Pointing to Musical Sounds as a Focus of Instruction in Piano Lessons

An Approach to Embodied Practices from the Viewpoint of Semiotic Fields

Abstract

Although it is essential to show the point of focus in instructions on embodied practices, it can be challenging because the focus is often on movements or perceptions, which are hard to verbalize. This study examines how the pointings are organized to refer to musical sounds as the focus of instructions in piano lessons, while showing which sounds of the composition are indicated and how they should be expressed, despite their invisibility. The mutual elaboration of the semiotic resources is analyzed based on Goodwin’s concept of contextual configurations. The results suggest that the pointings to invisible sounds were organized as a dual indication (a pointing gesture → keyboard and/or hands → sounds) using various semiotic resources; However, this is insufficient because the location of the sounds in the composition and their musical expressions must be indicated. This was done using a pointing gesture to the ground organized with an exaggeration of temporal progressions of performances and sound–producing movements. The results are discussed in terms of verbalization of knowledge in embodied skill instructions.