required for the production of music-induced movements in the motor task. Moreover, they suggest that music is automatically processed in a motoric fashion independantly of the task. Our results also brought forward the importance of the musical groove. A second approach focused on the influence of the perception of musical rhythms on the production of rythmic movements. Our third study tested the hypothesis that different limbs would be differentially influenced depending on the musical tempo. Results show that the tapping taks was the most influenced by the perception of musical rhythms. We argued that this would come from the similar nature of the musical pulse and the timing mecanisms involved in the tapping task and motor resonance phenomena. We also observed different strategies put in place to cope with the task. All these results are discussed in light of the link between perception and action, embodied musical cognition and musical affordances.La musique et le mouvement sont inséparables. Les mouvements produits spontanément lors de l'écoute musicale seraient le reflet d'un lien étroit entre le système perceptif et moteur. Ce lien est l'objet d'étude de cette thèse. Une première approche concernait l'impact des mouvements induits par la musique sur la cognition musicale. Dans deux études, nous montrons que bouger en rythme sur la musique n'améliore ni la rétention de nouveaux morceaux de musique (Etude 1) ni la rétention d'informations contextuelles relatives à leur encodage (Etude 2). Les résultats des ces deux études suggèrent la superficialité du traitement inhérent à l'expression des affordances musicales nécessaire à la production de mouvements induits par la musique dans la tâche motrice ainsi qu'un traitement moteur automatique de la musique indépendamment de la tâche. L'importance du groove musical a également été mise en évidence. Une deuxième approche concernait l'influence de la perception de rythmes musicaux sur la production de mouvements rythmiques. Notre troisième étude testait l'hypothèse selon laquelle les membres du corps seraient influencés de manière différente en fonction du tempo musical. Les résultats montrent que la tâche de tapping était la plus influencée par la perception de rythmes musicaux. Ceci serait dû à la nature similaire de la pulsation musicale et des mécanismes de timing impliqués dans le tapping ainsi qu'à des phénomènes de résonance motrice. Nous avons également observé la mise en place de certaines stratégies face à la tâche. L'ensemble de ces résultats est discuté à la lumière du lien entre perception et action, de la cognition musicale incarnée et des affordances musicales

Hearing Through the Body: Expression and Movement in Music

This thesis engages with complex issues of musical expression and movement, and their relation, on the one hand, to musical structure and, on the other hand, to embodied musical experience. It aims to fill a gap in music theory and analysis: most methods overemphasise abstract conceptualisation of structural relations at the expense of the more dynamic, intuitive aspect of musical experience. As a solution, it offers a specific analytical method that can be used to explore dynamic aspects of music as experienced through the whole body. Drawing mainly on nineteenth-century piano music, I analyse aspects of structure in both composition and performance in terms of expressive and motional qualities, revealing the relationship between musical and physical movement. Expressivity in music derives its meaning, at least partly, from the embodied experience of music: performers shape expression through their whole body while listeners react to it in a comparable way, albeit less overtly. Two related systems of graphic notation are introduced, which provide a non-verbal means of representing expressive movement and at the same time encourage an immediate, visceral relationship to the music. The first notation captures the animated quality of expressive movement by analogy with the motion of a bouncing ball, while the second breaks down the expressive musical flow into discrete gestural patterns of specific motional character. While the ultimate value of this method lies in the analytical process it instigates, it also provides a novel theoretical framework that sheds light on the interaction, as well as integration, between structures such as metre, rhythm, harmony and voice-leading, which are traditionally studied mostly independently. In addition, it provides a useful tool for the study and communication of performance interpretation, based on data extracted from recordings in the form of tempo and dynamic fluctuation graphs