# Terminology In this video we will look more closely at some of the terminology we use when discussing music and movement. This is important to avoid confusion and to be as precise as possible when we describe different phenomena. ## Music-related body motion We start out by discussing the concept of *music-related motion*. The first part of the term is that of "music-related". Please note that music-related is quite different from "musical". In this context we are interested in all sorts of movements carried out in a musical context, whether they are musical or not. For example, if a pianist scratches his head during a performance, this is a music-related motion, even though it is not musical at all, and is not related to the music being played. But if the scratching happens during a performance, it may have an impact on the performer, for example the way a particular phrase is being played. The scratching may also influence the way the audience experiences the performance, for better or for worse. It may not be important at all, but if there is a lot of scratching this may leave a bad impression on the performance itself. No doubt that performers are very concerned about everything they are doing on stage! Now, let us move on to the second part of the term "music-related motion", that is "motion". Motion can be quite clearly defined as the displacement of an object in space over time. We *move* something from here to there, or we move a part of the body. It is somewhat confusing that we have two words that are quite similar: "motion" and "movement". These are used somewhat interchangeably, both in everyday life and in research, so it is difficult to give an exact definition of the difference. One way to think about the difference is that *motion* is a more technical term, describing the physics of *movement*, such as in *motion capture*. As such, movement is a slightly wider term than motion. But we, and others, are not entirely consequent here, and you will probably hear that we are using both words in this course. What we will be consequent about is to always include both *performers* and *perceivers* when talking about music-related body motion. Here the difference is that performers *make* music, while perceivers *experience* music. The reason for calling it a perceiver here is to differentiate it from a *listener*. This is at the heart of our embodied cognitive approach to the experience of music. The idea is that the whole body and all the senses and modalities come into play when we experience music. We "listen" not only with our ears, but also with our eyes, our nose, our skin, and so on. Furthermore, the modalities usually also work together, so we are often not even able to tell which sense or senses contributed to the experience. So in our terminology "to listen" to music is a focus on the purely auditory part of the experience of music. More on all of this in the video that focus on cognition. ## Action We use motion or movement to describe the continuous displacement of an object in space over time. But we have also have a few other terms that are related to this. The first one is *action*. Here we move from the physical into the cognitive domain, since actions only exist in our minds. We can define an action as a motion sequence with a beginning and an end. Actions are often also conscious and goal-directed, although they do not necessarily have to be. We live our lives through actions. We open a door, we lift a glass of water to drink, we play a key on a piano. All of these actions are movement sequences with a beginning and an end. That sounds simple enough, but it is actually quite difficult to understand precisely what an action is. For example, consider that I am performing what we could call a basic "sound-producing action", like this... * When you watch this, it may appear like one coherent action. But if we are trying to measure it, we run into the questions about when it actually begins, and when it ends. Is it here * or here * Technically, we may say that such a sound-producing action consists of three different parts: the *prefix*, the *excitation* and the *suffix*. The prefix is the part before I hit the stick, in which I build up the momentum and speed. Then comes the excitation, which is when sound is actually produced. Here we have an "impulsive" action, with a quick and sudden excitation. Finally, we have the suffix in which I move the stick back. Of course, in real life these are highly connected, but it may still be useful to think of these as three separate elements when go into an analysis of a sound-producing action. Also, musicians spend a lot of time on perfectionising these elements, and they all play together when it comes to producing the final sounding result. Things, of course, become more complicated when adding several actions. For example, If I play two such strokes, when does one end and the other start... * * And if I combine several actions it gets more complicated.... **** **** Are we now talking about 8 actions, or could they be grouped into 2, or any other combination. We here talk about a phenomenon we call *coarticulation*, which means that two or more elements are grouped together, both in performance but also in the way we experience them. We identify there are several individual strokes, with a distinct quality, but we also identify that these are being grouped together in one, or even more, ways. ## Sustained and iterative sound-producing actions Up until now we have only considered what we call impulsive actions. But we have two more main types of sound-producing actions: *sustained* and *iterative*. The sustained actions are defined by a *continuous* energy transfer, and such actions also typically lead to a continuous sound. Here I have brought a kazoo as an example instrument, but the same principle applies to most other wind and brass instruments, as well as string instruments. We have a continuous excitation... ~~ ~~ ... leading to a continuous sound. One important element here is that the performer is also in continuous control of the sound, while for impulsive instruments the performer can not do much to change the sound after it has been played. The third group of sound-producing actions is called *iterative*. This is in many ways a combination of the two others. Iterative instruments are often based on some kind of continuous excitation, but in such a way that there is a rapid succession of impulsive attacks. One example is the cabasa, which I have here. ~~ ~~ So to summarise: we have three different types of sound-producing actions with different motion energy profiles, and sound profiles that match these: impulsive, sustained and iterative. ## Other types of music-related motion But the sound-producing actions is only one type of music-related motion found in music performance. Another one is that of *sound-modifying actions*. As the name implies, these are also connected to sound, but the modification of sound rather than the production itself. I can illustrate these by using the simple instruments I have here now. For the stick, it is possible to change the characteristics of the sound by moving the other hand above the stick. ... For the kazoo it is possible to change the diffusion of sound by using the other hand. ... And for the kabaza there are lots of ways that the sound-producing and sound-modifying actions can play together. ... Most instruments allow for some kind of sound-modification. In the piano, for example, the pedals are typically used for sound-modification. ... On the guitar, it is possible to dampen strings or bend the strings to modify the sound. ... And on the trumpet it is possible to use a mute to alter the sound quality. ... Musicians also have some other very typical movements: sound-accompanying. We often find such sound-accompanying movements in the upper body of a performer, for example in the head movements or upper-boody swaying of a pianist. ... In a classical piece like here it is quite common to observe that the performer is following the shapes of the melodic phrases with the body. As such, it is difficult to say whether the movements are creating the phrasing in the sound, or the other way around. Another example is that of how a DJ is moving to the beat of the music, which can be called *entrainment* movements, since the pulse of the body *entrains*, that is, aligns itself to the pulse of the musical sound. ... The sound-accompanying movements may also be closely connected to what could be called "expressive" movements. These may or may not be directly related to the sound being played, but are closely connected to some expressive elements, such as we see here in a trumpet example. ... Finally, we may also have a large group of what could be called *communicative movements*. These are often not connected to the musical sound at all, and may for example be how musicians are looking at each other, giving each other signs during performance, or even communicating directly to the audience through body language, or *gestures*. Talking about *gesture*, which is a term that has been used widely in recent years. Our take on this is that a gesture is defined as an action that is used to express some kind of meaning. In linguistics, gesture is often used to describe actions with a very explicit meaning. For example the thumbs up sign: (thumbs up) Gestures in music are not as obvious, but there are lots of examples of music-related movements with expressive qualities or some kind of meaning attached to them. One example is that of the hand-lift seen at the end of a piano performance. ... Here the performer holds the position just a little bit longer than we may have expected, which becomes an efficient gesture building up tension before the final release. An important element, though, and why we are careful about differentiating between motion, action and gesture, is that movements describe physical properties that can be measured and recorded. Actions describe what we describe as one, coherent movement sequence, but the actions themselves are mental constructs. Similarly, gestures are also mental constructs, and the *meaning* of a gesture is also highly dependent on our cultural background and context. This is important to bear in mind when we carry out research on music-related motion, so that we can differentiate between what we can objectively observe, and what are interpretations of those observations. ## Motion of perceivers So far we have have only talked about the music-related motion of performers, but there are also several different types of motion to be observed in people experiencing music, the perceivers. The main categories are the same, however. Perceivers can also have sound-producing actions, most notably when clapping during performances. This clapping is quite different dependent on genre. In a classical context, for example, the audience typically clap at the beginning ... and at the end ... of the pieces. In such a setting, the audience is not expected to clap during the performance, or not between certain parts. This sometimes lead to some awkward situations in which people may tend to shift their positions between parts, which, in fact, may also lead to some sounds being produced of chairs moving, coughing, and so on. ... In jazz, settings, on the other hand, audiences are expected to clap after solos. ... While in a rock setting, the audience members often makes a lot sound throughout the performance. ... For sound-accompanying motion there are also some differences. People attending classical concerts generally move little. But they always move, and they often move in relation to the musical sound. ... Jazz audiences typically move in relation to the pulse of the music, for example through foot tapping or through head nodding. ... while rock audiences may use the entire body. .... This is also the case in club settings, in which the audience typically dances to the beat. ... ## Summary Let us try to sum up. As we have seen here, there are numerous types of music-related body motion. As music researchers we have developed terminology to describe the different types of motion as precisely as possible. This includes a clear distinction between motion, action and gesture, and between different functional categories, such as sound-producing, sound-modifying, sound-accompanying and communicative movements. Here we have mainly looked at individual examples. Of course, the real musical world is much more complex that this, with all of these movements being combined, and with multiple performers and audience members interacting. All of this we will look more at in the coming videos. ## Temp RIG: What do we actually mean by musical gesture?