Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
SpringerLink
Log in

Body Movements in Music Performances: The Example of Clarinet Players

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Handbook of Human Motion

Abstract

Musicians move in many ways when performing music. Such movements, or gestures, may have a variety of roles in a performance. They can directly and indirectly control the sound of the instrument and build up communication between performers or between performers and the audience. Although omnipresent in performances, some of these gestures, however, do not seem to have a clear relationship to the process of sound production. In this chapter, general aspects of movements of musicians in music performances, and the distinction of these movements, are introduced and illustrated with an analysis of ancillary movements of clarinet performers.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    In this text, the term “instrument” always also includes vocals.

References

  • Cadoz C (1988) Instrumental gesture and musical composition. In: Proceedings of the 1998 International Computer Music Conference, Den Haag, Netherlands, 60–73

    Google Scholar 

  • Cadoz C, Wanderley MM (2000) Gesture – music. In: Wanderley MM, Battier M (eds) Trends in gestural control of music. IRCAM – Centre Pompidou, Paris, pp 71–94

    Google Scholar 

  • Dahl S, Friberg A (2007) Visual perception of expressiveness in musicians’ body movements. Music Percept 24(5):433–454

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dahl S, Bevilacqua F, Bresin R, Clayton M, Leante L, Poggi I, Rasamimanana N (2010) Gestures in performance. In: Godøy RI, Leman M (eds) Musical gestures: sound, movement, and meaning. Routledge, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Dalca IM, Vines BW, Pearce MT, Wanderley MM (2013) Expressivity as time-dependent movement for music performance: a statistical exploration. Proc. of the 10th International Symposium on Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research (CMMR2013), 845–854

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidson J (1993) Visual perception and performance manner in the movements of solo musicians. Psychol Music 21:103–113

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davidson J (2011) Movement and collaboration in musical performance. In: Hallam S, Cross I, Thaut M (eds) Oxford handbook of music psychology. OUP, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidson JW (2012) Bodily movement and facial actions in expressive musical performance by solo and duo instrumentalists: two distinctive case studies. Psychol Music 40:595–633

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delalande F (1988) La Gestique de Gould. Élements pour une sémiology du geste musical. In: Guertin G (ed) Glenn Gould Pluriel. Louise Courteau Éditrice

    Google Scholar 

  • Demos AP, Chaffin R, Kant V (2014) Toward a dynamical theory of body movement in musical performance. Front Psychol 5:477

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gambetta, C (2005) Conducting outside the box: creating a fresh approach to conducting gesture through the principles of laban movement analysis. DMA Dissertation, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

    Google Scholar 

  • Glowinski D, Mancini M, Cowie R, Camurri A, Chiorri C, Doherty C (2013) The movements made by performers in a skilled quartet: a distinctive pattern, and the function that it serves. Front Psychol 4:841

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Godøy RI, Leman M (eds) (2010) Musical gestures: sound, movement, and meaning. Routledge, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Goebl W, Palmer C (2009) Synchronization of timing and motion among performing musicians. Music Percept 26:427–438

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gritten A, King E (eds) (2006) Music and gesture: new perspectives on theory and contemporary practice. Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot

    Google Scholar 

  • Hatten R (2004) Interpreting musical gestures, topics, and tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert. Indiana University Press, Bloomington

    Google Scholar 

  • Hodges NJ, Edwards C, Luttin S, Bowcock A (2011) Learning from the experts: gaining insights into best practice during the acquisition of three novel motor skills. Res Q Exerc Sport 82:178–187

    Google Scholar 

  • Jensenius AR, Wanderley MM, Godøy RI, Leman M (2010) Musical gesture: concepts and methods in research. In: Godøy RI, Leman M (eds) Musical gestures: sound, movement and meaning. Routledge, New York, pp 12–35

    Google Scholar 

  • Kendall RA, Carterette EC (1990) The communication of musical expression. Music Percept 8(2):129–163

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kenny DT (2011) Negative emotions in music making: performance anxiety. In: Juslin P, Sloboda J (eds) Handbook of music and emotion: theory, research, applications. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Lehmann M, Kopiez R (2013) The influence of on-stage behavior on the subjective evaluation of rock guitar performances. Music Sci 17(4):472–494

    Google Scholar 

  • Leman M, Godøy RI (2010) Why study musical gestures? In: Godøy RI, Leman M (eds) Musical gestures: sound, movement, and meaning. Routledge, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Mesagno C, Mornell A, Quinn AL (2016) Choking under pressure in sport and music: exploring the benefits of theory transfer across domains. In: Mornell A (ed) Art in motion III – performing under pressure. Peter Lang, Frankfurt, pp 23–58

    Google Scholar 

  • Nakra TM (2000) Searching for meaning in gestural data. interpretive feature extraction and signal processing for affective and expressive content. In: Wanderley MM, Battier M (eds) Trends in gestural control of music. IRCAM – Centre Pompidou, Paris, pp 269–299

    Google Scholar 

  • Nusseck M, Wanderley MM (2009) Music and motion: how music-related ancillary body movements contribute to the experience of music. Music Percept 26(4):335–353

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nusseck, M, Wanderley, MM, Schoonderwaldt, E (2007) Validating kinematic displays for the perception of musical performance. Proceedings of the ENACTIVE’07 conference, Grenoble, 381–384

    Google Scholar 

  • Palmer C (2013) Music performance: movement and coordination. In: Deutsch D (ed) The psychology of music, 3rd edn. Elsevier Press, Amsterdam, pp 405–422

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Palmer C (2015) Listening, imagining, performing: melody as a life cycle of musical thought. Music Percept 33:3–11

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Platz F, Kopiez R (2012) When the eye listens: a meta-analysis of how audio-visual presentation enhances the appreciation of music performance. Music Percept 30(1):71–83

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rodger M, Craig C, O’Modhrain S (2012) Expertise is perceived from both sound and body movement in musical performance. Hum Mov Sci 31:1137–1150

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schutz M, Lipscomb S (2007) Hearing gestures, seeing music: vision influences perceived tone duration. Perception 36:888–897

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simones L, Rodger M, Schroeder F (2015) Seeing how it sounds: observation, imitation and improved learning in piano playing. In: 3rd European symposium on multimodal communication, Dublin

    Google Scholar 

  • Spahn C (2015) Treatment and prevention of music performance anxiety. In: Altenmüller E, Finger S, Boller F (eds) Progress in brain research, vol 217. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 129–140

    Google Scholar 

  • Teixeira ECF, Loureiro MA, Wanderley MM, Yehia CH (2014) Motion analysis of clarinet performers. J New Music Res 44(2):97–111

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsay CJ (2013) Sight over sound in the judgment of music performance. Proc Natl Acad Sci 110(36):14580–14585

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vines BW, Dalca I, Wanderley MM (2006a) Variation in expressive physical gestures of clarinetists. In: Proceedings of ICMPC2006, Bologna, pp 524–525

    Google Scholar 

  • Vines BW, Krumhansl CL, Wanderley MM, Levitin DJ (2006b) Cross-modal interactions in the perception of musical performance. Cognition 101(1):80–113

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vines B, Dalca I, Wanderley MM (n.d.) Variation in expressive physical gestures of clarinetists. Unpublished report, McGill University. http://idmil.org/publications#unpublished_reports. Last Accessed on March 1, 2017 (2006)

  • Wagner V, Altfeld S, Kallus KW, Kellmann M (2016) The impact of Stress and Recovery on performance. In: Mornell A (ed) Art in motion III – performing under pressure. Peter Lang, Frankfurt, pp 59–72

    Google Scholar 

  • Wanderley MM (2001) Performer-instrument interaction: applications to gestural control of sound synthesis. PhD thesis Ircam

    Google Scholar 

  • Wanderley MM (2002) Quantitative analysis of non-obvious performer gestures. In: Wachsmuth I, Sowa T (eds) Gesture and sign language in human-computer interaction. Springer Verlag, Berlin, pp 241–253

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Wanderley MM, Vines BW (2006) Origins and functions of clarinettists’ ancillary gestures. In: Gritten A, King E (eds) Music and gesture: new perspectives on theory and contemporary practice. Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, pp 165–191

    Google Scholar 

  • Wanderley MM, Vines B, Middleton N, McKay C, Hatch W (2005) The musical significance of clarinetists’ ancillary gestures: an exploration of the field. J New Music Res 34(1):97–113

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wöllner C (2008) Which part of the conductor’s body conveys most expressive information? A spatial occlusion approach. Music Sci 12(2):249–272

    Google Scholar 

  • Wulf G (2013) Attentional focus and motor learning: a review of 15 years. Int Rev Sport Exerc Psychol 6(1):77–104

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Yoshie M, Shigemasu K, Kudo K, Ohtsuki T (2009) Effects os state anxiety on music performance: relationship between the revised competitive state anxiety inventory-2 subscales and piano performance. Music Sci 13(1):55–84

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The second author would like to thank Bradley Vines and Ioana Dalca for their long-term collaboration, Mauricio Alves Loureiro and Euler Teixeira for several comments and suggestions to this manuscript, as well as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for partially funding his research.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Freiburg Institute for Musicians’ Medicine, University of Music Freiburg, Medical Center – University of Freiburg, Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Breisacher Straße 60, Haus 1, 79106, Freiburg, Germany

    Manfred Nusseck & Claudia Spahn

  2. Input Devices and Music Interaction Laboratory (IDMIL), CIRMMT, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Marcelo M. Wanderley

Authors
  1. Manfred Nusseck
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Marcelo M. Wanderley
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Claudia Spahn
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Manfred Nusseck .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Motion & More, Barcelona, Spain

    Bertram Müller

  2. Klinik für Orthopädie und Unfallchirurgi, Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Sebastian I. Wolf

  3. Institut for Biomechanics und Orthopedic, German Sport University Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Gert-Peter Brueggemann

  4. Houston, Texas, USA

    Zhigang Deng

  5. ACRISP, FedUniversity, Cremorne, New South Wales, Australia

    Andrew McIntosh

  6. Wilmington, Delaware, USA

    Freeman Miller

  7. Research, C-Motion, Inc., Germantown, Maryland, USA

    William Scott Selbie

Section Editor information

  1. Movement Analysis Laboratory, Clinic for Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery; Center for Orthopedics, Trauma Surgery and Spinal Cord Injury;Heidelberg University Hospital, Schlierbacher Landstr. 200a, 69118, Heidelberg, Germany

    Sebastian I. Wolf

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this entry

Cite this entry

Nusseck, M., Wanderley, M.M., Spahn, C. (2017). Body Movements in Music Performances: The Example of Clarinet Players. In: Müller, B., et al. Handbook of Human Motion. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30808-1_107-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30808-1_107-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-30808-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-30808-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference EngineeringReference Module Computer Science and Engineering

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation