Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

On the Role of the Hand in the Expression of Music

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Hand

Part of the book series: Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics ((SAPERE,volume 38))

Abstract

In diverse interaction processes that characterize music experience, the human hand can be seen as a mediator and facilitator for the brain’s processing of musical expressive patterns. After a brief overview on the human expressive system for music, we consider gestures and hand articulations in music production and performance, focusing on hand dexterity and hand dystonia. Then, we discuss the role of the hand in music listening, conducting, and learning, showing that both in sound-generation and sound-accompaniment the hand mediates and facilitates action and perception in relation to musical expression. The recent use of technology in the domain of music is also considered throughout the chapter, with particular reference to sensing and motion technologies that allow users to control music parameters through hand–body movements. The hand can be considered as a co-articulated organ of the brain’s action–perception machinery. Therefore, future research on hand and music should adopt a multiperspective approach that integrates different disciplines, from motor control to music performance and expression theories.

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

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Aggleton, J. P., Kentridge, R. W., & Good, J. M. M. (1994). Handedness and musical ability: A study of professional orchestral players, composers, and choir members. Psychology of Music, 22(2), 148–156.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alibali, M. W., & Nathan, J. M. (2012). Embodiment in mathematics teaching and learning: Evidence from learners’ and teachers’ gestures. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 21(2), 247–286.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Altenmüller, E., & Furuya, S. (2016). Brain plasticity and the concept of metaplasticity in skilled musicians. In J. Laczko & M. L. Latash (Eds.), Progress in motor control (pp. 197–208). Basel, CH: Springer International Publishing.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Altenmüller, E., & Jabusch, H. -C. (2009). Focal hand dystonia in musicians: Phenomenology, etiology, and psychological trigger factors. Journal of Hand Therapy, 22(2), 144–155.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amelynck, D., Maes, P.-J., Martens, J.-P., & Leman, M. (2014). Expressive body movement responses to music are coherent, consistent, and low dimensional. IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, 44(12), 2288–2301.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Annett, M. (1985). Left, right, hand and brain: The right shift theory. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bangert, M., Peschel, T., Schlaug, G., Rotte, M., Drescher, D., Hinrichs, H., Heinze, H.J. & Altenmueller, E. (2006). Shared networks for auditory and motor processing in professional pianists: Evidence from fMRI conjunction. Neuroimage, 30, 917–926.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ben-Tal, O. (2012). Characterising musical gestures. Musicae Scientiae, 16(3), 247–261.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Borchers, J., Lee, E., Samminger, W., & Mühlhäuser, M. (2004). Personal orchestra: A real-time audio/video system for interactive conducting. ACM Multimedia Systems Journal Special Issue on Multimedia Software Engineering, 9(5), 458–465.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Byrne, R. W., & Cochet, H. (2017). Where have all the (ape) gestures gone? Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 24(1), 68–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cappuccio, M., & Shepherd, S.V. (2013). Pointing hand: Joint attention and embodied symbols. In Z. Radman (Ed.), The hand, an organ of the mind. What the manual tells the mental. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carr, P., & Hand, R. J. (2008). Twist ’n frugg in an arrogant gesture: Frank Zappa and the Musical-Theatrical Gesture. Popular Musicology Online (March 2008). http://www.popular-musicology-online.com/issues/05/carr.html.

  • Chang, X., Wang, P., Zhang, Q., Feng, X., Zhang, C., & Zhou, P. (2014). The effect of music training on unimanual and bimanual responses. Musicae Scientiae, 18(4), 464–472.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Christman, S. (1993). Handedness in musicians: Bimanual constraints on performance. Brain and Cognition, 22(2), 266–272.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cole, J. (2013). Capable of whatever man’s ingenuity suggests: Agency, deafferentation, and the control of movement. In Z. Radman (Ed.), The hand, an organ of the mind. What the manual tells the mental. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • d’Avella, A., Saltiel, P., & Bizzi, E. (2003). Combinations of muscle synergies in the construction of a natural motor behavior. Nature Neuroscience, 6(3), 300–308.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dalla Bella, S., & Palmer, C. (2011). Rate effects on timing, key velocity, and finger kinematics in piano performance. PLoS ONE, 6(6), e20518.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, J. W. (2001). The role of the body in the production and perception of solo vocal performance: A case study of Annie Lennox. Musicae Scientiae, 5(2), 235–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, J. W. (2007). Qualitative insights into the use of expressive body movement in solo piano performance: A case study approach. Psychology of Music, 35(3), 381–401.

    Google Scholar 

  • Di Stefano, N., Focaroli, V., Giuliani, A., Formica, D., Taffoni, F., & Keller, F. (2017). A new research method to test auditory preferences in young listeners: Results from a consonance versus dissonance perception study, Psychology of Music, 45(5), 699–712.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drake, C., & Palmer, C. (2000). Skill acquisition in music performance: Relations between planning and temporal control. Cognition, 74(1), 1–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ElKoura, G., & Singh, K. (2003). Handrix: Animating the human hand. In Proceedings of the 2003 ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics symposium on Computer Animation (pp. 110–119). Eurographics Association.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuelberth, R. J. V. (2004). The effect of various left hand conducting gestures on perceptions of anticipated vocal tension in singers. International Journal of Research in Choral Singing, 2(1), 27–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Furuya, S., & Altenmüller, E. (2015). Acquisition and reacquisition of motor coordination in musicians. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1337(1), 118–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Furuya, S., & Kinoshita, H. (2008) Expertise-dependent modulation of muscular and non-muscular torques in multi-joint arm movements during piano keystroke. Neuroscience, 156, 390–402.

    Google Scholar 

  • Furuya, S., Goda, T., Katayose, H., Miwa, H., & Nagata, N. (2011). Distinct inter-joint coordination during fast alternate keystrokes in pianists with superior skill. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5, 1–13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, S. (2013). The enactive hand. In Z. Radman (Ed.), The hand, an organ of the mind. What the manual tells the mental. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goebl, W., & Palmer, C. (2013). Temporal control and hand movement efficiency in skilled music performance. PLoS ONE, 8(1), e50901.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldin-Meadow, S. (2003). Hearing gesture: How our hands help us think. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldin-Meadow, S. (2014). Widening the lens: What the manual modality reveals about language, learning and cognition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 369(1651), 20130295.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldin-Meadow, S., & Wagner, S. M. (2005). How our hands help us learn. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(5), 234–241.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gritsenko, V., Hardesty, R. L., Boots, M. T., & Yakovenko, S. (2016). Biomechanical constraints underlying motor primitives derived from the musculoskeletal anatomy of the human arm. PLoS ONE, 11(10), e0164050.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Habib, M., Besson, M. (2009). What do music training and musical experience teach us about brain plasticity? Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 26(3), 279–285.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hadjakos, A., & Waloschek, S. (2014). VIP: Controlling the sound of a piano with wrist-worn inertial sensors. In International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Keyboard Salon Workshop (Vol. 30).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunt, A., Wanderley, M. M., & Kirk, R. (2000). Towards a model for instrumental mapping in expert musical interaction. In Proceedings of the 2000 International Computer Music Conference, ICMC, Berlin, Germany.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaufmann, W. (1967). The mudras in Samav-edic chant and their probable relationship to the go-on hakase of the Shomyo of Japan. Ethnomusicology, 11, 161–169.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kilshaw, D., & Annett, M. (1983). Right- and left-hand skill I: Effects of age, sex and hand preference showing superior skill in left-handers. British Journal of Psychology, 74, 253–268.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kirschner, P. A. (2002). Cognitive load theory: Implications of cognitive load theory on the design of learning. Learning and Instruction, 12, 1–10.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Komeilipoor, N., Rodger, M. W. M., Craig, C. M., & Cesari, P. (2015). (Dis-) Harmony in movement: Effects of musical dissonance on movement timing and form. Experimental Brain Research, 233, 1585–1595.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krefeld, V., & Waisvisz, M. (1990). The hand in the web: An interview with Michel Waisvisz. Computer Music Journal, 14(2), 28–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Langness, A. P. (1997). Helping children’s voices develop in general music education. In L. Thurman & G. Welch (Eds.), Body mind and voice: Foundations of voice education (pp. 571–581). Minneapolis, MN: Voice Care Network.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, E., Nakra, T.M., & Borchers, J. (2004). You’re the conductor: A realistic interactive conducting system for children. Proceedings of the 2004 conference on new interfaces for musical expression, 68–73.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leman, M. (2007). Embodied music cognition and mediation technology. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leman, M. (2016). The expressive moment: How interaction (with music) shapes human empowerment. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leman, M., & Maes, P.-J. (2014). Music perception and embodied music cognition. In L. Shapiro (Ed.), The routledge handbook of embodied cognition (pp. 81–89). New York, NY: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lesaffre, M., Maes, P. J., & Leman, M. (Eds.). (2017). The Routledge companion to embodied music interaction. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lhommet, M., & Marsella, S. (2015). Expressing emotion through posture and gesture. In R. Calvo, S. D’Mello, J. Gratch, & A. Kappas (Eds.), Handbook of affective computing (pp. 273–285). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liao, M. Y., & Davidson, J. (2007). The use of gesture techniques in children’s singing. International Journal of Music Education, 25(1), 82–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luck, G., Toiviainen, P., & Thompson, M. R. (2010). Perception of expression in conductors’ gestures: A continuous response study. Music Perception, 28(1), 44–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lundborg, G. (2013). The hand and the brain: From Lucy’s thumb to the thought-controlled robotic hand. New York, NY: Springer Science & Business Media.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDougall, R. (1905). The significance of the human hand in the evolution of mind. The American Journal of Psychology, 16(2), 232–242.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maes, P.-J., Leman, M., Palmer, C., & Wanderley, M. M. (2014a). Action-based effects on music perception. Frontiers in Psychology, 4(1008), 1–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maes, P.-J., Van Dyck, E., Lesaffre, M., Leman, M., & Kroonenberg, P. (2014b). The coupling of action and perception in musical meaning formation. Music Perception, 32(1), 67–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Manning, F., & Schutz, M. (2013). “Moving to the beat” improves timing perception. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 20(6), 1133–1139.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McClung, A. C. (2008). Sight-singing scores of high school choristers with extensive training in movable solfège syllables and Curwen hand signs. Journal of Research in Music Education, 56(3), 255–266.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McElheran, B. (1989). Conducting technique: For beginners and professionals. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Metcalf, C. D., Irvine, T. A., Sims, J. L., Wang, Y. L., Su, A. W., & Norris, D. O. (2014). Complex hand dexterity: A review of biomechanical methods for measuring musical performance. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 414.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Minors, H. (2012). Music and movement in dialogue: Exploring gesture in soundpainting. Les Cahiers de la Société québécoise de recherche en musique, 131(2), 87–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morett, L. M. (2014). When hands speak louder than words: The role of gesture in the communication, encoding, and recall of words in a novel second language. The Modern Language Journal, 98(3), 834–853.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mueller, A. K. (1993). The effect of movement-based instruction on the melodic perception of primary-age general music students. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nafisi, J. (2013). Gesture and body-movement as teaching and learning cools in the classical voice lesson. A survey into current practice. British Journal of Music Education, 30(3), 347–367.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nakra, T. M., Ivanov, Y., Smaragdis, P., & Ault, C. (2009). The UBS virtual maestro: An interactive conducting system. In N. Zahler, & R. Dannenberg (Eds.). Proceedings of the 2009 Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (pp. 250–255). Pittsburgh, PA: School of Music, Carnegie Mellon University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Novack, M. A., Congdon, E. L., Hemani-Lopez, N., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2014). From action to abstraction: Using the hands to learn math. Psychological Science, 25, 903–910.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oikawa, N., Tsubota, S., Chikenji, T., Chin, G., & Aoki, M. (2011). Wrist positioning and muscle activities in the wrist extensor and flexor during piano playing. Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy, 21(1), 41–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patel, A. D. (2014). The evolutionary biology of musical rhythm: Was Darwin wrong? PLoS Biology, 12(3), e1001821.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patel, A. D., Iversen, J. R., Chen, Y., & Repp, B. H. (2005). The influence of metricality and modality on synchronization with a beat. Experimental Brain Research, 163(2), 226–238.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peters, M. (1980). Why the preferred hand taps more quickly than the non-preferred hand: Three experiments on handedness. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 34(1), 62–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, K. H. (1992). Teaching kids to sing. New York: Schocken Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Putz, R. V., & Tuppek, A. (1999). Evolution of the hand. Handchirurgie, Mikrochirurgie, Plastische Chirurgie, 31(6), 357–361.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Radman, Z. (Ed.). (2013). The hand: An organ of the mind. What the manual tells the mental. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reifinger, J. L., Jr. (2012). The acquisition of sight-singing skills in second-grade general music: effects of using solfege and of relating tonal patterns to songs. Journal of Research in Music Education, 60(1), 26–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reisenweaver, A. J. (2012). Guido of Arezzo and his influence on music learning. Musical Offerings, 3(1), 37–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Repp, B. H. (2003). Rate limits in sensorimotor synchronization with auditory and visual sequences: The synchronization threshold and the benefits and costs of interval subdivision. Journal of Motor Behaviour, 35(4), 355–370.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Repp, B. H. (2005). Sensorimotor synchronization: A review of the tapping literature. Psychonomic Bulletin Review, 12, 969–992.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rowe, M. L., Özçalişkan, Ş., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2008). Learning words by hand: Gesture’s role in predicting vocabulary development. First Language, 28(2), 182–199.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sammler, D., Novembre, G., Koelsch, S., & Keller, P. E. (2013). Syntax in a pianist’s hand: ERP signatures of “embodied” syntax processing in music. Cortex, 49(5), 1325–1339.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simones, L., Schroeder, F., & Rodger, M. (2015). Categorizations of physical gesture in piano teaching: A preliminary enquiry. Psychology of Music, 43(1), 103–121.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spilka, M. J., Steele, C. J., & Penhune, V. B. (2010). Gesture imitation in musicians and non-musicians. Experimental Brain Research, 204(4), 549–558.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Steeves, C. (1985). The effect of Curwen–Kodály hand signs on pitch and interval discrimination within a Kodály curricular framework. Unpublished master’s dissertation. University of Calgary, Canada.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strayer, H. R. (2013). From neumes to notes: The evolution of music notation. Musical Offerings, 4(1), 1–13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thaut, M. H., Kenyon, G. P., Schauer, M. L., & McIntosh, G. C. (1999). The connection between rhythmicity and brain function. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine, 18, 101–108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, W. (2010). Questionnaire: Written and conducted by Helen Julia MINORS. London: Kingston University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello, M. (2010). Origins of human communication. Cambridge, MA: The MIT press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vets, T., Degrave, J., Nijs, L., Bressan, F., & Leman, M. (2017). PLXTRM: Prediction-Led eXtended-guitar Tool for Real-time Music applications and live performance. Journal of New Music Research, 46(2), 187–220.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, F. R. (1998). The hand: How its use shapes the brain, language, and human culture. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

    Google Scholar 

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

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wolpert, D. M., Diedrichsen, J., & Flanagan, J. R. (2011). Principles of sensorimotor learning. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 12(12), 739–751.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amelynck, D., Maes, P. J., Martens, J.-P., & Leman, M. (in print). Beating-time gestures: Imitation learning for humanoid robots. Human Robot Interactions.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zappa, F. (1973). Adelaide Tonight, Interview with Frank Zappa, NWS, Channel Nine, Australia 4 July, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTel7GtLck4 (last accessed 14 May 2011).

  • Zatorre, R. J., Chen, J. L., & Penhune, V. B. (2007). When the brain plays music: Auditory-motor interactions in music perception and production. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 8, 547–558.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zinar, R. (1983). John Curwen: Teaching the tonic sol-fa method 1816–1880. Music Educators Journal, 70(2), 46–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IPEM—Musicology, Ghent University, Miriam Makebaplein 1, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Marc Leman & Luc Nijs

  2. Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, FAST—Institute of Philosophy of Scientific and Technological Practice, Via Alvaro Del Portillo 21, 00128, Rome, Italy

    Nicola Di Stefano

Authors
  1. Marc Leman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Luc Nijs
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Nicola Di Stefano
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nicola Di Stefano .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Philosophy of Scientific and Technological Practice, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Rome, Italy

    Marta Bertolaso

  2. Institute of Philosophy of Scientific and Technological Practice, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Rome, Italy

    Nicola Di Stefano

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Leman, M., Nijs, L., Di Stefano, N. (2017). On the Role of the Hand in the Expression of Music. In: Bertolaso, M., Di Stefano, N. (eds) The Hand. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 38. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66881-9_11

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation