THREE CASE STUDIES ON EXPLORATION OF PROFESSIONAL MUSICIANS’ MOVEMENT AND BODY SELF-AWARENESS

• DOI: 10.37572/EdArt_28022378112

• Palavras-chave: Professional musicians, performative awareness, movement and body self-awareness, phenomenological method.

• Keywords: Professional musicians, performative awareness, movement and body self-awareness, phenomenological method.

• Abstract:

  In the last few decades studies have been carried out on musical movement and gestures from the embodiment perspective. Although various instrumental educationalists suggest the importance of being aware of the relationship between touch and sound which consciously coordinates movement and gestures through a mental process, little research has been done on this topic. Musicians seem more interested in the sounds they produce or more focused on conceptual issues and appear to act through unconscious or ‘performative awareness’. Expert performers seem to reduce their mental effort as they automatise movements. As it is a result of habit, this behaviour generates a body-mind dissociation which could be an underlying factor in the development of tension and pain in playing. From the phenomenological approach, and combining first with third-person data, this paper aims to explore whether movement and body self-awareness could be developed in professional musicians and, if so, what impact it would have on performance. Qualitative research was carried out on three case studies adopting semi-structured interviews through applying the phenomenological method, observation, and audio-visual material. The musicians were asked to choose an easy, slow piece of music and perform it three times from memory. The first time the piece was performed with no intervention. For the first intervention musicians were asked to mentally rehearse the piece before playing it again, and for the second, they were asked to simulate the movements of playing without their instrument before performing. After each performance, they were asked to describe their feelings, body perceptions, and mental images. The activities and performances were video-recorded and the data were analysed in terms of verbal and nonverbal responses. The findings showed that the musicians were affected by the simulation which generated kinesthetic and sensory-motor feedback that assisted them in shaping their thoughts and developing body self-awareness.

• Número de páginas: 22