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Enhancing Embodied Music Cognition Through Music Theatre, with Particular Reference to by Michael Pinchbeck and Ollie Smith

image of Enhancing Embodied Music Cognition Through Music Theatre, with Particular Reference to Solo by Michael Pinchbeck and Ollie Smith

It is widely accepted that the sense of understanding (cognition) music results from an embodied process. This view is supported by developments in modern neurological studies. Our concern in this chapter is to explore the implications of this view of music cognition in relation to forms of music theatre in which the audience is actively engaged. Our overall research question is, whether or not, and to what extent, the physical engagement of audiences in music theatre performances enhances their embodied cognition of the music. The first objective of our research is to define and examine the approaches used to achieve physical engagement by the audience in music theatre. The second objective, which we hope will be the subject of a further research project, is to assess the extent to which these approaches may enhance the embodied cognition of the music concerned.

We start with a discussion of the view that music cognition is an embodied, rather than a purely mental, process, focusing on recent scholarship on embodied music cognition and mimetic engagement in music, as well as theories from the field of neurology. We then analyse four examples of music theatre which attempt to engage their audiences in physical actions in a way which may enhance the process of cognition of the music. We focus in detail on Solo by Michael Pinchbeck and Ollie Smith and describe its relationship to Ravel's Tzigane (1924), comparing the approaches used in this piece to those used in the other examples reviewed. We argue that Solo is the piece that most effectively elucidates aspects of the music (specifically, in this case, the phrase structure and folk-like character of Ravel's Tzigane) and suggest that this is likely due to the high degree of immersion in the world of the drama and the nature of physical engagement it requires from its audience. In conducting a review of this type, we hope to shed new light on the importance of the body as a vehicle for music cognition.

Keywords: composition ; embodied cognition ; embodiment ; experiential engagement ; gesture in music ; music ; music theatre ; Ravel ; somatic engagement ; violin

Hardback ISBN: 9781789389333
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References

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References

  1. Armstrong, R. and Redhead, Lauren (2015), ‘/’(H)WETH: VOICE–BREATH–BODY–FORM/S’, New Sound, 46, pp. 155–67.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Bellman, Jonathan (ed.) (1998), ‘Introduction’, in The Exotic in Western Music, Boston: Northeastern University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Buzsáki, György (2019), The Brain from Inside Out, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Cobb, Matthew (2020,), ‘Why your brain is not a computer’, The Guardian Review, 27 February, pp. 9–11.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Cox, Arnie (2001), ‘The mimetic hypothesis and embodied musical meaning’, Musicae Scientiae, 5:2, pp. 195–209.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Cox, Arnie (2006), ‘Hearing, feeling, grasping gestures’, in A. Gritten and E. King (eds), Music and Gesture, s.l: Ashgate.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Cox, Arnie (2011), ‘Embodying music: Principles of the mimetic hypothesis’, Music Theory Online, 17:2, n.pag.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Cox, Arnie (2017), Music and Embodied Cognition: Listening, Moving, Feeling, and Thinking, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Damasio, Antonio (2006), Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain, London: Vintage Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. DeVoto, Mark (2000), ‘Harmony in the chamber music’, in The Cambridge Companion to Ravel, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 97–117.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Efthymiou, Litha (2017), ‘Devising an opera: Myisi’, Contemporary Music Review, 35:6, pp. 599–611.
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  12. Efthymiou, Litha and Scheuregger, Martin (2021), ‘Audience perception in experiential embodied music theatre: A practice-based case study’, CT: zeitschrift für music and performance, 1:10, pp. 1–29.
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  13. Jensenius, Alexander R. and Wanderley, Marcelo M. (2010), ‘Musical gestures: Concepts and methods on research’, in R.I. Godøy and M. Leman (eds), Musical Gestures: Sound, Movement and Meaning, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Leman, Marc (2008), Embodied Music Cognition and Mediation Technology, Cambridge: The MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Machon, Josephine (2016), ‘Watching, attending, sense-making: Spectatorship in immersive theatres’, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, 4:1, pp. 34–48.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Godøy, Rolf I. and Leman, Marc (2010), ‘Why study musical gestures?’, in R. I. Godøy and M. Leman (eds), Musical Gestures Sound, Movement, and Meaning, New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Vines, Bradley W. and Wanderley, Marcelo M. (2006), ‘Origins and functions of Clarinettists’ ancillary gestures’, in A. Gritten and E. King (eds), Music and Gesture, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]

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