Expression and what is expressed

Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2001

AVANT. The Journal of the Philosophical-Interdisciplinary Vanguard

I suggest that emotions are not the primary affective attitude towards music. If we are to explain music's expressiveness according to the Resemblance Theory, that theory should be extended to include feelings. Because of the lack of intentionality in music and the dearth of universal emotional gestures to explain the subtlety of music's expressive power, explaining this expressiveness by making recourse to music's relationships with emotions is bound to face challenges. I will argue that, even though the movements in music associated with musical expressiveness might not necessarily be associated with emotions, they might very well be associated with certain feelings of the movement itself.

Postgraduate Journal of Aesthetics , 2012

Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1983

The present series of experiments used either musical excerpts which subjects listened to and then associated to verbal categories (Exp. I) or videotape recordings of body expression sequences which subjects watched and associated with the same verbal categories. These videotapes were recorded by “actors” under two conditions, (a) after the actors had listened to the musical excerpts (Exp. II) and (b) following the induction in actors of the verbal categories which had been associated to the excerpts in Exp. I (Exp. III). The results demonstrate a partial equivalence between the verbal categories associated with the music in Exp. I and those associated with the videotape recording of Exps. II and III. This partial equivalence of the verbal categories is explained by the existence of a bodily core to musical expression.

This essay focuses on a particular question in music philosophy and music psychology: Is music’s expressivity a result of judgements we make concerning features of the music or its propensity to arouse emotion in the listener? Whilst concentrating on the way music philosophers approach this question, I will attempt, where appropriate, to situate certain philosophical theories in the context of empirical findings.

2016

Dorottya Fabian, Renee Timmers and Emery Schubert, eds., Expressiveness in Music Performance: Empirical Approaches across Styles and Cultures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). xxx + 383 pp. £ 55.00.

Realizing a musical performance involves many intricately intertwined social, psychological, and behavioral patterns and activities that fire off simultaneously -within, and between, the performer themselves, and between the observers to the musicians on stage. In this complex system of receiving and distributing performative information, scholarships often focus on the examination of music perception and cognition, on how we process the sound we hear, and what it might affect us mentally and emotionally. However, it is also welldocumented that our bodies react to certain musical stimuli, such as hearing certain dance rhythms make us want to bob our heads or tapping our feet. In this case, it appears perhaps somewhat insufficient to discuss the overall experience of a musical performance based solely on the perception of acoustic phenomenon. At the beginning, as well as the end of the day, it is through the corporeal properties of the performer that the music is ultimately made with the instruments. The musician's physical gestures are what initiate the sound we hear, processed, thus functions as the 'corporeal co-articulation of our musical perception' 1 .

Existing qualitative approaches within the field of music perception and embodied music cognition provide scientific models for the evaluation of physical gestures and their expressive impact in performance. This article examines the ways in which qualitative research methodologies and outcomes may be used as stimuli for new choreographic research, drawing upon the original performance ‘Woman=Music=Desire’. Beginning with an illustrated account of expressive features of piano performance by music researchers such as François Delalande and Mark Thompson, recent departures in choreographic and related artistic practice that indicate a growing interest in the expressive function of musical corporeity are discussed. Through exploring such work, the intersubjective and kinesthetic relationship occurring between musician and spectator is explored via an examination of gestural empathy. Thus, through re-appropriating instrumental gestures within practice-led research that interrogates the close relationship between corporeity and expressivity, the musician’s body emerges as a dancing body with the creative potential for a new and exciting departure in choreographic practice. A trailer to the performance ‘Woman=Music=Desire’ may be found at http://www.imogene-newland.co.uk/perf_women_md.php.