New Perspectives on Music and Gesture

Building on the insights of the first volume on Music and Gesture (Gritten and King, Ashgate 2006), the rationale for this sequel volume is twofold: first, to clarify the way in which the subject is continuing to take shape by highlighting both central and developing trends, as well as popular and less frequent areas of investigation; second, to provide alternative and complementary insights into the particular areas of the subject articulated in the first volume. The thirteen chapters are structured in a broad narrative trajectory moving from theory to practice, embracing Western and non-Western practices, real and virtual gestures, live and recorded performances, physical and acoustic gestures, visual and auditory perception, among other themes of topical interest. The main areas of enquiry include psychobiology; perception and cognition; philosophy and semiotics; conducting; ensemble work and solo piano playing. The volume is intended to promote and stimulate further research in Musical Gesture Studies.

Anthony Gritten is Head of Undergraduate Programmes, Royal Academy of Music, UK. His essays have appeared in the journals Performance Research, Musicae Scientiae, Dutch Journal of Music Theory, and British Journal of Aesthetics, and in various edited collections in English and German, as well as in philosophy books and artists' exhibition catalogues. A Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, he performs across the UK, Europe, and Canada, and has a close working relationship with the organist-composer Daniel Roth, several of whose recent works he has premiered. Elaine King is Senior Lecturer in Music at the Department of Drama and Music, University of Hull, UK. She has published widely on aspects of solo and ensemble performance, including gestures, breathing, rehearsal strategies and social interaction. She co-edited the first volume of Music and Gesture (with Anthony Gritten) and has co-edited Music and Familiarity (with Helen Prior). She is an ordinary member of the Council for the Royal Musical Association (RMA) and Conference Secretary for the Society of Education, Music and Psychology Research (SEMPRE). She is an active cellist, pianist and conductor, performing regularly in chamber and orchestral ensembles.

Introduction; 1: Psychobiology of Musical Gesture; 2: Gestures in Music-making; 3: Coarticulated Gestural-sonic Objects in Music; 4: Musical Gesture and Musical Grammar; 5: Distraction in Polyphonic Gesture; 6: The Semiotic Gesture; 7: Gestural Economies in Conducting; 8: Computational Analysis of Conductors' Temporal Gestures; 9: Gestures and Glances; 10: Imagery, Melody and Gesture in Cross-cultural Perspective; 11: Whose Gestures? Chamber Music and the Construction of Permanent Agents; 12: In the Beginning was Gesture; 13: Motive, Gesture and the Analysis of Performance