The body behind music: precedents and prospects

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DOI: 10.1177/0305735606067155 2006; 34; 449 Psychology of Music

Mine Dogantan-Dack The body behind music: precedents and prospects

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The body behind music:precedents and prospects

449A RT I C L E

Psychology of Music

Psychology of MusicCopyright

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M I N E D O G A N TA N - DA C KM I D D L E S E X U N I V E R S I T Y, L O N D O N , U K

A B S T R A C T The involvement of the body in musical experiences is aphenomenon that has been noted since ancient times, and many authors havecited the organic rhythms of the body as providing the experiential basis formusical rhythm. The input of our bodily experiences to the comprehension ofmusic has recently been investigated by various researchers in music theory. Asimilar interest in the bodily basis of music is also seen in studies of expressivemusic performance. Systematic and experimental research on the bodilydimension of musical experiences can be traced back to the 19th century. Therise of scientific psychology from within the experimental physiology of theperiod gave 19th century theories concerning the workings of the human mind adecisively embodied character. Hence, recent research on expressive performanceis rooted in 19th century theories of music performance that employed bodilyphenomena as models. This article provides a survey of these early performancestudies in the light of 19th century psychology, and discusses rhythmic structureas the basis of a theory of expressive performance.1

K E Y W O R D S : Ehrenfels, expressive performance, Gestalt, kinesthesis, Mach,respiration, timing

The contemporary scene

Music is an art form that is closely related to our bodily experiences and ourmusical activities engage our bodies in various ways. The ancient Greekorigins of the term music, i.e. mousike, indeed imply a unity of melody anddance. In fact, the conceptual distinction between music and organized body-movement is at times obscured in indigenous cultures by the intimateconnection of the two (see Blacking, 1973: 27). The relationship between theart of music and the human body is surely not restricted to externalmovements structured as dance, or else appearing in the form of common

sempre :


behavioral responses such as tapping and swaying. There is ample historicaland contemporary evidence indicating that music also affects the bodyinternally, causing physiological changes ranging from mild to profound inlisteners. Changes in heart rate and in muscular tonus are among the mostcommon physicological responses to music.

In spite of the ubiquity of the body in our involvement with music,contemporary music psychology and music theory have been primarilyconcerned with the mind behind musical experiences. The objective of moststudies has been the elucidation of the cognitive dimension of our musicalactivities, but little emphasis has been placed on the input of the body properto cognition. This situation is now beginning to change: recently, varioustheorists have attempted to explain our experiences of rhythmic and tonalstructures in music by reference to our bodily experiences, or to so-calledbodily image-schemas (Saslaw, 1996; Larson, 1997; Zbikowski, 1997;Brower, 2000; Cox, 2001). Their shared assumption is that we experienceand make sense of musical phenomena by metaphorically mapping theconcepts derived from our bodily experience of the physical world onto music.Accordingly, listeners hear the unfolding musical events as shaped by theaction of certain musical forces that behave similarly to the forces behind ourmovements in the physical world such as gravity and inertia.

The bodily dimension of our musical experiences also receives attention instudies concerning affective responses to music. It has been shown, forinstance, that the physiological reactions that take place while people listen tomusic that they evaluate as sad, happy, angry, etc. are similar to those thatoccur when they experience these emotions in non-musical contexts(Krumhansl, 1997). The most obvious involvement of the body in music,however, concerns the activity of musical performance. Performance istraditionally the means through which works of music reach audiences, andit is performance that makes the physicality of the body behind musicimmediately evident to listeners. In this regard, recent studies of expressiveperformance constitute an important research area for exploring the bodilyaspects of musical phenomena.2

The term expression, as used in contemporary studies of music perform-ance, refers to well-documented systematic deviations from mechanicalregularity and from the nominal values notated in the score. Variations intempo, intensity, timbre and articulation, as well as the variations in pitchknown as vibrato, constitute the most important expressive characteristics ofperformed music. These systematically employed expressive devices are to alarge extent related to the structural features of the music or to be precise,to the performers mental representation of the musical structures. In otherwords, the rhythmic and tonal properties of a given piece of music imply acertain expressive profile for instance, a profile of tempo and intensityfluctuations, which is subject to individual variation by each performer.However, the fact that it is not possible to impose in a musically meaningful

450 Psychology of Music 34(4)


way the expressive profile of a given piece onto another one in performanceindicates that the basic features of expressive performance cannot beexplained without reference to the structural properties of the performedmusic.

The recent theoretical studies on the relationship between the listenersexperiences of musical structures and bodily image-schemas have not yetbeen extended so as to explore the role of the body in music performance.However, in studies of expressive performance there is an increasing interestin modelling the various features of musical performance in terms of physicalmovement, and in this connection researchers frequently evoke body-basedconceptions of musical phenomena. One such model concerns the timing ofmusical phrases in performance. The gradual slowing of the tempo towardsphrase endings in performances of tonal music is a well-documented fact. Ithas been suggested that the temporal shape of such a ritardando at the end ofa tonal phrase is similar to the shape observed when other rhythmic motoractivities, such as locomotion, come to a smooth halt. Kronman and Sundberg,for instance, allude to the motion of a runner slowing down with constantdeceleration in order to explain the universal tendency of performers to slowdown at phrase endings. They write that:

the sequences of impulses we perceive when we walk or run are similar to theregular sequences of tones in moto-rhythmic music. If the music reminds thelistener of physical motion, it would be natural to insert a final ritard, as thelistener knows from experience that locomotion is usually slowed down before itis arrested. (Kronman and Sundberg, 1987: 58)

The similarities between motor activities and performance of musical phrasesdo not only concern the temporal shape they assume prior to rest or closure.The delivery of a tonal musical phrase involves a normative intensity-timingprofile comprising two phases, i.e. accelerandocrescendo at the beginningand ritardandodecrescendo at the end, and Neil Todd has argued thatthis dynamic profile also has its origin in motor actions (Todd, 1992).Accordingly, the normative tempo and intensity variations employed in theshaping of a musical phrase result from the mobilization of motor schematathat are based on our internal sense of motion, which in turn is derived fromour experience of locomotion.

Neil Todds work is particularly significant in that he bases his explorationof the relationship between structure and expression in performance on awell-defined theory of musical structure, i.e. the generative theory of tonalmusic by Lerdahl and Jackendoff (Todd, 1985). This allows him to investigatewhether the structures defined by the theory for instance, the groupingstructure receive similar expressive treatment at all hierarchical levels inperformance. Indeed, it turns out that a perfomer elucidates the rhythmicstructure of a tonal composition by slowing at structural endings, andreflects rhythmic hierarchy by the degree of slowing. Whether there are

Dogantan-Dack: The body behind music 451


systematic relationships other than structural slowing between the local andglobal expressive variations remains an important issue that is yet to berigorously investigated. Further research is also required to explore whetherthe local and global expressive variations in a music performance can bemodelled on the same bodily phenomena. At the present state of research inexpressive performance the consensus of the researchers is that:

the extramusical origin of constraints on performance timing is still a matter ofspeculation, but it is likely to lie in aspects of physical movement that haveinvaded musical performance and ultimately account for the frequent allusionto musical motion in the musicological literature. (Repp, 1992: 240)

Virtually all the contemporary studies mentioned so far locate the historicalroots of research on expressive performance in the work of psychologist CarlSeashore (18661949) and his team who were active at Iowa Universityduring the 1920s and 1930s. Seashore is certainly one of the mostimportant pioneers in empirical studies of expressive performance. However,the theoretical foundations of these studies as well as the first establishmentof the connections between bodily phenomena and expressive musicperformance go back to the 19th century. The historical background for therecently proposed body-based models of expressive performance was shapedin the light of several important developments that took place during thisperiod. These are:

1. the advances made in experimental physiology;2. conceptualization of mental phenomena in bodily terms;3. the convergence of theories of musical rhythm and performance

methodology.

Experimental physiology of the 19th century

The discipline of psychology owes it scientific status to its incorporationwithin experimental physiology during the 19th century. Indeed, the firstproperly scientific studies in psychology were carried out by the leadingphysiologists of the period, and were about bodily sensations rather thanmental phenomena per se. Most prominent were the studies concerning thesense of touch and kinesthesis, a term derived from the Greek words kinesis formotion and aisthesis for perception, and referring to psychologicalsensations generated by the movements of the body itself. The very firstquantitative law in the history of psychology known as the law of justnoticeable difference was formulated as a result of the discoveries aboutkinesthesis made by the German physiologist Ernst Heinrich Weber(17951878).3 The origins of modern psychology were thus truly embodied,and these developments regarding the physiological bases of psychologicalphenomena soon found resonances in the newly rising science of music



psychology. The last decades of the 19th- and the first decade of the 20th-century abound in studies that scrutinize kinesthesis as it relates to rhythm,and motor theories of musical rhythm are typical of this period.4

One specific discovery made in 19th century physiology by the Germanscientist Hermann von Helmholtz (182194) had particularly importantimplications for music psychology. In 1850, Helmholtz measured for the firsttime the speed of transmission of nerve impulses. The finding that thetransmission was much slower than had been assumed invalidated theassumption held in earlier Cartesian physiology that the passage fromsensation to bodily movement was instantaneous. Following this discovery,the relationship between mental sensations and bodily response could now bestudied as a temporal sequence of events with various phases. The most impor-tant implication of this finding for music psychology has been a newconceptualization of the musical experience as comprising various temporalstages. Indeed, research in psychology of music during the latter half of the19th- and early decades of the 20th-century is represented by works thatspecifically focus on one or the other of these stages. Hence, we find tone-psychologists like Helmholtz and Carl Stumpf (18481936) exploring theinitial stage of the musical experience by investigating the relations betweenacoustical stimuli and aural sensations, and music psychologists such as HugoRiemann (18491919) and Ernst Kurth (18861946) scrutinizing thesecond stage consisting of the interpretation of the incoming sensations bythe musical faculty.

This interest in the different stages of a unified experience also charac-terizes the late 19th century theories of musical rhythm, within which themusical phrase came to be defined as a unit composed of differentiatedtemporal phases for instance, a phase of action combined with a phase ofrepose. To be sure, the idea that a rhythmic unit consists of differentiatedphases of movement is very old, as is evident in the ancient terminology ofarsis and thesis, from the Greek words for raising and lowering respectively.However, the nature of these phases was empirically studied in detail for thefirst time during the 19th century. Thus, one of the important hypotheses ofrecent research concerning the similarity between the temporal shape of amusical phrase in performance and that of a motor activity has its root in19th century theories of rhythm, which in turn were largely shaped by thephysiological discoveries of the period.

Body-based conceptions of mental phenomena in 19th centurypsychology

As a consequence of the close connection between experimental physiologyand scientific psychology, body-based conceptions of mental phenomenawere typical of the second half of the 19th century, and particularly



prominent were motor theories of the perception of space and time. In thisconnection, two names stand out: German physicist Ernst Mach (18381916), and Austrian philosopher and psychologist Christian von Ehrenfels(18591932).

In a paper published in 1865, and called Bemerkungen zur Lehre vomrumlichen Sehen (Observations on the experience of three-dimensionalvision), Mach discussed how we perceive and categorize spatial and temporalfigures. His argument was that we recognize various spatial and temporalshapes as the same or as alike due to the involvement of what he calledMuskelempfindungen Muscular sensations: whenever we see, for instance, acircle, our perception is accompanied, according to Mach, by a particularnervous sensation resulting from the muscular activity of the eyes, which isrepeated every time we perceive a similar shape. Accordingly, each visual oraural shape is associated with its characteristic muscular sensation; in fact, abody-feeling stamps every sensation. This theory put forward by Mach is thefirst theory of perception based on the input of the body proper.5

As for Ehrenfels, his best-known work today is the article titled berGestalqualitten (On Gestalt qualities), and published in 1890. The centralidea of this work, i.e. that our perceptions contain form qualities or Gestalten,which are not contained in isolated sensations, is often quoted. What is not sowell known about Ehrenfels famous article is that he further developedMachs ideas on the perception of spatial and temporal forms.6 Ehrenfelsargued that each experience we have of a Gestalt or form in any sensorymodality is cognized as structurally analogous to the experience of a spatialshape. In other words, spatial Gestalten serve in his view as references for ourcomprehension of forms in other modalities. An immediate implication ofthis idea is that concepts related to the perception of spatial shapes can beapplied to shapes extended in time for instance, melodies. Indeed, the ideathat there are similarities of form between different fields of experience is oneof the most important conclusions of Ehrenfels article. During the 20th-century, various authors including Susanne Langer (1942) and Daniel Stern(1985) have argued along similar lines for the existence in our minds ofabstract amodal forms that we utilize in making sense of the world throughdifferent modalities of perception.

The theories put forward by Mach and Ehrenfels provided several impor-tant hypotheses for studies of expressive performance during the latter half ofthe 19th century. These can be summarized as follows:

1. Musical rhythm and the musical phrase can be represented in spatialterms, particularly as trajectories in space.

2. The performance of a musical phrase can be represented in terms ofmovement in space traversing a particular trajectory.

3. The Gestalt belonging to the intensity-timing profile of the performanceof a musical phrase can be regarded as structurally analogous to the



Gestalt belonging to the intensity-timing profile of a unit of action orgesture carried out in physical space.

4. If experiences in different modalities can be represented in spatial termsand categories, then our comprehension of the structural properties ofexpressive music performance should utilize to a certain extent ourknowledge of the performance of physical movements in physical space.

All four hypotheses reappear in recent research, which has been brieflyreviewed in the first section of this article. As we shall see in the followingsection, they were already incorporated into theories of rhythm and perfor-mance by 19th century authors.

Convergence of theories of rhythm and performancemethodology

During the 18th and early 19th centuries, theories of rhythm wereformulated as parts of theories of composition. The musical phrase interestedtheorists mainly as a structural unit essential for creating large-scale forms.With the second half of the 19th century came a shift of focus such thattheorists became preoccupied with the internal structure of the individualmusical phrase itself. As the performance methodologies of the period madethe issue of phrasing central to effective music performance, systematicinvestigations into the internal organization of the individual phrase inconnection with performance practice resulted in the first theories ofexpressive performance that explicitly related the features of performance tomusical structures.7 This development has been of central importance for theemergence of the modern conceptualization of expression in performance as aphenomenon that is amenable to systematic investigation and rationalunderstanding. Until the second half of the 19th century, the prevailingview presented expression as originating in the inspired soul of the per-forming artist through a mysterious force, and hence as being largelyinexplicable.

The significance of the last decades of the 19th century in terms of thehistory of musical thought is not only that music psychology and studies ofexpressive performance closely followed the developments in the physiologyand psychology of the period. More importantly, this is the first time thatexperimental research in music, particularly about the nature of rhyhm, foundresonances in the theories of rhythm proposed by music theorists, which inturn formed the grounds for theories of expressive performance. In thisconnection, the kinesthetic theory of perception proposed earlier by Machprovided the basis for experimental research, and the main focus ofinvestigation was the perception of rhythmic grouping. The conclusionsreached by various researchers during this period assert the defining role ofkinesthetic sensations in the experience of rhythm. James Miner, for instance,



stated that the unity and identity of a rhythmic group is established throughthe bodily involvement of the listener in the act of perception (Miner, 1903).Another researcher argued similarly that:

rhythm is never a fact of perception alone, but essentially involves an activeattitude on the part of the apperceiving subject. Rhythm is always produced[my emphasis] . . . The successive stimulations must start a series of motorimpulses somewhere before its rhythm is felt. Apart from such a pulse of bodilychange the perception of a rhythmical series of sounds would be the bareabstract apprehension of their varying intensities and intervals. (MacDougall,1902: 464)

A detailed investigation of the nature of kinesthetic sensations accom-panying the perception of rhythmic groups was provided by psychologistRaymond Herbert Stetson (18721950), whose work on the rhythmicmovements of the hand regularly beating time is particularly significant interms of its connections with the expressive performance studies during thisperiod. According to Stetson:

every rhythm is dynamic. It consists of actual movements. It is not necessarythat joints be involved, but changes in muscular conditions which stand inconsciousness as movements are essential to any rhythm, whether perceived orproduced. (Stetson, 1905: 257)

Not every movement is rhythmic, however. For there to be an experience ofrhythm, the movement must display differentiated temporal phases. Stetsonthus writes:

If one moves the hand or the arm in a circle, there will be no feeling of rhythmso long as the hand moves uniformly in a circle. In order to become rhythmic inthe psychological sense, the following change in the movement is necessary: thepath of the hand must be elongated to an ellipse, and the velocity of the move-ment in a part of the orbit must be much faster than in the rest of the orbit; justas the hand comes to the end of the arc through which it passes with increasedvelocity, there is a feeling of tension, of muscular strain; at this point themovement is retarded, almost stopped; then the hand goes on more slowly untilit reaches the arc of increased velocity. The rapid movement through the arc ofvelocity and the sudden feeling of strain and retarding at the end of this rapidmovement constitute the beat [the accent]. In consciousness they represent oneevent, and a series of such events connected in such a movement-cycle may besaid to constitute a rhythm. There is, then, a radical difference between the twophases of a rhythmic movement. (Stetson, 1905: 258, emphases added)

In accordance with his observation concerning the nature of handmovements, Stetson proposes that the essence of rhythm can be representedas upbeataccentafterbeat, which provides a basic model for analyzing anyrhythmic unit. In all forms of activity where a rhythm is required, he writes,the stroke, the blow, the impact [the accent], is the thing: all the rest is but



connection and preparation (Stetson, 1905: 257). When applied to theexpressive performance of a musical rhythmic unit, Stetsons argumentwould indicate that the two phases of the rhythm would involve differentdynamics: the movement would accelerate during the tensing phase anddecelerate during the relaxing phase. Indeed, this is precisely the prototypicaltiming structure of a tonal musical phrase in performance that is proposed inrecent studies of expressive performance.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the most ardent proponentof the idea that we experience rhythm essentially as a movement towards andaway from a central accent has been the music theorist Hugo Riemann. In histheory of expressive performance, presented in Musikalische Dynamik undAgogik of 1884 as a theory of dynamic shading, Riemann stated that thedelivery of a rhythmic unit requires a crescendo-accelerando up to the accentfollowed by a diminuendo-ritardando. Later in his System der musikalischenRhythmik und Metrik of 1903, he universalized the model of upbeataccentafterbeat as the essence of all rhythmic structures in music, which as a theoryaccorded well with the experimental research carried out around the sameperiod.

The first theory to explain the features of expressive performance inexplicitly motor terms, however, was proposed by the Swiss music pedagogueand theorist Mathis Lussy (18281910). His theory is the first to groundexpressive performance in a body-based conception of musical rhythm, andalso the first to relate the deviations from mechanical regularity observed in amusical performance to the structural properties of music. Lussy explainedtempo variations in performance by invariably invoking locomotion, andlikened our experience of the dynamics of musical rhythm to our experienceof bodily motion. According to his theory, the sustaining of a musical phrasefrom its beginning to its end in performance is similar to the sustaining of thebody as it moves in physical space. The psychophysical principles behind thespatio-temporal properties characterizing locomotion can thus explain inthe spirit of Ehrenfels the temporal features of musical performance.

Tempo variations related to melodic contour, for instance, can be accountedfor in terms of locomotion. Lussy argued that the performance of a risingmelodic contour generated the same kind of experience we have whenphysically climbing up in physical space. He wrote that:

to climb is to strive; it is to ascend to a higher level, against all the tendencies ofour being. The steeper the slope, littered with obstacles, with bumps, the moreforce one must deploy. The more force one deploys, the faster the pulse gets: theanimation becomes greater. Once the summit is reached, however, oneexperiences a certain well-being [and] breathes comfortably. This comparisonprovides us with a simple and rational explanation of the tendency, experiencedby musicians, to accelerate at the beginning of a phrase with ascendingcontour. At the same time, it explains the disposition to stop, to drag [thetempo] on peak notes. (Lussy, 1874: 117)8



In discussing the expressive aspects of musical performance, Lussy did notonly refer to external body movements; he also frequently invoked the breathand respiration, which were among the favourite bodily functions mentionedin theories of rhythm during the 19th century. Lussy referred to thephenomenon of respiration particularly to explain the directed nature ofrhythmic movement, which he conceptualized in agreement with the othertheorists of the period as a unit made of differentiated phases. He arguedthat periodicity, which we observe in various bodily functions, is not sufficientto establish the basis of an experience of rhythm. There must also be aqualitative difference between the successive phases that form a rhythmicunit, as well as a directed motion from one phase to the other such that wehave the experience of a beginning and an end in relation to the unfoldingrhythm. According to Lussy, the two processes that define one complete cycleof respiration, i.e. inhalation/action and exhalation/relaxation, provide thephysiological origin of rhythmic experience: we experience inhalation as atime span during which we take air into our lungs and move towardsexhalation. Similarly, when we exhale we have the experience not only ofrelaxation but also of an arrival following activity and the ending of a cycle ofrespiration.

Taking the phenomenon of respiration as the basis for our experiences ofrhythm, Lussy hence proposed reposeactionrepose as the essence ofrhythmic movement. This model, more so than the model of upbeataccentafterbeat, allows for the conceptualization of a musical phrase inspatial terms such that one can easily imagine a trajectory along which thephrase unfolds. Indeed, Lussy thought of a tonal musical phrase as extendingbetween two points of tonal stability; it naturally followed from thisconception that the delivery of such a phrase in performance would, asdiscussed above, comply with the dynamic features of a bodily movement inphysical space.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the spatial conception of musicalrhythm and respiration as its bodily basis came together most explicitly in thework of the French scholar of plainchant Dom Andr Mocquereau(18491930). Mocquereau was part of the movement started by Benedictinemonks at the abbey of Solemnes during the second half of the 19th centuryfor the revival of Gregorian chant, and he is today known primarily as theoriginator of Palographie musicale, a compilation including reproductions ofchant manuscripts together with explanatory comments (Monks of Solesmes,1889). The main aim of the Solemnes project was to restore the smooth,flowing quality of plainchant performance that was lost through arbitrarygrouping and accentuation over the centuries.

Mocquereau presented his theory of musical rhythm and performance inhis Le nombre musical grgorien published in 1908. The bodily activity that heinvoked in this work as a model for the dynamics of a tonal musical phrase isthe throwing, or to be precise, hitting of a ball that is at first stationary. The



behaviour of the ball, which is graphically illustrated in Le nombre, providesthe model for the dynamics of a well-defined musical phrase: reposeactionrepose. Mocquereau wrote:

In the first movement of the ball, three instants, three phases, or if you like,three spans must be distinguished: a) point of departure, or lan, b) trajectorydepicted by the ball, c) the point of arrival or the fall of the ball. (Mocquereau,1908: 108)9

Accordingly, the expressive performance of a tonal musical phrase displaysthe dynamics that are observed in the movement of the ball. The mostsignificant and the most interesting point about this theory, however, isthat the image of the ball depicting a spatial trajectory is in fact meant byMocquereau to represent another model, one that has been regarded as theultimate model for expressive performance at least since the Baroque period:that is, the singing voice. Performances approaching the expressiveness of thesinging voice have constituted the aesthetic ideal for music performance forages. The behaviour of the ball moving in the air in Mocquereaus theory isintended to capture the essence of the breathing mechanism behind thedelivery of a musical phrase by the voice. It is common knowledge thatphrasing in singing depends on breathing: the normal phrase is made by theslow continuous breathing movement. This slow respiratory movement isregarded as the basic element in phrasing. Indeed, the phrase itself can bethought of as a slowly changing chest-abdominal posture, a slow movementof expiration (Large, 1980: 32). Particularly since the period of Italian belcanto, the essence of the ideal singing style has been regarded as a good legato,creating a smooth, flowing, uninterrupted effect. Contrary to common opinion,the most important feature of the legato style is not that there is no gapbetween the articulation of successive notes. Experimental work shows that:

legato does not, even in the most favorable conditions, involve a reallycontinuous vocalization during the phrase; it is not the mere continuity of thetone that is responsible for the smooth, uninterrupted effect. Instead, theoutstanding trait of legato singing is the unbroken level of the force of the toneindicated by the air-pressure just outside the mouth: it is dynamically uniform,and steady. No matter how interrupted the tones may be, like a dotted line, theactual level is maintained throughout. (Large, 1980: 32, emphasis added)

The spatial trajectory depicted by the moving ball in the model proposed byMocquereau is supposed to capture just these continuous, smooth internaldynamics of the legato performance of a musical phrase by the singing voice.In accordance with the premises of Ehrenfels, such a spatial representationcan also capture the temporal phases of a typical tonal phrase, which almostalways starts in relative repose, builds up tension, and relaxes into a cadence.

Closer scrutiny, however, reveals that the behaviour of a ball thrown in theair does not precisely represent the performance of a musical phrase by the



singing voice. While in normal passive breathing, the act of inspiration isactive and exhalation is passive, in singing there is controlled exhalation ofair from the lungs. The balls trajectory, on the other hand, is subject to theforce of gravity such that once the ball is set in motion, the person initiatingthe movement has no control over the way it unfolds; this certainly is not thecase in singing. It has been demonstrated that without the controlled phase ofrelaxation in singing, accentuation within a legato performance would not bepossible. As proper accentuation is crucial for projecting the local levelgrouping structure of a piece of music, the relaxing phase in the delivery of amusical phrase thus plays a defining role in the comprehensibility of amusical performance.

The proposals made and the conclusions reached in early studies ofexpressive performance during the 19th century involve all the essentialhypotheses put forward in recent research. These can be summarized asfollows:

1. A musical rhythmic unit, including a musical phrase, consists ofqualitatively differentiated temporal phases and therefore the expressiveperformance of rhythmic units systematically involves the projection ofthese qualitative differences, most frequently as tempo and intensityvariations.

2. There is a prototypical timing-intensity profile for the expressiveperformance of a rhythmic unit, the origins of which reside in ourexperiences of bodily movements (including the kinesthetic experiencesinvolved in respiration).

3. An aesthetically satisfying expressive performance creates a sense ofcontinuity, directedness and unity.

Concluding remarks

As expression is related in its basic features to the performers conception ofthe structural, i.e. tonalrhythmic properties of music, then a model ofexpressive performance should indeed be based on a model of musicalstructure. In this connection, researchers have essentially two models towork with, both of which were already employed in 19th century theories ofrhythm and performance. These are:

the model of upbeataccentafterbeat; the model of reposeactionrepose.

Bodily phenomena invoked as providing the experiential bases for thesemodels have been various bodily movements and respiration, the latterproposed only in the context of the second model. These two models can beutilized to investigate the relationships and possible interdependency between



local and global expressive variations. It should be noted in this connectionthat the first model is applicable to only small rhythmic groups, while thesecond one applies to groups of any size: accent is a property of a time-pointand as the size of the group expands, accent in the upbeataccentafterbeatmodel begins to refer to time-spans and no longer means accent proper. Inthis sense, it is conceivable that the model of upbeataccentafterbeat canaccount for the local expressive fluctuations in performance, while the modelof reposeactionrepose can explain the global expressive profile.

Recently, some researchers have also alluded to the behaviour of objectsmoving in a gravitational field, arguing that performances that soundnatural behave similarly to objects in the real world. Behind such a con-ception of expressive performance are the various metaphors used by musictheorists such as gravity, attractions, inertia (Larson, 1997; Lerdahl, 2001).Yet, however much the human body may resemble physical objects in termsof its obedience to the laws of physics, the driving force behind expressiveperformance is the fully embodied human mind. The fascinating breathcontrol of great singers and the exquisite phrasings that follow are not simplyfeasts of the body as physical objects, but more so of the body as the theater ofthe mind (Damasio, 1999: 513). In fact, one can argue that it is not theexquisite phrasing that follows the breath, but the breath that follows thesingers (embodied) mental conception of the musical phrase. It is, therefore,not physical objects but rather the behaviour of the human body and of thevoice as shaped by the human mind that provides the ideal source in oursearch for the essence of expressive musical performance.

N O T E S

1. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Music and Gestureconference, University of East Anglia, 2831 August 2003, Norwich, UK.

2. Scholarly interest in expressive musical performance is indeed very old. Alreadyduring the 11th century, authors (Guido of Arezzo in Micrologus c.1030, JohnCotton in De Musica c.1100) started to discuss the proper performance of chantand described a gradual slowing of the tempo for phrases that end on certainstructural tones, or a lengthening of the last two notes. For certain modes,acceleration towards the cadence was preferred. More systematic studies of theexpressive aspects of musical performance started with the proliferation ofpedagogically oriented treatises during the 17th and 18th centuries. Best knownamong these treatises are: Franois Couperin, Lart du toucher le clavecin, 1716;Johann Joachim Quantz, Versuch einer Anweisung die Flte travesiere zu spielen,1752; Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Versuch ber die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen,1753; Leopold Mozart, Versuch einer grndlichen Violinschule, 1756; DanielGottlob Trk, Klavierschule, 1789.

3. Weber observed that in order to bring about a noticeable difference in sensoryexperience, there is a minimum magnitude by which the intensity of the stimulusmust be changed, and that the threshold for the difference is lawfully related tothe magnitude of the stimulus.



4. The following is a selection of works on the relation of kinesthesis to rhythmpublished between 18941913: Bolton,1894; Fr 1902; MacDougall, 1902;MacDougall, 1903; Miner, 1903; Stetson, 1905; Ruckmich, 1913.

5. Before the 19th century, one can find occasional references to the sensationsfrom the muscles as playing a role in perception and cognition. The best-knowninstance is in Berkeleys An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709),where he mentions the experience of straining in the muscles of the eye as acriterion for judgment of spatial distance.

6. Another less well-known fact about Ehrenfels is that he was seriously involvedwith music and studied composition with Bruckner.

7. Nineteenth-century Belgian music theorist Jrme-Joseph de Momigny (17621842) is the first to employ the concept of phrasing (phras) in performance asdistinct from punctuation, which was a standard term for grouping byaccentuation in 18th-century performance manuals. Momigny argued thatphrasing involved not only proper accentuation but also subordination of thephrases and periods to one another in accordance with their place in thegrouping hierarchy.

8. English translation from the French original in Dogantan (2002: 128).9. English translation from the French original in Dogantan (2002: 154). The image

of a spatial trajectory was also used by the British theorist John B. McEwen inexplaining the proper performance of a musical phrase. McEwen wrote in 1914that as in throwing a stone to strike some object we aim at the object, and do notfix our gaze on the stone in our hand, so, in the performance of the musical idea,the mind is aware of the trajectory of the progression, and controls this trajectoryby aiming at the accented point, just as we control the trajectory of the missile bydirecting our attention to the object we wish to strike (McEwen, 1914: 12). Laterduring the century, Edward T. Cone referred to the behaviour of a moving ball inexplaining the internal dynamics of the musical phrase and its correctperformance (Cone, 1968: 26).

R E F E R E N C E S

Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel (1753) Versuch ber die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen.Berlin: Georg Ludewig Winter. Facsimile ed. (1957). Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hrtel.English translation by William Mitchell (1949) Essay on the True Art of PlayingKeyboard Instruments. New York: Cassell.

Berkeley, George (1709) An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision, in A.A. Luce andT.E. Jessop (eds) (194857), The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne (9volumes), Vol. 1, pp. 161239. London: Thomas Nelson.

Blacking, J. (1973) How Musical Is Man? Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.

Bolton, T.L. (1894) Rhythm, American Journal of Psychology 6: 145238.Brower, C. (2000) A Cognitive Theory of Musical Meaning, Journal of Music Theory

44(2): 32380.Cone, E.T. (1968) Musical Form and Musical Performance. New York: W.W. Norton.Cotton, John (c.1100) De Musica, trans. W. Babb, in Hucbald, Guido, and John on Music:

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Couperin, Franois (1716) Lart du toucher le clavecin, English translation by MevanwyRoberts (1933) The Art of Playing the Harpsichord, Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hrtel.



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Mach, E. (1865) Bemerkungen zur Lehre vom rumlichen Sehen (Observations on theexperience of three-dimensional vision), Zeitschrift fr Philosophie undphilosophische Kritik 46: 15.

McEwen, J.B. (1914) The Principles of Phrasing and Articulation in Music. London:Augener.

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Mozart, Leopold (1756) Versuch einer grndlichen Violinschule. Augsburg: Johann JacobLotter. English translation by Editha Knocker (1951) A Treatise on the FundamentalPrinciples of Violin Playing. London: Oxford University Press.

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Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 91(6): 354050.Trk, Daniel Gottlob (1789) Klavierschule, oder Anweisung zum Klavierspielen fr Lehrer

und Lernende, mit kritischen Anmerkungen. Leipzig: Schwickert. English translationby Raymond H. Haggh (1982) School of Clavier Playing or Instructions in Playing theClavier for Teachers and Students. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

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M I N E D O G A N TA N - DA C K holds a BA in Philosophy (Bogazici University, Istanbul), anda BM and MM in piano performance (The Juilliard School, New York). She received herPhD in Music Theory from Columbia University and has published articles onexpressive performance, history of music theory, and affective responses to music. Sheis the author of the book titled Mathis Lussy: A Pioneer in Studies of ExpressivePerformance (2002, Peter Lang). She performs as a chamber musician and soloist, andhas recorded for the Turkish Radio and TV, and WNCN in New York. Currently, she isthe head of research at Middlesex University, London.Address: Music Department, Middlesex University, Trent Park Campus, Bramley Road,London, N14 4YZ, UK. [email: [email protected]]



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The body behind music: precedents and prospects