Gestures as an interface of performers’ intentionality : a case study of Western Embodiment of Karnatic Music in piano performance

Background Music performance has a strong corporeal dimension, involving different types of gestures (technical gestures, expressive gestures, etc.) that performers employ to transform a written score into live music (Leman 2007). This transformation is based on the musical intentions that arise from the performers’ personal interpretation of the composition as an outcome of their artistic praxis, which leads to decisions on how to play the music in terms of its structure, articulation of the phrases, dynamics, timber and the necessary motor strategies to realize these decisions in the sounding music. Aims This research wants to investigate musical gestures as an interface of performers’ intentionality, i.e. an outcome of the artistic praxis and the process of embodiment, in the light of the recent theories on enactment and embodied music cognition (Leman 2016). For this reason, we considered a case study based on the interpretation of a piece that includes the acquisition and embodiment of musical knowledge quite knew to the performer in order to map the modifications in the corporeal engagement from an intuitive approach to a conscious approach. The composition chosen was a contemporary piano piece based on a non-western music tradition: the Karnatic modes from South India. Method To assist the performer in (re)framing the phases of her artistic process, a methodology, called performer based analysis method (Caruso et al 2016), was developed to establish also the procedures of a performative experiment where the performance of the 8th cycle from the 72 Etudes Karnatiques pour piano by Jacques Charpentier (b.1933) was taken as a case study. The performative experiment required a period of preparation, which concerns the performer/researcher’s artistic praxis (to embody the piece) and the self-observation of a video recording archive of her performances in order to map and describe the artistic praxis. The pianist conducted a musicological research on the influence of Indian music in the French contemporary piano repertoire to enrich specifically her current competences in Karnatic Music and had a collaborative three years practice with the composer and with two experts in Karnatic music, a singer and a dancer (see the Re-Orient project: http://re-orient.wixsite.com/indiandream). A retrospective thinking-aloud procedure (Van den Haak & De Jong, 2003) was used during the experiment to allow the performer in rendering explicit and systematic the artistic reflections. The experiment was recorded by a video camera, a microphone and the Motion Capture System. Results To catch the development between the initial intuitive performance and the final embodied performance, two recordings of one fragment from the piece played with these two different approaches (intuitive and conscious) were compared. The analysis of these fragments was based on an alignment between qualitative data acquired through subjective descriptions - based on a performance model and a score annotation - and quantitative data (objective measurements) produced by the audio-video and motion capture recordings. The qualitative and quantitative data (audio and video) were processed through the ELAN software. Gestural similarities and differences between the intuitive and conscious versions were detected by comparing the kinematic and audio measurements (quantitative data) with the performer’s subjective annotations (qualitative data) concerning the motor strategies and the interpretative cues. The results show a different corporeal engagement of the pianist related to the different intentions through a parallel configuration of these two different subjective and objective layers. Conclusions The actual investigation wants to present musical gestures as vehicles of idiosyncratic intentions and expressions by linking performers’ corporeal engagement to the embodiment of their interpretation in order to better understand the connection between musical intentions, goal actions and sound. The role of the technology-mediated approach (thirdperson’s perspective) gives the opportunity to study, as in a mirror-like tool, some aspects, which imply the performer’s subjective involvement (first-person’s perspective). This method provides specifically to musicians/researchers an easier access to music performance analysis. Furthermore, with the implementation of a transdisciplinary and collaborative practice (with the composer, the Indians singer and dancer) plus the aid of technology with the motion and audio analysis, the actual study adds an alternative perspective concerning the exploration and the design of new paths within the field of artistic research

Experimenting with subjectivity instantiated into gestures “My soul at my fingertips” : My Avatar and Me

Recalling a sentence by the famous French pianist and pedagogue Marie Jaëll-Trautmann who said, “I will play with my soul at my fingertips”, I reflected on the role of performing gestures as an objectifiable aspect of the performer’s subjectivity. Music performance implies a union between soul/mind and body which instantiates the sound message as a felt experience. The energetic tension produced by the “soul” in the creative act of performing is spread at first throughout the entire body to reach finally the “fingertips”. Focusing on the primary role of the body in performance as a potential vehicle to capture subjectivism, I asked myself: What would happen if I visualize my performing body by projecting it into a “body image”, an avatar? Can I use this pragmatic avatar of my-self to look at my subjectivity from an outsider’s perspective? Can I identify my lived experience as instantiated in my gestures through the lens of self-objectification based on empirical data? The assumptions concerning the body as an interface of the performer’s intentionality in terms of sound producing and expressivity inspired me to investigate on my subjectivity through a “performative experiment” combining self-reflections and objective measurements of my bodily expressions during a performance. My performative presentation wants to bring alive the dialectic relation between subjectivity and objectivity in piano performance practice by alternating my live piano performance with interactive reflections on my captured avatar projected on a screen as an objectification of my-self. From this specific angle, my presentation aims at experimenting with subjectivity the creative act of performing instantiated into gestures as a tactile sensation expressing the soul’s intentions. This approach constitutes a connection between gestures and intentionality in music performance and a mediation between scientific understanding and artistic concern

The Evaluation of the Efficacy of the R&D European Funds in Piedmont

This paper provides some empirical evidence of the impact of two policy measures, aiming at supporting innovative activity of small and medium firms in Piedmont. Both measures use European Structural Funds, but are managed at a regional level. Measure 2.1b, a concessional loan aiming at stimulating the introduction of innovative plants, machinery and equipments, had positive effects on investments, assets and sales in the short run; but there are hints that investments could have been anticipated from already scheduled projects in the following periods. Measure 2.6b, a free grant aiming at stimulating research activity of firms, had positive effects on intangible investments and capital, but this new knowledge does not seem to be able to directly impact on the production process of the firm. When evaluating the effect for specific groups of firms, for both measures we do not find stronger effects for firms characterized by a high intensity of subsidy. When considering firms with a high cost of capital, we find that Measure 2.1b significantly reduced the interest rate asked by the lenders also after the end of the project, while Measure 2.6b had not been effective at all.

Inertial Motions of a Rigid Body with a cavity filled with a viscous liquid

We study inertial motions of the coupled system, S, constituted by a rigid body containing a cavity that is completely filled with a viscous liquid. We show that for data of arbitrary size (initial kinetic energy and total angular momentum) every weak solution (a la Leray-Hopf) converges, as time goes to infinity, to a uniform rotation, thus proving a famous "conjecture" of Zhukovskii. Moreover we show that, in a wide range of initial data, this rotation must occur along the central axis of inertia of S that has the largest moment of inertia. Furthermore, necessary and sufficient conditions for the rigorous nonlinear stability of permanent rotations are provided, which improve and/or generalize results previously given by other authors under different types of approximation of the original equations and/or suitable symmetry assumptions on the shape of the cavity. Finally, we present a number of results obtained by a targeted numerical simulation that, on the one hand, complement the analytical findings, whereas, on the other hand, point out new features that the analysis is yet not able to catch, and, as such, lay the foundation for interesting and challenging future investigation.Comment: Some of the main results proved in this paper were previously announced in Comptes Rendus Mecanique, Vol. 341, 760--765 (2013

L’approccio cognitivo-semiotico in Ragioneria: profili storici nel tempo e nello spazio

The cognitive-semiotic approach in Ragioneria: historical and geographical notes This paper aims to investigate the semiotic approach in the Italian Ragioneria by comparing from one side its own historical perspective and from the other side thegeographical perspective of the Comparative Accounting. In the historical view, the paper outlines the explicit contributions of Italian research in the twentieth century that improved the semiotic conception of the Ragioneria. It is well known how in the last century the ‘Economia aziendale’ experienced an unquestionable success in Italy while in an opposite way the Ragioneria faced the problem of its repositioning within the business economicsdisciplines. In reflecting on its disciplinary nature, some authors proposed an evolution of the Ragioneria to a semiotic perspective. According to those authors a‘modern’ disciplinary identity for the Ragioneria can derive from its conception as a discipline translating the administrative phenomena of the ‘azienda’ and its environment into signs. In the comparative view, the paper provides examples to illustrate a number of critical semiotic questions and terminological incompatibilities between the languages of Ragioneria and Accounting. Those examples underline some “points of contact” between the two disciplines that can be used for elaborating an administrative semiotics, at least compatible with the Anglo-American culture, and a conventional language with a broader heuristic effectivenes