Exploring Gestures and Body Language in Professional Musicians During the Self-reflection Process on Technical Movement

Book Review: Linda T Kaastra, Grounding the Analysis of Cognitive Process in Music Performance—Distributed Cognition in Musical Activity

“…Kaastra tells us that “to study coordination in ensemble performance, we need to choose an ontology of music that will allow us to ask the right kinds of questions” (p. 118). Here, I would offer that it may be helpful to embrace Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to examine the musicians’ lived experience of their performance, whilst they play in a variety of different performance circumstances (Minafra, 2019).…”

“…For example, readers interested in the field of cognitive processes of musicians will probably be familiar with the notion of a performance cue model (including Chaffin et al, 2002); the argument being that the musical score itself “does not represent the cognitive processes of musical performance” (p. 19), rather, that the context of music-making plays a central part. Although there are several key theorists notably absent from the discussion (Holgersen, 2010; Kerchner, 2014; Lesaffre et al, 2017; Minafra, 2019), this book will be of particular interest to early researchers in the fields of cognitive psychology, music psychology, and performance science. Additionally, it offers insights into the learning and understanding of music, with applications for music education.…”