The present study illustrates a role that the bodily gesture plays in the production of musical artistry. I especially focused on its expressive (i.e.
rhetorical) function, which enables musicians to effectively realize and communicate their musical interpretations. From interviews with musicians ranging in level from student to professional, and from observations of conductor′s gestures videotaped in orchestra rehearsals, I report three cases showing how essential the sense of bodily movement contributes to finding the appropriate expression of music. In case 1, an interview with a pianist⁄conductor, Ryusuke Numajiri, I demonstrate examples of gesture embedded in music composition that constrains hand shape in the context of piano playing. According to Numajiri, such a habit very likely reflects each composer′s motor capacity or preference of finger patterning, which makes a pianist′s hands and fingers form “composer-specific” motion patterns. In case 2, through observations of videotaped data on expressive gestures shown by two conductors, Myong-Whun Chung and Tetsuro Ban, I compare features of their gestures when they conduct the same piece. Results showed that, at the same point of the piece, both conductors represented nuances of the sound with very similar gestures, suggesting that the character of the musical sound has an intrinsic tendency to arouse a specific (similar) type of bodily gesture. In case 3, I introduce examples of bodily movements executed by a conductor, Uriel Segal, which produced an intended musical atmosphere. My main finding was that he clearly demonstrated that conductor′s gestures, including beating motions all embody musical requirements that lead the orchestra in the proper direction. Further, I observed that his conducting also displayed a sense of being still, “how to stop moving the body” at some points in the music as well as a sense of being in motion at other times. Discussion of all the findings suggests that there is an intrinsic link between musical expression and bodily sense, which I believe offers insight into the origins of music and experience of musical artistry.
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