Mapping musical dynamics in space. A qualitative analysis of conductors' movements in orchestra rehearsals

Abstract

In this contribution, we examine the way in which orchestra conductors use the space around them to convey aspects of musical dynamics. In music, dynamics refers to the intensity of volume of notes and sounds and its interpretation is highly context-bound. We approach dynamics as a phenomenon of emergent and construed meaning in interaction, induced by the music score and the interpretation in situ by musicians and the conductor. Conductors' movement-based instructions on dynamics result in highly complex usage events. This study aims at disentangling these instances by asking how conductors move and use the space around them to instruct on (un)desired aspects of musical dynamics, zooming in on movement direction as a central formal feature. We find ourselves at the crossroads of cognitive and interactional linguistics, aligning with existing studies on the interactional and contextually embedded nature of music interaction. From a cognitive linguistic perspective, this endeavor translates as the identification of the construal mechanisms (metaphor, specificity and viewpoint) that underlie and therefore motivate movement directions in the specific instances under examination. The analysis is based on 10h of video data from a corpus recorded during rehearsals of five conductors instructing their respective orchestras in Dutch. Our data reveal that conductors use different movement patterns, some of which appear to involve opposite movement directions for expressing a similar music dynamical aspect, e.g., depending on the usage event, a vertical upward movement can mean both a request for playing louder and softer. By taking into account different construal mechanisms, we are able to provide an encompassing multimodal analysis, in which these allegedly deviating oppositional movements appear as consistently motivated (metaphorical) expressions, which profile a similar target concept involving different viewpoints.

The materiality key: how work on empirical data can improve analytical models and theoretical frameworks for multimodal discourse analysis

“…) makes the examples of empirical data analysis proposed here particularly appropriate to the consideration of the notion of materiality as an interdisciplinary one and provides a clear connection with John Bateman's discussion of materiality in relation to the development of Multimodality as a practice that encompasses borders between disciplines and research areas (Bateman et al, 2017;Bateman, 2019Bateman, , 2022. This article will also show how the consideration of the materiality of dance allowed in primis for the further development of the Functional Grammar of Dance (Maiorani, 2021;Maiorani and Liu, 2023), which is now a more comprehensive and even more flexible tool that scholars have started to use for analysing movement-based communication in dance performances other than ballet or even outside the domain of dance altogether (see Mouard Ruiz, 2021;Bolens, 2022;Meissl et al, 2022;Prové, 2022;Sindoni, 2022;Vidal Claramonte, 2022;Wu, 2022;Elyamany, 2023). The examples of empirical data analysis will be preceded by a presentation of how the Functional Grammar of Dance is implemented in ELAN, a widespread commercial, free-to-use software traditionally used for annotating conversations or verbal interactions, for which we created a complete set of interdependent tiers and controlled vocabulary.…”