Grounding the Analysis of Cognitive Processes in Music Performance: Distributed Cognition in Musical Activity 9780367151928, 9780429055607

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Grounding the Analysis of Cognitive Processes in Music Performance

Through the systematic analysis of data from music rehearsals, lessons, and performances, this book develops a new conceptual framework for studying cognitive processes in musical activity. Grounding the Analysis of Cognitive Processes in Music Performance draws uniquely on dominant paradigms from the fields of cognitive science, ethnography, anthropology, psychology, and psycholinguistics to develop an ecologically valid framework for the analysis of cognitive processes during musical activity. By presenting a close analysis of activities, including instrumental performance on the bassoon, lessons on the guitar, and a group rehearsal, chapters provide new insights into the person/instrument system, the musician’s use of informational resources, and the organization of perceptual experience during musical performance. Engaging in musical activity is shown to be a highly dynamic and collaborative process invoking tacit knowledge and coordination as musicians identify targets of focal awareness for themselves, their colleagues, and their students. Written by a cognitive scientist and classically trained bassoonist, this specialist text builds on two decades of music performance research and will be of interest to researchers, academics, and postgraduate students in the fields of cognitive psychology and music psychology, as well as musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, and performance science. Linda T. Kaastra has taught courses in cognitive science, music, and discourse studies at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Simon Fraser University. She earned a PhD from UBC’s Individual Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies Program.

Explorations in Cognitive Psychology series

Books in this series: Perception Beyond Gestalt Progress in vision research Edited by Adam Geremek, Mark Greenlee and Svein Magnussen Fine Art and Perceptual Neuroscience Field of vision and the painted grid Paul M.W. Hackett Simulation Theory A psychological and philosophical approach Tim L. Short Neuropsycholinguistic Perspectives on Language Cognition Essays in honour of Jean-Luc Nespoulous Edited by Corine Artésano and Mélanie Jucla Contextualizing Human Memory An interdisciplinary approach to understanding how individuals and groups remember the past Edited by Charles B. Stone and Lucas Bietti Neurotechnology and Direct Brain Communication New insights and responsibilities concerning speechless but communicative subjects Edited by Michele Farisco and Kathinka Evers Grounding the Analysis of Cognitive Processes in Music Performance Distributed cognition in musical activity Linda T. Kaastra

Grounding the Analysis of Cognitive Processes in Music Performance Distributed Cognition in Musical Activity Linda T. Kaastra

First published 2021 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Taylor & Francis The right of Linda T. Kaastra to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-15192-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-05560-7 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

This book is dedicated to the many wonderful musicians with whom I have had the great honor to perform and study. You have shaped my understanding of music in meaningful and memorable ways. Thank you.

Contents

List of Figuresviii About the Authorix Acknowledgmentsx Prefacexi

Introduction—What Is Music?

1

PART I

Musical Thought on the Bassoon13 1 Ecological Foundations

15

2 Embodied Musicality

36

PART II

Representation61 3 Defining a Field of Musical Operations

63

4 Cognitive Artifacts

78

PART III

Conceptualizing Ensemble Performance99 5 Dimensions of Variation

101

6 Domains of Coordination

118



147

Conclusion: Cognition in Orchestral Performance

Index161

Figures

1.1 Reed Drawing 1.2 Double Reed Aperture 1.3 Bassoon Range (B♭1–E5 and up to G5 depending on skill) 1.4 Octave Key 1.5 High Register 1.6 Low Register 1.7 Side View, Left Thumb Keys on the Tenor Joint 1.8 Open Tone Hole 1.9 Closed Tone Hole 1.10 Half Hole 4.1 Visual Representation for Improvising in the Key of G 4.2 Exercise Using Three Major Chord Shapes 4.3 A Major Scale 4.4 John Renbourn, “Bicycle Tune,” Section B, Measures 12–13, and Section C, Measures 15–16 4.5 John Renbourn, “Bicycle Tune,” Section B 4.6 Standard Notation for Étude Simples, No. 6, Measures 1–2, by Leo Brouwer 4.7 Action Notation for Étude Simples, No. 6, by Leo Brouwer (© 1972 Éditions MAX ESCHIG) 4.8 Circle-of-Fifths Exercise 4.9 DADGAD Materials 4.10 Patternwork Sample 4.11 Square Peg in a Round Hole 6.1 Masque pour deux Flûtes, Movement II, “Incidental,” Measure 12 6.2 Masque pour deux Flûtes, Movement II, “Continu,” Measures 22–24 6.3 Masque pour deux Flûtes, Movement I, “Continu,” Measures 16–17 6.4 Masque pour deux Flûtes, Movement I, “Continu,” Measure 31 6.5 Masque pour deux Flûtes, Movement I, “Continu,” Measures 29–31 7.1 A Typical Spatial Layout of the Orchestra

23 23 25 25 25 25 26 27 27 27 81 82 85 88 88 90 90 93 95 96 97 133 134 135 136 136 149

About the Author

Linda T. Kaastra is a musician and cognitive scientist. She earned a Bachelor of Music in bassoon performance from the University of British Columbia (1990), a Master of Music in bassoon performance from Yale University School of Music (1993), and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of British Columbia (Thesis title: “Systematic Approaches to the Study of Cognition in Western Art Music Performance” [2008]). Through her research, she is committed to defining, articulating, and exploring the practical knowledge of instrumentalists. She is interested in joint attention in rehearsal and performance, r­ epresentation and musical thought, creativity and collaboration in music, and the fundamental mechanisms of human interaction. Dr. Kaastra has taught courses in cognitive science, music, and discourse studies at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University.

Acknowledgments

As this book has been “in progress” for close to two decades, I feel I must acknowledge quite a few people. The first and most important of these is Dr. Brian Fisher, my husband of many years. Brian, you saw an opportunity to explore cognitive science in conversation with me, and I appreciate every minute of our time together, thank you. To my dissertation committee at the University of British Columbia, Dr. William Benjamin, Dr. Alan Dodson, Dr. Susan Cox, and Dr. Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson, my sincere gratitude for your mentorship and continued support. To my mentors in the teaching of writing at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Dr. Patricia Elbow and Dr. Francis Zak, you opened the doors to my exploration of an instrumentalists’ perspective on research, thank you. To the professional, world-class instrumentalists with and for whom I have had the distinct pleasure of performing, thank you. To the musicians who developed alongside me, I am so proud to say we worked together. To my students in the School of Music at the University of British Columbia, thank you for engaging performance in your research. To David Kirsh, thank you for the conversations. To Paul Pigat, my guitar teacher, for the many conversations about musical thought and participation and for your willingness to be named alongside your lesson materials in this book, thank you. To Matthew Friberg and Elsbeth Wright at Routledge/Taylor & Francis, thank you so much for providing an opportunity for me to make this contribution to research; thank you for seeing me through the review process, patiently supporting me through the writing, and seeing this project through to completion. To the readers of my first draft, Dr. William Benjamin, Krystal Morrison, and Brian Fisher, I humbly thank you. I could not have written this book without your audience and support. To my readers, I am grateful for your interest and look forward to the possibility of making your acquaintance. Finally, to my son Leonhard, thank you for your patience, and the inspiration of your stories.

Preface

A book about cognition in music performance is destined to be c­ omplex, with many potential threads and interwoven conceptual landscapes. My goal in this book is to ground the study of cognition in music performance, to provide a scalable framework that embraces ecological validity in research design. This would not be possible without the expertise of several ­influential cognitive scientists from more than one field. This conceptual framework is made possible by the contributions of cognitive anthropologist Roy D’Andrade, cognitive ethnographer Edwin Hutchins, cognitive scientist Donald A. Norman, philosophers Michael Polanyi and David J. Kirsh, psychologist James J. Gibson, neuroscientist David Marr, and p­ sycholinguists Herbert H. Clark, Susan Brennan, and David McNeill. This work is also made possible by the contributions of many scholars in musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, music cognition, performance science, and music psychology. Finally, this work is made possible by the generosity and expertise of several world-class professional instrumentalists who have provided online instructional materials for the benefit of others. Together we aim for a greater understanding of this deeply meaningful domain of human experience. Some readers might benefit from reading the Introduction and the Conclusion first. These offer an overview, a structure for the details that appear in Parts I through III of the book. The research perspective that is outlined in Parts I, II, and III remains the same, but it concerns a different scale of inquiry. So, in Part I, I explore the person/instrument system. In Part II, I explore the informational resources in musical activity. In Part III, I explore the small ensemble. Each time, I aim to make explicit the basis for participation, the informational resources, and the domains of coordination in musical activity. There is much more to say about cognition in music performance. It is my aim and hope that this book will bridge from practice to research in a way that extends the explanatory power of cognitive science for the pragmatics of music-making.

Introduction—What Is Music?

Music has been described with reference to its materials—melody, harmony, rhythm, texture, timbre, register—or its activities—performing, rehearsing, practicing, composing, improvising. In the materials view, music is defined as humanly organized sound, a general way that we have of distinguishing between random noise and patterns of sound that carry a negotiated meaning. In the activities view, music is defined by the settings and participatory actions that give rise to musical sound. These views reflect competing ontologies of music. An ontology is a way of deciding what matters for the purpose of building theory. One can say that some research is carried out using a materials ontology of music, while other research is carried out using an activities ontology of music. In the materials ontology, musical understanding takes place on the basis of large-scale and smaller-scale musical structures. In this type of research, listeners recognize patterns of sound. In the activities ontology, musical participation forms the basis for understanding music. In this type of research, people move to negotiate musical meaning. Research involving both ontologies are discussed in more detail in the chapters that follow. Grounding the analysis of cognitive processes in music performance requires three steps: first, the selection of an appropriate ontology of music; second, the identification of compatible theory (consistent with the chosen ontology, to inform the analysis); and, third, the curation and/or creation of real-world data to test the explanatory strength of the selected theories. I argue that the study of cognition in music performance must engage the activities ontology of music. Performing music is not a matter of reflecting processes of listening or analysis back to an audience. A theory of cognition in music performance must account for multimodal sensory engagement, musical constraints of instruments and genres, and processes of coordination with others. This is a lot to account for in a research methodology that also aims for transparency and grounding in real-world performance situations. A research methodology describes an approach to research where the ontology, theoretical framework(s), data-gathering, and analysis methods align to produce meaningful explanations (see Chenail, 1997; Creswell, 1998; Perri 6 & Bellamy, 2012).

2  Introduction—What Is Music?

This book presents a conceptual framework for studying cognitive processes in music performance. The ontology and framework are developed by combining two dominant paradigms in cognitive science, the joint activity theory of language use (Herbert H. Clark, 1996) and the theory of distributed cognition as developed in the fields of cognitive anthropology (Roy D’Andrade, 1995) and cognitive ethnography (Edwin Hutchins, 1995). I introduce each larger area briefly here and develop the content in more detail throughout the book.

The Expanded Sense of Music The joint activity theory of language use addresses the ontological question raised earlier. Herbert H. Clark (1996) says that doing things with language is . . . different from the sum of a speaker speaking and a listener listening. It is the joint action that emerges when speakers and listeners—or writers and readers—perform their ­individual actions in coordination, as ensembles. (p. 3) He outlines the distinctions between the materials ontology (product tradition) and the activities ontology (action tradition) in the study of language use (Clark, 1996, pp.  56–58). He says that the product tradition, “strongly ­influenced” by Noam Chomsky’s work on generative grammar, ­de-contextualizes language. Parts of speech (such as sentences, words, and speech sounds) are studied in the abstract, without their context or extralinguistic features (p. 56). This results in a theory of the “potential uses” for language, leaving sizable gaps in our understanding of actual language use (p. 57). Readers may be familiar with research in music theory that also takes the generative turn, mapping Chomsky’s generative grammars onto music cognition (see Lerdahl and Jackendoff, 1983, discussed briefly in Chapter 1). This approach (and others like it) leaves open similar gaps in our understanding of how music is played. Clark explains the deficiencies in the product tradition as follows: First, parts of speech are treated as “static and timeless objects” without context, an account of the speaker, listener, or situation. Second, this abstraction of parts of speech from their context fails to account for the role of nonconventional aspects of communication (including eye gaze, gesture, head motion, facial expression, placement and presence of objects, tone of voice, and so on). But also, he says, [p]erhaps the greatest drawback of the product approach is its attitude toward “context.” In logic, the object of study is well-formed formulas, such as “p implies not q,” and the rules by which they can be used to make inferences. These theories are exclusively syntactic: They don’t

Introduction—What Is Music?  3

depend on the referents of p and q. When logics like this were taken as models for sentence meaning and later, language use, it was hard to shake the attitude that the referents of utterances were of only secondary interest. The stricture seemed to be that theories of language use shouldn’t appeal to “context” until they were forced to. One result is that there has been little investigation within the product tradition of the “context” that does get appealed to. (p. 57, my emphasis) Indeed, the product approach (structural approach) to music analysis takes a similar attitude. It assumes that music should mean the same thing performed in a concert hall or on a street corner, performed in an intimate setting for friends or for a highly critical audience. Structural approaches assume the music means the same thing for an expert or novice listener and that there is a right way to approach the understanding of music for ­performance—a formal structural analysis of musical materials (see Lester, 1995). However, a broader account of musical meaning should include situated and negotiated aspects of musical meaning, as I  demonstrate throughout this book. In the action tradition outlined by Clark,1 context can entirely change the meaning of a word or sentence. Meaning arises in context and is dependent on who is speaking, who is listening, the physical locations of these speakers and listeners, the circumstances in which speaking occurs, and the way speaking unfolds—through timing and emphasis. Clark demonstrates that the way language is used influences the meaning that arises in communication. He does this by considering both the linguistic and nonlinguistic aspects of communication. His research demonstrates that there are three ­components of signaling involved in language use: describing-as, indexing, and ­demonstration (p. 391). He says, We describe something as a fish when we present the word fish. We indicate an individual fish when we point at it. And we demonstrate the size of a fish when we hold our hands so far apart. (p. 391) Most extemporaneous linguistic utterances (words) are accompanied by extralinguistic features such as tone of voice, emphasis, timing, gaze, body position, gesture, or the placement or presence of objects. These extralinguistic features specify and focus the interaction to influence the negotiation of meaning. In sum, Clark says, The “language” of language use, languageu, is therefore not the same as the “language” of language structure, languages. Traditionally, languages is the system of symbols of a language like Japanese, Dakota, or American Sign Language, but languageu is the system of signals, both

4  Introduction—What Is Music?

linguistic and nonlinguistic, created by all three methods of signaling [i.e., describing-as, indexing, and demonstration]. (p. 392) To extend from Clark’s theory of language use into an activities ontology of music, a musicu, we must identify the structural, indexical, and demonstrative aspects of music as it is used in real-world musical situations. To date, most scientific work in music cognition assumes a materials ontology and takes a structural approach. Firmly grounded in Western music theory, it is almost entirely devoted to studying the structural aspects of music as a basis for understanding music. Critiquing the scope of scientific inquiry in music cognition, Ian Cross, himself a prolific contributor to the research in music cognition states, Almost all scientific studies of music have focused on music from Western societies and have implicitly assimilated into their concepts and procedures many of the features of music as understood in those societies. The vast majority of studies have focused on music as an aural phenomenon, something that is listened to; they have tended to treat music as embodying types of structures that are salient in Western theories of music; and they have, often implicitly, conceived of music as fulfilling only one simple function, that of affording pleasure. . . . A science which explores music as patterned sound that has hedonic value is e­ vidently exploring only a subset of prospective musical behaviours. But if this is the case, what would be the superset? (2012, p. 316) Indeed, the challenge and complexity involved in identifying the “superset” of musical behaviors necessary for a theory of cognition in music-making have presented an almost insurmountable barrier to real scientific progress in this area. Yet, as Cross (2012) argues, “there is an urgent need to develop more ecologically valid and culturally sensitive means of investigating relationships between music, language, cognition, and brain” (p. 326), a view shared by Catherine Stevens (2012) in her CogSci review of the literature in music cognition (discussed in Chapter 2). This book is dedicated to building an ecologically valid scientific framework for exploring the “superset” of musical behaviors, the expanded sense of musicu, in order to ground the study of cognitive processes in music performance. For a musicu, we must include a broader class of musical phenomena— the aspects of musical activity, often tacit, that are employed in the negotiation of music. But how do we arrive at these? Step by step, this book provides a theoretical account of just such an enterprise, grounded in four case studies.

Models of Mind and Cultural Theory The question of ontology in cognitive science often revolves around models of cognitive processing. In his historical account of the development

Introduction—What Is Music?  5

of cognitive anthropology, Roy D’Andrade (1995) proposed an integrated ontology of mind. He says that “by changing the model of human cognition and meaning from a system containing only symbolic serial processing to a system containing both symbolic serial processing and connectionist parallel distributed processing, a number of things about human culture look different” (p. 149). In the classic information processing model of mind, there are information processing modules that are “informationally encapsulated,” whose processes are opaque to us (see Fodor, 1983). A  second stage of processing, symbolic serial processing (SSP), takes the output of those modules (as symbols) and operates on them (processing). The metaphor is of mind as a Turing machine (Fodor, 1983, p. 39). A different formulation of the second stage of processing, the parallel distributed processing (PDP) model, describes many computational processes happening at once (see Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986). The metaphor is of mind as a computer that has been taught how to solve problems with feedback, or a “neural network.”2 Instead of symbols, “patterns of activity, distributed over many computing elements” form the representations on which computational processes take place (Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986, p. 77). Instead of symbols as representations (SSP), patterns of activity form the basis of representations in the connectionist (PDP) model. According to D’Andrade, a proper account of culture and cognition requires some aspects of a serial SSP model and some aspects of a PDP model. If aspects of both models are employed, he says in the passage quoted earlier, it will be possible to understand culture in a more nuanced way. First, it will be possible to theorize culture not just through symbols and rules but also as processes of learning and change. Second, it will be possible to theorize how the structure of cultural environments play a role in the formation of cultural practice and products. Third, the problem of internal versus external sources for cultural knowledge will no longer exist, as the relation between them is “resolvable” with a connectionist model (see the discussion of schema theory that follows). Finally, the idea that we understand the world through a “veil of culture” may be replaced with a more basic, albeit complex, understanding of cultural engagement (D’Andrade, 1995, p. 149).

Sources of Musical Knowledge D’Andrade explicates the connectionist model of mind by tracing the development of schema theory (1995, pp. 122–149). A schema is an abstraction, a capacity for responding that is learned through experience. These abstractions (schemata, or schemas) inform our understanding and constrain our participation. According to this theory, we have many schemata, unspecified abstractions from experience, any of which might inform our participation or our current needs for information. Schemata allow us to extend from our personal situations and experiences to new situations and experiences, to solve new problems, to generate new knowledge (or reformulate existing knowledge), and to create or negotiate situated meanings. As

6  Introduction—What Is Music?

George Mandler put it, “schemas are abstract representations of environmental ­regularities” that “are active in selecting evidence, in parsing the data provided by our environment, and in providing appropriate general or specific hypotheses.” These processes “occur automatically and without awareness on the part of the perceiver-comprehender” (1984, pp.  55–56, qtd. in D’Andrade (1995, p. 122). I am not sure that we walk around generating hypotheses as a way of understanding our activities in the world. But schema theory may be a productive way to begin to explore a broader range of sources for musical knowledge. Music is projected, extended, created, negotiated, and transformed through our engagements with instruments and with each other. There isn’t just one source for musical knowledge or meaning; there are many. This complexity is something to be embraced in theories of cultural anthropology, says D’Andrade. If a cognitive theory is basic enough, it should shed light on cultural variation. His example, discussed more fully in Part II of this book, is Edwin Hutchins’s comparison of cognitive processes in Western and Micronesian navigation (in D’Andrade, 1995, pp. 152–158; see also Hutchins, 1980, 1995). Western navigation takes place with systems of earth coordinates and abstractions of time and space that can be calculated and plotted on a map. A Western worldview is encapsulated in these abstractions, tools, and maps. The schema is not a specific route or calculation, but its components are active in the very presentation of the navigational problem or task. Micronesian navigation employs different representations for movement and space based on entirely different schemata, ways of formulating and interpreting relevant informational resources. It would be a mistake to try to measure Micronesian navigation with Western concepts of navigation, or vice versa, from the point of view of cognitive anthropology. But the story does not end there. The theory of cognition that informed Hutchins’s groundbreaking research revealed aspects of cognitive processing in Western systems that lie beyond the reach of previous theories and models of cognition (see Latour, 2011). A more basic account of cognition should shed more light on cognition in Western systems as well, making invalid assumptions transparent. Music-making in the Western concert tradition is often dismissed in a lump sum with the colonizing influences of Western musical thought and the many baseless assumptions of what it means to know and make music in Western musical genres. Recall Cross’s criticism of the assumptions that underlie research in music cognition from the previous discussed earlier. Through the theory building and case studies presented in this book, I  would like to make a contribution that argues in favor of a more basic account of cognition in Western genres of music performance, a conceptual framework that will make cognitive processes transparent, not to seek “music universals” but to study the rich variety of ways musicians approach this culturally rich endeavor, within and across musical genres and cultures.

Introduction—What Is Music?  7

Although this book does not present a cross-cultural account of cognition in music performance—it is simply beyond my scope—I hope that the theory and conceptual framework presented here will contribute to future research along those lines.

Schema Theory D’Andrade emphasizes the fact that schemas allow us to extend from one type of experience to another. Consider his example of the schema for writing (1995, pp.  123–124). Although the terms to write (English) and kaku (Japanese) are generally considered equivalent for translation, they invoke different schemas. He says that writing in English generally involves words on a page whereas kaku in Japanese can include doodling and drawing. However, this rather straightforward beginning leads D’Andrade to explore just what his schema for writing might entail. It looks like this: pencils pens chalk typewriters

paper blackboards newspapers manuscripts

English French Arabic [ Japanese]

authors correspondents pen pals memos

Clearly this is an incomplete yet provocative example of a schema for writing. It involves implements that might be used, media on which it might take place, symbols or structures that determine its content, and roles taken up in the activity. Perhaps it might also connect with these additional schemas for writing: deadlines daily practice studying communicating

poem article thesis book

brainstorming crafting editing critiquing

task context discourse features audience

Additional schemas might include the situations for writing, the forms writing might take, the activities of writing, and other miscellaneous concerns. The implementation of these schemas is mostly tacit. We can draw attention to the form of a piece of writing, or its specific discourse features, but often we do not. Yet these schemas are operational and specified through the use of scripts, which further define the operational schemas, the relevant aspects of experience, that are called up in the task. As a writer, I can engage different processes, scripts, for completing a chapter. I  can pretend to be lecturing; I can generate slides to identify my most important points; I can edit; I  can develop; I  can shift the discourse features to position myself

8  Introduction—What Is Music?

alongside or in opposition to an idea. If I am at a loss for words or ideas, I can start a research conversation with one of my favorite authors. Perhaps it is my decades of experience practicing the bassoon and the guitar—the daily ­experience of delayed gratification—that make it possible for me to write every day for a few hours to complete this book. For the study of ­cognition in music performance, we are studying individuals who have decades of daily experience practicing music and making music with others. Surely, their musical practice must feed the source material for their musical schemata. Schema theory has been employed in music perception to explore how people learn musical patterns (see Leman, 1995; Gjerdingen, 2007). However, the point I take from D’Andrade is that schemas are not tied to a single domain of experience. Meaning in music may involve more than simply the structural recognition of patterns of organized sound. D’Andrade explains that there are as many kinds of schemas as there are types of experience and that they can all be called up when relevant. His chapter lists many kinds of schemas: cultural schemas, event schemas, orientational schemas, narrative schemas, propositional schemas, metaphoric schemas, and image schemas, among others. Readers will be familiar with George Lakoff’s (1987) and Mark Johnson’s (1987) influential works on image schemata and their role in extending from bodily experience to thought. Music theorist Steve Larson, in his (2012) book Musical Forces, engaged schema theory in his exploration of how the experience of physical motion can play a role in our metaphorical understanding of motion in music. This is as close as we have come to acknowledging the possibility that musical meaning may involve processes unrelated to listening or analysis. I find this very intriguing and productive, and it calls for further delving into the aspects of experience that feed musicians’ schematic structures, a project carried out in this book in some detail. By the end of this book, I hope readers will have some new ideas about schemata in music performance, grounded in the experiences of professional musicians.

Case Studies Readers will be familiar with some of the well-known research on instrumental performance, such as music psychologist Roger Chaffin’s (2002) longitudinal analyses of instrumental practice and instrumentalist-researcher Murphy McCaleb’s (2014) observational research on embodied knowledge in ensemble performance. Both Chaffin and McCaleb strive to include the perspectives of performers, grounding research in the everyday realities of musical practice. In concert with these works, this book proceeds as a series of case studies on cognitive processes in the activities of music performance. By turning conceptual lenses from cognitive science to the study of realworld musical practice, I hope to give words to aspects of music-making that musicians and psychologists are equally interested in studying.

Introduction—What Is Music?  9

A case study is different from a field study, experiment, or interview (see Yin, 2018). The case study is a detailed analysis of a moment or event that illustrates an issue or idea (Creswell, 1998, p. 62). Case study data can be created or found. For the studies in Chapters 2 and 7, the data are found and curated to form a corpus, a body of examples that make up a complete set. The found data for Chapter 2 includes instruction from three professional bassoonists in different settings—a rehearsal setting, a live lesson, and a taped master class. These professional bassoonists are from different geographic regions (one from North America, two from Europe) to minimally account for differences in schools of playing. While not comprehensive or complete, these data offer a well-rounded corpus for identifying some of the particulars of bassoon technique. The found data for the concluding chapter consists of one videotaped master class from each section of a world-class symphony orchestra, curated from the web. Here, it was important that the musicians were from the same ensemble so that the observation and explanation can be bounded within that case. The data for Chapters 5 and 6, on the other hand, were created. This research was designed to explore the cognitive processes of coordination in the rehearsing and performing of Tōru Takemitsu’s Masque pour deux Flûtes. The data for Chapter 4 were curated after a period of studying guitar with professional guitarist Paul Pigat. This study could have been a field study except that I did not design the research using field study methodology—I did not take lessons with Paul with the idea of carrying out field study research. Rather, after a few years of working with him, I had an “aha” moment in a lesson that compelled me to curate everything he had drawn for me and view those drawings as a corpus, as examples of cognitive artifacts that reveal some of the ways cognitive processes are constrained and focused in the activity of playing guitar. Parts I and II include a theoretical chapter and an analysis chapter each. Part III organizes and analyzes a conceptual framework. All my analyses are demonstrations of theoretical grounding. Where a theory or concept has explanatory power, it is useful and sheds light on an aspect of the data. Instruction, instructional materials, and rehearsals are realistic settings for the observation of cognitive processes in Western art music performance. That said, it matters who is doing the teaching and rehearsing. The case study participants are all professional musicians, people who perform for a living and teach as a side gig. A theory of cognitive processing in music performance must address important themes in cognitive science. In Part I, I  follow philosopher Michael Polanyi’s (1966) structure of tacit knowledge to characterize the particulars of instrumental performance on the bassoon. In Part II, I trace a path through the development of ideas in the field of cognitive ethnography from James J. Gibson (1982) through David Marr (1982, 1991) to Edwin Hutchins (1995), grounding these ideas in an analysis of cognitive artifacts drawn from lessons on the guitar. In Part III, I  ground and extend Herbert H. Clark’s (1996) joint activity theory in my analyses of rehearsal data,

10  Introduction—What Is Music?

providing a preliminary account of “scripts” and domains of coordination in ensemble practice. In the conclusion, I extend from the concepts introduced in Parts I through III to define a landscape for the study of cognitive processes in orchestral music performance.

Notes 1. Clark traces the roots of this “joint action” approach to traditions in philosophy (primarily the work of Herbert Paul Grice and John Searle) and sociology (the work of Erving Goffman, Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson; for specific references, see Clark (1996, p. 56, note). 2. Today’s “deep learning” neural networks use a similar approach for perceptual modules (e.g., computer vision for image recognition). These methods are less successful when used to simulate higher-order cognition.

References Chaffin, Roger, Gabriela Imreh, & Mary Crawford. (2002). Practicing Perfection: Memory and Piano Performance. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Chenail, Ronald. (1997). “Keeping Things Plumb in Qualitative Research.” The Qualitative Report, 3(3): 1–8. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqu/vol3/iss3/6 Clark, Herbert H. (1996). Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Creswell, John W. (1998). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Traditions. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc. Cross, Ian. (2012). “Music as a Social and Cognitive Process.” In Language and Music as Cognitive Systems. Eds. Patrick Rebuschat, Martin Rohrmeier, John A. Hawkins, & Ian Cross. Oxford: Oxford University Press. D’Andrade, Roy. (1995). The Development of Cognitive Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fodor, Jerry A. (1983). The Modularity of Mind. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Gibson, James J. (1982). Reasons for Realism: Selected Essays of James J. Gibson. Eds. Edward Reed and Rebecca Jones. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Gjerdingen, Robert O. (2007). Music in the Galant Style. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hutchins, Edwin. (1980). Culture and Inference: A Trobriand Case Study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hutchins, Edwin. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Johnson, Mark. (1987). The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George. (1987). Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Larson, Steve. (2012). Musical Forces: Motion, Metaphor, and Meaning in Music. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Latour, Bruno. (2011). “Cogito ergo sumus! or Psychology Swept Inside Out by the Fresh Air of the Upper Deck . . . A Review of Ed Hutchins Cognition in the Wild.” Mind, Culture, and Activity: An International Journal, 3(1): 54–63. Leman, Marc. (1995). Music and Schema Theory: Cognitive Foundations of Systematic Musicology. Springer Series in Information Sciences, volume 31. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Introduction—What Is Music?  11 Lerdahl, Fred, & Ray Jackendoff. (1983). A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Lester, Joel. (1995). “Performance and Analysis: Interaction and Interpretation.” In The Practice of Performance: Studies in Musical Interpretation. Ed. John Rink. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 197–216. Marr, David. (1982). Vision. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman. Marr, David. (1991). From the Retina to the Neocortex: Selected Papers of David Marr. Ed. Lucia M. Vaina. Boston: Birkhäuser. McCaleb, Murphy. (2014). Embodied Knowledge in Ensemble Performance. SEMPRE Studies in the Psychology of Music. London: Routledge. Perri 6, & Christine Bellamy. (2012). Principles of Methodology: Research Design in Social Science. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc. Polanyi, Michael. (1966). The Tacit Dimension. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc. Rumelhart, David E.,  & James L. McClelland. (1986). Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition, Volume 1: Foundations. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Stevens, Catherine J. (2012). “Music Perception and Cognition: A Review of Recent Cross-Cultural Research.” Topics in Cognitive Science, 4: 653–667. Yin, Robert K. (2018). Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods, 6th Edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc.

Part I

Musical Thought on the Bassoon In the first part of this volume, I examine what it means to think musically with the bassoon. Instrumental performance complicates some of our most stable ideas about music. What is a note on the bassoon? A detailed exploration of the bassoon and lessons from some of its finest players will help to explore cognition at the level of the person/instrument system.

1 Ecological Foundations

A theory of cognition in music performance should provide a specific ­explanation of cognitive processes that musicians use. For example, in his chapter “The Way to Carnegie Hall,” Roger Chaffin compares theories of musical practice (Chaffin, Imreh,  & Crawford, 2002). There are theories that feed into debate about the role of genetics in talent (p. 75), theories about the different forms of motivation and effort that pave the way to greatness (p. 75), theories about the amount of time it takes to achieve greatness, measured in hours or years (pp. 75–79), and theories about the quality of practice time (pp. 79–81). Theoretical explanations offer a higher-level treatment of the results of analytical work on relevant data (see Perri 6 & Bellamy, 2012, pp.  33–37; Creswell, 1998, pp.  84–87; D’Andrade, 1995, pp. 178–181). Chaffin, Imreh, and Crawford (2002) formulate a theory of cognition in music performance which we can call the “performance cue theory” (Chaffin, Imreh, & Crawford, 2002). Performance cues are aspects of music-making that draw the attention of a musician during practice and performance. According to this theory, these aspects can be basic, interpretive, or expressive. Basic cues include aspects of technique and patternwork that require attention. Interpretive cues include decisions about phrasing, dynamics, and tempi. Expressive cues include aspects of the performance that are meant to convey emotion. All three types of cues are tied to structural aspects of a composition. According to this theory, a performance cue is an aspect of music-making that a musician “attends to and makes decisions about” (p.  167) while learning to perform a composition. Performance cue theory is “grounded” in the sense that it directly engages the performer in knowledge making about musical practice (see Chaffin, Imreh, & Crawford, 2002; Chaffin et al., 2009; Ginsborg & Chaffin, 2011; Demos et al., 2018). For this reason, performance cue theory has explanatory power for cognitive processes involved in learning a work for concert performance, an important aspect of Western art music genres. A theory becomes a model when it presents a structure for predicting cognitive processes (see D’Andrade, 1995, p. 178). For example, the performance cue theory offers a model of cognitive processing in musical practice

16  Musical Thought on the Bassoon

that can be stated this way: successful performers attend to basic, interpretive, and expressive cues in practice and performance (Chaffin, Imreh, & Crawford, 2002, p. 167).

Basic Cues Interpretive Cues Performance Cues

Fingerings Phrasing Basic

Technical difficulties Dynamics Interpretive

Familiar patterns Tempi Expressive

Using Chaffin’s model, performers can identify dimensions of practice as indicated in the preceding chart. Following these steps will improve the chances of a successful outcome. The performance cue model has explanatory power for managing the workload involved in learning a composition for a concert performance. However, it is less effective for explaining tacit aspects of musical learning in general, the social aspects of music-making or aspects of musical practice that fall outside of the specific focus on a musical work. This chapter looks at some aspects of cognition in music performance that lie outside of the scope of explanation for Chaffin’s performance cue theory. Theoretical areas introduced in this chapter include part one of a discussion of representation in music performance (beginning on page 17), a discussion of goals in musical activity (page 28), a discussion of cognitive resources (page 30), and a discussion of focal and subsidiary awareness (page 31). It might help some readers to skim these sections before delving into some of the details on the bassoon and the case studies on the particulars of bassoon performance. Some readers may also wish to jump to the concluding chapter of this book to consider how ideas introduced here scale up to orchestral performance.

Musical Activities Consider the following examples of musical activity: Bassoonist A is in a practice room sitting in a chair, looking at a music stand that has a tuner on it. They play a series of long tones, scales, and intervals while looking at the tuner to calibrate their pitch to A = 440. Bassoonist B sits in the second chair of the symphony orchestra, holding a low C while the conductor adds members of the wind section, one by one, to build a polychord, a mix of notes from two different chords. Bassoonist C is standing backstage before a recital, swaying slightly, eyes closed, head moving, fingers twitching on the instrument. Bassoonist D is in a dressing room of a concert hall in a major city, sitting in front of a lighted mirror. After sitting in rest position for a few

Ecological Foundations  17

minutes, they assume performance position, run through the orchestral excerpt for the “Overture” to The Marriage of Figaro, and then go back to rest position. I begin very simply with the idea that an account of cognition in music ­performance should be basic enough and general enough to handle the wide variety of situations in which musicians operate. Musicians operate ­skillfully in many different musical situations. Tuning, for example, can be carried out with a device that provides a visual display of pitch frequencies so that a musician can adjust pitches to a standard scale (bassoonist A). Tuning can also take place in an ensemble with one member of the ensemble acting as the pitch referent (bassoonist B). Tuning can be the focus of a musical activity, and it can take place in the background. Sometimes musical activity is imagined (bassoonist C). Sometimes musical activity is layered, such as practicing auditioning or rehearsing a performance (bassoonist D). We need an account that can handle all these things.

What Is a Representation? As I mentioned in the Introduction, many models of cognitive processing view representation as fundamental to the study of cognition. This is because the ideas of representation and computation have considerable explanatory power. In his discussion of cognitive artifacts, Donald Norman tells us that representation allows us to take an aspect of experience and abstract the important features of that experience to transform it in some way, to use it for thinking with. Norman tells us that a representation has two ­components, a represented world and a representing world (1993, pp. 49–51). For example, maps are representations of large-scale three-dimensional space (represented world) whose important features are abstracted and drawn onto a smallerscale, two-dimensional space (representing world). Norman says that the critical property of . . . representations . . . is that they are themselves artificial objects that can be perceived and studied. Because they are artificial, created by people, they can take on whatever form and structure best serves the task of the moment. Instead of working with the original idea, concept, or event, we perceive and think about representations that are better suited to match our thought processes. (1993, p. 51) Consider how musical scores are said to represent musical ideas. In her research on annotation in music performance, Megan Winget (2008) describes the musical score as a “boundary object,” a common source of rich information used by individuals from different social groups (Winget, 2008, pp. 1878–1879). In this view, a musical score holds abstracted information about ­musical sound, providing a common point of reference for the

18  Musical Thought on the Bassoon

composer, the performer, and the analyst—a powerful shared ­representation. David Kirsh (2010), in his analysis of the role of external representations in thought, also describes the musical score as a “persistent external representation” of the music. He suggests that external representations, such as musical scores, “increase the efficiency, precision, complexity, and depth of cognition” (Kirsh, 2010, p. 450). Musical scores allow a person to look at abstractions of musical sound and carry out higher-order cognitive processes on them. By referring to depictions of analyses, one can discuss representations of representations of musical works. Norman suggests that such metarepresentations allow us to understand aspects of experience that are not obvious in the represented world and to make new knowledge from them (1993, p. 51). Scored music provides a representation of structural features of musical sound to facilitate higher order thought and to make new knowledge about the music. However, scores are not intended to represent the thought and attention used in the performance of the music. Winget’s (2008) study of performance annotations demonstrates that skilled musicians add many markings to a score in order to improve the usefulness of the score for performance. Musical performances are not simply communications of higher order thought on musical structure. When the abstractions of musical structure presented by musical scores are taken to represent musical meaning more broadly, they can fall into what I am calling a representational blind spot.

The Representational Blind Spot A representational blind spot occurs when individuals extend the explanatory scope of a representation beyond its limits. In other words, if we assume that the cognitive processes of music performance take place solely on the features of the representing world (the musical score), we miss most of the cognitive processes in the represented world (performance). Representations are by necessity abstractions, capturing only some aspects of the represented world. Donald Norman (1993), in his discussion of the power of representation, tells us that a key feature of representations is their neutrality—an abstract r­ epresentation can serve different purposes to fill a range of informational needs (p. 51). When representations are successful, Norman says, they do the following: • • •

Capture the important, critical features of the represented world while ignoring the irrelevant Are appropriate for the person, enhancing the process of interpretation Are appropriate for the task, enhancing the ability to make judgments, to discover relevant regularities and structures (1993, p. 52)

In rehearsal, musicians use scores as a common point of reference to coordinate their musical behavior. But the score does not represent the musical

Ecological Foundations  19

meaning generated on the basis of this abstraction. The score may be useful as a coordination device, but it does not represent the cognitive processes of music performance. This is the essence of the representational blind spot. In his groundbreaking work, Cognition in the Wild, Edwin Hutchins (1995) suggested that the representational blind spot (my term, not his) is difficult to recognize, especially with very successful representations. He explains how navigators map aspects of a chart onto reality, sometimes giving the representing world greater explanatory value than the represented world. He says, As a physical analog of space, the chart provides an interface to a computational system in which the user’s understanding of the form of the symbolic expressions (lines of position) is structurally similar to the user’s understanding of the meanings of the expressions (relations among locations in the world) (Hutchins, Hollan, and Norman, 1986). In fact, the similarity is so close that many users find the form and the meaning indistinguishable. Navigators not only think they are doing the computations, they also invest the interpretations of events in the domain of the representations with a reality that sometimes seems to eclipse the reality outside the skin of the ship. (Hutchins, 1995, p. 115) The navigational chart is an external representation with power for solving problems of navigation. But it is an abstraction. That is to say, important features of the real task or tasks of navigation, even a critical problem such as “Where are we right now?” are not captured in the chart. Embedded in the chart are ways of understanding space and time that have evolved alongside culturally specific navigational tools and tasks. The navigational chart assumes a linear process for navigation, CHART–INSTRUCTION– DESTINATION. But as Hutchins reveals through his field research, the real cognitive processes of navigation are distributed across individuals, groups, and instruments of the ship (see Hutchins, 1995). In music cognition, the representational blind spot appears when researchers confuse the materials of music with musical meaning. On one hand, there is no question that musical structure can be abstracted and that humans are capable of higher order thought on musical structure. There is great richness in structural theories of music, from the early works of Hugo Riemann (1849–1919) and Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935) to ­Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s Generative Theory of Tonal Music (1983) and David Lewin’s (1986, 1987) transformational theory to contemporary work that aims to incorporate embodied cognition into these traditions, such as Steve ­Larson’s Musical Forces (2012) and Lawrence Zbikowski’s Conceptualizing Music (2002) and Foundations of Musical Grammar (2017). Some of these are discussed in Chapter 3, in Part II of my consideration of representation in music-making.

20  Musical Thought on the Bassoon

However, in this book on cognition in music performance, it is important is to draw a distinction between musical structure and musical meaning more broadly conceived. The representational blind spot appears when rich theories of musical structure assume that musical materials are the defining terms of musical thought. This is done all the time in the literature on music cognition, but I choose just one example to illustrate the scope of the issue. In his contribution to an edited volume on cognitive science and human creativity, Lawrence Zbikowski (2006) moves from a reasonable basic definition of music cognition, the comprehension of a series of temporally successive events, and the ability to draw connections between the events on the basis of shared features. (p. 117) straight into a discussion of musical materials as the defining aspects of a musical event. He gives this synopsis of a song he will use as an illustration: (The song is cast in a highly typical 32-measure, AABA form: two nearly identical and successive phrases of eight measures each [measures 1–8 and 9–16]; a contrasting eight-measure section, known as the bridge [measures 17–24]; and a concluding reprise of the first phrase [measures 25–32].) The first phrase comprises three clearly audible falling gestures: a drop from F5 to C5 in measure 1, from F5 to A♭4 in measure 3, and from C5 to F4 in measure 5. These gestures mark off measures 1–2, 3–4, and 5–7 as separate units within the larger phrase (even though none of the units seems complete unto itself). Then he says, that everyone understands these musical groupings though they might use less technical language like “brief musical chunks that begin with a falling gesture” (p. 117). The problem for me is not whether we can identify things like a “falling gesture” in music but the assumption that people think this when they listen or play or that this conceptualization is sufficient for capturing musical understanding more broadly: • • • • •

Typical AABA form F5, C5, F5, A♭4 Measures 1–8, 9–16, 17–25, 25–32 Bridge, reprise, first phrase Falling gesture

Zbikowksi’s abstractions are useful for metarepresentations of the song, but it is not clear that these abstractions are either necessary or sufficient for the kind of musical understanding Zbikowski seeks to explain in this passage: how one can make sense of music and even participate in it in a peripheral

Ecological Foundations  21

way on our first encounter with it (2006, p. 116). These are highly abstracted features, useful for knowledge making about musical structure, but they do not capture musical meaning as experienced in the represented world. For a novice listener attending a live concert, the social environment may be more salient than these structural aspects of the music. For a person singing, the aspects of managing the body may be more salient, even in the context of performance goals that are tied to structural concerns. Furthermore, instrumentalists in the Western art music tradition have been thoroughly schooled in these formal ways of conceptualizing music to the point that highly trained performers may routinely operate with this representational blind spot, believing the materials to be the structures of musical thought, just as the navigators in Hutchins’s study invested a level of reality in the chart that sometimes “eclipsed the reality” of the represented world (1995, p. 115). Indeed, even Chaffin’s performance cue theory (discussed at the beginning of this chapter) is very closely tied to structural, interpretive musical goals. In order to capture more of the cognitive processes of music performance, we must identify the aspects of musical thought that are left out of these score-based, structural accounts of musical thought.

Why the Bassoon? For five centuries now, people have taken up this wonderful, evocative, and complex instrument and made incredibly beautiful music with it. Yet, as Eric Clarke points out in his historical survey of research on music performance (2004), empirical research in music cognition is almost always carried out on the piano. Clarke explains that this is because measurement is easier on the piano. And, he says, data gathering is made even more simple with MIDI (Clarke, 2004, p. 80): 1. 2. 3. 4.

The identity of the note that is struck The time at which a note starts The time at which a note stops The velocity of the key press or of the piano hammer as it hits the string (which is directly correlated with the loudness of the sound produced) 5. The time at which either the sostenuto or soft pedal is depressed 6. The time at which either the sostenuto or soft pedal is released What counts as musical data in these MIDI studies of music performance is very clearly the measurement of notes. However, the emphasis on velocity, timing, and loudness in keystrokes on the piano says very little about how the musicians attend to their activity and even less about what they do when they play. Is this another blind spot? Or is our definition of a note so tightly bound to the piano that we cannot see what a note really is? Clarke mentions other approaches to the empirical study of music performance in his survey, some that aim to measure the “expressive movements” of performers.

22  Musical Thought on the Bassoon

However, even the question of expression distorts our lenses toward Western conceptions of musical materials: SCORE–INTERPRETATION–LISTENER with everything we need to know about performance explained in relation to a musical score. When these are the measures of music-making, even the performer sitting at the piano is invisible. So, I ask, “Why not the bassoon?” The bassoon is an instrument of character. To me, it is delicious and satisfying to play. The bassoon appears in several genres of music and has a fascinating history as a solo and ensemble instrument the Western art music tradition. Its origins can be traced back to the 1500s in the first instrument to be folded on itself, the dulcian. Over time, the instrument has been redesigned alongside the tasks and settings of its use to provide support for human voices, in folk music ensembles (famously, the British progressive rock band Gryphon), as a solo instrument in music since the Baroque, as a bass instrument in chamber music since the Renaissance, and as a member of the woodwind section in the more modern orchestras of the last three centuries. As an orchestral instrument, the bassoon has a wide range of expressive capabilities that can mimic and mirror those of the voice and other instrument groups. The bassoonist can be called upon to blend with and add color and depth to the timbres of other instruments in the orchestra. Although it is not the most common instrument to solo in the orchestra, it has some of the most beautiful and exotic solo parts in the entire orchestral repertoire. Although the bassoon has a reputation of being difficult to master, like any musical instrument, it can be accessed easily within a limited range and expands in difficulty to suit the skills of the player. What Is a Note on the Bassoon?

This very basic question is not so easy to answer on the bassoon. Is a note the fingering a bassoonist uses or the release of air into the reed? What about all the steps involved in getting to a note and the “extra noise” of the articulation? To help you understand why this is difficult, I need to introduce you to the instrument.

Sound Activation Sound is activated with the airstream and breath support by blowing through a double reed. The bassoon reed (Figure 1.1) is made of two pieces of bamboo (Arundo donax) tied together and formed into a tube with an opening, called an aperture, at the tip of the two blades (Figure  1.2). The reed is placed on a metal tube called a bocal, extending the length of the instrument. The top half of the reed is called the blade, and the bottom part is called the tube (see Figure 1.1). The narrowest part of the bassoon + reed is somewhere along the tube of the reed (usually at or near the second wire).

Ecological Foundations  23

Figure 1.1  Reed Drawing

Figure 1.2  Double Reed Aperture

Most professional bassoonists make their own reeds, carefully choosing cane based on its density and carving an appropriate reed shape and blade contour to suit their performance goals. The blade of the reed sits between the lips of the bassoonist so that the aperture is free to open and close in a controlled way between the lips and/ or inside the mouth as needed. In the lower register, the lips are farther away from the tube, near the tip of the reed, where it is easiest to make a sound. In the higher register, more of the blade is in the mouth and the lips are closer to the first wire, squeezing the reed but not biting down on it. As air is pressed through the reed aperture, the blades of the reed vibrate to create sound. That sound resonates through the entire instrument, modified by the opening and closing of holes along the eight-foot conical bore of the bassoon (bassoon + reed). The bassoon’s sound is modified by the embouchure, the muscles in and around the lips (including the jaw and tongue), the opening and closing of tone holes, and the airstream/breath support system. The Airstream/Breath Support System

A bassoonist learns to control the breath to maximize breath capacity for blowing into the instrument. To play the instrument well, a bassoonist learns to control all aspects of breathing. The speed and quality of the in-breath are just as important as the speed and quality of blowing into the reed. When we think of blowing into a reed, we imagine the mouth, but very little breathing happens in the mouth. It happens in the entire torso; the mouth is just the interface between the breath support and the bassoon. Through lessons with a professional player, bassoonists learn different ways of thinking about the airstream. Some teachers never speak of it directly. They teach by using mimicry, assuming the student will learn to manage breath support through tacit processes. Other teachers focus on the specifics of breathing, including how deeply to breathe, where to push from, and

24  Musical Thought on the Bassoon

how to imagine the torso and movement of air. However, most professional bassoonists will be able to distinguish between breath support and airspeed, which is necessary for performing in different registers, to change dynamics, and to control intonation. Breath support is about two things: pressure and location. Strong breath support uses the entire torso. Airspeed, on the other hand, is more about how quickly the air moves across the reed. Airspeed and breath support are dynamic systems in bassoon playing. As a bassoonist, one learns to adjust these subtle aspects of tone production by practicing (see Morelli, 2019). But this is not the only system playing a role in sound activation. Fingers also play a role in sound activation on the bassoon. To understand this, we need some knowledge of the bassoon mechanism. Please note that this is not a complete discussion of the bassoon mechanism, just enough detail to demonstrate the complexity and flexibility of the instrument. The Instrument and Its Mechanism

The bassoon has an 8-foot-long conical bore. The bore of the bassoon gradually increases in diameter from approximately 4 mm at the tip of the bocal (2–3 mm inside the reed) to approximately 4 cm at the end of the bell. It comes apart into five pieces (six including the reed). From smallest to largest (tip to bell), the parts are, the reed, the bocal, the tenor joint, the boot joint, the bass joint, and the bell. There are several bassoon makers with different trade secrets in bassoon design. Bore shape and length, tone hole placement, key positions, and pad height can differ across instrument designs. My bassoon, designed by Guntram Wolf, has 23 keys plus five open tone holes on the front (for the fingers). The bassoon has a large range, from B♭1 to G5 (depending on the level of skill), or three and a half octaves (see Figure 1.3). It plays bass and tenor range most of the time but can dip up into the alto range as well. Finger Techniques

Of the 23 keys on my bassoon, 13 are solely for use by the thumbs. The left-hand thumb is used in almost all the notes on the bassoon. The drawings that follow show just a few of the positions of the left thumb on the instrument, with the thumb on the octave key (Figure 1.4) pressing keys in the high register (Figure 1.5) and low register (Figure 1.6). The high register and low register thumb keys are right beside each other. The keys on the right side close holes on the tenor joint for notes in the high register (Figure 1.5). The keys on the left side close holes on the bass joint and bell for notes in the low register (Figure 1.6). This makes it relatively easy for a bassoonist to make big jumps in register.

Ecological Foundations  25 Bassoon Range

Figure 1.3  Bassoon Range (B♭1–E5 and up to G5 depending on skill)

Figure 1.4  Octave Key

Figure 1.5  High Register

Figure 1.6  Low Register

Venting and Flicking

Finger technique plays a role in the articulation of some notes on the bassoon. Articulation describes the quality of sound activation on an instrument. On the bassoon, there are several ways in which finger technique plays a role in articulation: closing the octave key, venting, flicking, and finger order. There are five tenor joint thumb keys shown in Figure 1.7. Starting from the bottom, the first key is the octave (or whisper) key that, when pressed, closes a tiny hole near the base of the bocal. The octave key is open by default for notes in the middle register (the overtone register) of the b­ assoon. Pressing the octave key closes the hole at the base of the bocal to improve the response in the fundamental register (F2–G#3) and then again for G4 only in the high register. The use of the octave key is tied to articulation, because without it, the notes crack or don’t speak. So the bassoonist uses the octave key in relation to the embouchure, breath support, and airstream to manage sound activation. Finger technique on the bassoon is not simply a matter of pushing a button. Notice that the third key (A) and fifth key (D) from the bottom in

26  Musical Thought on the Bassoon

D B/C A C# Octave

Figure 1.7  Side View, Left Thumb Keys on the Tenor Joint

Figure  1.7 have posts beneath them. When you press these keys, there is only one stop. However, one does not always press the key all the way down. The A key and the B/C key are sometimes “flicked” at the sound activation. The thumb coordinates with the embouchure, breath support, and airstream to manage the articulation. Flicking is a form of venting that aids in the response of some notes on the bassoon, to facilitate a clean articulation. Venting releases some air through a tone hole without opening it all the way. Venting is used to facilitate the articulation and intonation or tone quality of a note on the bassoon. For example, the second (C#) and fourth (B/C) keys shown in Figure 1.7 have two layers of keys in their mechanism.

Ecological Foundations  27

When you press these keys all the way down, they open more than one tone hole on the bassoon. For these two keys, there is a slight gap between the top key and the second key below it. Pressing very lightly, without activating the second mechanism, is called “venting.” Players have different approaches for using venting and flicking depending on their instrument make and model, but all bassoonists use some version of venting and flicking with the left thumb. One masters finger sensitivity to coax a note out of the bassoon. The point is, pressing a key does not always mean pressing it all the way down in order to select a note. Sometimes one presses a key just a little bit to change the response or quality of a note. Thus, some finger technique on the bassoon functions more like articulation than tone selection. Tone Hole Venting or “Half-Hole Technique”

Like the left thumb, the first finger of the left hand is also used to vent ­certain notes. This is called “half-hole” technique (see Figures  1.8–1.10). Bassoonists vent middle register G3 and G#3 and high register G4 and G#4 by uncovering only 1/4 to 1/2 of the sound hole for the first finger in the left hand. This venting improves both the response and the pitch of the note. While G3 and G#3 are always played with a half hole, players can choose to half hole or flick A3 with the left thumb, depending on the context and personal preferences. Thus, fingering is more than just note selection. One can say that fingering is used to support all aspects of tone production—articulation, tone quality, and selection. Finger Order, Alternate Fingerings

The preceding examples should illustrate that finger technique plays a role in articulation on the bassoon. There is no room to address all aspects of fingering technique on the bassoon. But I have two final points to add, finger order and alternate fingerings. Shifting from one note to another involves

Figure 1.8 Open Tone Hole

Figure 1.9 Closed Tone Hole

Figure 1.10  Half Hole

28  Musical Thought on the Bassoon

moving multiple fingers to open/close/vent a tone hole and to press/flick/ vent a key. Imagine the attention required in coordinating one half hole, four tone holes, three additional finger keys, and two thumbs. Just getting to these positions is often not enough; one must get to these positions in the right order. Because of the complexity of the mechanism on the bassoon and differences in bassoon makes and models, there is no guidebook to address this subtle aspect of finger technique. It is something a bassoonist encounters through practice. If a note cracks, it can help to pay attention to the speed of one finger—to seal off or open one of the tone holes before the others. That will be what I call a “focal finger” or anchor (see Chapter 4 for an equivalent on the guitar, a “guide finger”). Finally, the fingering for any note on the bassoon can be altered. While fingering charts exist, and some players claim to have found “the best fingerings” for the bassoon, the truth is, with different instrument designs, each instrument and reed combination can produce different “best fingerings” for different passages of music. The fact that there are multiple fingerings for notes on the bassoon means that some options will work better than others for different situations. This gives the bassoonist some choices for movement between notes. Players in a bassoon section will often negotiate fingerings as part of their preparation for performance to coordinate tone quality, response, or smoothness in a passage. Where Does a Note Begin?

From the point of view of a sound technician, a note begins when the recording equipment picks up a vibration in the air. But for a bassoonist, a note begins at some point in the process of coordinating the airstream/ breath support/embouchure/fingering systems to produce a tone. In some instances, the note begins well before the sound—in the quality of the in-breath and the preparation. Thus, our study of musical thought on the bassoon provides an opportunity to examine the explanatory boundaries of structural accounts of musical knowledge. If we work from Lawrence Zbikowski’s basic definition of the scope of cognitive science, to study “the comprehension of a series of temporally successive events, and the ability to draw connections between the events on the basis of shared features” (2006, p. 117), we must identify a musical event on the bassoon. Then we must discover how bassoonists draw connections between those events on the basis of their shared features. What follows is a scholarly formulation of relevant theory for building a conceptual framework to do just that.

Personal, Shared, and Public Goals Some readers might wonder if the activities presented near the beginning of the chapter (on page 16) are truly musical activities. As presented, these activities are not defined by musical compositions. Part of my challenge is to include aspects of musical engagement that are not defined by a composition

Ecological Foundations  29

but by the tasks of musical performance. We can better understand these activities by thinking more carefully about the goals and informational resources employed in these activities. Doing this will help us understand the explanatory boundaries of structural accounts versus accounts based on the broader idea of musical activity. Musical activities can include a range of goals. The activities of warming up, tuning, rehearsing, practicing, and performing can be carried out to accomplish different things. A warm-up, for example, can target just the fingers or just the tone. It can involve all systems, or a few isolated skills needed for the next rehearsal or performance. Identifying the goal (or goals) of a musical activity can help us understand more about cognitive processing in music performance. Herbert H. Clark’s (1996) joint activity theory of language use offers a way of conceptualizing the underlying goals of an activity (see Clark, 1996, pp. 33–37). Often tacit, the goals of participants can shape the content and procedures of a joint activity. For example, when I take part in a rehearsal of a particular passage of music, I may have a personal goal such as “use a greater dynamic range” or “take catch breaths to improve the tone quality at the end of the last note” or “anchor the first note of each four-note group.” Although I pay attention to many other things, these goals apply only to my own activity. These are my personal goals. Goals can also be shared with members of an ensemble. Whether we discuss them or not, aspects of our performance become “jointly salient” or “focal” through our interaction. Shared goals are aspects of a task or activity that affect all its participants (e.g., the whole ensemble). Shared goals also shape the content and procedures of the interaction. If, as an ensemble, we decide to “play more legato,” every member of the group will change what they are doing to meet that performance goal. Goals can also include more public goals for cultural expression. This can be local, for example, concerts at one venue known for its contribution to the local scene or, much broader, including recorded works and the musical discourse of a broader region (for more on musical discourse, see van Leeuwen, 2012). When we analyze cognition in music performance, we should aim to shed some light on the way culture constrains cognitive processes at lower levels. To do that, however, we first need to be able to conceptualize cognitive processes at different units and levels of analysis (Clark, 1996; D’Andrade, 1995; Hutchins, 1995). One of the groundbreaking analytical achievements of Edwin Hutchins’s (1995) book, Cognition in the Wild, was to outline a process for analyzing cognition at different units and levels of analysis. In my earlier discussion, the goals are the unit of analysis. The level of analysis is the scope of inquiry, or who is involved. We can analyze the unit (goals) at different levels of analysis, from personal to shared, to public (Clark, 1996). We will exercise this analytical approach throughout this book, but first I will reiterate why it is important. If we focus on musical structure alone, then we cannot begin to comprehend how musical meaning is influenced by its context. Focusing solely on musical structure, Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto looks the same in

30  Musical Thought on the Bassoon

my living room as it does when I am in fancy dress in front of an ­orchestra— except that it is not the same; nothing about these two settings is the same for the person making the music. If we want to understand cognition in music performance, we need to account for what is different.

Cognitive Resources The cognitive resources used in musical activity also reflect important ­differences in the management of that activity. Earlier, I mentioned Megan ­Winget’s (2008) study of annotation. Both her research and mine (2011) have shown that instrumentalists use annotation to manage their visual resources in addition to what a score provides. Music-making involves visual, aural, and haptic information. Tuning, for example, can involve watching a visual indicator while making small adjustments in the embouchure/airspeed/ tone hole width. Or, tuning can involve playing more quietly and trying to match the pitch and tone quality of another player. Similarly, practicing with a metronome involves different sensory information than practicing without one. A decision to stand or sit or adjust the seating arrangements in an ensemble can influence the perceptions of members of the group. If a large wind ensemble performs in a gymnasium, members of the ensemble will have to play far more quietly than they would in an outdoor stadium. The size and acoustics of a hall have a tremendous influence on the specifics of what an instrumentalist does—airstream, embouchure, and even finger pressure will have to be adapted to this change. If I record a certain folk song with an ensemble or alone in a studio with a click track, am I still playing the same piece of music? Maybe, but the cognitive resources for performance in these two settings have nothing in common. A proper account of cognition in music performance must account for these differences. To build a theory of cognition in music performance, we must find ways to discover which aspects of the environment and task are focal for the player. Goal Bassoonist A Calibrate pitch to A = 440 Bassoonist B Provide a stable pitch reference

Key Resources

Chair, bassoon, stand, tuner Deep breath, focused and efficient breath support, bassoon Bassoonist C Run through a Bassoon, harness, concerto from posture, musical memory imagination, small movements of the body Bassoonist D Practice performing Chair, bassoon, an orchestral mirror, spotlight excerpt

Focal Information Persistent external visual cue for pitch center Maintaining a stable sound as new sounds are added Audiation and musical memory (structural, haptic) Simulated audition environment, selfmonitoring

Ecological Foundations  31

Focal and Subsidiary Awareness One of the difficulties in moving from structural accounts of cognition in music to accounts focused on musical activity is the involvement of tacit processes. Most of what we are aiming to conceptualize in music performance take place in a tacit dimension. In his philosophical work The Tacit Dimension (1966), Michael Polanyi proposed a way of thinking about the hidden dimensions of knowledge. He says there are four aspects of tacit knowledge, the functional, phenomenal, semantic, and ontological. The functional aspect of tacit knowledge describes the relation between “proximal and distal terms of tacit knowing” (p. 13). Proximal terms are those aspects of knowing that take place without awareness yet have a role in the formulation of our targets of focal awareness. The distal terms are those aspects of our knowledge that can be named, the targets of focal awareness. For example, earlier in the chapter I asked, “What is a note on the bassoon?” The answer was in the management of the breath, the airstream, breath support, the embouchure, and finger technique. As I said, a note is coaxed out of the bassoon. All these systems are operational, but one can also just blow into the reed. Let’s say for now that the distal term is the note, and the proximal terms are all those systems that a bassoonist learns to manage to coax a note out of the bassoon. The distal terms are those that can be named, the targets of focal awareness (the note). The proximal terms are the physiological processes that coordinate to achieve that target. The proximal terms may not always be specifiable. They may be tacit. If a beginner is asked to pay attention to all those proximal terms of a note listed earlier, they will not be able to make a sound. But a beginner can just blow into the reed and make a sound. Over time, with the expert instruction of a more advanced player, the proximal terms of sounding a note can come to be known. In Polanyi’s theory, the phenomenal aspect of tacit knowing describes the way proximal terms come to be known. A beginning bassoonist might not need to know the difference between airspeed and breath support right away. But as they progress from single notes to musical phrases, they will have to learn how to manage breathing as they play. Breath support becomes a thing; it becomes something we can recognize and manipulate. We can say that breath support takes on a phenomenal aspect as we recognize and manipulate it to achieve performance targets like dynamics, tone quality, and phrasing. Once breath support takes on this phenomenal aspect, it can be used to make meaning. The semantic aspect of tacit knowing refers to the meaning that forms in the relation between proximal and distal terms of tacit knowing. Polanyi gives the example of a person learning to use a walking cane for the visually impaired (1966, p. 12). At first, anyone can feel the handle of the cane and not much more. But with practice, the bumps, vibrations, and movements of the stick come to mean something important for walking with. One learns to negotiate a curb and uneven pavement and perhaps to enter and exit a bus or a store by

32  Musical Thought on the Bassoon

becoming sensitive to the movements of the cane. In a similar way, breath support becomes an important source of information in bassoon performance. Using these ideas, we can say that breath support becomes a thing (phenomenal aspect) and then takes on meaning (semantic aspect). To move from being able to play a note, to being able to “move in a direction with it,” is the shift to a semantic form of tacit knowing. One might not be able to specify the changes that have taken place in the achievement of the target—move in a direction with it. But a significant restructuring has occurred in the particulars—the proximal terms through which the target is achieved. In other words, the management of embouchure, airstream, breath support, and finger technique are restructured in achieving the target, move in a direction with that note. Please keep in mind that we are not talking about what a listener hears as meaningful in a musical performance. I am not saying that a listener imagines the particulars of bassoon playing as a way of understanding musical meaning. I am focusing on what a bassoonist knows and how they know it in order to do what they do. Polanyi talks about a functional relation between the proximal and distal terms of tacit knowing. He says, Such is the functional relation between the two terms [proximal, distal] of tacit knowing: we know the first term only by relying on our awareness of it for attending to the second . . . . And I would say . . ., that we are relying on our awareness of a combination of muscular acts for attending to the performance of a skill. We are attending from these elementary acts to the achievement of their joint purpose, and hence are usually unable to specify these elementary acts. (Polanyi, 1966, p. 10) The proximal and distal terms are not separated and then combined. The distal is achieved through the proximal. During the process of achieving a ­quality tone, the particulars of breath support become a thing, take on ­meaning, and then can be applied in the achievement of novel targets or goals. There is a knowing of tone quality that is only achieved through the successful ­coordination of particulars—embouchure, airspeed, breath support, finger technique. These particulars of tone quality lie in our subsidiary awareness. We are aware of them as manipulanda of the tone quality.1 Note that it is possible to master tone quality without focally attending to the muscles in and around the lips, the depth of an in-breath, the placement of support in the torso, the speed of air, and the management of a half hole. When I play an A to tune at the beginning of a rehearsal, I attend focally to the A, not the particulars of producing the A. But the aspects of subsidiary awareness, the manipulanda, are engaged in the production of the tone. Polanyi says, It now becomes a means of making certain things function as the proximal terms of tacit knowing, so that instead of observing them in themselves,

Ecological Foundations  33

we may be aware of them in their bearing on the comprehensive entity which they constitute. It brings home to us that it is not by looking at things, but by dwelling in them, that we understand their joint meaning. (1966, p. 18) Polanyi is describing the integration of proximal and distal terms in tacit knowing. He says, when we attend focally to an A, for example, at the start of a rehearsal, we are listening to the quality of the A, its pitch, volume, and tone quality. By focusing on the A (the distal aspect of performing the note), we are aware of the proximal aspects of the sound we are making. Others are also aware, and together, we adjust our sounds to play in tune. When we do this, our musical activity is “about” playing in tune. This is the ontological aspect of tacit knowledge. Knowledge about playing in tune includes these proximal and distal terms, their functional, phenomenological, and semantic relations.

Our New Progressive Lenses Clearly, this conceptual framework includes a set of progressive lenses. Cognition in music performance is not static, rule-based, or solely interpretive. As skill develops, embodied aspects of musical engagement take on meaning. It is now possible to see how an expert ensemble might engage in tacit negotiation of musical meaning beyond structural concerns. It is also possible to see how an individual or ensemble might shift their focal awareness from one way of attending to another in order to draw out new connections between these tacit aspects of musical activity. More on this in Chapter 2. Using the account developed in this chapter, we are better positioned to identify musical activities by their participants, by the goals, roles, and actions of these participants, by the cognitive resources employed in those actions, and by the structuring of processes of attention around embodied aspects of musical engagement. We are better positioned to ask questions about the nature of musical events on different instruments. To learn more about what counts as a musical event on the bassoon, we need to study the work of experts.

Note 1. The term “manipulanda” is used to capture the idea that these are the proximal terms of tone quality. However, it is important to note that the embouchure acts on the reed, the airspeed acts through the reed, the breath support acts through the bassoon, and the finger technique acts on the keys and tone holes. Manipulanda as the term is used here refers to the embodied, proximal terms, not the instrument itself.

References Chaffin, Roger, Gabriela Imreh, & Mary Crawford. (2002). Practicing Perfection: Memory and Piano Performance. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

34  Musical Thought on the Bassoon Chaffin, Roger, Tania Lisboa, Topher Logan, & Kirsten T. Begosh. (2009). “Preparing for Memorized Cello Performance: The Role of Performance Cues.” Psychology of Music. DOI:10.1177/0305735608100377 Clark, Herbert H. (1996). Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clarke, Eric. (2004). “Empirical Methods in the Study of Performance.” In Empirical Musicology: Methods, Aims, Prospects. Eds. Eric Clarke & Nicholas Cooks. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Creswell, John W. (1998). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Traditions. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc. D’Andrade, Roy. (1995). The Development of Cognitive Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Demos, Alexander P., Tania Lisboa, Kristen T. Begosh, Topher Logan, and Roger Chaffin. (2018). “A Longitudinal Study of the Development of Expressive Timing.” Psychology of Music, 22(4): 519–538. Ginsborg, Jane, & Roger Chaffin. (2011). “Performance Cues in Singing and Conducting: Evidence from Practice and Recall.” In Music and the Mind: Essays in Honour of John Sloboda. Eds. I. Deliege & J. Davidson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 339–360. Hutchins, Edwin. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Hutchins, Edwin, James D. Hollan, & Donald A. Norman. (1986). “Direct Manipulation Interfaces.” In User Centered System Design: New Perspectives in Human-Computer Interaction. Eds. Donald A. Norman & Stephen W. Draper. Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 87-124. Kaastra, Linda. (2011). Annotation and the Coordination of Cognitive Processes in Western Art Music Performance. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Performance Science, Toronto, ON. Kirsh, David. (2010). “Thinking with External Representations.” AI  & Society, 25: 441–454. Larson, Steve. (2012). Musical Forces: Motion, Metaphor, and Meaning in Music. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Lerdahl, Fred, & Ray Jackendoff. (1983). A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Lewin, David. (1986). “Music Theory, Phenomenology, and Modes of Perception.” Music Perception, 3(4): 327–392. Lewin, David. (1987). Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Morelli, Frank. (Ed.) (2019). The First Complete Weissenborn Bassoon Method and Studies, Op. 8. Volumes 1 & 2. New York, NY: Carl Fischer Music. Norman, Donald A. (1993). Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine. Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Perri 6, & Christine Bellamy. (2012). Principles of Methodology: Research Design in Social Science. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc., pp. 102–128. Polanyi, Michael. (1966). The Tacit Dimension. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc. van Leeuwen, Theo. (2012). “The Critical Analysis of Musical Discourse.” Critical Discourse Studies, 9(4): 319–328. Winget, Megan A. (2008). “Annotations on Musical Scores by Performing Musicians: Collaborative Models, Interactive Methods, and Music Digital Library Tool Development.” Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 59(12): 1878–1897.

Ecological Foundations  35 Zbikowski, Lawrence. (2002). Conceptualizing Music: Cognitive Structure, Theory, and Analysis. AMS Studies in Music. New York: Oxford University Press. Zbikowski, Lawrence. (2006). “The Cognitive Tango.” In The Artful Mind: Cognitive Science and the Riddle of Human Creativity. Ed. Mark Turner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 115–132. Zbikowski, Lawrence. (2017). Foundations of Musical Grammar. Oxford Studies in Music Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.

2 Embodied Musicality

The best-known book on bassoon performance was written by David McGill, principal bassoonist of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra (2007). This book is a must-read for aspiring bassoonists, as it deals with many aspects of orchestral knowledge and etiquette. In his reflection, “ ‘Technique’ vs ‘Musicality,’ ” McGill states that “musical thinking solves technical problems” (2007, p. 264). His comment is addressing the false dichotomy, technique vs. musicality that is often invoked in traditional ideas of music performance. The idea is that a player can be “too technical” or “very musical.” He says that “technical ease is the natural dividend of musical thought” (p. 265). This raises a very intriguing set of questions: 1. If technique and musicality are the same, why does applying a “musical thought” seem to solve some technical problems? 2. What do bassoonists pay attention to? 3. What is a musical thought? McGill gives a few examples of musical passages that are “solved” by applying an understanding of note groupings or phrasing to them. He says, note groupings make some passages smoother (p. 265), employing dynamic shaping will assist in the execution of a large interval (p. 265), and “a musical line is really just one note” (p. 266). Technical Problem

Musical Thought

uneven or plodding series of notes large intervals up or down, the second note cracks give shape to a melodic line

apply note groupings apply dynamic shaping think of one long note

In this set of examples, a musical thought is a re-direction of attention, a shift in focal awareness. If we put these ideas in Polanyi’s terms introduced in

Embodied Musicality  37

the last chapter, this application of “musical thinking” is a restructuring of the particulars to achieve a new focal target. From This

To This

Particulars

a series of notes

groups of notes within the larger series getting louder or softer to span a large interval one long note

airspeed, finger motion (anchoring, emphasis) breath support, airspeed (dynamics, register)

intervals performed at the same loudness a melodic line

breath support is isolated and separated from finger movements

Very few bassoonists write books about how they attend in performance. And even if we had several quality books, we still would not have a very clear picture of cognitive processes in bassoon performance. We would first need to translate the ideas into an existing framework for the study of cognition, as I did earlier. Chances are there would be a mismatch between what a bassoonist writes about and what a cognitive scientist is interested in. This is because the audience for these ideas is almost always a less-experienced bassoonist. These ideas are best delivered in the form of a method book, such as Frank Morelli’s (2019) edition of the Weissenborn Method. A method book offers an approach to the development of a bassoonist, but it does not offer insight into the minds of skilled players. If we add to this the idea that instrumentalists may be operating with a representational blind spot (see Chapter 1) as a result of their expert training in concert music genres, we could not expect to get much further than a reiteration of traditional, structural ideas about musical knowledge. We cannot just ask a skilled player what they are thinking. We need a way of gathering and analyzing real-world data on musical thought and behavior.

Case Studies Case study research is an important approach in the exploration and development of new theory in social and cognitive science (Creswell, 1998; Stake 2003; Perri 6 & Bellamy, 2012; Goertz & Mahoney, 2012; Yin, 2018; see also Hutchins, 1980, 1995). In a case study, we gather relevant examples, cases, to “shed light on theoretical concepts or principals” (Yin, 2018, p.  38). As I  mentioned earlier, Roger Chaffin’s research employs a “longitudinal case study” approach, in which performers record and reflect on their practice and their work is analyzed in the context of scientific ideas, for example, on memory (Chaffin, Imreh, & Crawford, 2002) and expressive performance (Ginsborg & Chaffin, 2011; Demos et al., 2018). The case study in this chapter examines expert instruction given by bassoonists to shed

38  Musical Thought on the Bassoon

light on processes of attention and awareness in instrumental performance. I organize their instruction according to principles of joint activity theory. This allows me to examine the content of their speech and the tacit aspects of their communication, shedding light on the tacit dimensions of performance on the bassoon. Gathering lesson data is made easier by the availability of music lessons online, what I call “found data.” To be fair to those who appear in these publicly available lessons, who have not agreed to have their work used as the basis for analysis, I  have taken steps to anonymize them. Each of the bassoonists is a critically acclaimed professional with decades of experience performing. Each has recordings, editions, and compositions available for purchase. These are the leaders in the field. That said, their comments and instructions have a context. The first case is a master class to recruit participants for an orchestra program. The second case is a lesson that is used in marketing materials for the artist, and the third is a brief instruction from the middle of a public dress rehearsal. These cases are valuable because they ­present the real thing, real lessons by experts on the instrument. But the cases do not represent their overall approach—just one master class, one lesson, one moment in a rehearsal. I use these examples to shed light on the concepts being used to develop a theory of cognition in instrumental ­performance, not to critique or promote an approach to teaching the bassoon. Each case is presented with a brief description of its context, a transcript, and an analysis. I  have used the transcript conventions outlined in David McNeill’s (1992) Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal About Thought to support the goal of addressing tacit aspects of communication. Although I include the gestures in my analysis of focal awareness in bassoon playing, I do not delve as deeply into the gesture analysis as might be warranted in an extension of McNeill’s approach. There is room for greater analytical treatment of the gestures in these transcripts. The transcripts have these components: Transcripts Activity #—description B: Spoken content of bassoonist T or S: Spoken content of teacher or student respectively (case 2 only) [spoken content] with gestures that accompany the spoken content in square brackets only descriptions of bassoon playing (subtitles, comments) Analysis In case study research, analysis involves identifying key themes, relevant concepts, and important connections, assigning meaning to “analyzable units” in the data (Coffey & Atkinson, 1996, p. 26). Larger analyzable units

Embodied Musicality  39

include the goal or topic for the communication. I call these “activities” for consistency with Herbert H. Clark’s (1996) joint activity theory framework. Each activity is then examined for the communicative modalities used, the referential directness (how directly a target is specified), the method of instruction used, and the instrumental particular(s). Aspect Modality of Instruction Referential Directness Method of Instruction Instrumental Particulars

the aspect or dimension of music performance being addressed (distal aspect) speech, gesture, playing is the aspect addressed directly, indirectly, or in an oblique manner what is to be done, and how bodily systems engaged (proximal terms, manipulanda, or instrumental technique)

Case 1 Context

Bassoonist 3 has produced an online master class as part of a recruitment process for participation in an orchestral program. The goal for the master class is to inform participants how to prepare for the recorded audition and what criteria will be used to evaluate recorded audition material. I examine his instructions on how to prepare the orchestral excerpts for the “Overture” to The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart (transcript activities 1, 2, 3) and Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov (transcript activity 4). The analysis is divided up by the following activities: introduction, how to practice, thinking about phrasing, and interpretation. The first three activities are all about the orchestral excerpt for the “Overture” to Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro. The fourth activity is about the orchestral excerpt for RimskyKorsakov’s Scheherazade. Transcript

Activity 1—Introduction to “The Figaro Excerpt” B:  Now

the Mozart Overture is quite a tricky one. On the modern bassoon, it’s a lot harder than for the instrument it was actually written for, the classical bassoon. The difficulty is that you really have to blend with all the string players. [It’s a quite mysterious beginning] he draws his right hand in a line away from his body B:  And it’s immediately into a run of very quick notes, um, and it starts on quite an awkward note,

40  Musical Thought on the Bassoon Analysis Aspect Modality of Instruction Referential Directness

blend with the strings, while capturing the mystery and technical facility (speed of fingers) blend: speech mystery: speech, gesture direct reference to blending, mystery and technical facility

Transcript

Activity 2—How to practice B:

B:

B:

I will suggest that you first practice it and don’t take too much notice of the dynamic so you feel comfortable with the technique. Also practice in very small chunks. So, for example if you just start off with only the first two notes . . . He plays D–C# . . ., D–C# . . ., D–C#–D . . ., D–C#–D–E–F So, you just build it gradually up until you feel quite comfortable with the technique. Also practice it very slowly. And the last thing, you really want to practice it in different rhythms. So, for example. . . He plays the first half of the second measure with a dotted rhythm, long–short, long–short, which the subtitles label (light rhythm) and then short–long, short–long which is subtitled (heavy rhythm) For this specific Mozart excerpt I would suggest that you put the lock (camera zooms in on back of the bassoon) on your piano key down. So, you don’t have to move too much with your thumb. So, you can just gently move it up and down rather than rolling around on the bassoon.

Analysis Aspect Modality of Instruction Referential Directness Method of Instruction Instrumental Particulars

technical facility speech, playing oblique reference to technical facility, finger coordination (do these things until you feel comfortable with it) 1. begin with two notes, add one note at a time; 2. introduce dotted rhythms; 3. use whisper key lock (piano key) finger coordination

Transcript

Activity 3—Thinking about phrasing B:

Now if you feel more and more comfortable and you practice with a metronome, you can also start thinking about the phrasing so you don’t play too much,

Embodied Musicality  41

    [BAdadadadu BAdadada DAdadada DAdadadadu] right hand beats in the air (subtitled mimics heavy rhythm) B:  But really go. . .     [Badudududu] right hand moves forward as he leans forward     [Badudududadudududadudududu] right hand comes back and traces the same line forward as he leans forward again B:  So there’s always a direction in the music, and actually it will help you to get to an easier way of playing. I will try to play the excerpt now as a whole. It’s just the first, the opening bars of the “Overture.” He plays the excerpt. Analysis A Aspect Modality of Instruction Referential Directness

Method of Instruction Instrumental Particulars

from “comfortable” to smoothness speech, syllabic singing, gesture, playing indirect reference to smoothness, via singing + gesture (syllabic singing + hand beating in the air = what not to do); (syllabic singing + hand and body lean forward drawing lines in the air showing smoothness and direction = what to do) 1. use metronome; 2. use a “musical thought” to solve a technical problem (see also McGill, 2007); 3. it should be smooth finger coordination

Analysis B Aspect Modality of Instruction Referential Directness Method of Instruction Instrumental Particulars

the shape and direction of the phrase syllabic singing + gesture direct reference to shaping and direction think of moving forward, or think in this shape with it finger coordination

Break It to Build It

One of the reasons music performance is valuable as a site for research in cognitive science is that instrumentalists are often in situations where the music is broken and then repaired in order to deepen musical skill. This restructuring of particulars is quite common in concert music genres. In fact, we could say that bassoonist 3 breaks the passage on purpose in order to build skill in its performance. Breaking the passage means altering the original form of the music in order to build skill in its performance. So, he says, play two notes only. Playing just two notes allows the bassoonist to attend to all the fingers to carefully coordinate their movement until it is “comfortable.” Then add a third note, attending to changes, until it is comfortable and so on. Then alter the passage again by changing the rhythms.

42  Musical Thought on the Bassoon

Mozart does not ask for this. But to perform this passage on a modern bassoon (and maybe even on the Classical bassoon), one builds mastery in its original performance by experimenting with the changed rhythms. A person could play the passage without doing these exercises, but by forcing an awareness of the particulars of finger coordination, bassoonist 3 aims to teach his students to know the passage in a deeper and more robust way. Once finger coordination becomes a thing (phenomenal aspect), it can be used to make meaning (semantic aspect). It is no longer a runaway train. It now has a controller. That is why bassoonist 3 says to practice slowly at first. He knows that the particulars of instrumental technique that are required of this passage will present themselves and take on meaning in the achievement of this target. This instruction is “oblique.” He expects the knowing to happen over time as the student encounters the passage in this manner. As he mentions, the fingerings for this passage are more challenging on the modern bassoon than the Classical bassoon. Therefore, the target of focal awareness, smoothness, is not easily achieved. Movement over the break (from E to F#) should sound the same as simply lifting one finger (from D to E). We can say that mastering the smooth execution of this passage involves what Polanyi (1966) calls “indwelling,” the “integration of particulars into a coherent entity” (p. 18). Here, indwelling is the ability to attend to smoothness through the use of the fingers. Through all these weeks of practice, the target of focal awareness is “smoothness”; the student is listening and feeling the movement between notes in order to reduce noise and delay. Using Polanyi’s (1966) terminology, we can say that smoothness is the distal term (the target of focal awareness) of this exercise. The proximal terms are the bodily movements (e.g., coordination of fingers) that become necessary to achieve that result. Once these “particulars” become known (phenomenal aspect) in the context of this practice, they can be used to generate meaning, to “move this way with it.” Layering of Particulars target (focal awareness) particulars (subsidiary awareness) method

new target of focal awareness instrumental particulars method

smoothness finger coordination moving slowly, gradually getting faster

dotted rhythm (long-short. . .; short-long. . .) finger coordination moving faster between notes 2–3 and 4–1 (1–23–41–23–41–23. . .); then between 1–2 and 3–4 (12–34–12–34–12. . .)

Embodied Musicality  43

Polanyi suggests that the particulars which have come to be known through this kind of scrutiny can again be placed into the background of awareness, but the knowledge of their existence and importance is still maintained (p. 19). He says that knowing built up through this type of focal awareness is of a different sort than knowing through the type of theory building taking place here. Learning through research might inform our choices for instrumental practice, but it won’t replace the need to practice or to know the passage in this deeper experiential way. With Polanyi, I stress that this is a way of knowing the music, not just an ancillary detail. Each system of instrumental particulars called up in the execution of meaningful targets builds a depth of musical knowing that can only take place through practice. The particulars of instrumental technique involved in achieving “smoothness” still reside in subsidiary awareness, to be called up in this new setting. When a new target is established, aspects in subsidiary awareness are restructured and known through the execution of the new focal target. Finally, when the targets of “smoothness” and “rhythmic variations” are mastered, only then does bassoonist 3 suggest phrasing as a target of focal awareness. He says that attending to the direction in the phrase will aid in finger coordination, but presumably, he feels that this target is one that relies on the ability to play the passage smoothly to begin with. This  is a third layer of awareness involving proximal and distal terms. Polanyi says, In the exercise of a skill, we are aware of its several muscular moves in terms of the performance to which our attention is directed. We may say, in general, that we are aware of the proximal term of an act of tacit knowing in the appearance of its distal term; we are aware of that from which we are attending to another thing, in the appearance of that thing. (1966, p. 13) In other words, we are aware of the finger coordination through the performance of the passage. As we become skilled at performing this excerpt with different layers of focal awareness, we develop an ontological sense of finger coordination. This is a knowledge of how to approach passages involving the coordination of many physiological processes with layered targets, practiced over time. This mastery can be called up in other situations that involve solving complex fingerings. The reason this excerpt is on the repertoire list for most auditions is that its mastery demonstrates the performer’s facility, their mastery of finger technique. We can say that there is a layering of focal targets involved in learning this skill.

44  Musical Thought on the Bassoon Layering

Target of Focal Awareness

Aspect of Tacit Knowledge

layer one layer two layer three layer four

smoothness of fingers varied rhythms phrasing and direction blending with strings

functional/phenomenal functional/phenomenal semantic semantic/ontological

Transcript

Activity 4—Interpreting Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade B:

The Scheherazade is a fascinating story of a woman who has to keep the attention of her lover for a very long time because he’s about to kill her . . . if she would bore him. So, in the solo, in the second movement of the Scheherazade, just after one of the violin cadenzas, you can think of this theme of really captivating your listener’s attention. And the description of the solo is dolce espressivo capriccioso quasi recitando, which is a long text and you want to do justice to all these things. So, it has to be, have a gentle feel, but also quite—quite quirky at the same time, which is quite difficult to combine these two things. And it’s recitando so you want to tell the story with this solo. Um. You really want to sit down for a while and look at all the, all the different things that are written in this part, like the accents, and the dots, and the slurs, and try to do justice to all of these. It takes a lot of attention to actually integrate this all into one sort of musical idea. Um, I  will play for you what I  think of this piece, but obviously it’s almost like a cadenza within the piece so any suggestion of yourself or anything you would like to do with it is great. It doesn’t have to sound the same at all. He plays the excerpt

B:

So, this is just my interpretation. I’m very interested in what I hear back when you send in your own version.

Analysis Aspect Modality of Instruction Referential Directness Method of Instruction Instrumental Particulars

musical character, captivating the listener’s attention speech direct reference to musical character study the score; pay attention to character, articulation, and dynamic markings *subsidiary aspects only—in achieving specific targets for character, articulation, dynamics, the restructuring of subsidiary aspects take on an “original” meaning

Embodied Musicality  45

He draws attention to musical context for the excerpt (after a violin cadenza), and the markings on the score (which include character headings, dynamics, and articulations). We can see what he is referring to here: The character headings in italics include “dolce, espressivo” (sweetly, expressive) at the top and “capriccioso, quasi recitando” (capricious, a bit like speaking) at the bottom. He says, “[I]t has to have a gentle feel (dolce) but quite quirky (capriccioso) at the same time.” He says that it is difficult to create these two qualities in the sound at the same time. In our discussion of Polanyi’s four terms of tacit knowledge, we said the semantic aspect of tacit knowledge includes those aspects in our subsidiary awareness which become meaningful or are used meaningfully in context. Fingerings became a thing through a process of practicing the Figaro excerpt, and once they are mastered, they can be deployed to create a sense of direction in the phrase. In this lesson, bassoonist 3 jumps to the semantic level but poses a problem: How can this be played both gently and “quite quirky” at the same time? While bassoonist 3 does not give exercises or suggestions for how to achieve these targets, he does tell his students to “pay close attention to the different things that are written in this part, . . . the accents, dots, and slurs . . . and try to do justice to all of these.” Target Particulars Method

Target Particulars Method

dolce ? play the accents, dots, slurs

capriccioso ? play accents, dots, slurs

Original Interpretation

He seems to be suggesting that the management of the detailed markings is one key to achieving an original performance of the excerpt. But what constitutes an original performance of this excerpt? How can such a detailed score be used as a source for an original interpretation? The score is very detailed, including pitches, rhythms, articulations (for the beginning and ending of the notes), dynamics, and character markings. It appears on the surface that there is little room for such creativity. Yet, a world-class expert, bassoonist 3, tells his students to present something original to him. One explanation lies in the restructuring that takes place each time a new focal target is presented. If the passage is performed dolce, then capriccioso is added, the particulars (or manipulanda) become known through the achievement of these targets. Bassoonist 3 seems to be suggesting that the work of “doing justice” to all the character and articulation markings will bring about an original interpretation of the music. What is it a knowing

46  Musical Thought on the Bassoon

of? Musical character. How is it known? Through a detailed investigation of what it means to evoke sweetness and capriciousness at the same time. In order to keep their character alive, the bassoonist continually present something new, as he says, “to captivate the listener’s attention.”

Case 2 Context

Famous bassoonists don’t all approach the instrument the same way. Different players develop in different contexts and orchestras, using different performance styles, and even different instrument designs. For an individual player, each moment may require a different balancing act for attention, and each student may raise slightly different performance problems. Bassoonist 2 has created an edited video of a semiprivate lesson on an excerpt from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, also discussed earlier. The bassoonist and his student are in the main view of the camera, and we can tell that there is at least one additional person in the room. The cameraperson is present in the lighting, sound, and camera angles. Bassoonist 2 appears to look and smile at someone (1:23), but that is the only indication we have of the presence of others in the room. This is a marketed lesson about tone production and quality. There are two meaningful layers: first, the public example of his approach to teaching and, second, the specific work on tone with the student. The analysis is focused on the lesson on tone production, not on the marketability of the lesson materials. That said, it is worth noting that some material has been removed from the longer session with the student. The video is edited in a few places (0:05, 0:47, 1:01, 2:05), indicated by the word [SNIP] in the following transcript. As before, to convey aspects of body motion in addition to speech, I have used the transcript conventions outlined by David McNeill (1992). The [square brackets] indicate speech, and the italics indicate the gestures that accompany speech. Sometimes it is easier to read the transcript by focusing first on the material inside the square brackets, leaving the accompanying gestures for later. I  have also organized the transcript to indicate phases of activity. Transcript 1

Activity 1—A lesson on tone quality (The video opens with bassoonist 2 [T] saying,) try Scheherazade one more time     [SNIP] The student plays the entire excerpt. (Once the student finishes, T says,) T:  Let’s

Embodied Musicality  47 T: Beautiful. [SNIP] T:  Now. One

thing     T takes his bassoon and plays E–F#–E–F#–G—F#–A–F# from mm. 23–24 of the excerpt. He pauses on the G as if paying attention to something. T:  [Be careful for the tone color there] taps left index finger toward S S: mhmm Analysis Aspect Modality of Instruction Referential Directness Method of Instruction Instrumental Particulars

tone color playing to discover and/or demonstrate listening to tone color direct reference to tone color demonstration of paying attention to tone color listening in the tone for particulars

Transcript 2

Activity 2—Particulars of tone color on E–F#–G actually just play E–F#–G–A] for each note he taps his left index finger up or down depending on the pitch     [SNIP] T: [Slowly.] left hand makes brief stop sign toward S     The student plays E–F#     (T interrupts) T:  [—All right the F#] // briefly raises right hand, then puts it on the horn     T with closed eyes, he plays the two notes (E–F#) slowly T:  [On the F# think] places the index finger and thumb on his throat, just under his chin, then moves his index finger to his lower lip T:  [don’t open the embouchure too much] finger to lower lip T:  [but think a little bit more open with the tongue] moves his left hand back to throat T:  [I think you’ll focus it better] grabs the air with left hand S: okay T:  when you go from the e to the F#     The student plays E–F#–G–A     T points left index finger in the air with each note and smiles T: [yes] smiling S: [yeah] he nods T:  you feel the difference? S: uh-huh T:  [Start

48  Musical Thought on the Bassoon Analysis Aspect Modality of Instruction Referential Directness Method of Instruction Instrumental Particulars

tone color speech, demonstration, experimentation, gesture direct reference to tone color and particulars of technique pay attention to specific bodily systems: think more open with the tongue, notice the embouchure, listen for consistency embouchure and shape of the oral cavity (mouth and throat)

Transcript 3

Activity 3—A new layer of awareness [sometimes F# can be sharp] right hand open, palm up m-hmm so [sometimes we overcompensate with our embouchure] right index finger and thumb touch lips S: m-hmm T:  [and we shouldn’t bite, absolutely] waves open right hand in the air, to the right S:  chuckles T:  [I’m not saying, Mr. T says, bite, on the F#] grins while speaking S:  chuckles    T moves his right index finger to his lower lip. T:  [but sometimes] right index finger and thumb make circle T:  [especially with advanced players] points to s T:  [when you’re already playing so well] taps right hand toward s S:  nods T:  [you’ve focused more in the past] right index finger points to lips T: [on] right index finger and thumb touch sides of mouth T:  [whether or not you’re biting] right index finger to lips T:  [and not concentrating] right index finger points to throat under the chin T:  [as much on your tongue position] right index finger and thumb touch either side of throat S: m-hmm T:  [so it’s possible] right index finger touches lips T:  [that in fact this is too open] right index finger and thumb touch the corners of his lips T:  [And as you try to open this] right index finger and thumb touch throat just below the chin T:  [to create more resonance] right hand “holds” the air in front of his face T:  [you actually go a little flat] right index, thumb, and middle finger come together S: yeah T:  [or hollow] right hand grabs the air S: m-hmm T: S: T:

Embodied Musicality  49 Analysis Aspect Modality of Instruction Referential Directness Method of Instruction Instrumental Particulars

tone color, identifying a new focal target for particulars (vowel shape) speech, gesture direct reference to tone color and particulars add to existing knowledge of embouchure an awareness of the shape of the oral cavity previous focus: embouchure (muscles in the lips, distance between teeth), new focus: oral cavity (vowel shape including tongue and throat)

Transcript 4

Activity 4—Components of tone quality [SNIP] (2:06) T: T: T: S: T: S: T: T: T: T: T: T: T: T: T: T: T: S:

[let’s say even if it’s not flat, but its somehow] right hand is round, holding the air in front of his face [not consistent with the other notes in terms of] flattens right hand and moves it three times in the air [the quality of the sound] right hand makes round shape in front of face m-hmm [and resonance] right hand holds a round shape in the air m-hmm so sometimes, [not that we would be biting] right hand closes, “bites the air” [but the point is] right index finger touches lower lip not to overcompensate [here] touches corners of his mouth but in fact to balance the [effort] nods to s of the [positioning of the embouchure] touches lips [as well as] pinches the skin under his chin, just above his throat Against or in [conjunction with would be a better way to put it] right hand wide, taps the air twice [in conjunction with] right index finger and thumb touch either side of throat under chin [the use of] flattens right hand, taps the air [this vocalization] right hand makes round shape in front of mouth [this vowel position] lowers right hand, nods with emphasis to s mhmm

Analysis Aspect Modality of Instruction Referential Directness Method of Instruction Instrumental Particulars

pitch, consistency, quality of the sound, resonance speech and gesture direct reference to target and particulars balance the effort, pay focal attention to aspects that generally lie in subsidiary awareness embouchure and oral cavity

50  Musical Thought on the Bassoon Transcript 5

Activity 4—A never-ending task T:  and that’s a [never-ending task] right index finger pointing up beside his head T:  [of listening to yourself] right index finger continues to point up as head leans

toward the finger T:  [and analyzing] right-hand fingers T:  whether or not you’re making

come together to form a point that [consistently beautiful sound] right hand makes three of the same shapes in the air T:  [with the same color on each note, and] with flat hand, draws a slur over the positions of the three shape he has drawn in the air T:  [then making those tiny adjustments] quick movements of right-hand shapes directed to s S: mhmm T:  which these are, [but important ones] right hand makes a grasping shape, head nods, and eyes look over glasses at s S: yeah T:  [to keep that sound in line] right hand makes round shape then moves back to the bassoon He plays the notes and the video ends Analysis Aspect Modality of Instruction Referential Directness Method of Instruction Instrumental Particulars

tone color (beautiful sound, consistency) speech, gesture direct reference to listening, paying attention to tone quality; direct reference to making “tiny adjustments,” “but important ones” telling the student to always pay attention to tone; to analyze the tone quality while playing embouchure, oral cavity

Speech and Gesture

Bassoonist 2’s goal is to teach the student what bodily systems to focus on in order to produce a consistent tone in this passage. To do this, he gives a direct reference to the part of the body to pay attention to: “don’t open the embouchure too much” “but think  .  .  . a little bit more open with the tongue.” Not only does he describe what to pay attention to, but he also indicates as much through his supportive use of gesture. The transcripts for case 2 are overflowing with gestures. This brief analysis of gesture use in case 2 demonstrates a focal awareness of instrumental particulars related to tone production on the bassoon. David McNeill (1992) outlines four categories for gesture types: iconic, metaphoric, deictic, and beating. Iconic gestures

Embodied Musicality  51

include a shape that has symbolic content, like the stop sign in the following statement from transcript 2: T

[Slowly.]

left hand makes brief stop sign toward S

A metaphoric gesture provides a picture of abstract content. Here we see him using several metaphoric gestures to describe a focused tone:

T2 T3 T3

I think you’ll focus it better to create more resonance you actually go a little flat

T3 T4

or hollow let’s say that even if it’s not flat, but its somehow not consistent with the other tones in terms of the quality of the sound and resonance

T4 T4 T4

grabs the air with left hand right hand “holds” the air in front of his face right index, thumb, and middle finger come together right hand grabs the air right hand is round, holding the air in front of his face flattens right hand and beats it three times in the air right hand makes a round shape in front of face right hand holds a round shape in the air

It is not a coincidence that the metaphoric gestures representing tone quality should be round, container-like. The roundness reflects the way T would like the student to think about the sound and the shape of the oral cavity. The flattened hand beating in the air three times refers to the consistency of the tone. But his gestures confirm that the tone quality should be round. Deictic gestures typically use the index finger to indicate something, as in the following statements. These deictic gestures demonstrate a focal awareness of the instrumental particulars. describing

indicating finger to lower lip

T3 T3

don’t open the embouchure too much but think a little bit more open with the tongue sometimes we overcompensate with our embouchure you’ve focused more in the past on

T3 T3 T3

whether or not you’re biting and not concentrating as much on your tongue position

T2 T2 T3

moves left hand back to throat right index finger and thumb touch lips right index finger points to lips right index finger and thumb touch sides of the mouth right index finger to lips right finger points to throat under the chin right index finger and thumb touch either side of throat

52  Musical Thought on the Bassoon

These are very specific and direct references to the particulars of tone production. Beating gestures add a temporal aspect to parts of the communication, as in the following examples: T2

(student is playing)

T4

not consistent with the other notes in terms of consistently beautiful sound

T5

T points left hand finger in the air with each note and smiles flattens right hand and moves it three times in the air right hand makes three of the same shapes in the air

A Never-Ending Task

Of all the many things one can attend to in the performance of this passage, in this lesson anyway, bassoonist 2 says to pay attention to tone color on the F#. Gesture use is fluid. Sometimes gestures involve more than one part of the body (hands, head) and sometimes categories are combined, as we see in the following string (transcript 5): speech

gesture

T5

and that’s a [never ending task] of listening to yourself

T5

and analyzing

T5

whether or not you’re making that [consistently beautiful sound]

right index finger pointing up beside his head (iconic—attention) right index finger continues to point up as head leans toward the finger (iconic—listen up) Right-hand fingers come together to form a point (metaphoric—fingers form a point) right hand makes three of the same shapes in the air (metaphoric—same shapes; beating—adding a temporal component to the three shapes)

T5

This analysis of gesture does not say everything about what bassoonists pay attention to. But it does very strongly indicate that the particulars of instrumental technique are always there in subsidiary awareness, ready to be called up and used in the creation of musical meaning. Tone color is a very important aspect of performance on the bassoon, and this lesson confirms that paying attention to tone—the quality, consistency, and pitch—is a “never-ending task.” Grounding the Lesson

In a face-to-face lesson, the bassoonist has an opportunity to ground the instruction, to assess whether his solution is effective (or not). For us, it is an opportunity to assess whether this focal attention on instrumental particulars can be taught, and we see a brief indication that it can in transcript 2: The student plays E–F#–G–A T points left index finger in the air with each note and smiles

Embodied Musicality  53 T: [yes] smiling S: [yeah] he nods T:  you feel the difference? S: uh-huh

The bassoonist hears the difference, and the student confirms that he “feels the difference.” Feeling the difference is the key to determining if the student has been able to locate the manipulanda and use them to produce the changes asked for in the lesson. Layering of Particulars

As in case 1, the bassoonist seems aware of a layering of tacit knowledge in tone production (transcript 3). However, in this lesson the instrumental particulars are addressed focally, and the bassoonist instructs the student to always pay attention to them.

Target Particulars Method

New Target Particulars Method

tone production embouchure (muscles of the lips), distance between teeth creating a shape to allow the reed to vibrate

tone quality the “vowel shape”—shape of the oral cavity, tongue position, openness at the back of the throat making a “round” sound by paying attention to “tiny adjustments” of the shape of the mouth

Case 3 Context

In 2011, bassoonist 1 led a public dress rehearsal with a student orchestra to introduce sections of his new composition for bassoons and orchestra. Bassoonist 1 is standing at the front of the orchestra with two other bassoon soloists. The orchestra of about 20 people consists of violins, violas, cellos, basses, French horns, and a harpsichord but no conductor (apart from bassoonist 1). At the start of the video, we see him take a reed from his case, put it on his bocal, take a breath, and play. The orchestra begins right along with him, and to an outsider, it might seem incredible that this was all it took to begin the performance together. Clearly, we arrive partway through an ongoing rehearsal.

54  Musical Thought on the Bassoon Transcript

(They begin from the top. Bassoonist 1 looks toward the violins in the ­second phrase while playing alternate rhythms with them. He raises his right index finger and takes his reed off his bocal. To the audience, he says,) what I do] holds reed up to the audience then brings it to his mouth     he plays a tone on his reed, about 5 seconds long, to the audience, leaning forward B:  [I’m not doing] brief shake of his head     he plays 5 short tones on his reed, to the audience, bouncing with each tone B:  I do /     (He plays one longish tone, about a second long, leaning further to the audience, and then looks briefly at the violins) B:  [You think about this] taps right index finger to audience, puts his reed back on his bocal, looks left and right, breaths, bobs, and they begin as before B:  [Look

Analysis Aspect Modality of Instruction Referential Directness Method of Instruction Instrumental Particular

articulation and phrasing speech, gesture, reed sounds oblique mimicry (do what I do) by isolating (abstracting) breath support, he points to the sound activator systems of multiple instruments

This brief instruction to the orchestra involves an oblique reference to the particulars of instrumental technique. As researchers of cognition in music performance, we want to know more about what was communicated. However, we cannot learn much more than “pay attention” from the words used by bassoonist 1. To find out exactly what he was communicating to the orchestra, we need an analytical framework to help unpack the tacit aspects of his communication. To do this, we will first characterize the activity, then we will unpack modality of instruction, and finally, we will identify the particulars referred to in the transcript. The Joint Activity

An activity has an identifiable beginning, middle, and end, an identifiable goal and number of participants, a specific physical and social setting, and some limitations or constraints on what counts as a contribution (Clark, 1996, p.  30). With Clark, we are primarily interested in “joint activities,” those activities that involve more than one participant and that give rise to language use. We can apply Clark’s “joint activity theory” to learn more about how meaning is negotiated in bassoonist 1’s brief instruction to the orchestra. Viewing this brief instruction as a joint activity helps us analyze some aspects of music-making in greater detail without losing sight of the

Embodied Musicality  55

context. For example, we can identify when an activity begins and ends, who participates, what is the basis of the participation, and how successful the participation seems to be. Bassoonist 1’s brief instruction to the orchestra is an example of a joint activity. It has an identifiable beginning (the action of raising his hand to stop the orchestra) and ending (the action of putting his reed back on his bocal to cue a new start). Joint activity: brief instruction to the orchestra Initiation—Bassoonist 1 raises hand to stop the orchestra. Maintenance—Bassoonist 1 demonstrates what he is doing and what he is not doing. Termination—Bassoonist 1 puts reed back on bocal and cues the orchestra to begin. Oblique reference: His demonstration asks the orchestra to use a more legato articulation, to remind the orchestra to listen more closely to his phrasing while playing, and to give the audience things to listen for in the upcoming performance. But he says none of this. He simply performs as indicated. Participants: Bassoonist 1 is clearly leading this activity. He is the only person speaking. However, his actions involve the participation of members of the orchestra and members of the audience in different capacities. It is only with their participation that this becomes an instruction to the orchestra. Role

Speaker/Leader

Addressee 1

Addressee 2

Addressee 3

Participant

Bassoonist 1

Violin section

Orchestra

Audience

Actions or Information

Demonstration

Identify purpose for stopping, and how to change their performance to match the instruction

Reminder to listen more carefully to soloist and phrasing while playing

Things to listen for in the final performance

Actions: breath cue raising hand

to start the orchestra to stop the orchestra

Joint activities like “brief instruction to the orchestra” involve smaller actions like breath cue and raising hand to start and stop the orchestra, respectively. The breath cue is given by the leader, and the participants know what to do in response to this cue. Bassoonist 1 and the orchestra know what

56  Musical Thought on the Bassoon

aspects of the breath cue are important as indications of timing, tempo, and character. The audience knows that the breath cue of the leader signals the beginning of the performance. Each participant has knowledge of their role. These activities are nested within the larger goals for the gathering (public dress rehearsal to introduce the composition). Bassoonist 1 speaks to the audience and the orchestra when he gives his instruction. His message for the audience, “here are some things to listen for in the performance tonight” is different from his message to the orchestra, “pay attention to the movement in the phrase.” Yet these occur simultaneously. By identifying the boundaries of larger and smaller joint activities, we can identify who is participating in what capacity and which actions play a meaningful role. Moreover, we develop a more detailed picture of specific moments without losing sight of the context. Herbert H. Clark’s (1996) “joint activity theory” is a powerful conceptual framework for analyzing lesson data. Modalities of Instruction

In his brief instruction to the orchestra, bassoonist 1 uses three modalities of instruction, words, gestures, and reed sounds to draw the attention of the orchestra to an aspect of the performance. Words Gestures

Reed sounds

“look what I do,” “I’m not doing,” “I do,” “You think about this,” raises right hand index finger, holds reed up to audience, leans forward, shakes head, bounces head, pauses, leans forward further with mouth open, looks around, taps right finger to audience, looks left and right, breathes and bobs in tempo five-second tone, five short tones, one-second tone

When bassoonist 1 plays the five-second tone, he leans forward and holds the tone slightly longer than is comfortable. He leans in and holds the position. Then he makes a contrasting short and choppy sound while bouncing his head. He is demonstrating that they must play more legato in order to give more movement or direction to the phrase. Legato articulation on the bassoon is carried out differently than it is on the violin. On the surface that doesn’t matter, since the violinists did what he asked. But we can use this example to expand our understanding of this tacit instruction by identifying the particulars of technique he uses to convey his message. By taking his reed off his bassoon and “abstracting” an aspect of performance for the orchestra, bassoonist 1 draws attention to a particular of instrumental technique. By blowing into his reed and playing an uncomfortably long sound while leaning forward, he draws attention to the sound activator in bassoon technique, breath support. Making the sound requires him to push air through the reed at a consistent pressure for five seconds.

Embodied Musicality  57

Leaning forward farther activates the abdominal muscles that provide the constant breath support. By abstracting this aspect of technique, he draws attention to something deeper than the notes. In fact, we could say he erases the notes and draws attention to the pressure that underlies them. Bassoonist 1 then contrasts the sustained sound with five short reed sounds, bouncing up and down while he plays. The message is clear: put pressure beneath the sound and sustain that pressure through the notes to create a sense of movement in the phrase. This demonstration seems to reflect what McGill was suggesting when he says, “[A] musical line is just one note” (2007, p. 266). Bassoonist 1 draws attention to “what lies beneath” the notes, not the notes themselves. The violinists use a different sound activator, and they may not know very much about how a bassoonist supports their sound, but they know how to match his abstraction of technique on their own instruments. They find a way to sustain the pressure beneath the notes to create a sense of movement in the phrase.

Discussion Aspects of Music

The following aspects of music are represented in these three cases: Case 1

Case 2

Case 3

blend with strings capture the mystery

tone color—listening for/in embouchure’s role in tone color attend to shape of oral cavity tone color—pitch tone color—quality tone color—consistency tone color—resonance tone color—beautiful sound never-ending task of listening

articulation phrasing

technical facility get comfortable with it smoothness varied rhythms shape and direction of the phrase musical character captivate listener

sound activator listening mimicking

This presentation of the aspects of music performance differs from the longitudinal case study findings that have led to Roger Chaffin’s “performance cue theory” as discussed in Chapter 1. In performance cue theory, there is an implicit bias toward structural goals—represented in the hierarchy of performance dimensions from basic to expressive to interpretive (see Chaffin, Imreh, & Crawford, 2002; Chaffin et al., 2009). Here we see more detail regarding the role of instrumental particulars in achieving musical meaning. In case 1, it is the daily practice and layering of focal targets that condition

58  Musical Thought on the Bassoon

the performer to make music in both excerpts. In case 2, it is the “neverending task of listening and making tiny adjustments” to the quality of the sound. In case 3, it is the reminder to listen and mimic the phrasing and articulation of the soloist through a focus on the sound activator. This more embodied focus allows us to see how instrumental particulars can become a basis for musical meaning. Instrumental Particulars in This Case Study

Clearly these three cases do not present a complete picture of the instrumental particulars of bassoon performance. Only a few are covered in these lessons. A more complete catalog of particulars could be developed following an analysis for more lessons by a broader range of bassoonists. However, we do see four major bodily systems engaged in performance on the bassoon. Case 1 Case 2 Case 2 Case 3

finger coordination embouchure oral cavity (vowel shape) breath support

We learned in case 1 that finger coordination is more than just putting the fingers in the right place at the right time. It involves making decisions about which fingerings to use and then working slowly and building a passage one note at a time until it is “comfortable.” Comfort is important because of the amount of time bassoonists spend practicing. Imagine practicing two hours per day. If it is not comfortable, injury can result. So comfort is an important early target for technical facility. Each time a new note or rhythmic alteration is added, the bassoonist works until a state of comfort is reached. But in the process of building this comfort, finger coordination becomes an aspect of music for use in negotiating musical meaning. When the baton goes down on the “Overture” to Figaro, the bassoonist must be able to blend with the strings to initiate the mysterious opening to the story. We learned in case 2 that listening to aspects of tone color is a never-ending task involving tiny adjustments to the embouchure and “vowel shape.” This is not a beginning lesson on the bassoon. This is an advanced lesson, in which the student is being trained for professional performance and auditions. A professional bassoonist, we learn, always pays attention to the pitch, quality, consistency, resonance, and, in some cases, beauty of the sound. For bassoonist 2, the primary goal is to maintain a consistently beautiful sound in Scheherazade. For bassoonist 3 (case 1), the primary goal for Scheherazade is to present something original. These may seem like differences on the surface, but both bassoonists are doing the same thing: preparing a student for a professional setting. If a bassoonist is in condition to perform

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the excerpt with either of these targets, they will be prepared to make the necessary changes to suit the performance goals of the ensemble. They will have experience attending to and restructuring the particulars of instrumental performance on the bassoon. We learned in case 3 that this automatic restructuring is called on in real-world performance. The bassoonist/conductor does not sit down and describe every aspect of attention for the members of the ensemble. He expects them to know what to do to meet his goals for participation. Note that he is not prescribing a phrase shape. He is saying, “Listen and do as I do.” The orchestra complies. Referential Directness

It can be difficult to determine the referential directness of a musical instruction. This is because there are multiple layers of skill involved in almost all musical activity. Often, the referential directness can be determined by asking, “Reference to what?” In case 2, the bassoonist makes a direct reference to the particulars of tone production—embouchure and the shape of the oral cavity. He knows that the ability to attend to these tiny adjustments will make all the difference in a professional setting. In case 1, the bassoonist makes a direct reference to fingerings when he suggests the use of the whisper lock. After that, he gives oblique and indirect reference to finger coordination by focusing on comfort, smoothness, and varied rhythms. He knows that finger coordination will “become a thing” through doing the activities he suggests. The student, by doing these activities, will come to know finger coordination in a way that conditions them for professional activity—making meaning through the ability to restructure subsidiary aspects of finger coordination in context. In case 3, we catch a glimpse of the way instrumentalists engage their tacit knowledge in situ. The study of cognition in music performance should begin with a careful study of the particulars of engagement on individual instruments. As I have demonstrated here, aspects of bodily engagement become meaningful through their use in musical activity. The instrumental particulars become an important source of musical knowledge and coordination. In Part III, we look at some of the ways this knowledge is used in ensemble coordination.

References Chaffin, Roger, Gabriela Imreh, & Mary Crawford. (2002). Practicing Perfection: Memory and Piano Performance. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Chaffin, Roger, Tania Lisboa, Topher Logan, & Kirsten T. Begosh. (2009). “Preparing for Memorized Cello Performance: The Role of Performance Cues.” Psychology of Music. DOI:10.1177/0305735608100377 Clark, Herbert H. (1996). Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

60  Musical Thought on the Bassoon Coffey, Amanda, & Paul Atkinson. (1996). Making Sense of Qualitative Data: Complementary Research Strategies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc. Creswell, John W. (1998). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Traditions. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc. Demos, Alexander P., Tania Lisboa, Kristen T. Begosh, Topher Logan, & Roger Chaffin. (2018). “A Longitudinal Study of the Development of Expressive Timing.” Psychology of Music, 22(4): 519–538. Ginsborg, Jane, & Roger Chaffin. (2011). “Performance Cues in Singing and Conducting: Evidence from Practice and Recall.” In Music and the Mind: Essays in Honour of John Sloboda. Eds. I. Deliege & J. Davidson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 339–360. Goertz, Gary, & James Mahoney. (2012). “Scope in Case Study Research.” In The Sage Handbook of Case-Based Methods. Eds. David Byrne & Charles C. Ragin. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., pp. 307–317. Hutchins, Edwin. (1980). Culture and Inference: A Trobriand Case Study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hutchins, Edwin. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. McGill, David. (2007). Sound in Motion: A Performer’s Guide to Greater Musical Expression. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. McNeill, David. (1992). Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal About Thought. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Morelli, Frank. (Ed.) (2019). The First Complete Weissenborn Bassoon Method and Studies, Op. 8. Volumes 1 & 2. New York, NY: Carl Fischer Music. Perri 6, & Christine Bellamy. (2012). Principles of Methodology: Research Design in Social Science. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc., pp. 102–128. Polanyi, Michael. (1966). The Tacit Dimension. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc. Stake, Robert E. (2003). “Case Studies.” In Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry, Second Edition. eds. Norman K. Denzin & Yvonna S. Lincoln. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc., pp. 134–164. Yin, Robert K. (2018). Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc.

Part II

Representation

The second part of this volume explores the idea of representation and the central role it plays in many areas of cognitive science. From its rejection in the works of James J. Gibson (1982) to its development in the work of David Marr (1982) to its critical role in the theory of distributed cognition (Hutchins, 1995; Norman, 1993; Kirsh, 2010), representation is an essential piece of the conceptual toolkit for cognitive science. Here, a cognitive process is defined by the way informational resources are transformed in musical activity.

3 Defining a Field of Musical Operations

Music is often described as patterns of sound in time. This description emphasizes listening. Sometimes music is described in structural terms, as the organization of patterns of musical sound over time. This description emphasizes composition. Finally, music can be described as the performer’s expression, where sound is a representation of movement. This book is aimed at developing our understanding of cognition in the performance of music. In Part I, I explored some of the minutiae of musical thought on the bassoon. In Part II, I conceptualize the field of operation of a musician, the basis for participation in musical activity, and the role of informational resources in that activity. In the Introduction, I stated that a study of cognition in music performance must adopt an appropriate ontology of music. In other words, we must ask, “Can music be defined by kinds of engagement as well as patterns of sound? If so, what insights can be generated?” In their 1992 contribution to an edition of The World of Music devoted exploring links between ethnomusicology and music cognition, John Baily and Peter Driver point to the intriguing possibility of a “motor structure” or “motor grammar” of music (p.  63). Their hypothesis is that “musical patterns are remembered and executed not solely as aural patterns but as sequences of movements, and that the music is therefore represented cognitively in terms of movement patterns” (p. 62, my emphasis). Here, Baily and Driver point to movement as a basis for musical representation, reflecting an activities ontology of music. This contrasts with the materials ontology of music in which the structure of musical notes forms the basis of representation. The materials perspective is characterized in Charles Nussbaum’s naturalistic philosophy of musical representation: music has meaning because its surface features can represent aspects of life and emotion (2007), and these representations form the basis of musical thought more broadly. Representation in Nussbaum’s view is the idea that musical sound can “stand for” aspects of human experience (e.g. emotion, movement, social order). The surface features of music are hierarchically organized as musical structures that, according to Nussbaum, “put the listener’s body into off-line motor states that specify virtual movements through a virtual terrain or a scenario possessing certain features” (p. 47).

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Although it is not entirely clear what sort of terrain or scenario is being engaged (i.e., playing an instrument or imagining a scene), it seems that the listener experiences some type of simulated imaginative (virtual) movement in response to musical sound. In the traditional ideas of musical representation, a work of music consists of an internal logic, a set of functional relations between musical materials as conceived by a composer, realized by a performer, and understood by a listener. Although this traditional view has been challenged in musicological circles, the idea “continues to regulate musical practice” and research (Butterfield, 2003; see also van Leeuwen, 2012; Stevens, 2012). Nicholas Cook (2001) aimed to define a research landscape that would adequately recognize knowledge making in musical practice. In Cook’s proposal, performances are social processes, instances of a musical work that can be compared dialectically.1 An analysis of the social interactions in performance can also be undertaken within a discourse studies frame (van Leeuwen, 2012), shedding light on the function of music-making within a culture. In this book, I demonstrate that the analysis of social interactions between performers can also be studied with the aim of exploring processes of attention and awareness in music-making. This requires an ecologically valid definition of representation in music performance. It is perhaps fitting that the call for a reconsideration of representation comes from the field of ethnomusicology. Baily and Driver (1992) raise questions of representation when defining the landscape for future research: “How does the performer consciously represent the task performed, in terms of the planning and execution of action? How is that representation used in the process of performance? What do musicians have to tell us about their introspections regarding performance?” (p. 59). They call this approach the “cognition of performance,” to avoid confusion with the “music cognition” approach that focuses primarily on the listener. In the years since Baily and Driver (1992), we have seen other research aimed at understanding embodiment in music-making. In particular, works of music theory have expanded our understanding of embodiment as an aspect of musical conceptualization (Butterfield, 2003; Zbikowski, 2002, 2006). Here, embodiment is defined from the field of embodied cognition (Johnson, 1990; Lakoff, 1987; Fauconnier  & Turner, 2002), where somatic experience plays a constitutive role in musical pattern-recognition (see Saslaw, 1996; Zbikowski, 1997, 2002; Larson, 2012). These works are primarily concerned with explaining expressive meaning in music (Larson, 2012), and how listeners make sense of musical sound (Zbikowski, 2006). Although the aim is to present a broader explanation for musical understanding, like Nussbaum’s work discussed earlier, these works operate from the more traditional materials ontology, focusing on embodied processes as they inform musical understanding through listening and/or analysis.

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Music theorist Jonathan De Souza (2017) proposes a different scope of analysis, an analysis of the performer’s moves within a mathematical model of the affordances of a musical instrument. De Souza traces his idea of instrumental affordances to the ecological psychologist James J. Gibson (De Souza, 2017, chapter 2, p. 10).2 For De Souza, an instrumental space affords movements that reflect (the body) back to the performer in the task of realizing an auditory image. He says, in chapter 3 on page 28, All of this, finally, can help explain why musicians sometimes claim that an instrument feels like part of the body. I would hypothesize that such experiences are more common when multisensory feedback is maximized—that is, when an instrument’s sound reflects multiple aspects of the player’s action and when tactile and visual feedback match the auditory image. In other words, the illusion of instrumental incorporation seems more likely with human activation and control than with a self-propelling instrument like the Monome. In De Souza’s view, the “illusion of instrumental incorporation” “matches tactile and visual feedback with the auditory image.” He takes a transitional perspective between the materials and activities ontologies but does not consider movement as a basis for knowledge making in musical activity, or music-making. In the materials ontology, the auditory image is something a musician strives to achieve for the listener. In the activities ontology, movement is the basis for musical thought. In a similar vein, Huron and Berec (2009) assert that Gibson’s idea of affordances is similar to the traditional organological concept of “idiomaticity,” the set of characteristic musical sounds of an instrument. Huron and Berec (2009) characterize their approach this way: “Using Gibsonian terminology, we might say that the trumpet affords the possibility of generating a sound that alludes to a neighing horse” (p. 104). This is a very good example of an error in understanding the explanatory scope of Gibson’s idea of affordances. I argue that Huron and Berec are characterizing idiomaticity in this passage, not affordances as defined by Gibson. The Gibsonian affordances of the trumpet can be better characterized through a catalog of instrumental particulars as I  do in Chapter  2, rather than in a catalog of characteristic musical sounds. Gibson’s idea of affordances went well beyond simply identifying how an object might be used on the basis of its physical properties. Gibson’s theory of affordances explicitly addresses the “complementarity of the animal and the environment” (1979, p. 127), arguing that affordances cannot be measured solely on the physical properties of environments or objects. Affordances are measured relative to the perceiver, in a unique relation with the perceiver. He says that “an affordance points both ways, to the environment and to the observer” (Gibson, 1979, p. 129). This means that our analyses will have to place a greater emphasis on the informational needs and

66  Representation

resources of the performer. Instruments should be viewed as value-rich ecological objects, approached in unique ways by individuals in different musical settings. A trumpet can be used by a jazz musician or by a Foley artist, in a marching band or in a symphony orchestra. Its use will be constrained by the unique performance goals of the artist, the shared goals of the ensemble, the heuristics of the performance genre, and the acoustics of the physical space. This does not mean that affordances are subjective, understood solely on the basis of experience. Rather, affordances are constructs that are codetermined by the organism and its environment. As we shall see, Gibson’s ecological physics was an attempt to conceptualize the information space of a perceiver carrying out activity in the real world, their field of musical operations. Whereas De Souza (2017) aims to capture the invariants of instrumental spaces and Huron and Berec (2009) aim to capture the characteristic musical sounds of an instrument, I focus more closely on defining the operational field of a musician.

Ecological Analysis In her review of cross-cultural approaches to the study of music perception and cognition, Catherine J. Stevens (2012) underscores the urgent need to account for different cultural systems of music-making. Her argument that theories of music perception and cognition have developed in a monoculture certainly rings true in her examination of the assumptions that underlie the research questions and theories in the field. As if pointing to the emergency exit, she says that “even in the Gibsonian ecological psychology sense, it is essential to consider the way a human interacts with the environment and what environmental structures, objects, and events afford” (Stevens, 2012, p.  654). Following Stevens (and Hutchins, 1995; Warren, 2012), I  reflect here on the ideas of James J. Gibson to discover what we can learn about ecological validity in music performance research. Notably, Gibson rejected the idea that perception is mediated by internal representations of things in the world (1979, 1982). Perception, he says, is contextually driven and determined by the informational needs of the perceiver. Walking Sitting

human perceives land as a surface for walking human perceives humansized surfaces for sitting

water strider perceives water as a surface for walking lizard perceives sunny surfaces for sitting

According to Gibson, perception is a relation between perceiver and world, not simply a reflection of the abstract properties of perceived objects. In the Gibsonian view, a musician is not striving to align their movements to reflect an ideal auditory image. A musician is engaged in a sonic relation with their environment.

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The scope of Gibson’s idea of affordances is very broad, encompassing physical substances, surfaces, spatial layouts, objects and tools, animals, and other people. For each of these instances, there is a relation to be studied, a set of “biological and behavioral facts” (1979, p. 137) governing the interaction. His theory of affordances seems to me to be an ontological commitment to studying the facts and behaviors within an appropriate scope for the research question. If the question is about the affordances of a trumpet, a Gibsonian-style analysis will be of the trumpet’s affordances for a Foley artist, or the trumpet’s affordances for jazz artist Dizzy Gillespie or classical artist Maurice André. When we go more deeply into the particulars of instrumental performance as I have done in Part I of this book, we notice that Mr. Gillespie’s relation with the trumpet will differ greatly from Mr. Andre’s relation with the trumpet. The trumpet affords for each of them certain possibilities that are “within range” of their unique abilities and goals. Analysis of the affordances of an instrument must acknowledge the explanatory boundaries of instrumental genres and situations of use. We would not expect Dizzy Gillespie and Maurice André to engage the trumpet in the same way. Their performances take place within the constraints of their respective genres and personal goals. Understanding something about the differences in the affordances of the trumpet for jazz and classical genres could be very valuable for modern students of the trumpet who very likely will be called on to perform crossover works. But if we only focus on the trumpet as an instrument space (see De Souza, 2017) or as a set of characteristic musical sounds (Huron and Berec, 2009), we will never account for the particulars of musical knowledge within and across genres of performance on the trumpet. Gibson’s rejection of the idea of an entirely internal mental representation is a parallel concern to the ontological tension I  have been describing in music research. Gibson would flatly reject the traditional idea of an auditory image as the basis for musical thought. To emphasize his rejection of the idea of an inner representation, Gibson argues that there is no separation between cultural and natural environments, no separation between mental and material. His ecological physics seems to focus on relevant informational and behavioral constraints, properly contextualized. In an unpublished essay exploring event perception, Gibson says that “human adults can know about astronomical events, chemical events, and even atomic events but what they perceive directly is terrestrial events” (1982, p. 204) or, I would say, humanscale events and situations. In this view, the “medium sized dry goods” (p. 217) of perception are those human-scale events and objects, often tacit, that afford our functioning in the world. For the trumpeter, this would be the human-scale social realities of performing on their trumpet, constrained by the genre, setting, and goals for the activity. In an essay he published in 1938 (republished in 1982) called “A Theoretical Field-Analysis of Automobile-Driving,” Gibson explains the ecological

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physics of driving (1982, pp.  119–136). He says, there is a “field of safe travel” in which a driver may progress that is not a physical space but is a “spatial field” (p. 121). The field moves with the car through space. Importantly, its point of reference is the driver. The field of safe travel is not the driver’s subjective experience of driving, nor is it a characterization of the road. It is an operational system within which a driver navigates. This system changes as the driver progresses, and a skilled driver, Gibson says, is one who knows how to respond instantly within that space to various changes they encounter along the way. The driver is not calculating speed or distance or time but responding to salient information for the purpose of maintaining a position within the field of safe travel. The field of safe travel is a conceptualization, but the driver may not be thinking about this field while driving. Nevertheless, the activities of driving (e.g., steering, braking) take place within this field. We can easily imagine different outcomes here. A less-skilled driver might respond too slowly to an oncoming car in the wrong lane or a mechanical failure of their vehicle. But a skilled driver will know how to respond to a stall on the highway or a sudden encounter with black ice. If the driver is thinking about the field of safe travel, they might miss  a stoplight and crash. This is a fundamental problem for cognition in driving as well as music performance. Ecological physics is an expression of the realities of driving and in that sense; it is objectively determined. At the same time, however, the measure is constantly changing based on the capabilities of the driver and the conditions encountered along the way. Thus, it can be seen as a product of environment–organism codetermination. Similarly, a musician is operating effectively on the basis of a range of musical outcomes (determined by their participation in the activity), not a static interpretation of the music or adherence to the physical properties of sound. If a performer clings too strongly to a specific interpretive goal, they may miss the cue for another more evocative one. If a performer rigidly maintains their pitch at A = 440, they will be out of tune with the ensemble. No matter what level of skill or how much preparation precedes a performance or, indeed, which culture or genre of music is performed, all the participation in music performance is relative and dynamic. In each situation, there will be an optimum basis for participation. We can call this the musician’s playing field or the operational field of the performer.

Ecological Events For Gibson, one of the key issues in the analysis of cognition seems to be how to identify the correct scale within which to study perception. We don’t perceive units of space and time. He says that “there are no natural units of space except the components of a surface and no natural units of time except events” (Gibson, 1982, p. 208). When a person is walking, they

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walk in steps, not meters. In this view, an event in walking would be called a step. Steps occur in sequences that are seen, felt, and heard. The steps can be periodic and rhythmic, or they can adapt to surface features encountered along the way. Some steps are shorter than others, some louder, some softer. A different kind of step is required to turn a corner than to proceed straight ahead. Walking to the dentist when I’m 5 minutes late will necessitate a different step than my walk on the beach after writing. Steps are nested within larger events that constrain their features. In ecological analyses, events are nested and understood in reference to each other (Gibson, 1982, p.  208). Nowhere is this idea more relevant than in research on temporal hierarchies, entrainment, and synchronization (see Stevens, 2012, pp. 657–660). Stevens reviews cultural differences in the musical perception of time. Her characterization of temporal hierarchies in Western music is oversimplified to make a point about cultural variation. Western musicians understand meter and tempo through what she calls “simple ratios” (p. 657). However, Western musicians “walk in steps,” just like everyone else. A better question would be, What is the basis for identifying a musical event in this situation? It is important to distinguish between what we can conceptualize about musical time and what a musician is required to do when they play. There are no natural units of time in music, Gibson might say, just musical events. We can now think differently about practicing with a metronome. Practicing with a metronome is not about learning to “play metronomically” at the “right tempo” or developing an “internal clock” but to cultivate skill in the coordination of movement toward an external pulse. If a musician plays metronomically, they will be out of step with the ensemble. But being able to coordinate performance to an external pulse restructures the particulars in subsidiary awareness to develop the skillful responding necessary in musical practice. It is the skillful responding that will keep a musician “within the field of safe travel” as it were. Finally, we should not expect a musician from one culture or one genre to operate successfully without training in the musical style of another culture or genre. It is more appropriate to carefully examine the nature of performance activities being coordinated within a culture and within a genre with a coherent conceptual lens. Then coherent questions about cultural blends and cross-genre performances can take place. Our goal should be to identify musical events and assess the informational resources and operational processes involved. Then we can begin to characterize the operational field of a musician, to employ more effective cross-cultural studies of cognition in music-making.

Tracing a Path to Ecologically Valid Representations Ecological theories of cognition define a new role for representation in cognitive processing.3 Here, representations play a functional role, more like

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a constraint on information within the ecological physics of an event. I feel it is helpful to trace a path from James J. Gibson’s rejection of representation to David Marr’s (1982) revolutionary ideas on information processing to Edwin Hutchins’s (1995) groundbreaking cross-cultural studies of cognition in navigation. Following Hutchins down this path will help us define an ecologically valid understanding of representation for the study of cognition in music performance. David Marr (1982) is considered by many to have formulated the first comprehensive theory of perception (Peebles  & Cooper, 2015). By some accounts, he was greatly influenced by the work of James J. Gibson (Warren, 2012). Marr’s theory of vision laid out a “trilevel hypothesis,” that attempted to bridge the neural level, the cognitive processing level (what he calls, the algorithmic level), and the purpose for seeing (what he calls the computational theory of the organism; Marr, 1982, p. 25).4 Although David Marr was a neuroscientist, his aim was to teach a machine to see and, in doing so, discover something about human vision. Marr’s trilevel hypothesis was designed to study visual perception by attempting to bridge studies of neural hardware with the processes that give rise to their excitement. For example, his 1969 paper, “A Theory of the Cerebellar Cortex,” proposes a shift in understanding the role of the inferior olive and the cerebellar Purkinje cells in motor learning. He characterizes the previous assumptions about the activation of these cells: first, that these cells operate in a narrow, one-to-one relation based on inputs and defining actions and sequences of firings and, second, that the Purkinje cell can “initiate elemental movement” to a corresponding olivary cell. He then proposes more of an open account of activation, a maintenance of activity. In maintenance reflexes, he says, an olivary cell can be stimulated by “one or more receptors” (1969, p. 437) whose activity is reduced (constrained) by an involved Purkinje cell and that the pattern of activation of neurons “may be regarded as a stabilizing reflex circuit which is activated by learned mossy fibre inputs” (1969, p.  438). While I  am not a neuroscientist, and I am aware that the research on these processes has advanced well beyond his 1969 theory, I read his goal as a desire to move away from thinking about neural activation in a directional way to a more open reflex circuit that incorporates more of the behavior of the organism in relation to brain activity, what appears to me to be an important ontological shift toward ecological validity. Although many specific aspects of Marr’s model of vision were disconfirmed, his framework has had a tremendous influence on many computational approaches in cognitive science,5 and his work is seen as highly relevant (Peebles & Cooper, 2015; Warren, 2012) to current vision research. Gibson’s influence on Marr, Warren tells us, is seen in his “anti-reductionist view of explanation” (2012, p. 2). As Marr famously says, “trying to understand perception by studying only neurons is like trying to understand bird

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flight by studying only feathers: It just cannot be done” (1982, p. 27). Marr was deeply critical of theories of cognition that were not grounded in some way in biology. In a critique of the neural net theory in 1975, he said “hoping that random neural net studies will elucidate the operation of the brain is therefore like waiting for the monkey to type Hamlet” (Marr, 1991, p. 3). In a letter to Sydney Brenner, he seems pleased to “put the cat among the pigeons in a satisfying way” by demonstrating that some research findings are simply the products of the experimental design. He says, One of our wholly new findings is that the so-called center-surround organization of the retinal ganglion cells is all a hoax! It is nothing but a by-product of showing silly little spot stimuli to a clever piece of machinery designed for looking at complete views. (Marr, letter to Brenner, 1973 in Marr, 1991, p. 4) His tone in this private letter reflects a seemingly deep commitment to studying real-world problems however much he underestimated the difficulty in doing so (by his own admission in Marr, 1982, p.  16). What was important to Marr was identifying the correct type of analysis for studying human vision. He gives an example of a study that failed but that approached the problem correctly. By identifying aspects of vision that take place over time versus ones that happen quickly, they could potentially (1) model algorithms for these (parallel) processes and (2) identify neurons in which these changes may be taking place. Although he acknowledges his results were incorrect, he says they arrived at a “possible style of a correct analysis” (1982, p. 18): Gone are the ad hoc programs of computer vision; gone is the restriction to a special visual miniworld; gone is any explanation in terms of neurons—except as a way of implementing a method. And present is a clear understanding of what is to be computed, how it is to be done, the physical assumptions on which the method is based, and some kind of analysis of algorithms that are capable of carrying it out. (1982, p. 18) I read this statement as an indication that the information-processing view was devoted to defining a new role for representation. There is no “special visual miniworld.” Previously, I discussed the problem with using the auditory image or material structure of music as a basis for musical thought. This is an ontological problem in my view. A musician is not simply trying to project an idealized rendition of a musical work. A musician is operating within a range of social, perceptual, and informational constraints. In the preceding passage, Marr is saying that vision is not a matter of matching things in the outside world to internalized images of things we know about,

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or “visual miniworlds.” Similarly, music-making is not a matter of matching sounds we produce to “auditory images” of imagined performances. This distinction should be the starting point for descriptions of the informationprocessing view. Marr shares credit for the development of this “information-processing view,” with Tomaso Poggio and nods to others making similar observations (1982, p. 17), but the key point for me, and Warren (2012), is his insistence on ecologically valid research. Some instantiations and criticisms of the information-processing view (in the literature related to music performance at least) seem to miss this aim entirely (see De Souza 2017; van der Schyff, 2019). We can read Marr hinting at something like Gibson’s (1938) “field of safe travel” when he characterizes the algorithmic level this way: There must exist an additional level of understanding at which the character of the information-processing tasks carried out during perception are analyzed and understood in a way that is independent of the particular mechanisms and structures that implement them in our heads. This is what was missing—the analysis of the problem as an information-processing task. Such analysis does not usurp an understanding at other levels—of neurons or of computer programs—but it is a necessary complement to them, since without it there can be no real understanding of the function of all those neurons. (1982, p. 19, my emphasis) Rereading this passage in the context of Gibson’s work, and somewhat on Warren’s (2012) prompting, I  think it is certainly possible that the ­information-processing task identified by Marr may have an element of the ecological physics which Gibson sought. I see the diving gannets as an example of this. The glints of fish in the water are static affordances that trigger the dive. The dive itself creates the dynamic affordance of the flow field that guides the bird to its prey. Similarly, a driver’s gaze orients toward the flow field created on the highway, deviating only when their task demands it. Earlier I mentioned that Gibson distinguished “a physical space” from “a spatial field,” the latter being something like a “field of safe travel” for a driver in a car. This field is not a subjective experience of driving or an objective measure of the road surface, but a range of operational possibilities in reference to a driver. To me, this is not unlike what Marr is describing when he says [the algorithmic level] is a necessary complement to the structures (neural hardware), particular mechanisms (reflection of light on the retina), and “computer programs” sometimes called the “computational theory of the organism” (1982, p. 25). The following chart from page 25 of Marr’s first chapter, “Understanding Complex Information-Processing Systems,” shows the three levels “at which any machine carrying out an information-processing task must be understood”:

Defining a Field of Musical Operations  73 Computational Theory

Representation and Algorithm

Hardware Implementation

What is the goal of the computation, why is it appropriate, and what is the logic of the strategy by which it can be carried out?

How can this computational theory be implemented? In particular, what is the representation of the input and output, and what is the algorithm for the transformation?

How can the representation and algorithm be realized physically?

From Symbols to Processes

According to Marr, “a representation is a formal system for making explicit certain entities or types of information, together with a specification of how the system does this” (1982, p. 20). An information processor selects information through a process of grounding. To illustrate this idea, Marr demonstrates how numeral systems “make explicit” (or, perhaps, afford) different calculations. The Arabic numeral system “makes explicit” powers of 10, whereas the binary numeral system “makes explicit” powers of 2. Compare these three representations of the number thirty-seven: Arabic 37, binary 100101, Roman XXXVII. These number systems are employed in different tasks and settings to carry out transformations specific to that system. It is not likely that one would choose Roman numerals for a multiplication problem. Marr says that the choice of a representation determines the information that is made explicit and the information that is hidden (1982, p. 21) for that process (see also Norman, 1993, pp. 53–60). Whereas a computer is programmed to recognize certain information as a representation, humans ground representations through experience.6 This means that the choice of representation is largely determined by the task and setting. Edwin Hutchins (1995) used this set of ideas to inform his crosscultural analysis of cognition in navigation. David Marr’s aim was to expand the scope of neuroscience to encompass more of the body/brain relation. Edwin Hutchins’ (1995) book “Cognition in the Wild” extended Marr’s framework to encompass the cognitive processes distributed between individuals and objects (tools or charts), between individuals working in groups, and between the working processes of individuals or groups displaced by time and space. As an anthropologist, Hutchins strived to make the “organization of systems of cultural representation visible” to cognitive science (1995, p. 66). Hutchins used Marr’s trilevel hypothesis to identify the way informational resources are selected, transformed, and implemented (largely through the use of external representations such as tools and charts). His analysis demonstrates how Western and Micronesian navigators organize the field of navigation into culturally specific informational resources for the purpose of navigation. Hutchins demonstrates how experienced Micronesian navigators have learned to read the night sky and understand the positions of (both

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real and invisible) islands relative to fixed star patterns. They can “represent” (think with) the entire star path even when only a few stars are visible (important for navigation when cloudy). Hutchins calls this knowledge an “abstract sidereal compass” (1995, p. 70). The star path, combined with an intimate knowledge of swell patterns, migratory patterns, and ocean colors, allows Micronesian navigators to reliably reach their destinations. Importantly, the Micronesian navigator views the canoe as stationary; the activity of canoeing pushes the ocean and the fixed positions of the stars and islands past the canoe (1995, p. 71). Hutchins (1995) explains how this differs greatly from the Western systems of navigation in which the ship is viewed as moving across the earth from one location to the next (kind of like what we see when we watch an image of our car moving along a road map on our smartphone). I assume anyone reading this book will have experience using maps and globes. Perhaps some of us even understand how navigation differs when using a paper map, a set of directions, or GPS. All these systems rely on Western measurements of earth coordinates, so much so that we take these measurements to be real, even though they are representations that allow us to travel. Although navigation at sea is far more complex, especially on a complex vessel such as a naval ship, we rely on the same basic measurements for space, time, and distance. Systems of navigation have developed over centuries through the use and development of different navigational tools based on the same representational assumptions of space, time, and distance. Although different navigational charts may privilege some information and processes over others, the assumptions of Western navigation are embedded in these tools and technologies. Hutchins tells us that previous research on Micronesian navigation erred in assuming Western units of analysis to be basic (1995, p.  64). Because researchers were unable to see beyond Western representational assumptions for units of space, time, and distance, they were unable to grasp the Micronesian system of navigation. According to Catherine Stevens, a similar error appears in cross-cultural studies of music cognition (2012). When the representational assumptions of Western art music are assumed to offer the most general description of musical thought, the richness of cultural variation in musical activity is lost. This forces us to question the basis for participation in music, rather than assuming anything about musical units or patterns or groupings or tempi or aesthetic or expressive goals. In fact, it has been my experience that the representational assumptions of Western art music leave out much of the richness of cognition in music performance, even within Western genres of performance. The computational account offered by Hutchins revealed how informational resources are selected, transformed, and implemented differently in these culturally distinct navigation systems. Moving forward, the goal for an ecological analysis of cognition in music performance should include the following: a clear definition of the musical event, a transparent basis for participation, and an account of the selection, transformation, and implementation of informational resources. I call these

Defining a Field of Musical Operations  75

items the units of analysis for cognitive processes in music performance. Following Hutchins, I define the operational field of the musician as the scope, or level, of analysis. The level of analysis can be drawn at the person/instrument system (Chapter  4) or the ensemble system (Chapters  5–7). To maintain ecological validity, our analysis of cognitive processing must always refer to the appropriate level. An analysis of cognitive processing on the guitar should refer to the events, informational resources, and constraints relevant to the guitarist and their instrument. An analysis of cognitive processing in an ensemble must offer transparency regarding the goals and roles of participants and the level at which a unit of analysis is identified. Some units of analysis for cognitive processing will take place at the level of the ensemble; others, at the level of individual participation in the ensemble. The next chapter offers some analyses of performance data as a way of exploring the operational field of a guitarist. These data were gathered from lesson materials created by Paul Pigat between 2013 and 2016. Charts and drawings are interpreted and analyzed as cognitive artifacts, aspects of the musical environment that serve a representational function, to focus or constrain musical thinking with the guitar. The goal is to demonstrate a proper ecological analysis for cognition in music performance. In research on cognition in music performance, it is also important to examine the purpose for inquiry, what we hope to explain, and why. The analyses that follow are used to explore musical thinking on the guitar. The goal is to make transparent the role played by external representations, and to offer a picture of the guitar as a cognitive artifact for music-making.

Notes 1. Cook raises the idea of “performance scripts,” as “real-time social interactions between players” (2001, p. 15). I present an analysis of performance scripts in ensemble practice in Chapter 5 and extend that discussion in the Conclusion. 2. Huron and Berec (2009) similarly aim to model the affordances of the trumpet without regard for the informational needs of the person playing it. This reflects a problematic tendency of research in empirical musicology to trivialize the performer. 3. For a concise characterization of the tensions between situated accounts and symbolic accounts of cognition, see Donald Norman. (1993). “Cognition in the Head and in the World: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Situated Action,” Cognitive Science, 17: 1–6. 4. It is beyond my scope to present all the praise and critique of Marr’s trilevel hypothesis. For my purposes here, I travel a path laid out first by Edwin Hutchins (1995) to demonstrate a focused line of thinking for this complex line of inquiry. 5. Computational approaches in cognitive science include a range of analogies for mind: mind as computer, mind as neural net, and mind as a dynamical system. Each analogy deals with representation differently. Other analogies for mind see no role for representation, in particular, the “mind as standing wave” or “excitable medium.” Dealing with the range of distinctions between these analogies is beyond the scope of this book. 6. For a review of research and theory on perceptual symbols and grounding, please see Lawrence Barsalou (2010).

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References Baily, John, & Peter Driver. (1992). “Spatio-Motor Thinking in Playing Folk Blues Guitar.” The World of Music, 34(3): 57–71. Barsalou, Lawrence. (2010). “Grounded Cognition: Past, Present, and Future.” Topics in Cognitive Science, 2: 716–724. Butterfield, Matthew. (2003). “The Musical Object Revisited.” Music Analysis, 21(3): 327–380. Cook, Nicholas. (2001). “Between Process and Product: Music and/as Performance.” Music Theory Online, 7(2): np. De Souza, Jonathan. (2017). Music at Hand: Instruments, Bodies, and Cognition. Oxford Scholarship Online. Oxford University Press, DOI:10.1093/acprof: oso/9780190271114.001.0001 Fauconnier, Gilles, & Mark Turner. (2002). The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York, NY: Basic Books. Gibson, James J. (1938). “A Theoretical Analysis of Automobile-Driving.” American Journal of Psychology, 51: 453–471. In Gibson, James J. (1982). Reasons for Realism: Selected Essays of James J. Gibson. Eds. Edward Reed & Rebecca Jones. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Gibson, James J. (1979, 1986). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Gibson, James J. (1982). Reasons for Realism: Selected Essays of James J. Gibson. Eds. Edward Reed & Rebecca Jones. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Huron, David,  & Jonathan Berec. (2009). “Characterizing Idiomatic Organization in Music: A Theory and Case Study of Musical Affordances.” Empirical Musicology Review, 4(3): 103–122. Hutchins, Edwin. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Johnson, Mark. (1990). The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Kirsh, David. (2010). “Thinking with External Representations.” AI & Society. London: Springer. DOI:10.1007/s00146-010-0272-8 Lakoff, George. (1987). Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Larson, Steve. (2012). Musical Forces: Motion, Metaphor, and Meaning in Music. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Marr, David. (1969). “A Theory of Cerebellar Cortex.” The Journal of Physiology, 202(2): 437–470. Marr, David. (1982). Vision. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman. Marr, David. (1991). From the Retina to the Neocortex: Selected Papers of David Marr. Ed. Lucia M. Vaina. Boston: Birkhäuser. Norman, Don. (1993). Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine. Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Nussbaum, Charles O. (2007). The Musical Representation: Meaning, Ontology, and Emotion. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Peebles, David, & Richard P. Cooper. (2015). “Thirty Years After Marr’s Vision: Levels of Analysis in Cognitive Science.” Topics in Cognitive Science, 7: 187–190. Saslaw, J. K. (1996). “Forces, Containers, and Paths: The Role of Body-Derived Image Schemas in the Conceptualization of Music.” Journal of Music Theory, 40(2): 217–243, Fall.

Defining a Field of Musical Operations  77 Stevens, Catherine J. (2012). “Music Perception and Cognition: A Review of Recent Cross-Cultural Research.” Topics in Cognitive Science, 4: 653–667. Van der Schyff, Dylan. (2019). “Improvisation, Enaction & Self-Assessment.” In Oxford Handbook of Philosophical and Qualitative Assessment in Music Education. Eds. David J. Elliot, Marissa Silverman,  & Gary E. McPherson. Oxford Handbooks Online. DOI:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190265182.013.15 van Leeuwen, Theo. (2012). “The Critical Analysis of Musical Discourse.” Critical Discourse Studies, 9(4): 319–328. Warren, William J. (2012). “Does This Computational Theory Solve the Right Problem? Marr, Gibson, and the Goal of Vision.” Perception, 41(9): 1053–1060. Zbikowski, Lawrence. (1997). “Conceptual Models and Cross-Domain Mapping: New Perspectives on Theories of Music and Hierarchy.” Journal of Music Theory, 41(2): 11–43, Fall. Zbikowski, Lawrence. (2002). Conceptualizing Music: Cognitive Structure, Theory, and Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press. Zbikowski, Lawrence. (2006). “The Cognitive Tango.” In The Artful Mind: Cognitive Science and the Riddle of Human Creativity. Ed. Mark Turner. Oxford University Press, pp. 115–131.

4 Cognitive Artifacts

In ecological approaches to the study of cognition, the question of representation is more “when” than “what.” The goal is to identify when informational resources are taken up in musical activity. We aim to discover when something in the task or environment becomes part of the field of operation for a musician. In case study 1 (Chapter 2) we formulated this in terms of tacit knowledge. The scope of analysis in Chapter 2 was drawn around the person/instrument system. In this chapter, the scope is widened to include a person interacting with informational resources. We study drawings and charts to discover aspects of musical thought on the guitar. In Chapter 3, we learned that ecological approaches to the study of cognition in music performance require an appropriate scope, or unit and level of observation. We also learned that the point of reference should be the musician, not a musical or physical ideal (not an auditory image of an idealized rendition of a musical work and not an external measure of pitch or meter). This means that we need a way to account for the nature of the musical activity. In scripted genres, this can be formulated as a state of the activity: Is this sight-reading, woodshedding, memorizing, analyzing, rehearsing, practicing performance, or performing? The type of activity will tell us more about the focal targets. A key distinction between the ecological approach and other approaches is that we are not measuring the effectiveness of music performances. We are not expecting all trumpeters to sound alike. Nor are we expecting every use of a score will be for performance. We are seeking to understand the field of operation in reference to the person and their activity. Doing this will tell us more about the situated nature of musicmaking within the boundary we have drawn—around the guitarist and her external representations for musical thought. A representation is when information is focused into a form that constrains thought in some way. In his 2010 paper exploring the role of external representations in thinking, David Kirsh suggests that external representations change the “cost structures” of thought by allowing information to flow more easily to where it makes more sense (p.  442). He says this allows us to think in new ways. According to Kirsh, some forms of external representation provide “access to new operators . . ., encode

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structures of greater complexity . . ., bootstrap to new ideas and ways of manipulating ideas . . ., or harness the world to simulate processes that you cannot simulate internally or simulate internally as well” (2010, p. 442). For Kirsh, some representations involve “extra actions that help people anchor mental processes on external features or processes” (2010, p. 442). These extra actions help to establish a link between internal and external information spaces. In this view, a representation is when aspects of the environment (i.e., tools, drawings, gestures) reformulate information spaces to improve access to the necessary operations. A cognitive artifact is an object or technological invention that plays such a role in cognitive processing (Norman, 1993, p. 123). The idea of the cognitive artifact arose through research and analysis in the field of distributed cognition (Hollan, Hutchins, & Kirsh, 2000). Distributed cognition is an ecological approach to studying cognitive processes at different units and levels of analysis. For example, to understand how an aircraft carrier docks, one must include the cognitive processes of more than one person, more than one team of individuals. One has to be able to make sense of groups of individuals working with sophisticated technologies (see Hutchins, 1995). Cognitive artifacts on a ship are those tools and charts that enhance the computational power of a person or persons carrying out their tasks. In music performance, cognitive artifacts can include tools like a tuner or metronome that enhance a person’s ability to perceive pitch or meter. Viewed through the lenses of distributed cognition, however, a metronome is not a measure of a person’s ability to keep time. It is an aid in coordinating musical behavior. Similarly, a tuner, seen through the lenses of distributed cognition, is not a measure of a person’s ability to play in tune but an aid to coordinating the systems of sound activation. These two technologies are not an end in themselves but a means for coordinating musical activity. Cognitive artifacts, then, are a perspective we can take on cognitive processing. We can ask, what role does this artifact play in coordinating musical activity? We can ask, when does a musical score serve as a representation? An ecologically valid approach would first answer for whom, and for what kind of musical activity. For a music analyst, the traditional musical score is a representation of a musical work that is useful for forming higher-order operations, and possibly drawings of musical structure to allow analytical operations within and across musical compositions. For a performer, a musical score may serve as a coordination device (see Chapter 6), or as a point of departure for exploring instrumental technique. For the listener, the musical score may aid the perception of auditory events (Kirsh, 2010, p. 450). It should be clear by now that this is a way of thinking about how informational resources are used in musical thinking. The cognitive artifact is a way of conceptualizing the computational power offered by tools, drawings, and gestures in human activity (for research exploring the role of gesture please see McNeill, 1992; Goldin Meadow, 2003).

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Case Study of Cognitive Artifacts for Musical Thought on the Guitar Context: From 2013 to 2016 (four years), I took private lessons with composer and accomplished professional guitarist Paul Pigat. At this time, I was also teaching in cognitive science and continuing my research on cognition in instrumental performance. As a composer and improviser, Paul approaches performance as grounded in an acute awareness of musical thought on the guitar. We had many conversations about how musical thinking on the bassoon compared to musical thinking on the guitar. Lessons with Paul almost always went like this: I would arrive, and Paul would play something he thought I  might like to learn. Then he would teach me what he just played. He would show me the left-hand shapes, a few at a time, then the right-hand patterns to go with them. We would work in small chunks until I could play back a section of music. When he felt we introduced enough new material, he would create a chart or drawing as a visual aid to help me remember what we did. Sometimes the charts were of existing compositions, formulated in a way that would help me remember how to play them. Other times, the drawings were a basis for further exploration, a short pattern or shape he wanted me to expand on. Other times, they were maps of the guitar. One lesson, I showed Paul something I had learned from another guitarist, a way of improvising using only three strings. Paul pulled out a sheet of paper and drew a diagram of what I had shown him, formulated slightly differently. I looked at the sheet as he was drawing, and I said, That is a cognitive artifact! After that lesson, I  pulled together every chart and drawing Paul had made for me. I gathered the drawings as a case study in cognitive artifacts for musical thought on the guitar. What follows is an analysis of those charts and drawings as cognitive artifacts, ways of representing musical thought for performance on the guitar.

Mapping the Guitar The representational medium, the chart, has been carefully designed so that an easily obtained description of the displacement between positions is also a description of a plan for getting from one point to the other. —Hutchins (1995, p. 55)

Notational systems make some processes explicit at the expense of others. To illustrate, let’s compare the salient information in Figures 4.1 and 4.2.

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Figure 4.1  Visual Representation for Improvising in the Key of G Source: © Paul Pigat, used with permission.

Figure 4.2 is one of a number of progressive exercises designed by guitarist Scott Cook to support improvisation on three strings, what he calls, “referential playing” (2016, p.  5). Referential playing allows a guitarist to improvise along the neck of the guitar more freely, using a horizontal mapping for groups of notes that sound tonal but are not strictly tonal in the

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Figure 4.2  Exercise Using Three Major Chord Shapes Source: © Scott Cook (2016, p. 38), used with permission.

traditional sense of block chords and scale patterns. Figure 4.2 includes three notational systems (from top to bottom): standard notation showing the notes in treble clef; TAB notation showing the fret numbers for the 2nd (B), 3rd (G), and 4th (D) strings; and grids showing the chord shapes and their location shown by fret number at the top of each grid (9, 8, 6, 5). The instructions link the notated material by chord name and function. In this exercise, the function of the chords is to anchor movement along the neck of the guitar as indicated by the arrows. chord space function

to anchor movement along the neck of the guitar

It is important to emphasize that Scott Cook’s method for learning to improvise on the guitar is not fully represented in Figure  4.2. Cook does not advocate learning to improvise by memorizing chord shapes either in their traditional form or as represented in this chart. Rather, Cook introduces guitarists to a type of movement along the neck of the guitar using what he calls a “bowl of notes” that sound well together (2016, p. 6). He does not call the bowl of notes a key center as in traditional harmony. He calls them a “referential set” after David Lewin (1987). In Cook’s method, the guitarist moves along the neck of the guitar playing from the notes of the referential set of D major using a “spider walking” manner (one finger at a time). The chord shapes are transitory spaces, “landing chords” if you will, in a more open and flexible harmonic landscape where a guitarist uses a spider-walking motion for improvisation. Interestingly, the smoothness of the spider walk corresponds to the sonic representation for smooth voice leading.

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Spider walking with this bowl of notes produces the sonic representation of smooth voice leading. Motion spider walking

Sonic Representation smooth voice leading

Traditionally, voice leading is a matter of seeking conjunct motion between chord tones (move each voice the shortest distance possible). In this exercise, smooth voice leading is all about finger placement (move each finger the shortest distance possible within the referential set). This is a fundamentally different musical idea, even if the end result sounds similar. Movement is the home domain, sound its representation. The basis for smooth voice leading is efficient finger motion. Explicit and Implicit Information

The TAB notation in Figure 4.2 makes it easy to see common tones. Notice in the first and second measure, the 2nd string position is at the 10th fret. However, one must switch fingers to play that same position for both chords. The fingerings are not obvious. They must be worked out. So, we can say that the positions are explicit, but the movements required to achieve them are implicit. Fret

Finger

Fret

Finger

10 11 12

1 2 3

10 9 11

2 1 3

In Cook’s system, movement between chord spaces is executed one note at a time. But the specifics of that movement are not obvious. So, while there is a lot of information presented in Figure 4.2, the activity of improvising using these materials is implicit. Students are asked to work with the ideas gradually, through a series of lessons designed by Cook. It is through their practice and experimentation that they develop the skills of improvisation in his approach. One cannot read Figure 4.2 and then perform music with it unless one becomes familiar with the entire approach. Perhaps it is more correct to say that a student learns to recognize these shapes through their activities and that reading the chart is an outcome of that process, not the other way around. Figure 4.2 is not a visual representation for coordinating music performance. It is a way of representing the chord spaces within this type of musical activity. Figure 4.1, Pigat’s drawing, maps a similar performance landscape. Pigat does not call his scheme a “referential set.” Rather, his idea is that a guitarist using a traditional harmonic landscape can “break the rules” as they wish.

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He calls this his “square peg in a round hole” approach. He says that “you can make anything work if you emphasize it enough.” That said, his map makes it easy to see efficient finger movement along the neck of the guitar in the key of G. Figure 4.1 contains one notational system, an extended grid, drawn three times to demonstrate overlapping maps of the neck of the guitar. The first grid shows all three inversions of a G major, or tonic chord. The second grid shows all three inversions of the C major, or subdominant chord. The third grid shows all three inversions of the D major, or dominant chord. Those familiar with traditional harmony will know that these designations are associated with harmonic movement (see also Larson, 2012). Pigat chose to use roman numerals (V, VII, XII) to indicate the fret number for the location of the shapes. In contrast to Figure 4.2, Figure 4.1 can be read vertically, horizontally, or in chunks (circled chord shapes). The circled shapes make it easy to see how one might jump between root position chords or from a second inversion chord to a tonic root position chord. The inversion of a chord contributes to its quality and direction. Shape

Chord Position (quality)

Diagonal Check mark Straight line

Root position First inversion Second inversion

In both Figures 4.1 and 4.2 movement between chords is a function of spatial logic on the guitar, not an internal musical logic. Figure 4.1 makes it easy to do the following: 1. See chord inversions (circled) by shape and location. 2. See the most efficient movement between chord tones (by reading horizontally across grids). 3. Notice where symmetrical movement between chord shapes can take place (by reading horizontally). 4. See landing tones for improvised melodies. 5. Learn movement heuristics, such as “up two frets with this shape,” “down four frets to this shape.” Figures 4.1 and 4.2 have several things in common. First, they are representations of a way of thinking in improvised musical activity on the guitar. They both use just the inner three strings, and they both employ the same three-note chord shapes. However, the scope of the two representations is different. Figure 4.1 is a more complete map. With one drawing, a player can learn to improvise using chords and melodies in the key of G and then in any other key by applying the same movement heuristics on different frets.

Cognitive Artifacts  85 Figure 4.1 Musical event Basis Informational resources

Musical activity (field of operation)

Figure 4.2

following a harmonic landscape efficient movements between chord shapes as musical targets

following a referential set efficient movements between notes in the referential set (spider walking) situated seeing (with the visual progressive exercises to map) memorize location of chord inversions and their pitch classes locations chunking of movements movement heuristics (fret between pitch classes jumps, movable shapes) shown in a visual aid improvising improvising

Tonal Thinking

On the guitar, tonal thinking can be designed. Figures 4.1 and 4.2 offer one example of an operational space for tonal thinking designed for improvising

Figure 4.3  A Major Scale Source: © Paul Pigat, used with permission.

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along the neck of the guitar using only three strings. Figure 4.3 is a representation of a more traditional tonal design, with landing tones in scale patterns. An A major scale is shown in TAB notation with circled landing tones for an A major chord. In the staff just below the scale, there is a grid showing the A major chord tones. In the lower example, the same scale is shown with circled landing tones for a B minor chord built on the second scale degree. The B minor chord grid is shown at the bottom. In this more traditional design, a guitarist learns which tones to emphasize in an improvised melody. The arrows indicate movements between non-chord tones and landing tones. Each non-chord tone can approach a landing tone following the direction of the arrows. The idea is that a player should experiment with the scale in this way to develop a tonal sense of direction. The drawing shows movements that are meant to be practiced so that the operations within this space become second nature. Develop a Tonal Sense of Direction Basis for participation to develop a tonal improvising sense of direction

developing solo skills

Field of operation

practice the A major scale (starting at fret 5)

practice landing on chord tones

practice moving between chords in an improvised melody

Informational resources

fret pattern for A major scale

landing tones for all chords in A major

backing track in A

Musical event

motor script of the major scale pattern

motor scripts for shifting between chord tones

an awareness of how to “move in a direction” with the motor scripts

Motor Scripts

On the guitar, scales are movable. So, once a guitarist has learned to improvise in A major, they can shift the movement scheme to begin on a different fret for improvisation in any major key. Thus, the operational space being defined in this chart is not just the A major scale, but the finger motion events for performance in any major key. In other words, I need only learn how to improvise in one major key to improvise in all the other major keys. These motor scripts for improvising are unique to the guitar. On the bassoon, the scale for each key is fingered very differently. In each key, certain intervals will be easier than others, and each scale must be practiced independently. So the guitar “affords” improvisation in a way that the bassoon does not. This does not mean that it is impossible to improvise on the bassoon; it simply means that improvisation is carried out on a different basis on the bassoon than on the guitar. The basis for improvisation should be understood in an instrumentspecific, ecologically coherent manner.

Cognitive Artifacts  87 Different Performance Situations

Figures  4.4 and 4.5 show sections of the same musical work, John Renbourn’s “Bicycle Tune.” Figure 4.4 is in standard notation, and Figure 4.5 is in action notation. Figure 4.4 is an excerpt from an annotated score that was used to prepare a recorded performance. Figure 4.5 is an action notation that was drawn at the end of a lesson in the early stages of learning to play the piece. Both were used by the same player, me, but at different stages of musical activity. The basis for using these two types of notation is different, and the two types of notation make different processes explicit. Figure  4.4 basis—to meet performance targets: sound “as if ” riding a bicycle Figure 4.5 basis—to become aware of the musical events of the left hand The notated score shows the melodies, rhythms, textures, and larger musical structures of the composition. But the action notation makes explicit (affords) a very different type of musical event. Figure 4.4

Figure 4.5

Basis for participation

prepare a recording

Field of operation Informational resources Musical event

standard notation annotations as focal targets interpretive events

learn sequence of left-hand shapes grid chart grids for left-hand shapes movement between shapes

The action notation makes some performance processes easier and more fluid. When I asked Paul what he thought of the different types of notation he said, “[C]hord chart tab notation is the visual representation of the performance and mechanics of the piece while standard notation is a visual representation of the aural reality of the work.” In other words, the notated score works better for informing an interpretation, and the action notation works better for navigating the music. Sources of Musical Meaning

The annotated score in Figure 4.4, which is only partially available for viewing here, was generated in preparation of a recorded interpretation of the music, where I  was aiming to play the entire piece “as if ” riding a bicycle. This involved adding a layer of meaning to the music by carefully attending to emphasis, dynamics, timing, and voicing (texture). My goal was to carefully execute each phrase as if moving between stoplights on a bike path. The annotations allowed me to realize these targets more effectively, to add that

88  Representation

Figure 4.4 John Renbourn, “Bicycle Tune,” Section B, Measures 12–13, and Section C, Measures 15–16 Source: © Pentangle Limited, 1976. Chappell International Music Publishers Limited, used with permission.

Figure 4.5  John Renbourn, “Bicycle Tune,” Section B Source: © 1976 Pentangle Limited, action notation by Paul Pigat, used with permission.

Cognitive Artifacts  89

additional layer of meaning to the recorded performance.1 The musical phrases have a similar length and shape, and each cadence moves as if to pause on one leg for a moment. In some instances, aspects of the scenery would be visible in the textures created between voices. To bring these details out in my performance, I had to recognize where I could make subtle changes to what I was doing in order to bring out this musical idea. All these projections are artifacts of my training in concert genres of performance, and these are rich sources of musical meaning. The action notation, on the other hand, draws focal attention to the left-hand chord shapes and right-hand finger patterns. In order to learn the piece at all, I had to pay focal attention to these shapes. Paul taught me this piece by showing me the left-hand shapes and right-hand patterns, bit by bit, with me repeating back what he just played. In Part I, we looked at focal and subsidiary awareness in musical thought on the bassoon. Here it helps to think about these ideas on the guitar. For one thing, a person has to attend to the shapes and patterns to learn the music. Patterns of movement take on phenomenal and semantic properties as they are learned. Once they are learned, they remain in subsidiary awareness where they can be called up for use in generating musical meaning. One can not only play the piece but also move in a direction with it. When interpretive goals are focal, movement is coordinated to achieve those goals. It is important to note that genres of music performance define sources of musical meaning differently. A skilled fingerstyle guitarist may never think about projecting the activities of riding a bicycle onto the music. The shapes and patterns serve as the primary basis for participation in this style. Paul calls it “patternwork.” Genre Constraints

In the previous discussion, I draw out different sources of musical meaning along the lines of musical structure and musical activity. I  suggested that both ways of operating provide sources for musical meaning in different performance situations (recording vs. learning the work). There is more to say about sources of musical meaning in a different domain, performance genre. In Western art music performance, there is an expectation of interpretation as a source of musical meaning. However, in other musical performance genres, the source of musical meaning lies elsewhere (see Monson, 1996). To better understand these sources of musical meaning, we need to be able to identify the basis for participation, the operational field, informational resources, and what counts as a musical event. Patternwork

Figures 4.6 and 4.7 offer another opportunity to compare standard notation and action notation in my curated case study of charts and drawings. Within the scope of my work, these notation systems represent different ways of attending to musical activity.

90  Representation

Figure 4.6  Standard Notation for Étude Simples, No. 6, Measures 1–2, by Leo Brouwer Source: © 1972 Éditions MAX ESCHIG Reproduced by kind permission of Hal Leonard Europe S.r.l.—Italy.

Figure 4.7 Action Notation for Étude Simples, No. 6, by Leo Brouwer (© 1972 Éditions MAX ESCHIG) Source: Action notation by Paul Pigat, used with permission.

Basis for participation Field of operation Informational resources Musical event

Figure 4.6

Figure 4.7

visual analogue for the sound

visual analogue for the performance grid notation + pima movement between left-hand shapes and repetition of righthand pattern are focal shifting chord shapes are focal

standard notation cascading arpeggios and ringing pedal tones are visually salient and focal pedal tone, contrasted with the arpeggio

Cognitive Artifacts  91

Leo Brouwer’s Étude Simples No. 6 was one of the first pieces Paul taught me how to play. He taught me the work by showing me shapes in the left hand and patterns in the right hand. At the end of the lesson, he drew the action notation in Figure 4.7 for me to take home. Once I could play the piece, I purchased the score, which is shown in a brief excerpt in Figure 4.6. It was a surreal experience for me to read standard notation for a piece I could already play. In my previous experience as a bassoonist, this never happened. I immediately noticed aspects of the music that were buried in the grid notation. What Is a Musical Event?

Figure 4.6 musical events—cascading arpeggios with ringing pedal tones,2 optional right-hand patterns offering different arpeggiated shapes Figure 4.7 musical events—the shapes of the left hand with patterns of the right hand repeated twice for each shape This étude is a fine example of the patternwork Paul mentions as being characteristic of finger-style guitar. This étude is considered a concert work for performance in the Western art music genre. The basis for the music is the patternwork; the piece is very repetitive. Each shape is held for two iterations of the right-hand pattern. The shape of the arpeggio is determined by the right-hand pattern, and in a small caption above the notated score, Brouwer suggests alternate patters will work equally well for this étude. A musical event, then, is an iteration of the pattern. But when the standard notation is used, features of the sounded music become visually salient—and available as sources of musical meaning. Pedal tones and cascading arpeggios are artifacts of the standard notation. What Is the Basis for Using (This Representation)? What Processes Are Made Transparent (Easier), and What Processes are Buried Through the Use of This Notation?

Figure 4.6: the standard notation provides a visual analogue for the sound. Figure  4.7: the action notation provides a visual analogue for the performance. In the standard notation (Figure  4.6), the shape of the arpeggios and the ringing of the bass “pedal tone” is in the foreground. However, the lefthand chord shape is certainly not in the foreground in Figure  4.6. It is buried and must be worked out (the same note can be played in different places on the guitar). Brouwer does indicate fingerings and hand positions in the score, but these are not visually salient; they must be discovered. This is what makes Figure  4.7 useful: the chord shapes are in the foreground, easy to see and produce. Conversely, the arpeggio figure and pedal tone are not indiscoverable in Figure 4.7, because they are implied in the right-hand

92  Representation

pattern at the top of the page. But one does not see the gestures and ringing bass notes; one sees only chord shapes. Which is the better system for a guitarist to use? When I asked Paul this question, he said that “a combination of multiple [visualizations] will allow the guitarist many ways of [exploring] what the instrument can do.” He feels that the use of different systems for representing musical thinking on the guitar is an important part of operating musically as a guitarist. In What Ways Does the Notation Transform Musical Activity?

Figure 4.6: the notated score offers a persistent external reminder to let the bass notes ring. Figure 4.7: the chord shapes and names add information about the harmonic materials of the piece. Playing this étude with the traditional score, most of the information about specific notes is a wash because the notes pass by so quickly that they lack salience in the context of these patterns. However, the score does offer a persistent visual representation of the overall shape of each arpeggio and the reminder to let the bass pedal tone ring through each iteration of the righthand pattern. While the shape of the arpeggio seems to play itself through the right-hand pattern, the pedal tones are in the foreground, which draws attention to the sounding of the full harmonic texture. In the action notation, the harmonies themselves are foregrounded. In the lesson, Paul was teaching me to “think vertically” (harmonically) instead of horizontally (melodically), and naming chords and harmonies was an important part of that shift in thinking. He wrote chord names above the patterns as an aid for that process. Thus, in my lesson with Paul, the basis for using the action notation was to bring a focus to the left-hand shapes and their harmonic materials. The Guide Finger

It is interesting to note that neither notation system offered one of the most important aspects of musical thinking in this piece. The idea of the “guide finger” is not represented in either notation system. The guide finger is a target of focal awareness, a management of attention to finger movement in the left hand. Left-hand shapes involving all four fingers can be difficult to form with shifts in hand position. Sometimes a guitarist places the fingers down in an order determined by the activation of the string in the right hand. Strings that are struck first are tended to first. Other times, when the chord shape changes and moves to a different position on the neck, a guide finger is selected. The guitarist attends focally to the movement of just one of the four fingers, and the shape is formed automatically by the others. The choice of a guide finger may be different for each player

Cognitive Artifacts  93

or each shift. The guide finger is determined by “fit.” If it makes the shift easier, it is used. The “guide finger,” then, can be understood as a construct of performance on the guitar that allows more efficient movement between chord shapes. By itself, it is not a musical idea, but a way of organizing attention to achieve a smooth shift between the real events, the shapes of the left hand.

Designing Musical Spaces Paul Pigat teaches several skilled guitarists in different performance genres. Given his professional knowledge of the instrument and his skills as a composer, I asked him whether he sees himself teaching the instrument or the person. He replied, I think the goal is teaching someone how to conceive a musical idea and how that pertains specifically to the guitar. Each student is different, but the visual aspect of the guitar seems to be universally understandable. The guitar can do almost anything so there are more aspects to be considered. In the end, teaching musicality rather than physical technique is more valuable. As we have seen, musical creativity on the guitar flows from its flexibility, the possibility of using different combinations of left-hand shapes and righthand patterns for the same musical material. Consider the following drawing of the circle-of-fifths exercise:

Figure 4.8  Circle-of-Fifths Exercise Source: © Paul Pigat, used with permission.

94  Representation

The circle of fifths is a framework for understanding harmonic relations between key centers using all 12 pitches. The drawing in Figure 4.8 moves counterclockwise through the circle of fifths, down by fourths through a series of key resolutions. In the first example (top two staves), the chords alternate between major and minor qualities. In the second example (third stave), he shows how to play the same exercise using only major chords. In this drawing, movement along the circle of fifths is made automatic by employing one shape of the left hand in different positions on the strings. The ­fingers of the left hand remain in the same orientation but shift from strings 6, 5, 3 (E, A, and G) to strings 5, 4, 2 (A, D, and B) and then down two frets. This is a motor script for the circle of fifths. A guitarist could play the circle of fifths in different ways, using block chords in first position, for example. Doing that would be more difficult than using Paul’s design in Figure 4.8. Altered Tunings

So far, we have explored how the guitar’s flexible design affords different maps and motor scripts for improvisation. The guitar can be further redesigned by changing the tuning of the strings. John Renbourn’s “Bicycle Tune,” for example, is played with an altered G string, tuned down one step, to F#. The other images we have viewed so far are all based on standard tuning, E, A, D, G, B, E. If we include altered tunings, the possibilities for designing maps and motor scripts for the guitar are endless. Many guitarists use altered tunings to design musical spaces. Common tunings include open G (D, G, D, G, B, D), drop-D tuning (D, A, D, G, B, E), and “DADGAD.” The drawings in Figure  4.9 demonstrate two design features of DADGAD tuning, the use of open strings in melodies and crossstring finger technique. The action notation (top) does not make it obvious that the cross-string fingerings represent scale passages. The top drawing makes it easy to see the cross-string finger technique, but the musical materials are buried. On the top drawing, the materials and finger patterns are shown together, but the “pima” indicators are missing (P = pulgar or thumb, I = índice or index, M = medio or middle, A = anular or ring finger). The drawing on the bottom is more obviously a basis for further exploration and improvisation. The drawing on the bottom might be mistaken for an actual score. Both drawings are of musical fragments, a basis for further exploration, not intended for use in practice or performance.

Cognitive Artifacts  95

Figure 4.9  DADGAD Materials Source: © Paul Pigat, used with permission.

96  Representation

Figure 4.10  Patternwork Sample Source: © Paul Pigat, used with permission.

Basis for participation

design musical space with specific qualities

Field of operation Informational resources

DADGAD motor scripts for scale passages, cross-string patterns

Musical event

harp-like sound with open strings ringing

Musical ideas on the guitar can be based in very simple repetitive ­patterns (Figure  4.10). But the guitar also affords compositional complexity (Figure 4.11). As Paul Pigat says, “anything is possible on the guitar.” The charts and drawings are maps of musical worlds, not unlike the stick charts of Marshallese navigators (see Finney, 1998). The charts lay out a landscape while safely onshore. The world represented in these charts is full of swells and patterns, departures and dockings, a spatial logic that awaits the guitarist’s exploration.

Cognitive Artifacts  97

Figure 4.11  Square Peg in a Round Hole Source: © Paul Pigat, used with permission.

98  Representation

Notes 1. For a review of annotation in Western art music, please see Megan A. Winget. (2008). “Annotation on Musical Scores by Performing Musicians: Collaborative Models, Interactive Methods, and Music Digital Library Tool Development,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59: 1878–1897. 2. A pedal tone is a stable bass tone continuously sounded while changing harmonies are sounded above it.

References Cook, Scott. (2016). “Referential Playing for Guitar.” Scott Cook Music. www.scottcookmusic.com/ebook/ Finney, Ben. (1998). “Nautical Cartography and Traditional Navigation in Oceania.” In The History of Cartography. Eds. David Woodward & G. Malcolm Lewis, volume 2, book 3, chapter 13. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Goldin Meadow, Susan. (2003). Hearing Gesture: How Our Hands Help Us Think. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hollan, James, Edwin Hutchins, & David Kirsh. (2000). “Distributed Cognition: Toward a New Foundation for Human-Computer Interaction Research.” ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 7(2): 174–196. Hutchins, Edwin. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Kirsh, David. (2010). “Thinking with External Representations.” AI & Society. London: Springer. DOI:10.1007/s00146-010-0272-8. Larson, Steve. (2012). Musical Forces: Motion, Metaphor, and Meaning in Music. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Lewin, David. (1987). Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. McNeill, David. (1992). Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal About Thought. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Monson, Ingrid. (1996). Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Norman, Don. (1993). Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine. Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Winget, Megan A. (2008). “Annotation on Musical Scores by Performing Musicians: Collaborative Models, Interactive Methods, and Music Digital Library Tool Development.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59: 1878–1897.

Part III

Conceptualizing Ensemble Performance For the last part of this volume, I  take a closer look at what it means to conceptualize ensemble performance. Music-making is more than the sum of two individuals making sounds. To scale a study of cognition in music performance up to the level of the ensemble, Herbert H. Clark’s (1996) joint activity theory plans an indispensable role. Joint activity theory defines musical activity along several dimensions of variation. It identifies the basis for participation and shared use of informational resources in musical joint activity. It organizes cognition in music performance into domains of coordination, helping define the operational field of an ensemble.

5 Dimensions of Variation

In Part II, we unveiled aspects of musical thinking on the guitar by defining a “field of operation” for the guitarist. This operational field includes the following domains of musical activity: the basis for participation, the goal for the musical activity, the state of the activity, and the informational resources used. We saw how informational resources reveal unique constraints on the processes of music-making. By taking a situated perspective on the role of cognitive artifacts in music-making, we learned something more about the flexibility of the guitar as an instrument that can be redesigned for musical activity. In this chapter, we widen our scope to examine the operational field of a small ensemble. Because our scope now involves the participation of more than one person, we need to expand the range of concepts for studying cognition in music performance beyond the person/instrument system. As Edwin Hutchins explains, [a] central claim of the distributed cognition framework is that the proper unit of analysis for cognition should not be set a priori, but should be responsive to the nature of the phenomena under study. For some sorts of phenomena, the skin or skull of an individual is exactly the correct boundary. For some phenomena, the whole person is just too big and including the whole organism would involve too many interactions. For other phenomena, setting the boundary of the unit of analysis at the skin will cut lines of interaction in ways that leave key aspects of the phenomena unexplained or unexplainable. (2010, p. 426) We have not abandoned the concepts introduced in the book so far. We are still taking an ecological approach to studying cognition in music performance. We are still working to define the basis for participation, the goal for the activity, the state of the activity, and informational resources used. However, the operational field is now defined at the level of the ensemble, not each individual player. Defining cognitive processes at this level will help us explain aspects of music-making that are larger than the contribution of a single individual. Now, instead of analyzing the field of operation for a

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musician and their instrument, we examine the field of operation for an ensemble. Because of the highly communicative nature of music-making, I use the conceptual framework designed to study the joint activities of language use (Clark, 1996). This approach makes explicit the shared basis for participation, the joint salience of informational resources, and the goals and roles of individuals.

An Instrumental Case Study Chapters 5 and 6 present a conceptual framework for an ecological analysis of cognition in ensemble performance. The concepts are grounded in an instrumental case study of two accomplished flute players preparing Tōru Takemitsu’s Masque pour deux Flûtes. The case study is “instrumental” not just because it concerns the activity of two instrumentalists but also because the activities of the flutists in this study are considered instrumental for understanding coordination in music-making.1 To perform this work, the flutists must develop systems of coordination that go well beyond the traditional skill set. In this meticulously detailed score, the meter changes each measure and the rhythms between the two flute parts require different subdivisions of the beat. The work includes extremes of register and dynamics with some extended techniques and novel flute sounds. Yet, as the flutists will tell us, the work is to sound both “improvisatory” and “conversational.” Chapters 5 and 6 explore how these two expert flutists dealt with these challenges. The flutists agreed to have all their rehearsals and performances of Tōru Takemitsu’s Masque pour deux Flûtes recorded. They agreed to the videotaping of each rehearsal—from their first sight-reading sessions to the final ­performances.2 They agreed not to rehearse the work outside of the data collection procedures (but they could practice their music on their own). Data gathering took place in two phases, with a public performance at the end of each phase.3,4 Consider these scenarios: A flute duo performs Tōru Takemitsu’s Masque pour deux Flûtes at a music theory conference attended by graduate students from across North America. The performance occurs after a session on the role of music analysis in performance, which both flutists attended. A flute duo plays Tōru Takemitsu’s Masque pour deux Flûtes at the corner of Burrard and Robson Streets in downtown Vancouver. People are constantly walking past, and a few people stop to listen. A flute duo performs a dress rehearsal of Tōru Takemitsu’s Masque pour deux Flûtes, which they have been working on for the past nine months. No one is sitting in the room with them, but the rehearsal is being recorded.

Dimensions of Variation  103

According to the traditional idea, a musical work defines the performance. We expect the flutists to present their interpretation of the music in each of these different social settings. In this traditional view, we would then expect a competent listener to be able to understand the what the music represents (see the discussion of musical representation in Chapter 3). However, according to the ecological commitments laid out in this book, musical activities can occur along many dimensions of variation. These dimensions of variation change the nature of the musical activity by altering the goals, roles, and informational constraints. For the flute duo, performing a work for a highly critical audience in a concert hall will be a very different experience than performing the same work on a busy street corner. Performing in a dress rehearsal is a different activity from performing in front of an audience. If we really want to understand cognition in music performance, we need to account for these differences.

Dimensions of Variation for Musical Activity In the traditional idea, a performance of Tōru Takemitsu’s Masque pour deux Flûtes should sound the same in different performance settings. Flutists are considered skilled if they present a successful interpretation of the music at each performance. However, real-world settings for music-making can vary a great deal. We should expect to find some dimensions of variation in musical activity. In laying out the foundations for the joint activity approach, Herbert H. Clark outlines some dimensions of variation for face-to-face conversation (1996, p. 31). Based on his idea, I outline some dimensions of variation for musical activity: Dimensions of Variation

From ←→ To

scriptedness notated music being read ←→ well-known music played “by ear” ritualized ←→ free form formality professional concert ←→ living room rehearsal audience size large ←→ small audience composition adjudicator ←→ friend or family member verbalness talking about music ←→ playing music cooperativeness chamber music ←→ competition or audition governance egalitarian ←→ autocratic equal parts ←→ designated leader

One of the first steps in an ecological analysis of musical joint activities is to define the activity by attending to its dimensions of variation. These dimensions of variation are not discreet categories of musical activity. Rather, each dimension occurs on a continuum. Musical activity can take place at any point between the two poles listed in the chart. As we will see in the following discussion, these dimensions of variation constrain cognition

104  Conceptualizing Ensemble Performance

in music performance by altering the salience and significance of informational resources.

Scriptedness Scriptedness refers to the use of notation in performance and/or musical scripts, well-known music called up in context. A  musical script is an answer to a real-world cue for music-making, like singing a lullaby to a child or performing, “Happy Birthday.” For example, on the first day of class one semester, I told my first-year music students that it was my birthday. Without missing a beat, with no discussion, planning, or preparation, the class sang a fully harmonized version of “Happy Birthday.” There was no score, no conductor, no downbeat, no leader, no discussion of who would sing which part. They just spontaneously sang together. They were following a musical script, knowing how to put that performance together with strangers on the fly. Another type of spontaneous music-making happens when a parent sings to a child. These songs can be scripted (following a known melody), or improvised, in “free form,” music that arises from the movements of swaying and rocking without any known musical reference. Sometimes the issue of scriptedness is tied to genres of music-making, but here we explore the issue of scriptedness as an informational constraint on performance activity, not as a genre description (see also Sawyer, 2003). The idea of musical scripts has been raised in the field of musicology, most notably by Nicholas Cook (2001). Cook’s sharp critique of the traditional ideas about performance aims to undermine the prominence of “the work” as a basis for musical participation. He argues, as I do here, that music performance is “irreducibly social” (2001, p. 5). Cook suggests moving away from the idea of a score as a musical “text” to a more accurate term, a “script.” He says, Whereas to think of a Mozart quartet as a “text” is to construe it as a half-sonic, half-ideal object reproduced in performance, to think of it as a script is to see it as choreographing a series of real-time, social interactions between players: a series of mutual acts of listening and communal gestures that enact a particular vision of human society. (Cook, 2001, p. 5) This distinction gets to the heart of the purpose of this book, to learn what is involved in studying the social and cognitive science of musical activity. Cook arrives at his idea after considering other possible descriptors for notation—a recipe, a rough outline, a template, a sketch, or a guide. Each of these terms comes with implications for the procedural rules of using such an object in performance. In the area of language use, Herbert H. Clark discusses

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the role of scripts in face-to-face conversation. For Clark, the script is an aspect of procedural common ground that determines how the joint activities will proceed (1996, p. 109). Scripts are “routine actions” that determine how an interaction will unfold. For example, we have scripts for meeting a person for the first time, buying groceries at a checkout counter, asking for money from a bank teller, and so on. Scripts can include small routine actions and larger social expectations—we have expectations of ourselves and others in these routine interactions. Clark says that “scripts have been shown to influence people’s understanding and memory of stories about going to restaurants, etc. (Bower, Black, and Turner, 1979). To have this influence, they must be assumed to be common ground” (1996, p. 109). In Clark’s conceptual framework, common ground describes the mutual beliefs, knowledge, assumptions, and awareness that form the basis for the joint activities of language use (1996, pp. 92–94). If we are identifying the “field of operation” for an ensemble, it helps to be able to describe the shared basis for identifying what is important, acting on it together, and for knowing who does what, the basis for participation in musical activity. For a music ensemble, we can state Clark’s formulation for the concept of common ground this way (CG shared; 1996, p. 94): p is common ground for members of the ensemble if and only if 1. every member of the ensemble has information that basis b holds; 2. b indicates to every member of the ensemble that every member of the ensemble has information that basis b holds; 3. b indicates to members of the ensemble that p. We can use this formula to identify and study the use of scripts in music ensembles. Rehearsal Scripts

At the start of each rehearsal, most ensembles take up some variation of a rehearsal script, “tuning the ensemble.” Using Clark’s formula for common ground, we can conceptualize the tuning script: The ensemble has information that basis b holds—we are assembled with our instruments in a room at the designated time of the rehearsal. These things indicate to us that we all have the same information about why we are gathered, and what we do at the start of each rehearsal. We have a shared basis for participating, and for knowing that each rehearsal begins with tuning, so that When the one flutist stands in the ready position with their instrument, and/or when the other flutist plays a sustained A,

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both ensemble members play an A, making small adjustments to their sound to match their pitches. Clark gives another formula for representing common ground (CG reflexive; 1996, p. 95): p is common ground for the ensemble if and only if: (i) the members of the ensemble have information that p and that i. This shorter representation assumes the shared basis. It says the flutist’s sustained A is our signal to start tuning. Or, when the flutist plays a sustained A (i), we initiate the tuning script (p). The longer representation (CG shared) includes the shared basis of being gathered in the room as part of the formula. It makes explicit the basis for participation. This CG shared formula answers our ecological commitment to describing the field of operation with reference to the ensemble. The CG reflexive formula contains the metacognitive aspects of common ground. It says we are aware that we are aware of the significance of the flutist’s sustained A. Members of the ensemble know that when we are gathered as such, we all know the tuning script. We know when it is initiated, and what is expected of each player: one flutist gives the pitch reference; ensemble members situate their “A” within it. Most of the time this script passes without drawing attention to itself. But sometimes the tuning script is drawn out and “developed”— to tune not only the instruments but also the listening and working habits of members of an ensemble. Any routine element of rehearsal can be described using the idea of a rehearsal script. By calling it a script, we make the basis for participation explicit, we identify the information that constrains the activity, and we can identify the roles of participants. We describe the operational field of the ensemble, with the ensemble as the point of reference. It is important to keep the point of reference with the ensemble so that we do not make the errors of confusing the particulars of one field of operation with those of another. We can expect to find many variations of the tuning script in different ensemble types and different musical settings. It may even be called up during a rehearsal for very specific reasons, as we shall see in the following discussion. Performance Scripts

We can use Clark’s formula for common ground to understand how the music and the performance of the music are separate considerations. Consider the following transcript,5 from the last rehearsal of Masque in the first data set. The flutists have just run through the second movement.  030305 Movement II, “Incidental” (after rehearsing Movement II)

Dimensions of Variation  107 M:   I, // most of it worked pretty well, J:  most of it did. . . . I’m wondering if we

can [make these]/(points to score), // I mean this doesn’t have the rhythmic craziness of the first one, but it has dynamic stuff all over the place and I’m wondering if we can do more of the [WAAAwaawa] (waves arm, large gesture), you know M:  yeah, yeah, especially in this the “Rite of Spring” section here I think J:  (laughs) yeah // M:  actually, can we do the “Rite of Spring” section? J: mhmm M:  from measure 20 In this moment, M describes a section of the music as a Rite of Spring section (Movement II, “Incidental,” mm. 22–30). J laughs, understanding the reference. The passage they are speaking about is not a direct musical quote from Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. By labelling it the Rite of Spring section, M places a constraint on the performance of the music. The constraint, “Rite of Spring section” calls up instrumental particulars—aspects in subsidiary awareness, especially their use of breath support for controlling dynamics and tone quality. Although entirely tacit and not described further, this performance script seems easily understood in context by both players. This is where our work to understand the particulars of instrumental performance become crucial to understanding cognition in music performance. Here, the specifics are tacit, but both flutists share the experience of performing the Rite of Spring, and they know exactly which section of that work is relevant here. In formal terms, the performance script would be described this way: the flutists share a common knowledge of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. They are aware that they have a mutual knowledge of the particulars of flute performance called up in the opening of part 2 of The Rite of Spring. The shared basis for calling up this script is in their mutual awareness of the particulars of performance while playing measures 22 to 30 of “Incidental” and in M’s reference to the Rite of Spring section. When they try it again from measure 20, both flutists will have a shared basis for calling up the Rite of Spring script in this new context. To be clear, this does not mean that they will be playing parts for The Rite of Spring. Rather, they will organize the aspects of subsidiary awareness, the particulars of flute technique, around this idea. The Rite of Spring script is common ground for the flutists if and only if 1. both flutists are aware of the particulars of flute performance in measures 22 to 30 of “Incidental.” 2. these particulars indicate to the flutists that they are both aware of these aspects of performance. 3. the particulars indicate to the flutists that the Rite of Spring script will apply.

108  Conceptualizing Ensemble Performance

The shared basis for this script is in the particulars of performance on the flute. We can say the performance script offers a shorthand for reorganizing (or transforming) the particulars of instrumental performance. Consider the following example:  011405

CPE “Ghost” Sonata J puts down her flute, followed by M. M furrows his brow and puts his left hand on his chin, thinking. J:  Um. I just have a few questions, are you doing a bit of extra rubato there that isn’t coming back to me? M:  I may be stretching it longer than I should because I’m fretting with [the large intervals there] (points, laughs) J:  (laughs) sorry. . . J:  um yeah, I had a thought; you know in measure 15, you know how we were talking about making that lighter, “ooier” type of sound there? M: yeah J:  I’m wondering if we can cut out the vibrato a bit there too M: [yeah M takes a pencil and marks the score. J:  M: (finishes marking score) yup] L:  There was one really nice spot where you guys got really quiet. The contrast in the dynamics was really nice. J:  That’s probably the spot we’re talking about. L:  Yeah, I think that’s the spot you’re talking about. That was cool. M:  Actually, maybe we can exploit the quieter dynamics in general. I kind of/I feel/It’s funny/whenever I  do this piece, with this duet version, I feel obliged to sort [go,    Makes a grabbing gesture in front of his face, moving his hand forward and back to indicate “big sound” M:  all the time] (turns to J), J:  M: this Brahmsian approach There are two main scripts in this moment. The first is the rehearsal script J calls up when she stops playing. In doing this, she is calling up a rehearsal script that indicates “this is a moment to discuss what just happened.” M and J spontaneously take up this activity based on things they just experienced while playing, although we would say that J was leading this activity. She is the first to put down her flute and comment. Their shared basis is in the aspects of music they have just played. In this context, J’s actions are a signal to discuss what just happened. The second script is the performance script that is called up when J and M refer to a “Romantic” or “Brahmsian” sound. I call this a performance script because M and J both seem to recognize it as an idea that constrains

Dimensions of Variation  109

the performance of the music. Taking up a “Romantic” or “Brahmsian” performance script (or discarding it as they do here) is a matter of restructuring the particulars of performance. On the flute, in this instance, it has to do with both tone quality and the use of vibrato, and the outcome of their use of this script is evident in their flexibility with dynamics. When they take the lighter, less Romantic sound, they can “exploit the quieter dynamics” (M) more. This idea is an instrumental shorthand—it takes aspects of airstream, vibrato, and tone quality; lumps them together under a general idea; and uses them to meet a performance goal for softer dynamics. When we apply this idea of scripts in musical activity, we can begin to think about the tacit aspects of music performance being called up in different contexts and for different purposes. We think about scriptedness not in terms of whether a score is printed and used in performance but where scripts are called up in the rehearsal and performance of music. This reveals dimensions of variation in musical activity for analysis. It also opens possibilities for understanding musical activity within and across genres of performance—to make explicit the basis for participation at a more general level than simply describing the materials of the musical products. 011405 CPE “Ghost” Sonata, tuning script in rehearsal  After rehearsing and experimenting with dynamics for about 20 minutes, they run through the piece. The intonation goes “wonky” at one of the cadences. M takes down his flute and begins to adjust his head joint. M:  [hmmm. I’m wondering if I’m . . . I’m low] J:  don’* nonononono I don’t think you are M: (exaggerated nod) [oh ok, I’ll pull it back out//] (laughs) . . . [there’s somethin’] (brings flute to face) J:  well, when we’re playing soft // J brings flute to face, they both test notes M: yeah J:  play your C, don’t try to raise [M plays, looking straight up]

the pitch or anything

     They both play a C. J plays the octave higher, turning left to right. Then J plays C–B–C in the higher octave. J:  * ’cause I think if you were trying to bring the pitch up it was making it harder for me to get the pitch up M:  oh, really? J:  and then it wasn’t in tune M:  ok I’ll sit on it then. J:  yeah because I’m playing an octave higher, a piano (dynamic) M: ok J:  it might be a little low anyway/so if you’re going / M:  well, the other thing is my other flute was phenomenally flat on the C’s right [so I’m] (points up three times, and tilts head upward)

110  Conceptualizing Ensemble Performance J:  right, so habit M:  J: 

As discussed earlier, the rehearsal script for tuning can be called up in rehearsals. Through experience, instrumentalists learn general performance knowledge about instrumental tendencies. Flutists share knowledge of the tendencies of the flute—what happens to the pitch when airspeed is increased or decreased, when the head is tilted up or down, or when the flute is lengthened or shortened. J’s comment “we’re playing soft . . .” reflects a reality of performance on the flute: with a slower airspeed the pitch goes down. For flutists, the first adjustment to compensate for a shift in airstream is to tilt the head up or down, using the direction of the embouchure to adjust the pitch. When that doesn’t work, sometimes flutists will push the head joint in or pull it farther out to adjust the length of the flute. Other times, different fingerings might be used. In any case, the connection between dynamics and intonation is one of those ongoing processes of attention, called up in rehearsal often enough to produce shared knowledge for solving this problem. J knows that M is about to change the length of his flute. She also knows that her note will have a tendency to be flat, so instead of solving the problem through adjusting the instrument, they take up a tuning script: one person plays a stable pitch, and the other joins in, listening to the pitches and making small adjustments to the angle of the embouchure over the flute. They devise a plan. M will “sit on” the C, making a stable tone. Then J will be able to make the adjustments she needs for a softer dynamic in the higher octave. This new plan, or intonation script, will be called up in that passage from this point onward (or it may get restructured if the situation requires it). In Herbert H. Clark’s joint activity theory, this is called an advancement or accumulation of common ground (1996, pp.  38–39). Going forward, at that point in the music, the flutists will seek evidence of this discussion and put it into practice. To really understand performance in instrumental ensembles, we need many more studies of the types of scripts that are taken up in different situations. Scripted Ensemble Roles

One important point that distinguishes this view from the traditional “interpretive” idea of music performance is that the role of a musical part constrains the activities of performance in important ways that are often not taken into account in tonal theories of music, whereby only the materials are viewed as meaningful. Using our ecological analysis, we can draw a distinction between the materials of music and the roles played by instrumentalists within an ensemble. People play bass roles, melodic roles, and inner voices. In instrumental performance, voicing takes on a much greater sense of richness, of interpersonal interaction. I explore this idea in greater detail in the Conclusion.

Dimensions of Variation  111

However, the flutists in this case study point to the way ensemble roles constrain musical activity in a rehearsal of the C. P. E. Bach’s A minor sonata, recorded as a control session at the beginning of data collection. J: I mean, yeah, I know it’s weird because this is a solo piece and all of a sudden, you’ve got someone here competing with you M: yeah. . . J: maybe just play at more 90% rather than 100% and see how it feels M: yeah umm, J: and I’ll balance you. That’s my job, so.

The “ghost accompaniment” for C. P. E. Bach’s Sonata in A Minor was composed by flutist Gary Schocker as a performance aid for the interpretation of the solo part. In the ecological language introduced in this book, we would say that the ghost part provides a context for the solo part, calling up scripts for mimicry, echo, commentary, and togetherness in the music. In their one rehearsal on this work, the flutists spent most of the time working out details of dynamics, the relative loudness between the solo and accompaniment parts. In the comment earlier, J recognizes that the solo part is changed by the presence of this second voice (you’ve got someone here competing with you), but she appeals to her general knowledge about accompaniment roles by suggesting it is her “job” to balance the solo part. As the dynamics become a thing (take on a phenomenal role in the rehearsal), the flutists can begin to use them to negotiate musical meaning. An important dimension of variation for cognition in ensemble performance, then, is the constraints imposed by the ensemble roles within a musical work. For this case study, the “Ghost” Sonata was used as a control session, to ground and check observations and theories in against the Takemitsu data. Whereas Takemitsu’s Masque emphasizes processes of coordination, the Sonata in A Minor emphasizes the performance of musical roles and scripts. We should not expect to find the same processes emphasized in these very different musical settings. However, it is equally important to bound the explanations to the musical setting. We would not take our discussion of coordination in Masque and apply it to the Sonata in A Minor or vice versa.

Formality in Musical Settings Musical activity also varies along the dimension of formality. In the traditional idea, “music performance” is the staged activity of presenting an interpretation of a musical work. Here, however, we are widening our scope to look the way formality constrains musical activity. To do this, we need to compare activities along the continuum, from very formal to very casual and everything in between. The level of formality of a performance has a

112  Conceptualizing Ensemble Performance

lot to do with the nature of the audience and the larger goals for the social gathering. A large audience of family members might be less formal than an audience of one adjudicator. More Formal

Less Formal

concert hall large audience adjudicator co-located

living room small gathering friend or family member non-co-located

In the traditional idea, the performance is defined by the work. No matter where (or for whom) the performance takes place, the emphasis is on the interpretation of the music. Music-making takes place in many different types of physical settings, however. In this study, the data gathering took place in two performance venues (the Old Auditorium and Recital Hall) two rehearsal venues (the research lab and a music classroom) at the University of British Columbia (UBC). What we learn is that the setting is both a physical and a social space. The physical and social qualities of a musical setting constrain musical activity. The Recital Hall

The Recital Hall seats 270 people and is considered by many to be the heart of the Music Building at UBC. Almost all the juried student performances are held in this space, and many community concerts, public lectures, and events take place in this hall. The stage is suitable for small to medium-sized ensembles, and there is no “bad” place to sit. We used the recital hall for sessions 092205 (rehearsal), 100105 (dress rehearsal and concert), and 110305 (experimental session). The Recital Hall is resonant and the experiences in this hall are typically very formal. According to our ecological view, the hall itself plays a role in the music that emerges from the players. Consider the following excerpt from my field notes for a videotaped dress rehearsal in the Recital Hall (session 100105): They raise their flutes. Standing in ready position, they are preparing to perform the piece as if it were the concert. It takes a full five seconds before J sounds the first note of the piece, and her concentration is palpable. In that five seconds, J stands stock still, seeming to wait for the right state of mind before sounding the opening passage. . . . For a second, she closes her eyes; then she opens them focused squarely at the score. The tempo seems to rise to the surface from somewhere deep inside her body, first extremely subtle, a hint of motion in her eyebrow, the crown of her head. Her elbow rides the beat and by now we in the audience can see her slow preparation breath, embouchure at the ready.

Dimensions of Variation  113

Her breath takes longer than I expect, as if she were riding the beats until the best one comes along. During her preparation and first two notes, M looks directly at her. His entrance is trickier than hers. She sets the pace with a double-articulated E, marked piano espressivo. Then she leans on her first note as if to fully establish her presence in the sonority. In a response that appears almost shocked by the weight of her sound, his first pianissimo harmonic G does not speak; he moves into it slightly late, at a piano dynamic. The Recital Hall is more than just a physical setting. It is a socially significant space. The music that emerges here is constrained by that formality and the sense of expectation for what is to come. This is very evident in the time it takes J to begin playing, in the seeming weight of her entrance, and the tiny slip in the articulation of M’s entrance. In this moment, the flutists are practicing performance. The flutists are not rehearsing anymore. They are practicing what they will do in front of a critical audience in this space in a few hours. The intensity of concentration and control was palpable. Herbert H. Clark’s idea of layering helps us understand the significance of these details, what it means to practice performing in a socially significant performance space (1996, pp. 353–368). In instances of spontaneous humor, listeners must distinguish between appearance and reality or identify dual meanings for an utterance. In literature, significant events in a narrative plot can take on meaning at more than one level. In music performance, layering operates in a more subtle way. It helps to identify the “deictic frame,” the source of an utterance and to whom it is addressed (Clark, 1996, p. 358). The flutists have spent months negotiating the music together in rehearsal, with only me as a witness. Now, they are taking on a new audience and purpose for their negotiation of the music. They must establish a communicative link beyond the ensemble to the imagined participation of an audience. The Old Auditorium

In contrast, just a few days earlier our rehearsal (session 092905) was bumped to the “Old Aud.” At the time of this study, the Old Auditorium was somewhat of a run-down performance museum in a separate building across a courtyard from the Music Building. This session began with a string of comedic errors bordering on research slapstick. The lighting didn’t work. There were no electrical outlets within reach of the stage. I had forgotten a digital tape and had to record straight to my hard drive. I recorded the session believing there was no sound (but later found out the sound had worked). The flutists had forgotten their rehearsal score and had to use a score with no annotations. The floor creaked and the radiator banged, and the backstage was littered with opera props, old paint, and random percussion equipment. As a result of all these “glitches,” the flutists remarked that

114  Conceptualizing Ensemble Performance

the rehearsal seemed more like a live performance—more on edge, more energy, more risk, and more “accompaniment” from the building itself. But many things came together in this session, both for the performance of the music and in my understanding of research on music performance. For there was no better situation than this to explore how a musical setting constrains performance. Their body motions were visibly different. They employed a greater volume of motion (small movements were smaller, large movements larger). They took risks with their playing, as if they were testing the boundaries of what was possible physically. Without their annotated score, the flutists reported paying more attention to the things they had marked, as if not seeing the markings made their content more important. Their whole approach to performance was governed by an increased sense of risk but in an odd, safe space. This prompted me to ask them if their ­performance could be broken, which led to the scheduling of a further experimental ­session to test the boundaries of their ensemble coordination. These realizations ultimately led me to adopt Herbert H. Clark’s (1996) joint activity theory as a conceptual framework for the study of music-making, instead of working solely on musical gesture as I had been doing until that point. This session made abundantly clear to me that the performance of this work was more about coordination than interpretation.

Verbalness The traditional idea of the staged interpretation of a musical work leaves little room for the study of conversation in the negotiation of musical understanding. However, when we expand our scope of inquiry to include rehearsal, we see speaking, singing, and instrumental play seamlessly contribute to musical activity. Consider these rehearsal excerpts, from 092205, the first session after summer break:

1 2

M: (sings) bo da da da ya J: da da da da dauhm yeah all right so it’s not that fast (puts metronome on stand) J: baum baum bah dum (snaps fingers points in air, rising with pitches) right M: you’re trilling into it? are you re-articulating it, or J: (snaps fingers) I’m going dauh, wait . . . its sixteenth note (snaps fingers) buh duh dum bauhm M: could we just, actually could we just do this yum ba ba I just want to do that J: yep

The only way to make sense of either of these exchanges is to take a joint activity view. We first identify the goals of their interaction:

Dimensions of Variation  115 1

J: did we really speed up? M: I think we did a bit. I always think about moving more through that, probably not as much as indicated. I wonder if we’re starting too fast. . . J: yeah M: because 38’s slow J moves to get metronome J: well, we can’t measure 38 but we can measure 40

The goal for this interaction is to (1) understand what just happened and (2) establish an approximate tempo. The part asks them to gradually drift between metronome markings 38 and 50. For most people, imagining these tempi is impossible without the aid of a metronome (even the metronome does not have a setting for 38).

1

J: (smiles, small laugh finding metronome speed for 38/40) J: sings opening J: and 50 M: (sings) bo da da da ya J: da da da da dauhm yeah alright so it’s not that fast (puts metronome on stand)

The flutists establish targets for the tempi by singing their parts with the metronome. Note that this will only give them targets for the beginning and ending of the passage, not the accelerando, the gradual move from 38 to 50. We can chart their operational field using the format from Chapter 4.

Musical event

accelerando between 38–50

Basis

to establish targets for the beginning and ending of the accelerando

Informational resources

situated singing (both parts sung to metronome)

Musical activity

rehearsing

It is worth noting that they cannot accurately measure any part of the accelerando given the complexity of their lines and the shifting metronome marking. The flutists are establishing targets that will help them coordinate parts along an emerging musical interaction. The irony of a detailed musical score with targets that can only be approximated is not lost on them. We will explore more of their coordination solutions in the next chapter.

116  Conceptualizing Ensemble Performance 2

2

J puts down flute M: sorry, I wouldn’t mind just doing that again J: yeah M: duh yum J: I’m feeling like this is too long M: (with hand in front of mouth) which one that, yeah J: at A to Eflat M: yeah I got thrown off there J: baum baum bah dum (snaps fingers points in air, rising with pitches) right M: you’re trilling into it, are you re-articulating it, or J: (snaps fingers) I’m going dauh, wait . . . its sixteenth note (snaps fingers) buh duh dum bauhm M: could we just, actually could we just do this yum ba ba I just want to do that J: yep

Cooperativeness The second rehearsal clip demonstrates another dimension of variation for musical activity, the degree of cooperativeness between players. For each activity, there will be a leader—when J takes down her flute first, she leads the activity. In this example, M acknowledges something was amiss. The flutists cooperate to discover the source of the problem. Once again, they must attend to minute detail—the articulation at the end of a trill leading to a sixteenth note. This time, they identify which details matter and then play it again to discover how it fits together. In any musical activity, especially in activities that include conversation, there will be a degree of cooperativeness. The dimensions of variation are important for taking an ecological perspective on cognition in ensemble performance. Dimensions of variation help us to determine the scripts, roles, and deictic frames for musical activities. This is an important first step in helping to explain the emergence of music as part of the joint activities of musicians. As Hutchins explains, “one of the key insights of the embodied cognition framework is that bodily action does not simply express previously formed mental concepts; bodily practices including gesture are part of the activity in which concepts are formed” (2010, p. 429). Research on the role of gesture in the negotiation of meaning reveals that gestures do not simply embellish the contents of spoken language but also reveal thought processes, or “thought in action” (McNeill, 1992; Goldin Meadow, 2003). In the next chapter, we explore music as an emergent property of the joint actions of members of the ensemble.

Notes 1. For background on the case study research design, please review Creswell (1998), Goertz and Mahoney (2012), Perri 6 and Bellamy (2012), and Stake (2003). 2. Ethics approval was granted by the University of British Columbia under Dr. Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson’s project, “Determining Communicative Event Structures in

Dimensions of Variation  117 Speech and Music,” funded by the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada. 3. There was an additional “control” rehearsal of Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach’s Sonata in A Minor (with “Ghost” accompaniment) 011405 (C. P. E. Bach). 4. The rehearsals for the first phase (January–March 2005) took place in Dr. Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson’s gesture and speech lab using motion capture and video recording. Sessions are labeled by date (012105 means January 21, 2005). Sessions 011405 (C. P. E. Bach Sonata in A Minor [arranged by Gary Schocker with “Ghost” part], and the Takemitsu sessions 012105, 020705, 021105, and 030305 form the first data set. The second stage of data collection (September–November 2005) was recorded on video only, in the environs of the University of British Columbia School of Music. The second set consists of five Takemitsu sessions, 092205, 092605, 092905, 100105 (dress rehearsal and performance), and 110305 (post-performance experimental session). The video data was analyzed using HyperResearch video analysis software. 5. Where appropriate, I  employ transcript conventions outlined in David McNeill’s (1992) Hand and Mind, p. 375.

References Bower, Gordon H., John B. Black, & Terrence J. Turner. (1979). “Scripts in Memory for Text.” Cognitive Psychology, 11: 177–220. Quoted in Clark, Herbert H. (1996). Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 109. Clark, Herbert H. (1996). Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cook, Nicholas. (2001). “Between Process and Product: Music and/as Performance.” Music Theory Online, 7(2): np. Creswell, John W. (1998). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Traditions. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc. Goertz, Gary, & James Mahoney. (2012). “Scope in Case Study Research.” In The Sage Handbook of Case-Based Methods. Eds. David Byrne & Charles C. Ragin. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., pp. 307–317. Goldin Meadow, Susan. (2003). Hearing Gesture: How Our Hands Help Us Think. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hutchins, Edwin. (2010). “Enaction, Imagination, Insight.” In Enaction: Toward a New Paradigm for Cognitive Science. Eds. John Stewart, Olivier Gapenne, & Ezequiel A. Di Paolo. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. McNeill, David. (1992). Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal About Thought. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Perri 6, & Christine Bellamy. (2012). Principles of Methodology: Research Design in Social Science. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc., pp. 102–128. Sawyer, R. Keith. (2003). Group Creativity: Music, Theatre, Collaboration. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Stake, Robert E. (2003). “Case Studies.” In Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry, Second Edition. Eds. Norman K. Denzin & Yvonna S. Lincoln. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc., pp. 134–164.

6 Domains of Coordination

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. Consider this explanation of musical activity (from Zamm, Pfordresher, & Palmer, 2014): Ensemble music performance is a prime example: Musicians must produce tone sequences while integrating auditory information from themselves and a partner to achieve synchronous timing. Furthermore, musicians often differ in their spontaneous rates of performance for the same musical piece, which can influence the ease with which they synchronize with their partner. (Loehr & Palmer, 2011, qtd. in Zamm, Pfordresher, & Palmer, 2014) In this description, music-making is a matter of producing tone sequences and lining up those tone sequences with the tone sequences produced by others. This description of what it means to make music belies a listener’s ontology that is transferred onto musicians. In this view, measurements of tone sequences between individuals are considered data on music-making (see also Eric Clarke, 2004). There is an accidental deprecation of the musician here, not quite achieving something the listener is always striving for. And it is an incomplete account of cognition in music performance. As Zamm, Pfordresher, and Palmer (2014) indicate in their literature review, a large body of research in the psychology of music operates from this reductionist perspective. However, as I  have indicated in previous chapters, several researchers in music psychology have also called for a reorientation of the ontology of music for the study of cognition in music performance (see Baily & Driver, 1992; Davidson & Good, 2002; Stevens, 2012; Cross, 2012). There is considerable interest in designing research with explanatory value for the cognitive processes of musicians beyond a single dimension, beyond what a listener might expect to perceive. The words we use to describe musical activity matter. In order to shed light on the limitations of the description in Zamm, Pfordresher, and

Domains of Coordination  119

Palmer (2014), I turn once again to Herbert H. Clark’s discussion of common ground. Last chapter I used Herbert H. Clark’s CG shared formula for common ground to help define the field of operation for an ensemble. CG shared makes explicit the shared basis for participation in a joint activity (Clark, 1996, p. 94). Rather than making assumptions about what guides musical thought, I use CG shared to identify the aspects of the activity, situation, and informational resources that are relevant to the ensemble at a given time. The approach presented in Zamm, Pfordresher, and Palmer (2014), however, seems to employ the CG iterated view of common ground (Clark, 1996, p. 95; see also Clark, 2006a): CG iterated p is common ground for members of C if and only if 1. members of C have information that p; 2. members of C have information that members of C have information that p; 3. members of C have information that members of C have information that members of C have information that p and so on ad infinitum. Synchronous timing is common ground for members of the ensemble if and only if 1. members of the ensemble integrate auditory information from themselves and a partner; 2. members of the ensemble integrate the auditory information that members of the ensemble integrate the auditory information from themselves and a partner; 3. members of the ensemble integrate the auditory information that members of the ensemble integrate the auditory information that members of the ensemble integrate the auditory information and so on ad infinitum. For me to play in time with you, I keep time within myself (with an “internal, endogenous sense of timing”; Zamm, Pfordresher, & Palmer, 2014) while I play and I aim to line up my internal sense of timing with your sound, which is a product of you integrating your internal sense of timing with my sound, and so on. It requires “an infinitely large mental capacity” (Clark, 1996, p. 95). It will be very difficult, if not impossible, to provide an account of cognition in music performance while taking this view. It simply is not possible to attend in this way and carry out all the other processes that require a musician’s attention. Our goal should be to identify the shared basis for attention, not to assume that synchronization drives musical thought.

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In the CG shared definition for musical coordination, we say the process of rehearsing a work involves the continued cultivation and negotiation of common ground (Clark, 1996, 2005, 2006a, 2006b, 2012). The flutists establish which sensory information is focal for their performance. They have a shared basis for participating and shared bases for identifying what information is relevant to their negotiation of music. This includes information in the environment as well as information in their utterances and body movements. The members of the ensemble continually establish that their utterances and body movements are understood “well enough for current purposes” (Clark & Schaefer, 1989). They make adjustments to their performances on the fly in response to their joint understanding of the music (see Clark & Krych, 2003). The means with which the flutists establish aspects of common ground is called “grounding” (Clark & Brennan, 1991). This chapter uses these ideas to define domains of coordination in the preparation and performance of Tōru Takemitsu’s Masque pour deux Flûtes. This ecologically valid research perspective properly situates our analysis with reference to the ensemble, not an auditory image or idealized pulse. The implication for research is quite clear: we must begin to engage musicians as creative and intelligent beings (human beings) rather than passive and imperfect channels for the creative ideas of composers and listeners. Instead of measuring their output and deciding whether they are making music correctly, we should be studying what they are doing. What is the basis for participation? What informational resources are being negotiated? What are the goals of the activity? What roles are being taken up? If we study these things, we will make observations that inform the activity of music-making.

Coordination Devices Once upon a time it was thought that all aspects of a sounding piece might be brought under a composer’s control, and it was further thought that this would be a good thing. On a broader front, however, we have since learned that indeterminacy in some aspects is a better thing and in any case an inevitable one. Almost everyone accepts the fact that tempo, tone color, balance, inflection, can vary among performers and performances. Yet we feel that the format of an artistic conception should be inviolable, as if the format or rhetoric of a piece were in some way connected more closely than the inflection to the basic idea or identity of the composer’s utterance. Why? It is not too hard to imagine music whose utterance is so intimately associated with tone color or inflection that these should be strictly controlled, while the large-scale format might just as well be left unordered. That could include renouncing unilateral control over the audience’s attention for an uninterrupted stretch of time. We accept a conversation, a panel discussion or debate, as a form of verbal expression; why not a musical counterpart as well? (Crocker, 1967)

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As we see in this dated quote from Richard Crocker, questions about the nature and meaning of musical utterances have long been a source of contention in music scholarship. The musical ideas of the composer are a very important source of information for musical coordination in Western art music, so much so that it has been exceedingly difficult to come to terms with the role of a performer in the negotiation of musical meaning. When we ask where the music comes from, the first answer is usually the name of the person who conceived of the musical work (Beethoven’s symphony, Mozart’s concerto, Takemitsu’s duet). The musical work has a “body” in the same sense that a work of literature has a “body.” It has content we can point to, analyze, and compare (please see Carpenter, 1967; also, Butterfield, 2003). We can learn about a composer’s musical style and situate musical works within stylistic periods and musical trends in music corpus research. This type of knowledge is cultivated in fields of music scholarship. The thrust of knowledge making in these fields is to inform the culture of music-making in the Western concert tradition (see Lester, 1995; Rink, 1995). However, there is some disagreement about when this information becomes relevant for the activities of music performance (see Cumming, 2000; Schmalfeldt, 2011). So far, we have managed to sidestep most of this debate by drawing a boundary around the activities of music performance and distinguishing critical listening from music-making. Conventional and Nonconventional Coordination

But it would be irresponsible to suggest that knowledge about musical works is irrelevant to performance in Western concert styles. If we want to understand cognition in music performance, we need a way of accounting for all the various sources of information and the full range of coordination devices employed (Williamon & Davidson, 2002). Some coordination devices draw from the conventional use of musical materials. We can call these conventional coordination devices, after Herbert H. Clark (1996, pp. 77, 99). Conventional coordination can include the rules for combining musical materials, such as dominant–tonic motion (tension–release; see Zbikowski, 2017; Larson, 2012). Nonconventional coordination is a designation for the use of information from other domains of musical activity as a basis for musical coordination. Nonconventional coordination engages any type of information. This information can come from body motion, from jointly salient aspects of the environment (i.e., building sounds, audience movements), from extramusical sources of inspiration, and so on. The conceptualization for common ground allows us to identify both conventional and nonconventional coordination devices. According to the joint activity view, common ground is established through engagement in and monitoring of joint activities (Clark, 1996). As an activity advances, the participants build a common set of experiences and mutually salient coordination devices. Coordination devices can include “almost

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any device” that participants consider to be the most obvious or efficient solution to a coordination problem (Clark, 1996, pp. 64–65). In Chapter 5, for example, we saw our flutists call up performance scripts to solve some problems of performance. The Rite of Spring script offered a solution to the performance of measures 22 to 30 of Movement II. The flutists had both performed Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and shared a common reference to the aspects in subsidiary awareness, the instrumental particulars for this passage. We can say that labeling the passage as a “Rite of Spring” section is a “nonconventional, contextual construction” (Clark, 1996, p. 79). It is nonconventional in that is refers to aspects of music-making independent of the musical materials (it is not about the notes or rhythms). It is contextual in that it offers an efficient solution to the coordination of music performance in that moment. The script does not apply to the performance of the whole work, just a few measures of it. Other researchers have also identified extramusical sources of meaning in performance (see Monson, 1996; Brinner, 1995).1 In the field of ethnomusicology, Benjamin Brinner (1995) offers a broad account of “musical competency”: the interactive network (the roles of the performers), the interactive system (the musical materials used), the interactive sound structure (the constraints and concepts surrounding the way the musical sounds are put together), and the interactive motivation (why people are induced to participate). Brinner’s framework suggests, as I do here, that these concerns offer a more grounded picture of the basis for participation in music-making. In the field of musicology, there is some agreement with Nicholas Cook’s position that music-making is “irreducibly social” (2001, p.  5). However, the field is still looking for basic representations of musical activity that will make explicit the various cultural and stylistic features of music-making in different performance genres (see Davidson & Good, 2002). The conventional coordination devices of music are important enough to conceptualize. But a conventional, structural understanding of music is not sufficient for a study of cognition in music performance, as I have been repeating throughout this book. Consider the inherent ambiguity of musical material. Although there is a general agreement among music theorists that musical structure is recognizable (Larson, 2012; Zbikowski, 2017), musical information is widely recognized as ambiguous (see Cross, 2005; Lester, 1995). Clark suggests that ambiguity is also present in language use, as in the phrase “I discovered the guy with my binoculars” (1996, p.  78). Clark suggests that we deal with ambiguity through the use of nonconventional coordination devices. In music performance, musical ambiguity can look like Paul Pigat’s idea of the “square peg in a round hole approach”—anything fits if it is emphasized enough (page 84). In this approach, the emphasis provides the source of meaning in otherwise incongruent materials. Musical ambiguity is also what makes it possible to redesign the guitar to create new musical landscapes (see Chapters 3 and 4). Musical ambiguity is the reason a field like music

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performance analysis exists (see Rink, 2004). Performance analysis research typically measures performances against interpretive ideals, in keeping with the cultural aims for Western art music performance. Even here, there is widespread success in demonstrating the variety of interpretations taken up by performers, rather than any narrower, “definitive performance” (see also Lester, 1995; Rink, 1995). By identifying both conventional and nonconventional coordination devices, I will identify domains of coordination, areas of music-making that play a role in the grounding of musical activities. These domains of coordination allow a broader understanding of the shared bases for participation in musical activity. Consider this nonconventional solution to performance in the second set of the Takemitsu sessions:      092205 Takemitsu J:  I like when you gesture on that F // M: yeah J:  that helps me know [exactly when to come in] (points) with the B there M:  OK J:  M: -a god moment, just in case [so no matter what happens there] (spoken

through side of his mouth) like if I sort of give a little nod there we know plltthhh (hand chop toward score) we’re back on there J: yeah/sure The “god moment” is a nonconventional contextual construction, a designation given to M’s body movement, his “gesture on that F.” When J mentions his gesture, she is successfully identifying a referent for their coordination (see Clark & Brennan, 1991). By calling it a “god moment,” the two flutists take up this gesture as an opportunity to line up their parts in future performances. They make explicit an aspect of coordination in the domain of body motion. In future performances, they can use the god moment, like “dropping the needle”2 at that spot in the music. If M plays Masque pour deux Flûtes with another flutist and says, “Let’s start at the ‘god moment,’ ” that player won’t understand what he is talking about. But J will always know because they share a reference to this one moment in the rehearsal. The “god moment” is part of their personal common ground (Clark, 1996, p.  112). The “god moment” is a contextual construction, a coordination device, a shared basis for establishing “where they are” in the music. It does not offer a complete picture of coordination in music performance, however. It is one piece of a much larger and multifaceted puzzle. The analysis in this chapter identifies domains of coordination in the preparation and performance of Tōru Takemitsu’s Masque pour deux Flûtes. The domains of coordination include the musical work, counting, annotation, body motion, and performance genre heuristics. The most important thing to remember

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is that this is a way of understanding music performance, not a prescription for performance. The way these two flutists coordinate their activity is based on their work together, not a performance ideal devised by someone outside of their cultivated work. Other flutists performing the same work might engage different and equally successful coordination devices.

Domains of Coordination To identify domains of coordination, we look for common sources of information for the ensemble. The flutists stand side by side and read from one score. We can plug this information into Herbert H. Clark’s (1996) formula for CG shared: For two people, A and B, it is common ground that p if and only if 1. A and B have some information that some basis b holds; 2. b indicates to A and B that A and B have information that b holds; 3. b indicates to A and B that p.

Domain 1: The Work p = the work, Masque pour deux Flûtes b = the score (information from the score: composer name, date of the composition, performance notes) The flutists use the score as a common source of information about this work.3 The score contains not only the representations for the musical materials of the piece but also information about the composer, the date of the composition, and ancillary material about specific performance markings (i.e., portamenti). This information plays a critical role in constraining musical activity. The score is “demanding” in every sense of the word. This score demands careful study. It demands attention to every aspect of performance on the flute: not just the pitches but also how each note begins and ends, how each note lines up with notes of the other part, and how both players feel and subdivide the pulse. Yet, as we will learn, their performance goal is to sound “improvisatory.” Interpretation

At a few key moments in the first set of rehearsals, the flutists discuss what they think the piece is about. 012105—first rehearsal J:  I mean, like you said when we first got here, this is about gesture (to M)   [SNIP]

Domains of Coordination  125 J:   . . .

it’s about the musical gesture, it’s about the shapes, and it’s about the rep . . . it’s about the sound. It’s not about how it fits to a meter M:  hmm. I reckon in the end it probably should sound quite improvisatory J:  I’m sure it will     [SNIP] M:  shakuhatchi-ish. The flutists arrived at the first rehearsal with an idea of what the music is about: gesture, shape, repetition, and timbre. Still, they must reconcile the rhythmic complexity of the music with those musical goals. The conundrum of a precisely notated improvisation is exemplified in their discussion of how to perform the portamenti in Movement I. Each portamento has a precisely indicated dynamic shape and ends on an enharmonic equivalent note (portamento to the same pitch, B–C♭; E–F♭; C#–D♭). In session 012105, M says that flutists on a recording perform a glissando down from these notes. But they debate whether this is the correct thing to do, or whether the portamento is a matter of timbre and dynamic shaping rather than a downward glissando. The awkwardness of this marking trips them up from time to time in the rehearsals (see the discussion of counting and placing that follows). They share an intense engagement with the details of the score throughout all the sessions in this case study. Even so, they find room for ad hoc musical interpretation: 030305—Mvt. II—Incidental Speaking about short phrases that seem to punctuate larger statements . . . M:  hmm, they give me the willies I love them.    [SNIP] M: (sings) it’s sort of like, really, like I don’t know, like bird calls out of a Salvador Dali movie or something, it’s like (waves arm) J:  did Salvador Dali do movies? M:  I don’t know. Probably not. The bird calls out of a Salvador Dali movie is a name M gives to short interjections in the second movement. It took time for him to put words to this ad hoc meaning, and J questions the accuracy of the reference (did Salvador Dali do movies?). But the implication is not far off from their agreed-on approach to the performance of Movement I—Continu, a surrealist take on gesture. We see this spelled out in the following passage, after I asked them a question about the title of the work: 030305—Mvt. I—Continu L:  -do you guys know what a masque is, what masque means?    [SNIP] L: (reading from the internet) “a masque was originally a form of dramatic entertainment in 16th and 17th century England. It initially contained

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no dialogue but featured instead lavish scenery costumes and fancy music. In the context of contemporary concert music, the masque may be thought of as a dramatic piece reflecting internal dialogue without programmatic reference.” M: (rubs stomach and pats head) [uuhh] L: (laughs) “internal dialogue with no programmatic reference” J:  so, we’re basically supposed to be // have two voices inside of one head (laughs) L: (laughs) M: well I  don’t understand this idea of non-programmatic dialogue.  / I mean that’s sort of a contradiction, isn’t it? L:  ya, internal dialogue with no programmatic reference, ya M:  sort of rhetorical in nature like we should have a J: —without a programmatic reference meaning there’s no specific story he’s putting to it. It’s just some sort of abstract dialogue. M:  L:  M:  OK or do you think the gestures are supposed to be sort of like, correlate to the undulations of speech or something / J:  well they kind of do M:  yeah, I suppose // in a Japanese sort of way Although the flutists initially express confusion at the idea of a “non-­ programmatic internal dialog,” they very quickly arrive at an understanding of this idea in the context of the music. They translate the idea as “abstract speech” (J), “sort of rhetorical in nature,” with “gestures that correspond to the undulations of speech . . . in a Japanese sort of way” (one of the flutists is also Japanese Canadian). The three brief preceding discussions capture everything they had to say about the meaning of the music. Everything else they discussed belongs to other domains of coordination: counting, annotation, gestures, and genre heuristics. State of the Activity

It is important to maintain an idea of the flutists’ interpretive goals. It is also important to maintain an awareness of the state of the activity. The flutists arrive at the first rehearsal with an interpretive idea. They rehearse and cultivate domains of coordination within that overall frame. However, if we take the interpretive idea too seriously as a sole focus for coordination, we overstate the role of an interpretive idea in performance and overlook coordination in these other domains. Consider this comment from the control session, where the flutists were asked to rehearse a work they had performed and rehearsed before, C. P. E. Bach’s Sonata in A  Minor (Gary Schocker edition with “Ghost” accompaniment). The flutists were asked to “rehearse something”:

Domains of Coordination  127 011404—control session J: did you have any ideas? M: um, no, I was sort of focusing on not playing wrong notes J: yeah so was I M: because the camera was rolling

One of the most challenging aspects of studying cognition in music performance is the realization that musicians may choose an aspect of their activity to attend to focally, relegating other important aspects into subsidiary awareness. This is not always a choice; as we see implicated here, the situation (performing for the first time in a research lab, with the camera rolling) plays an important role in determining the focal aspects of musicmaking. They had to first adapt to the novel situation before pulling up an aspect of the music to work on. In this session, once they were comfortable with the lab setting, they worked on dynamics and intonation. But they could have worked on any number of aspects of the music. Therefore, it is important to frame analyses, and bound analytical explanations, to the ensemble’s activity (see the previous chapter).

Domain 2: Counting This work demands focal attention to counting. The count (the rhythms within and across parts) is so complex that it requires scaffolding, and the evidence for successful counting comes in more than one domain. The evidence of counting in the rehearsal data is too plentiful to include. Most of the time, the flutists count (using numbers), point at the score, sing (syllables), snap fingers, and draw markings on the score to demonstrate their engagement of counting. Sometimes they discuss the difficulties they are having in this domain of coordination: Difficulty Counting: 021105 020705 030305 092205 092205 092605 100105 111305

I stop counting when I’m listening, I find I stopped counting on the portamento I haven’t been counting let’s start again I have a hard time counting through pitch bends for some reason, like there I swear I’m counting but I could be wrong. We should be doing that at the same time We’re both counting fine, it’s just our (different rate of accelerando) Have I been counting this right? We’re together, but I’m not sure if it’s because I’m counting or because you are following me. I’m sorry that was me. I’m not counting it right.

What makes counting a domain of coordination is its persistence as an aspect of the musical activity: it is never solved or set in stone. Only one of the sessions lacks any mention of counting, the dress rehearsal (092905). When

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the flutists discuss “getting the piece back” they don’t mention “under their fingers” (technique), they mention counting (092205). But the counting is always in reference to the other part. 092205 I was trying to get this piece back, especially the counting, just making sure that we can get all the rhythms. But um, yeah, so much of it has to do with the other part, so there’s only so much I can do on my own.

In a rare spot where only one of the flutists is playing, they make a joke about not needing to count: 012105

M: I mean you can take as much time. . . . you can do J: yeah that’s the brilliance of it is that because it’s just me I don’t really need to count (laughs) M: remember the cameras are rolling (laughs) J: I know the camera’s rolling of course I’m going to count (both are laughing)

They know that it is important not only to count but to be perceived as counting, and this is what makes them laugh. The work demands careful attention to counting, but it should sound improvisatory. So counting is important, but what kinds of evidence do the flutists use to monitor the counting while playing? This is a question about the grounding of information (see Clark & Brennan, 1991). Evidence

For two people, A and B, it is common ground that p if and only if 1. A and B have some information that some basis b holds; 2. b indicates to A and B that A and B have information that b holds; 3. b indicates to A and B that p. p = counting b  =  “together on that,” “six of those in one beat,” “this comes before that,” “be more visual with upper-body motion,” “big beats,” “mark where the pulse is” As the rehearsals progress, the flutists cultivate evidence for successful coordination. Each of these areas of evidence contains coordination devices. We can see a progression from focusing on visual evidence for their parts lining up (in the earliest rehearsals) to knowing what the other player is doing (just prior to the performance), to being able to hide a missed cue (in

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the final post-performance experimental session). The strongest indication of grounding appears in the dress rehearsal (100105) when J asks M, “[H]ave I been counting this right?” She asks for M’s evidence of her count. She knows that he has a shared basis for her count. They are not trying to achieve synchronous timing; they are focused on coordinating their count. The evidence for this coordination can be found in different domains. For example, if M is very successful at monitoring J’s body motion, then she wouldn’t know if she was counting correctly. His count is as important as her count in this picture, and their body motions are a separate domain of coordination. Session

Comments

Evidence

012105

J: this piece, I’m not really thinking of it in subdivisions, as much as M: broad beats J: we’ve marked where the pulse is (moves hand to conduct pulse) M: yeah J: and so, it’s fitting the gesture* within the pulse that we’ve marked. And so, I don’t know exactly how accurate it’s coming out if it was to be measured mathematically M: I’m wondering/I wanna try and be a little more visual with at least where I think the beats are J: yeah, I mean I’m tapping my foot. I don’t know if you can see it at all M: [nope] (laughs, tosses head up) J: oh OK, thats OK M: so I might just be/I might keep it more upper body I think J: um// / M: there’s a place where I meander around. where is it. here I still get J: yeah ‘cause [I’m still not counting it right so M: I get loosey goosey] M: no its me I’m sure it’s me more than anything else J: OK I should have done that much sooner // or you came in early one or the other M: mmm I don’t remember there J: I didn’t count that right aa~and I forgot to do the mezzo piano M: I forgot to do the mezzo piano. I thought we counted OK J: no, I didn’t count right at the very end that’s all

visual cue for the beat (annotation)

012105

021105

021105

021105 030305

fit gesture within visual cue for pulse

upper-body motion; tapping (body motion)

focal strength of their internal count

parts line up focal strength of internal count

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Comments

092205

J: gotta get all six of those in one beat

Evidence

fit gesture* within visual cue for pulse 092605 M: well you know, I’ll say, I’ll say one thing knowledge of the other I mean like it’s just, I mean, this piece part, what the other now, I’m at a point where that sort of player is doing thing can happen and I’m like, OK J: yeah, we know, we do know what each other’s doing M: well, having both parts there helps too (laughs) J: yeah M: but before I’d be like (waves arms in air) 092605 J: that was so my fault. I have to mark it. visual cue for the beat I just have to mark it. It’s ONE . . . TWO (both laugh) J: I always count an extra beat in that. OK. ahh, it was so good until 19 100105 J: have I been counting this right? looking for partner’s dress rehearsal M: hmm? evidence of successful J: whenever we have this count M: umm J: I’m feeling like I might be holding the Gflat M: mmm, I don’t know um, why am I coming in, early? J: no no, we’re playing it together, but I’m not sure if it’s because you’re following me or if it’s because I’m counting it correctly. M: do you want to just try like from, from there? 111305 J (interrupts): yeah, I don’t think you’re watching parts line up final postholding that long enough using the next iteration performance (M plays, while J snaps her fingers) to assess what session M: yeah you’re right, OK happened just prior J: yeah, OK (they play again) J: yeah, it was better M: hmm? want to try it again? J: yeah, now let’s see if we can accel M: yeah. J: (interrupts) only, you did that too soon, like I wasn’t done with all this (M whisper plays an interval a few times while tapping his foot. Speaking into his flute) can we try it again? J: yeah, yeah, and I’ll try to see if I was holding it too long, but we’ll see.

Domains of Coordination  131 Session

Comments

Evidence

111305 M: last night, OK I’ll be completely making up for a missed final posthonest, OK last night (in the master class), cue (in a master class performance she played, when we got to bar 16, she performance) session played her thing and I kept waiting for a particular cue that she had already played so she sat there on her F she just kept playing and playing and I was like (looks around in the air) (J laughs) M: I guess, . . . I guess the cue’s gone so I, . . . at this point she’s just like hmm, hm hmm. . . M: I don’t think we actually J: I thought we covered it very well M: yes, yes J: nobody had a clue * When the flutists use the term gesture here, they are referring to a group of notes with a shape, not a body motion. When they talk about their body motion, they refer to it directly (upper-body motion vs. tapping foot).

As the flutists learn to operate within this piece, they develop the ability to successfully monitor more than one domain of coordination. They must count and watch the score and monitor body motion of the other player and listen to the sounds coming from themselves and the other player and do all of this in a way that is responsive to their situation. This is an impressive balancing act for attentional resources. Interference

Occasionally the flutists discuss the balancing act required of their attentional resources. When rehearsing, they scale back on the demands to perfect one aspect. Here, they leave out the portamento temporarily in order to improve the timing:  092205—counting and placing M:  Ok what I’m going to do, I’m not going to portamento ’cause I have a hard time counting through pitch bends for some reason, like there. J:  Well you know the other thing I was noticing when practicing, is when I tried to put the portamento in the rest that follows it, I got thrown off. If I thought of it in the time of the note, M:  dauhh and then off J:  right and try to be off, I mean just for now I mean, and see if that helps M:  yeah OK

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020705—counting and placing M:  got it, ok ok, do you know what? I  stop counting during the portamento that’s why J:  oh OK M:  I switch off J:  don’t stop counting. . . M: ok. The portamento must be placed, and placing that utterance interferes with their internal count in the rehearsal. Once they agree on how to place it successfully, the placing of the portamento becomes a coordination device for this moment in the music.

Domain 3: Annotation: A Perceptual Basis for Coordination For two people, A and B, it is common ground that p if and only if 1. A and B have some information that some basis b holds; 2. b indicates to A and B that A and B have information that b holds; 3. b indicates to A and B that p. p

b

location of the eighth-note beat subdivision in three a feeling of continued motion

vertical pencil marks between staves triangle pencil mark curved arrow over the bar line

A domain of coordination is defined by the goals and constraints for the musical activity. In this case study, annotation became important because the flutists used many pencil markings to coordinate their performance of the music. The first movement contains 128 pencil marks. Out of 37 measures, only 11 are free of markings. The second movement contains 65 pencil marks. Out of 40 measures, only 17 have no markings. This is a very heavy use of pencil marks to facilitate performance. To understand why the flutists annotated their score so much, it helps to understand something about the score itself. The score for Masque pour deux Flûtes is very detailed and precise. Tempo markings are precisely notated to the eighth note, but the tempo changes often. For example, the piece begins at eighth note = 38. From measures 4 through 7, the tempo speeds up from eighth note = 38 to eighth note = 50. This would be one challenge if the pulse was regular. But the measures do not have a stable pulse. Rather, the meter changes each measure: 2/8, 5/16, 5/8, 2/8, 5/16, 5/8, 3/8, 4/8. Not

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only is the pulse varied, but inside each beat, the subdivisions are also not the same between parts. If one part divides the beat in three, for example, the other part might be dividing the beat in seven or five. The challenge is to find a basis for coordination, and in the first movement at least, the rhythm seems to be purposely obfuscated. Visual Salience

In 2011, I classified the annotations into three areas: to improve the visual salience of aspects of the score, to repair or correct something in the performance, and to anchor aspects of performance activity (Kaastra, 2011). To improve the visual salience of an aspect of the score, the flutists might circle something as in Figure 6.1. The flutists drew a circle around “accel” (an abbreviation of accelerando, meaning to speed up). The marking was also written under the second part, with “molto,” meaning “much.” These marks make an aspect of the score more visually salient, meaning they well be less likely to overlook it. Another visual salience marker seems to put the performance indication closer to the notes, in English rather than French. In Figure 6.2, the words, “No vib.----------” is a translation of “Sans vibr.----------” just below it.

Figure 6.1 Masque pour deux Flûtes, Movement II, “Incidental,” Measure 12, Annotated by M and J (2005), Music by Tōru Takemitsu Source: Copyright © 1962 by Editions Salabert—Paris, France All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured Reproduced by kind permission of Hal Leonard Europe S.r.l.—Italy.

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Figure 6.2 Masque pour deux Flûtes, Movement II, “Continu,” Measures 22–24, Annotated by M and J (2005), Music by Tōru Takemitsu Source: Copyright © 1962 by Editions Salabert—Paris, France All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured Reproduced by kind permission of Hal Leonard Europe S.r.l.—Italy.

The mark does not interpret the music; it just emphasizes an existing marking to improve its visibility. This is the least common type of marking in the score, with only nine examples. Repair

The second classification, “repair,” takes two forms. The first type of repair is a correction or alteration of the score to make the performance of it more feasible. For example, the flutists revise a time signature in measure 20 of “Continu” from 3½/8 to 7/16. Normally it is considered not acceptable to alter a score in this way, since the idea is that the composer probably had a reason for marking it 3½/8. However, it is much easier to count seven sixteenths than three and a half eighths. The flutists make a similar repair in measure 23, revising the time signature from 2½/8 to 5/16. In changing the time signature, they are making it easier to subdivide, to keep an internal count. Instead of two and a half eighth-note beats, they count five sixteenths. Take this smaller subdivision helps them line up their parts more successfully. Another type of repair marking shows up in words or marks that engage metacognition, be aware of what we are aware of in performing this section. This is a performance repair, seen in Figure 6.3 in the marking “SLOW.” In this section the tempo has just shifted from eighth note = 38 in measure 14 to eighth note = 60 in measure 15 to eighth note = 38 in measure 16. The music speeds up while changing meter from 3/8 in measure 14 to 5/8 in

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Figure 6.3 Masque pour deux Flûtes, Movement I, “Continu,” Measures 16–17, Annotated by M and J (2005), Music by Tōru Takemitsu Source: Copyright © 1962 by Editions Salabert—Paris, France All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured Reproduced by kind permission of Hal Leonard Europe S.r.l.—Italy.

measure 15 to 5/16 in measure 16. The flutists have to monitor the changing tempo in addition to their uneven subdivisions of the beat. The marking “SLOW” brings the tempo back into focal awareness in the midst of all these other details. In the image Figure 6.4, the flutists have written “Hold ◊” over the side of measure 31. This marking is not about holding a note longer, as one might expect, but “holding the space in preparation for the big moment that comes next.” In the next measure, the flutists play one of two entrances in the entire movement where they articulate a note together. This “hold” moment is very important in setting up that entrance, which they have marked in a bracket with the annotation “together.” This mark is a persistent external reminder to create space in the moment leading up to that coordinated articulation. Performance Anchors

Finally, the bulk of the annotations on this score are what I call performance anchors. The performance anchor “grounds” the performance, perceptually and physically. An anchor can be thought of as a harness for solving a difficult coordination problem. On the rehearsal score, we see vertical lines drawn between parts (as in Figure 6.5). The vertical lines show where the parts line up, even though those moments are not articulated together. As the flutists scan the page, they can mark the passing of time between them. The vertical lines provide a perceptual basis for the advancement of common ground

136  Conceptualizing Ensemble Performance

Figure 6.4 Masque pour deux Flûtes, Movement I, “Continu,” Measure 31, Annotated by M and J (2005), Music by Tōru Takemitsu Source: Copyright © 1962 by Editions Salabert—Paris, France All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured Reproduced by kind permission of Hal Leonard Europe S.r.l.—Italy.

Figure 6.5  Masque pour deux Flûtes, Movement I, “Continu,” Measures 29–31, Annotated by M and J (2005), Music by Tōru Takemitsu Source: Copyright © 1962 by Editions Salabert—Paris, France All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured Reproduced by kind permission of Hal Leonard Europe S.r.l.—Italy.

(seeClark, 1996, p. 112). When the flutists see a vertical beat mark while playing, they are perceiving event e, with three properties: 1. they are both aware of e; 2. e indicates to them that they are both aware of e; 3. e indicates to them that a beat has gone by. The passing of beat marks establishes a “perceptual copresence” (Clark & Marshall, 1981, qtd. in Clark, 1996, p. 112). This is a domain of coordination,

Domains of Coordination  137

an overlapping “perceptual shell” (p. 113) based in the vertical lines. They both know how to see their parts move across the vertical lines. In addition to these, the arrows point to notes that must line up between parts. So, even if their count is off, they can see which notes should be sounded together. Seeing the parts line up is a visual aid, a scaffold for their count. The triangle in measure 30 indicates how the measure is subdivided. Because it appears at the beginning of the measure, the subdivision is 1 2 3 1 2 (instead of 1 2 1 2 3). Both subdivisions contain five beats, but the results of using one or the other are not the same. The lines and arrows help the flutists to see how their parts line up as they play. The count is not the only aspect of their performance that is scaffolded through annotation. Other detailed score markings in the passage in Figure 6.5 demand a careful attention to dynamics. Every note must be placed and shaped in addition to being lined up properly. In one of the rehearsals, the flutists forgot their annotated score. They respond by using a greater volume of body motion, and they report being more aware of some of the material they had marked, as if they are searching for that information in the unmarked score: 092905 J: I’m actually aware of things I might have been taking for granted M: yeah J: having had our own little M: yeah, yeah J: map out here 092905 J: well, that my eyes have to take in more information as we’re playing L: from the score? J: from the score M: the original one has our beats (draws downward strokes in air) drawn in J: we have our beats marked in and we have, we’ve emphasized dynamics (draws sideways in air) that we want to make sure we remember that sort of thing M: yeah, and because they’ve been removed, I’m actually more alert about them

J refers to the annotated score as their “own little map out there,” evidence of the perceptual shell they have built to scaffold their performance. From their statements, timing and dynamics are coordinated through annotations on the score.

Tracks Timing, placing, and shaping can be thought of as “tracks” in musical performance. This is not unlike tracks on an action ladder for spoken conversation (Clark, 1996, pp. 253–257). In Clark’s action ladder, utterances take place on track one, “the official business,” or what. Track two contains signals about the presentation of that information, or how. In this case study, track

138  Conceptualizing Ensemble Performance

one is the utterance, the note. Track two is how, or the articulation and shaping of the note. Track three is the speed of the notes, together. Although it is possible to play through the piece on only one track, by just playing the notes, for example, performing the complete work requires the maintenance of activity on all three tracks at once. The score does not separate the information into tracks, but it contains information to help the flutists identify the utterance and the shape/volume and the speed-dial tracks of their performance. Three tracks for music signaling: Track one

utterance

Track two

shape (volume)

Track three

speed (tempo)

Domain 4: Body Motion: An Actional Basis for Coordination p = placement of the beat p = arrival at the second 16th m. 30 b = upper-body motion, foot tapping b = M provides head nod Performance Anchors

In Part I of the project, the flutists disagreed about whether upper-body motion or foot tapping was the best coordination device for the real-time placement of the beat. Sessions 021105 and 030305 in the first phase contained the following discussions of beating motion: 021105 M: I’m wondering / I want to try and be a little more visual with at least where I think the beats are J: yeah, I mean I’m tapping my foot. I don’t know if you can see it at all M: [nope] (laughs, tosses head up) J: oh OK, that’s OK M: so I might just be / I might keep it more upper body I think J: yeah OK M: uhh J: just make sure you’re not subdividing any . . . triplets or anything just stick with the big beats M: right alright 030305 M: that was good I thought. oo! I like it when we [do this] (makes large beating motion with flute in the air, mimicking their marking of the beats) J: (laughs) M: (laughs)

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J stated that she was tapping her foot; M was using upper-body motion. Their goal was to establish a common placement for the beat. They managed their differences by negotiating the terms under which upper-body motion would be used, namely, to mark only the “big beats” (the eighthnote beats), not the “triplet subdivisions.” Thus, we can say, they are drawing on an actional basis for common ground (see Clark, 1996, p. 114): When the flutists use large upper-body motions while playing, they are demonstrating event e, with three properties: 1. they are both aware of e; 2. e indicates to them that they are both aware of e; 3. e indicates to them that a beat has gone by. The flutists established that upper-body motion would be perceived as “large beats,” not subdivisions. They came to rely on body motion as a form of evidence for the placement of beats during both play and discussion:

92905 flutes down M beats tempo with upper body, looking at score J: not that fast M: hm? no that’s the sixteeenth part J: oh, OK

As we see in the preceding transcript, upper-body motion also provides information on track three: speed. Gestural Key

Body motion was also used as a gestural key for specific moments in the music. In session 092605, M provides a gestural key for placing the second sixteenth note of measure 30 in the first movement. Here is the discussion: 092205 Takemitsu J:  I like when you gesture on that F // M: yeah J:  that helps me know [exactly when to come in] (points) with the B there M:  OK J:  M: -a god moment, just in case [so no matter what happens there] (through

side of mouth) like if I sort of give a little nod there we know plltthhh (had chop towards score) we’re back on there J: yeah/sure

140  Conceptualizing Ensemble Performance

His “little nod” made visible his arrival at F in measure 30. J indicates that M’s nodding gesture helped her to find her place. Labeling this gesture, a “god” moment gave them a shared basis for arrival for that moment in the music. Even if the performance was to go poorly up to that point, there was a good chance that M’s nod would pull it together. This is an example of a physical gesture being used in a nonconventional manner. State of the Activity

The use of body motion as a coordination device is also constrained by the state of the activity. In the early stages of rehearsing, the flutists negotiated how they would indicate the big beats through upper-body motion. In subsequent rehearsals, their use of body motion changed as they cultivated a deeper understanding of the music. In their dress rehearsal (092905), the flutists were asked if they could break their sense of ensemble, break the performance. They suggested that the best way to break it would be to remove the upper-body motion (see Kaastra, 2008, p. 111). However, when they experimented with this, when they played through the piece with restricted upper-body motion, they could still successfully negotiate the music. This was repeated in the final, post-performance experimental session (110305) during which they were asked to perform the piece with a physical barrier between them. They could still negotiate the music. The strongest evidence for multiple domains of coordination lies in their ability to coherently perform the piece with one domain of coordination severely restricted or removed. Behind a barrier, they performed the piece with and without upper-body motion. They successfully played through the rhythmically challenging passages in measures 11 through 22 and 25 through 31 of the first movement. The flutists had built up many layers of common ground on which to interact. By the end of the study, the flutists reported that they “knew the piece really well.” They had built up their common ground through many activities and coordination devices (discussions, repetition, and experimentation and the score, pencil markings, breath cues, and gestures, respectively). 092905 L: have you thought about the music once in a while without playing? M: I think about it constantly J: oh yeah M: because I don’t have much time to practice it, so J: but then also I think we’ve gotten to know the music better M: yeah J: and, to the original question, it’s not two people playing each of us a line of music at the same time, we’ve gotten to the point I think where . . . we know the music. It’s there. . . M: mmhm yeah at the very least if we fall down, we can get back up J: we’re playing the music, we’re not two musicians making noise

Domains of Coordination  141

At the end of the study, the flutists demonstrated that they could perform the piece with an unmarked score (092905) without beating motions (092905) and with a physical barrier between them (110305).

Domain 5: Genre Heuristics p = maintaining/developing a sense of ensemble b = “being visible with” breath and motion cues The fifth domain of coordination in the Takemitsu study consists of the genre heuristics called up by the flutists in rehearsal. These are procedural aspects of music-making that are genre-specific, principles of interaction. An example of such a principle is their stated aim to “be visible with” their intentions for performance (e.g., breath, ensemble cues). The flutists use body motion and breath cues to make visible the information on the two procedural tracks: note shaping and tempo. In small ensembles with no conductor, the flutist is often assigned some of the tasks of conducting. This can include using the flute to coordinate a cutoff, to demonstrate the beat, and to provide entrance cues. It can also include leaning in for crescendi (growing louder for emphasis) and narrowing the volume of motion for decrescendi (getting softer). This role is taught to chamber players in Western art music. The flutists describe their training: 092905 L: is there a leader–follower thing happening, or are you doing it at the same time? M: She leads for the most part J: I lead mainly M: if we’re together, if we have an entrance together, um, I refer to her. if I start, I start J: but if he starts, obviously I follow him L: ok, M: and I think if I was playing first, I mean J: yeah, I think it’s just an understood thing, whoever’s playing first, leads 092905 M: chamber music, I mean, in chamber music in particular, I mean, we’re taught to be very visual and to sort of rely on not just what we hear but also ah/what we, what we see, and especially for music like this where J: M: like you know like the gestures and the phrasing are not necessarily you know, clear. They’re not four bars or whatever L: mmhm M: you know, so we do, I think, this piece in particular requires a lot more physicality J: but it is something you learn. It’s not something that we’re doing naturally. M: you’re right. I mean you know like, J: yeah but it’s a learned intuitiveness M: yea yea yea you know

142  Conceptualizing Ensemble Performance 092905 L: is there a leader–follower thing happening, or are you doing it at the same time? M: She leads for the most part J: I lead mainly M: if we’re together, if we have an entrance together, um, I refer to her. if I start, I start J: but if he starts, obviously I follow him L: ok, M: and I think if I was playing first, I mean J: yeah, I think it’s just an understood thing, whoever’s playing first, leads J: you know, like I remember being in flute lessons at 13 years old and my teacher going “OK we’re gonna practice duets now,” and teaching me these types of things M: yeah J: “breathe together so we start together” (conducts with the arm holding flute) “and watch me through the cut off” M: yeah J: and things like that M: yeah / I teach / I teach “ensemble” J: yeah, yeah, M: with my kids / like I teach them how to respond to certain gestures and to know what they are L: yeah J: how to play with other people, so M: and for them to do it them themselves, yeah J: and then eventually it becomes natural

These principles are aspects of instrumental performance that are largely tacit, not discussed in expert settings, unless a problem occurs. Nevertheless, these heuristics play a very important role in the negotiation of music in ensembles (see the Conclusion). p = maintaining/developing a sense of ensemble b = breathe together, watch the other player This larger equation can be said to cover conventions of performance such as “being visible with [x],” where x could be drawn from any of the following: intent for breath, beat, articulation, dynamics, character. Intent

As noted earlier, the flutists must intend “to perform the work” or to “clarify the counting,” in order to be considered as participants in the activity. While this may seem obvious, an act can take on different meanings in different domains or layers of activity, depending on the way intention is interpreted. Ensemble A-and-B is doing joint action k if and only if 0. the action k includes 1 and 2; 1. A intends to be doing A’s part of k and believes that 0;

Domains of Coordination  143

2. B intends to be doing B’s part of k and believes that 0. A coordination device such as “being visible with [x]” (where x could be drawn from any of the following: intent for breath, beat, articulation, dynamics, or character) gives a clear indication of the role of intent in ensemble coordination. At a higher layer of observation, we would say the flutists intended to participate together throughout the project. However, the flutists also periodically engaged in autonomous acts. Here, the flutists are talking to themselves after stopping play:

M: [sorry, b] (looking at his fingers on his flute, he tries a fingering) J: (sings and claps fingers, then speaks to herself) [duuum baa dumm] I know, I’m not going to do that

In this clip, the flutists are not intending to communicate with each other. They are simply talking to themselves while standing beside each other. J knows that when M tries a fingering, he is not raising his flute to indicate they should start together. The same action, raising a flute, means different things in different situations. Similarly, when J is singing, M knows that she is not trying to clarify his rhythms; she is sorting something out for herself. So, the formula for intent captures that distinction. Most of the time, participation is managed well enough for current purposes. But mistakes are also a routine element of interpersonal interaction, and for that reason, grounding is an important consideration for determining how an interaction should proceed. Discussion

Research on cognition in music performance must employ a conceptual framework capable of withstanding the complexity of musical activity. Studies of coordination in music performance must include information in more than one domain, along more than one track. Music-making is not simply reading from a sheet and playing a simultaneous interpretation side by side. Musicians coordinate their activity in multiple domains, and along more than one track. They define and negotiate a field of operation, a perceptual shell in which their perceptions and actions are jointly managed. This is a way of conceptualizing the field of operation at the level of the ensemble, an ecologically valid approach to understanding cognition in music performance. Finally, for research on cognition in music performance to have explanatory power for musicians and their work, studies of cognition in musicmaking must be properly bounded. As we see in the control session and experimental sessions analyzed here, musical works make different demands in the domains of coordination. The C. P. E. Bach piece did not require an intense management of counting, but the Takemitsu piece did. Similarly,

144  Conceptualizing Ensemble Performance

information on the three tracks will be weighted differently in different performance activities and situations. A lab setting is not the same as a performance setting, for example. Ensemble and genre heuristics will constrain musical information in important ways. It is important that these be taken into account in studies of cognition in music performance.

Notes 1. See Ingrid Monson. (1996). Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, for an introduction to jazz as a signaling system. 2. “Dropping the needle”: in older technology, recorded music was played on “records,” vinyl discs with small grooves in them. The disc spins and a small needle vibrates according to bumps in the little grooves. One could “drop the needle” to start a piece anywhere in the recorded music. This analogy means that the performers can just start up there, as if nothing happened. 3. Note that they don’t have to use the score as a common source of information to perform this work. They could, for example, work from a recording or from a scrolling computer screen. Their parts could be separate, and they could be playing from different rooms. But here, they are standing side by side and reading from one score.

References Baily, John, & Peter Driver. (1992). “Spatio-Motor Thinking in Playing Folk Blues Guitar.” The World of Music, 34(3): 57–71. Brinner, Benjamin. (1995). Knowing Music, Making Music: Javanese Gamelan and the Theory of Musical Competence and Interaction. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Butterfield, Matthew. (2003). “The Musical Object Revisited.” Music Analysis, 21(3): 327–380. Carpenter, Patricia. (1967). “The Musical Object.” Current Musicology, 5: 56–87. Clark, Herbert H. (1996). Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, Herbert H. (2005). “Coordinating with Each Other in a Material World.” Discourse Studies, 7(4–5): 507–525. Clark, Herbert H. (2006a). “Context and Common Ground.” Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, 3: 105–108. Clark, Herbert H. (2006b). “Social Actions, Social Commitments.” In Roots of Human Sociality: Culture, Cognition, and Human Interaction. Eds. S. C. Levinson & H. J. Enfield. Oxford: Berg Press. Clark, Herbert H. (2012). “Wordless Questions, Wordless Answers.” In Questions: Formal, Functional and Interactional Perspectives. Ed. J.-P. de Ruiter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, Herbert H., & Catherine R. Marshall. (1981). “Reference Diaries.” In Theoretical Issues in Natural Language Processing. Ed. D. L. Waltz, Vol. 11, pp. 57–63. Quoted in Clark, Herbert H. (1996). Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, Herbert H., & Edward F. Schaefer. (1989). “Contributing to Discourse.” Cognitive Science, 13: 259–294. Clark, Herbert H., & Susan Brennan. (1991). “Grounding in Communication.” In Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition. Eds. Lauren B. Resnick, John Levine, & Stephanie Teasley. Washington, DC: APA Books, pp. 127–149.

Domains of Coordination  145 Clark, Herbert H.,  & Meredyth A. Krych. (2003). “Speaking While Monitoring Addressees for Understanding.” Journal of Memory and Language, 50: 62–81. Clarke, Eric. (2004). “Empirical Methods in the Study of Performance.” In Empirical Musicology: Methods, Aims, Prospects. Eds. Eric Clarke & Nicholas Cooks. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Cook, Nicholas. (2001). “Between Process and Product: Music and/as Performance.” Music Theory Online, 7(2): np. Crocker, Richard L. (1967). “Some Reflections on the Shape of Music.” Current Musicology, 5: 50–54. Cross, Ian. (2005). “Music and Meaning, Ambiguity and Evolution.” In Musical Communication. Eds. Dorothy Miell, Raymond MacDonald, & David Hargreaves. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Cross, Ian. (2012). “Music as a Social and Cognitive Process.” In Language and Music as Cognitive Systems. Eds. Patrick Rebuschat, Martin Rohrmeier, John A. Hawkins, & Ian Cross. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cumming, Naomi. (2000). The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and Signification. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Davidson, Jane,  & James M. M. Good. (2002). “Social and Musical Co-Ordination Between Members of a String Quartet: An Exploratory Study.” Psychology of Music, 30: 186–201. Kaastra, Linda. (2008). “Systematic Approaches to the Study of Cognition in Western Art Music Performance.” PhD dissertation, The University of British Columbia. Kaastra, Linda. (2011). Annotation and the Coordination of Cognitive Processes in Western Art Music Performance. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Performance Science. Toronto, ON, pp. 675–680. Larson, Steve. (2012). Musical Forces: Motion, Metaphor, and Meaning in Music. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Lester, Joel. (1995). “Performance and Analysis: Interaction and Interpretation.” in The Practice of Performance: Studies in Musical Interpretation. Ed. John Rink. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 197–216. Loehr, Janeen D., and Caroline Palmer. (2011). “Temporal Coordination Between Performing Musicians.” Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64(11): 2153–2167. In Zamm, Anna, Peter Pfordresher, & Caroline Palmer. (2014). “Temporal Coordination in Joint Music Performance: Effects of Endogenous Rhythms and Auditory Feedback.” Experimental Brain Research, p. 608. Monson, Ingrid. (1996). Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Rink, John. (1995). “Analysis and (or?) Performance.” In Music Performance: A Guide to Understanding. Ed. John Rink. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rink, John. (2004). The Practice of Performance: Studies in Musical Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schmalfeldt, Janet. (2011). “In the Process of Becoming: Analytic and Philosophical Perspectives on Form in Early Nineteenth-Century Music.” In Oxford Studies in Music Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stevens, Catherine J. (2012). “Music Perception and Cognition: A Review of Recent Cross-Cultural Research.” Topics in Cognitive Science, 4: 653–667. Williamon, Aaron, & Jane Davidson. (2002). “Exploring Co-Performer Communication.” Musicae Scientiae, 6: 53–72.

146  Conceptualizing Ensemble Performance Zamm, Anna, Peter Pfordresher, & Caroline Palmer. (2014). “Temporal Coordination in Joint Music Performance: Effects of Endogenous Rhythms and Auditory Feedback.” Experimental Brain Research. DOI:10.1007/s00221-014-4140-5 Zbikowski, Lawrence. (2017). Foundations of Musical Grammar. Oxford Studies in Music Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.

Conclusion Cognition in Orchestral Performance

The study of cognition in music performance gets more and more complex as it is scaled up from performance on an instrument to performance in an orchestra. This complexity is to be embraced, however, if we are to arrive at an ecologically valid understanding of cognition in music performance (see D’Andrade, 1995). In Part I, I studied cognition at the level of the person/ instrument system using an ecologically valid definition of representation in music. Here, Polanyi’s structure of tacit knowledge (1966) was useful for exploring how an aspect of musical activity on an instrument (e.g., finger coordination, embouchure) becomes part of the negotiation of musical meaning. Instrumental particulars take on significance; they become something that a player can use to generate musical meaning. One goes from playing a series of notes to moving in a direction with them by mastering instrumental particulars. The structure of tacit knowledge also addresses how instrumental particulars reside in subsidiary awareness. A  player does not keep all aspects of music-making focal, all the time. There is a balancing act for attentional resources, a set of priorities for musical targets that are determined by the activities, goals, contexts, and genres of music-making. In Part II, I explored the foundations of the theory of distributed cognition to define the operational field of a musician. This ecologically valid approach establishes boundaries for the units and levels of cognitive processes involved in music-making. One such boundary is drawn around a musician and their informational resources. In the examples I discussed, notation systems privilege some cognitive processes over others. For the guitar, it is easy to see how standard notation orients the musician to structural concerns, but action notation orients the musician to patterns of movement. Performance genres also constrain the way musicians attend to musical activity. In the example I discussed, one can attend focally to patternwork or to the careful placement and shaping of musical material. The distinctions between these genres are important to a study of cognition in music performance. There are multiple sources of musical meaning, and these sources lead to different bases for musical participation. In Part III, I extended the distributed cognition framework to a study of coordination in ensemble performance. Here, Herbert H. Clark’s (1996)

148  Conclusion

joint activity theory was useful for identifying when information becomes operational at the level of the ensemble. The first step was to recognize dimensions of variation for musical activity. Musicians are doing many different things when they make music together, and these different dimensions constrain what counts as a contribution, what information is meaningful, and how the musical activity is carried out. The second step was to explore the domains of coordination, the areas where information becomes focal as a coordination device. My Takemitsu case study explored five domains of coordination: the work, counting, annotation, body motion, and genre heuristics. Information in each of these domains becomes part of the operational field of the ensemble. If the conceptual framework I have introduced is valid, it should scale up for the study of cognition in orchestral performance, though it is easy to see how such a study would require a much larger space than I have in this final chapter. Therefore, I propose to use this space to organize a research landscape and point to opportunities for future research.

Scalable Concepts In this book, I have been developing a way of understanding cognition in music performance that will tell us more about the inner mechanisms of the orchestra. These scalable concepts help us view the orchestra as a cognitive system. The concepts can be applied at different units and levels of analysis: the entire ensemble, instrumental sections, or to individuals, in context. In other words, the conceptual lenses can zoom out (to the whole group) and in (to sections and participants) as necessary. To define research boundaries, one must • • • •

identify a field of operation with reference to its participants; identify musical event boundaries; identify musical activities, the roles, and contributions of participants; and identify the coordination devices, shared informational resources, and transformations taking place within the relevant boundaries.

It is not possible to study everything at once. Research on cognition in music performance should establish reasonable, ecologically valid boundaries for each research question. Most important, to learn something about cognition in the orchestra, we need to study the people who participate professionally in orchestral activity, the real experts on cognition in orchestral performance. Professional orchestral musicians are highly skilled musicians with decades of experience as instrumentalists. It has always been my view that their expertise should define what is important about performance in this genre.

Conclusion  149

The Orchestra The orchestra is a large ensemble that consists of several instrument groups: strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. The string section (violins, violas, cellos, and basses) are typically arranged at the front of the stage in a circle around the conductor. The woodwind section (flutes and oboes, clarinets, and bassoons) sit in in straight rows in the center of the group. The brass section (trumpets, French horns, trombones, and tuba) is often seated behind the strings and woodwinds, and the percussion section is typically at the very back of the orchestra. Instrumentation and seating arrangements vary. The circles in Figure 7.1 each represent one orchestral musician. The source for the abstract drawing in Figure 7.1 was a picture that was taken of a world-class symphony orchestra after one of their performances. In 2014, I gathered a series of online master classes for each instrument of this orchestra for use as a case study of tacit knowledge in orchestral performance (Kaastra, 2016). In these master classes, members of the orchestra gave instructions on how to prepare audition materials for participation in an orchestral program. To give an idea of the scope of knowledge shared in these master classes, I  have created a chart listing the aspects of musicmaking addressed by more than one player. For example, when the wind players discussed the sound excitation of their instruments, they discuss airspeed, support, and pressure. When the instrumentalists discussed articulation, they do it in the context of interpreting score markings, lining up articulation and note groupings, modifying acoustics for use with articulation, and mimicking the use of language. Please browse the following chart.

Figure 7.1  A Typical Spatial Layout of the Orchestra

150  Conclusion ASPECT

Variations (described in point form notation)

AIR ARTICULATION

speed, support, pressure interpreting score markings, lining up with note groupings, modifying for acoustics, play as if singing [these] words and rhythmic values and tension and style in the pulse of the music, to notice and reduce tension, out as well as in, deep or shallow

BOWING BREATHING CHARACTER

play it simply or expressively, build in intensity, pay attention to composer’s markings, use the character to make it easier to play, avoid common pitfalls, breathing, and character COLOUR tone color and harmony, tone color, and tempo CONTEXT (*IMAGINED) project that you know what other instruments are playing, where other players need to breathe, what rhythm supports your solo, whether you are leading or accompanying, that you know the melody in a different part, that you are subdividing COUNTING note groupings (for direction or facility), subdivision, counting in, counting while playing (harp and percussion) DYNAMICS relative dynamics, solo dynamics, dynamic shaping, range, entering quietly, how to achieve diminuendo, demonstrate dynamic flexibility EMBOUCHURE and dynamics, pitch EXPRESSION and dynamics, vibrato, melody, projection FACILITY how to practice for, woodshedding, expression and HARMONY project your awareness of (imagined) harmonic context INTONATION be aware of your tendencies, project awareness of (imagined) context, tune carefully KEY be aware of key changes METER project the correct meter, practice the wrong meter to improve facility PATTERNS of chords, in cadenzas, in melodies, introducing variation, resisting the obvious PHRASING project direction, build to connect larger passages, focus on direction to improve facility, pushing through rests RHYTHM SING STORY TIMING TONE VIBRATO

and woodshedding, precision, projecting imagined context use vocal expression as a guide portray plot or character, think of theme consistency between excerpts, subdividing through rests and passages, joining an imagined context, focus on tempo avoiding distortion, as color pallet, as important as accuracy, how to center the tone, producing singing tone should sound natural

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Using the conceptual framework introduced in this book, one could explore articulation as a coordination device, if it seemed relevant to the activity of the ensemble. In that situation, one would say that articulation is the defining aspect of a musical event or activity. The informational resources would include score markings, annotations, phrasing or note groupings, acoustics, and the speechlike sounds placed meaningfully in context. At the level of a person/instrument system, one would study the instrumental particulars of articulation. At the level of the section, one would examine domains of coordination for articulation (speechlike sounds, body motion, genre heuristics, instrumental particulars). To study articulation across instrument groups, one might do what I did in Part I, apply a knowledge of instrumental particulars to a tacit exchange of musical information in rehearsal. The picture can be as complex as necessary if the landscape is properly organized. Schemas for Orchestral Activity

A central tenet of the embodied and enactive perspective on cognition is the idea, widely attributed to Merleau-Ponty, that the body organizes perception (Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 2016, p. 174). In this idea, sensory perception is not a projection of a precomposed world. Rather, sensory engagement organizes perceptual experience into a world. Merleau-Ponty put it this way: since all the stimulations which the organism received have in turn been possible only by its preceding movements which have culminated in exposing the receptor organ to external influences, one could also say that behaviour is the first cause of all the stimulations. (qtd. in Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 2016, p. 174) There is considerable research in the area of categorization that aims to define what this means. For some, categorization is grounded through processes of interaction: The basic level categorization, thus, appears to be the point at which cognition and environment become simultaneously enacted. The object appears to the perceiver as affording certain kinds of interactions, and the perceiver uses the objects with their body and mind in the afforded manner. Form and function, . . . are aspects of the same process. (Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 2016, p. 177) For others, categorization is built up through experience in the form of image schemas (Johnson, 1987). In this view, aspects of real-world experience (i.e., moving through openings, putting things inside containers,

152  Conclusion

standing up and sitting down) form the basis for understanding and organizing information. In this view, understanding is a matter of extension from one domain of experience into others. In this book, I have aimed to provide an ontology of music that is consistent with these embodied and enactive perspectives on cognition. I would like to pause for a moment to examine carefully the way these ideas have been extended into music previously. Consider this passage from Raymond Gibbs (2006): Music perception is another domain in which perception is tightly associated with embodied movements, such as rhythmic gaits, breathing, and other locomotion phenomenon (Friberg & Sundberg, 1999; Friberg, Sundberg, & Fryden, 2001; Scruton, 1997). Shore and Repp (1995) highlight the important fact that musical motion is first and foremost audible human motion. They describe three levels of event awareness: the raw psychophysical perception of tone, the perception of abstract qualities of tone apart from their source, and the apprehension of environmental objects that give rise to sound events. This last level is the “ecological level” of perception where “the listener does not merely hear the sound of a galloping horse or bowing violin; rather, the listener hears a horse galloping and a violinist bowing” (Shore and Repp, 1995, p.  59). In this ecological framework, the source of perceived musical movement, especially self-motion, is critical to a listener’s perceptual experiences, as is abundantly clear to listeners attending a live musical performance (Clarke, 2001). In this way, music perception involves an understanding of bodily motion—a kind of empathetic embodied cognition. (Gibbs, 2006, p. 53) It has been pointed out that the scope of research and explanation in the field of music perception has been largely confined to the listener of Western art music (Stevens, 2012; Cross, 2012). We see this in the preceding passage, where a listener is endowed with a body that can empathically perceive movement as an “ecological” layer of musical meaning. In the preceding passage, what counts as an ecological level of perception is whether a listener can perceive movement through sound, grounding sonic information in knowledge about its source. Readers might suspect that this explanation does not fit with the ecological perspective I have outlined for the study of cognition in music performance. To my mind, there is nothing ecologically valid about the perspectives outlined earlier. Let us examine the statement by Shore and Repp (1995) that “musical motion is first and foremost audible human motion” (qtd. in Gibbs, 2006, p.  53). If we take an embodied and enactive perspective on cognition, we can state this even more basically. Humans engage sound in a process of negotiation that is defined by their purpose for listening. A person

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attending a concert may not be listening to what is happening onstage if the person sitting next to them is sneezing. They may be listening but focusing on only one performer out of the 60 on stage. Or they may have a score in front of them, and they may be seeking to compare what they hear with their analysis of the score. Or they may be listening in order to compare the speed of this performance with the speed of another performance of the same work. A person orients themselves toward sound in a manner that suits their purposes. This is their field of operation. The music is enacted in an exchange between the person and the performance (see also Truax, 2001). In an ecological perspective, there is no such thing as the raw psychophysical perception of tone. As James J. Gibson suggested, we can think about raw perception and, to a certain extent, make measurements of the limits of our ability to perceive sound frequencies, but when we listen to music or speech, those measures are not what we perceive. Recall James J. Gibson’s statement “there are no natural units of space except the components of a surface and no natural units of time except events” (1982, p. 208). What we perceive is in relation to our engagement with the world, our field of operation. Importantly, an orchestral musician does not have a listener’s perspective on musical sound. Let us examine some of the perspectives of the musicians in the orchestra, keeping in mind that these are not global instructions for music-making but specific directions for the performance of a few measures of music: Oboe

“be under the flutes”

Timpani

“be near the trumpets because throughout the piece you and the trumpets are hand in glove”

Timpani

“you need to be locked into the basses and cellos”

Timpani

“you need to be locked in tempo-wise . . . don’t rush”

Timpani

“you need to lead the orchestra, especially at the end”

Clarinet

“you don’t want to stick out, you want to be the icing on the cake in this trio”

Enacted Sound

These statements demonstrate that orchestral musicians prioritize attention for the purpose of performing. The oboist says, “[B]e under the flutes.” This means that for the passage in question, the oboist positions their sound just inside of the flute sound. The oboist will make sure that the flute sound is always louder than their own. Their sounds are enacted in relation to each other. This involves attending focally to the relative loudness of both parts at

154  Conclusion

the same time. A similar kind of relation is seen in the timpanist’s statements. The timpanist is “hand in glove” with the trumpets or “locked in” with the basses, focally attending to the procedural tracks, the speed at which each sound is made. This means knowing how to align with the physical realities of sound excitation on those different instruments. Aligning with the trumpets will work differently than aligning with the basses. The timpanist will orient themselves to the movements that make alignment possible. But the timpanist can also lead the orchestra. For me, this is a critical observation for cognition in orchestral performance. Agency and Roles in Orchestral Playing

The timpanist knows when it is time to follow, to be “locked in” with another part, and when it is time to lead. As a bassoonist, I have experience performing in orchestras. When the group is locked in and operating as a unit, sometimes the group can rush or slow down. This is very common. A section member can notice if the section is fast or slow or too loud or too soft. That player can indicate and demonstrate the necessary information for the players around them. In the earlier statement, the timpanist is sharing his knowledge of one spot in the music where the timpanist is meant to lead, to be on top of the beat, the most trustworthy source for information in the procedural track for speed/tempo. This is more than situated listening. This is a negotiation of domains of coordination in music-making, managing roles in musical activity (see Chapter 6). Members of the orchestra attend focally and adjust their performance along domains of coordination in music-making. They are not “given everything” by a conductor. They are not simply following along, lifting and pressing fingers at the right time. They rise to the occasion and perform in relation to the skilled players around them (see also Brinner, 1995). This requires self-mastery on an instrument so that they can attend equally well in the different domains of coordination and respond in a manner that is appropriate for the genre. Research on cognition in music-making could aim to identify how genre constrains the management of informational resources, the ways of responding musically to situations. Embodiment

Physical engagement with the instrument varies greatly between instrument groups. But what instrumentalists all have in common is an expert use of the body to participate in musical activity. Consider the following statements from the double bass, harp, and viola. These statements demonstrate that physical movement is the basis for participation in these musical actions.

Conclusion  155 Double bass:

“the sforzando needs to be a lean rather than a heavy accent”

Harp:

“practice the arpeggios with just the thumbs, because if you know where your thumbs are going, you can feel the pattern underneath”

Viola

“the rhythm we’re after is [plays spiccato]”

“pull weight away for diminuendo”

“(don’t learn spiccato) with Mendelsohn’s music, learn it with scales and Kreutzer study number 2, then come back when you are more comfortable with it and start practicing the whole thing”

The bassist says, a sforzando is a lean, a diminuendo is a pulling away. To play an upright bass requires considerable strength and awareness of the bow arm and pressure. The harpist says to focus on the thumbs or to use the thumbs as an anchor for the pattern of activity in the hands. If the thumbs land in the correct position, “you can feel the pattern underneath.” Here again, the musical material is a physical feeling of patterns of movement. The violist ties a rhythm with spiccato technique. It isn’t a rhythm in sound; it is a type of movement that creates a rhythmic pattern in the sound. The basis for the rhythm is in the movements required of spiccato technique on the viola. Metacognition Flute:

“don’t get caught up with the rests. If you play the all the rests, the piece will come to a stop”

Cello:

“practice the shift, of course, but in performance, think of something else before the shift”

Orchestral instrumentalists prioritize attention for the purpose of performing. This means knowing how to think about musical activity in a way that makes it easier to perform. In the statement above, regarding a Brahms excerpt, the flutist says, “[D]on’t play the rests.” Of course, one never plays the rests, but the flutist says, the rests should pass by undercover to keep a feeling of forward motion through the phrase. If the flutist plays the rests, too much time will be introduced into the larger phrase, and that will make it seem like the music is grinding to a halt. So instead of subdividing and counting and placing notes within that count, attend focally to the melodic fragments and stitch them together into a longer unit. It is possible to attend too closely to the physical challenges of performing. The cellist is giving advice for a difficult shift that begins a movement,

156  Conclusion

performed alone in front of a room with hundreds of silent people (orchestra + audience). It is a highly exposed moment for a challenging maneuver. She says to practice it but when it comes time to perform the shift, attend focally to something else. This is advice that she had received from another cellist, and it demonstrates two things: first, that focal attention can interfere with the successful performance of a difficult technique and, second, that it is important to manage attention in a way that supports successful performance. As a bassoonist, I received a similar piece of advice for playing very softly in the low register. I have found that if I press my foot when the note is to begin, it always works. This “trick” was shown to me by a skilled orchestral player some time ago. Instead of attending focally to my airspeed, embouchure, and vibrating reed, I attend to my foot and let the note speak. Resist and Distort Bass trombone

“exaggerate the dotted rhythm so that the correct rhythm will be heard through the orchestra”

Viola

“the accent goes in the only place you think it shouldn’t be, you are tempted to place an accent on everything else”

Violin

(re: vibrato): “try not to be too Romantic through this passage”

Violin (paraphrased) “the notes need to be beautiful, but it is more important that you are clear about timing”

The physical aspects of making music on an instrument can resist and distort our idea of how music should sound. For example, the bass trombonist exaggerates the dotted rhythm so that it can be heard by others. In a resonant concert hall, the crispness of articulation is tough to convey without some distortion in the way it is performed. It won’t feel to the bass trombonist the way it ought to appear to the listener. He will carefully add space to the rhythm to achieve the desired effect. The violist, giving instruction on Strauss, warns the student not to give in to a natural feeling in the music. The accents are not where you feel they should be. Resist your natural inclination and play it as indicated. Similarly, the violinist, when discussing the use of vibrato says, in this passage, “[D]on’t be too Romantic.” In Chapter 5, we introduced the idea of performance scripts, and the flutists also discussed the Romantic, “Brahmsian” sound. Attending to tone quality is focal for many situations in orchestral performance, and bassoonist 2 also discussed the “never-ending task of listening and making tiny adjustments to sound” (Chapter 2). The impression we get is that music-making is not at all natural in orchestral performance. It is a master over the techniques of performance on an instrument.

Conclusion  157 Self-Concept Oboe

“work it out intellectually but then play it naturally”; “imagine where the music is flowing to. We could play it very static, just trying not to make a mistake, but this wouldn’t be the essential meaning of playing”; “the music should sing, it should relax, and it should express itself ”

Viola

“this is not so virtuosic, it is a matter of capturing the right style and playing with grace, neatness, and beauty of tone”; (Bach cello suite): “you can’t please everyone, so the important thing is to play in a style you believe in. Play honestly the way you feel the music. And that will come across. If you play what you think other people want, that won’t work”; “the piece is not complex, so don’t fuss with the arpeggios. Play them simply.”

Clarinet “have fun with it”

The preceding statements take aim at an orchestral musician’s self-concept, their idea about their role as musicians. We see that the oboist goes beyond the idea of playing it correctly to being expressive, imagining outcomes, relaxing, and singing. These can be interpreted as performance scripts: playing the oboe as if one is singing, playing the oboe in a relaxed manner. What it means to make music, for this person in this instruction, is to engage as an artist along multiple tracks, the utterance, the volume/shaping, the tempo, and the character of the music. The violist also engages the idea of what it means to make music. She says that you must play what you believe in, how you feel the music. Being overly concerned with someone else’s interpretation “won’t work.” There is a feeling that the performance of the passage in question should be “simple” and graceful, not showy. Performing the work of such a famous composer as Bach, one should play simply and gracefully, she says. There is so much emphasis on interpretation, but she sidesteps those concerns by asking the student to focus on neatness and beauty of tone. The clarinetist reminds students to “have fun” with the music. Although they will be faced with a high-pressure situation, they should let their enjoyment of music-making ring through. Flexibility Cello

“practice it all in one bow, in separate bows, so that you are flexible and can do it all ways”

Many of the orchestral players mention the importance of flexibility. They mention over and over again that it is important to prepare one version well but to be able to play it differently on demand. This flexibility is an important genre heuristic for orchestral performance. In order to play well, one must be able to rise above one’s own engagement with the instrument to

158  Conclusion

coordination with others in real time, enacting musical sounds in context. So, while there is a goal for practicing a passage of music, there is always another goal for how to do it differently. Metaphoric Projection Glockenspiel

“the notes need to sound sweet as honey”

Tuba

“you need to sound like overfed first trumpets. We want all the energy and character of a first trumpet player, but on a big instrument”

Cor anglais

“imagine you are an operatic tenor, going up to a top b”; “play the notes longer than they appear on the page” [gives example of too short, then properly legato]

Viola

“aim for the sound of Paganini’s Stradivarius”; “open up and let us hear what you can do melodically”

Violin

“this is finicky like knitting a jumper, so keep it simple and smooth”

Bassoon

“think of captivating your audience in the same way Scheherazade did in order to avoid being killed”

Clarinet

“play in the character of the flutes”

Each of the preceding instructions involve projecting from imagination into sound production: Sound sweet as honey. Sound like overfed first trumpets. Sound like an operatic tenor. Sound like Paganini’s Stradivarius. Sound like Scheherazade. Sound like the flutes. These musical scripts are an example of “functional embodiment,” not necessarily for use in intellectual discussion on the music but used automatically in the participation of music-making. According to George Lakoff (1987), this type of thinking may have a more important psychological status than ideas about, for example, musical structure (see Lakoff, 1987, p. 13). Certainly, if we take our cue from what these performers say when they instruct others to prepare for orchestral auditions, there is a psychological reality, an important target for musical thought and activity in the projection of these ideas onto musical activity. And if they are focusing on these things, they are most certainly engaging instrumental particulars in the activation of these scripts.

Creativity in the Orchestra Finally, it is time to begin to study creativity in orchestral performance. There are many who feel that the conductor and composer are the only creative participants in the tradition of Western art music. However, that view is blind to the participation of so many very skilled professionals. The conductor does not play the instruments; the composer only provides a guideline. Each one of the musicians approaches their activity in concert with

Conclusion  159

skilled, creative individuals who have built sophisticated ways of managing their attention to their bodily systems for sound activation in a setting that provides important information in multiple domains. Some theories in the cognitive science point to an embodied basis for creativity (Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1987; Barsalou & Prinz, 1997, 2002). Future research should aim to define musical creativity based on bodily engagement along these lines. In keeping with the framework presented here, these deep systems of bodily engagement will be meaningful in domains of coordination across individuals, playing a significant role in negotiating musical meaning. Finally, to study cognition in music performance, we need ways of understanding the musical constraints of different genres of performance, and different types of musical activity. Musicians participate in a wide variety of musical activities. Sometimes they are on a concert stage. Most of the time, they are rehearsing and practicing, making music and engaging with their instruments and colleagues in various kinds of communicatively rich artistic experiences. There are many ways that cognitive science can approach the study of cognition in music performance, and I hope my readers will see that a framework such as the one I have presented here can be very useful for organizing future research.

References Barsalou, Lawrence W.,  & Jesse J. Prinz. (1997). “Mundane Creativity in Perceptual Symbol Systems.” In Creative Thought: An Investigation of Conceptual Structures and Processes. Eds. T. B. Ward, S. M. Smith, & J. Vaid. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, pp. 267–307. Barsalou, Lawrence W., & Jesse J. Prinz. (2002). “Acquisition and Productivity in Perceptual Symbol Systems: An Account of Mundane Creativity.” In Creativity, Cognition, and Knowledge: An Interaction. Ed. T. Dartnall. Westport, CT: Praeger. Brinner, Benjamin. (1995). Knowing Music Making Music. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Clark, Herbert H. (1996). Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clarke, Eric. (2001). “Meaning and the Specification of Motion in Music.” Musicae Scientiae, 5: 213–234. In Gibbs, Raymond W. (2006). Embodiment and Cognitive Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cross, Ian. (2012). “Music as a Social and Cognitive Process.” In Language and Music as Cognitive Systems. Eds. Patrick Rebuschat, Martin Rohrmeier, John A. Hawkins, & Ian Cross. Oxford: Oxford University Press. D’Andrade, Roy. (1995). The Development of Cognitive Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Friberg, Anders, & Johan Sundberg. (1999). “Does Music Performance Allude to Locomotion? A Model of Final Ritardandi Derived from Measurements of Stopping Runners.” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 105: 1469–1484. In Gibbs, Raymond W. (2006). Embodiment and Cognitive Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Friberg, Anders, Johan Sundberg, & Lars Fryden. (2001). “Music for Motion: Sound Level Envelopes of Tones Expressing Human Locomotion.” Journal of New Music

160  Conclusion Research, 24: 199–210. In Gibbs, Raymond W. (2006). Embodiment and Cognitive Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gibbs, Raymond W. (2006). Embodiment and Cognitive Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gibson, James J. (1982). Reasons for Realism: Selected Essays of James J. Gibson. Eds. Edward Reed & Rebecca Jones. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Johnson, Mark. (1987). The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Kaastra, Linda T. (2016). “Tacit Knowledge in Orchestral Performance: An Application of H. H. Clark’s (1997) ‘Dogmas of Understanding’ to the Analysis of Performed Music.” College Music Symposium, 56: np. Lakoff, George. (1987). Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Polanyi, Michael. (1966). The Tacit Dimension. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc. Scruton, Roger. (1997). The Aesthetics of Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press. In Gibbs, Raymond W. (2006). Embodiment and Cognitive Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shore, P., & Bruno Repp. (1995). Musical motion and performance: Theoretical and empirical perspectives. In J. Link (Ed.), The Practice of Performance (pp.55–83). New York: Cambridge University Press. In Gibbs, Raymond W. (2006). Embodiment and Cognitive Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stevens, Catherine J. (2012). “Music Perception and Cognition: A Review of Recent Cross-Cultural Research.” Topics in Cognitive Science, 4: 653–667. Truax, Barry. (2001). Acoustic Communication. 2nd Edition. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Varela, Francisco J., Evan Thompson,  & Eleanor Rosch. (2016). The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Index

action tradition see activities ontology activities ontology 1 – 4, 63, 65 affordances 65 – 72 airspeed 24, 30 – 33, 37, 110, 156 airstream 22 – 25, 26, 28, 30 – 32, 109 – 110 analyzable unit 38 anchor 28, 29, 79, 82, 133, 135, 155 annotation 17 – 18, 30, 87, 132 – 137 articulation: annotation 135; aspect 54 – 55; in context 149, 156; as coordination device 149 – 151; fingering as 25 – 27; legato 56; pay attention to 44 – 45, 55 – 58, 116; performance 113, 142 – 143; in track two 138 Baily, John 63 – 64, 118 basis: and embodiment 154; for participation 63, 68, 74, 86 – 97, 101; shared basis 105 – 109, 119 – 123, 129, 140 bassoon reed 22 breath support 22 – 28, 30 – 33, 37, 54 – 57, 58, 107 case study: analysis 38; case study data (see data); findings 58, 89, 111, 125, 132, 137, 148; research, defined 9, 37; scope 9 – 11, 57, 80, 102, 149 catalog: of musical sounds 65; of particulars 58 Chaffin, Roger 8; longitudinal case study 37; performance cue theory 15 – 16, 21, 57 Clark, Herbert H.: common ground 105 – 106, 110, 119 – 121, 124; coordination devices 121 – 122; dimensions of variation 103; goals 29; joint activity theory 54 – 56, 102, 147; layering 113 – 114; ontology 2 – 4; perceptual copresence 136 – 137; scripts 104 – 105; signaling 3; tracks 137 – 139

cognitive artifact 75, 79 – 80 cognitive ethnography 9 cognitive processing 4, 9, 15, 29; in Hutchins 75; in Marr 70; neural network 5; in Norman 79; parallel distributed processing (PDP) 5; and representation 17; symbolic serial processing (SSP) 5 cognitive science 2; case study research in 37; computational approaches of 5, 70, 73, 74, 79; connectionist model of 5; cultural representation in 73; embodiment in 159; information processing model of 5, 70 – 75; and music 20, 28, 41, 104; ontology 4 – 5; themes in 9 common ground 105 – 110, 119 – 124, 128, 132, 140; actional basis 139; CG iterated 119; CG reflexive 106; CG shared 105 – 106, 119 – 120, 124; perceptual basis 135 computation see cognitive science conceptual framework 2, 7, 28, 33, 56, 102, 114, 143, 148, 151 context 2 – 3, 21, 27, 29, 38, 45, 54 – 56, 66 – 67, 104, 107 – 109, 147 – 148, 151, 158 contextual construction 122 – 123 Cook, Nicholas 64, 104, 122 coordination devices 120 – 124, 128, 140, 148 counting 127 – 132, 142 – 143, 150, 155 creativity 45, 93, 158 – 159 Cross, Ian 4, 6, 118, 152 D’Andrade, Roy 2, 5 – 8, 15, 29, 147 data: created 9, 102, 111 – 112; curated 9, 89; found 9, 38, 56; musical 21, 118; real-world 1, 37, 75 demonstration see signaling

162 Index describing-as see signaling De Souza, Jonathan 65 – 67, 72 distal term 31 – 33, 39, 42 – 43 distributed cognition 73 – 75, 78 – 79, 101, 147 domains of coordination 118 – 144, 148, 151, 154, 159; annotation 132; body motion 138; counting 127; genre heuristics 141; the work 124 Driver, Peter 63 – 64, 118 dynamics 15 – 16, 24, 31, 37, 44 – 45, 87, 102, 107, 108 – 111, 127, 137, 142, 150 ecological: analysis 66, 74 – 75, 78 – 79, 101 – 103, 110, 120, 148, 153; physics 66 – 72; validity 4, 64, 66, 69, 72, 75, 79, 120, 147 – 148, 152 embodiment 64, 154, 158 embouchure 25 – 26, 28, 30 – 33, 47 – 53, 57 – 59, 110, 112, 147, 150, 156 environment-organism codetermination 68 ethnomusicology 63 – 64 explanatory power 9, 15, 17 extralinguistic 3 extramusical 121 – 122 field of musical operations 63 – 75, 89, 101, 106, 115, 147 – 148 finger technique 16, 22, 29, 30, 31 – 33, 37, 110, 128, 154; anchor finger 28; in articulation 24; coordination 40 – 45, 58 – 59, 86; finger order 27, 82 – 84; finger patterns 89, 94; flicking 25; focal finger 28, 91 – 93; venting 25 flexibility 157 focal awareness 31, 33, 36, 38, 42 – 44, 50 – 51, 92, 135, 150; target of 29, 31 – 32, 37, 39, 42 – 44, 45, 49, 53, 57 – 59, 78, 85, 87, 92, 115, 147, 150, 158 found data see data genre 6, 15, 22, 37, 41, 66 – 69, 74, 78, 89, 104, 109, 122 – 123, 126, 141 – 144, 154, 157 genre heuristics 141 – 144 gestural key 139 Gibson, James J.: affordances 65 – 72; ecological physics 66 – 72; environment-organism codetermination 68; field of safe travel 68 – 72

goals 21, 23, 32 – 33, 59; and affordances 66 – 67; analysis of 114 – 115, 120, 125 – 126, 132; expressive 74; interpretive 89, 126; in musical activity 28, 102 – 103, 147; nested 56, 112; structural 57; transparency 75 Huron, David 65 – 67; idiomaticity 65 Hutchins, Edwin 6, 19, 73 – 75, 79 – 80, 101, 116; units and levels of analysis 29 image schemata see schema indicating see signaling information processing see cognitive science instrumental case study 102 instrumental particulars 39 – 59, 65, 107, 122, 147, 151; layering 53 intent 142 interpretation 22, 39, 44 – 45, 68, 87, 89, 103, 111 – 112, 114, 123, 124 – 126, 157 joint activity theory 2, 29, 54 – 56, 110, 114, 148; joint activities 39; layered 17; nested 56, 69 Kirsh, David 18, 78 – 79 Larson, Steve 8, 19, 64, 84, 121 – 122 layering: activities 113; particulars 42, 53; targets 43, 57 Marr, David 70 – 73; ecological validity 72; tri-level hypothesis 70, 73 materials ontology 1 – 2, 4, 63 – 65 McGill, David 36, 41, 57 McNeill, David 38, 46, 50, 116; gesture type 50 metacognition 134, 155 metaphoric projection 158 metarepresentation 18, 20 method of instruction 39 – 59 modality of instruction 39 – 59 models of cognitive processing see cognitive science Morelli, Frank 24, 37; method book 37 motor script see scripts musical activity 16 – 17, 63, 65, 74, 85, 89, 101, 118, 122, 147 – 148, 159; coordinating 79, 121; dimensions of variation in 103 – 105, 114 – 116; domains of coordination in 122 – 143,

Index  163 154; goals in 29; informational resources in 30, 83 – 84; layers in 59; metacognition in 155; roles in 111, 154; scripts in 104 – 105, 109, 158; settings for 112; state of the 78, 87; tacit processes in 31 – 33 musical data see data musical genres and cultures 6, 89, 91 musical knowledge 28, 37, 59, 67; sources for 5 – 6 musical meaning: abstractions standing for 18 – 21; negotiated 1, 3, 33, 121, 147, 159; situated 3, 29, 89, 152; sources for 8, 32, 52, 57 – 58, 87, 89, 91, 111, 122 musical representation 63 – 64, 103 musical schemata see schema musical structure 18 – 21, 29, 79, 89, 122, 158 music cognition 4 – 6, 19 – 21, 63, 74 musicology 104, 122 music theory 2, 4, 19 – 20, 64, 121 – 122 musicu 4

Polanyi, Michael 31 – 33, 36, 42 – 45, 147; distal terms 31 – 33, 39, 42 – 43; focal awareness 31 – 33, 38, 42 – 44, 50 – 51, 92, 135; indwelling 42; proximal terms 31 – 33, 39, 42 – 43; subsidiary awareness 31 – 33, 42 – 43, 45, 49, 52, 89, 107, 122, 147; tacit knowledge 9, 31 – 33, 44 – 45, 53, 59, 78, 147 – 149; targets of focal awareness 31 product tradition see materials ontology

nested activities 56 nested events 69 neural network see cognitive processing nonconventional communication 2, 121 – 123, 140 Norman, Donald 17 – 19, 73 – 75, 79; metarepresentation 18 Nussbaum, Charles 63 – 64 oblique instruction see method of instruction oblique reference see referential directness ontology of music 1 – 4, 63 – 65, 118, 152 operational field: in driving 67 – 68; of the musician 66 – 69, 75, 89, 101, 106, 115, 147 – 148 operational schema see schema orchestral knowledge 36, 39, 148 – 149, 155 – 159 organological 77

scalable concepts 148 schema 5 – 8, 151, 153 schemata see schema schematic structures 8 scripts 7, 86, 94, 96, 104 – 111, 116, 122, 156 – 158 self-concept 157 settings 9, 22, 30, 66, 103, 112 – 114 signaling 3 – 4, 56, 106, 108, 137, 144 sound activation 22 – 25, 79, 159 spatial logic 84, 96 state of the activity 78, 101, 126, 140 Stevens, Catherine J. 4, 64, 66, 69, 74, 118, 152 structural accounts 3 – 4, 8, 15, 18 – 19, 21, 28 – 29, 31, 37, 57, 63, 122, 147 structure of tacit knowledge 9, 31 – 33, 43 – 45, 53, 59, 78, 147, 149 subsidiary awareness 31 – 32, 42 – 45, 49, 52, 59, 69, 89, 107, 122, 147 symbolic serial processing (SSP) see cognitive processing

patterns of organized sound 1, 8, 63 patternwork 15, 89, 91, 96, 147 PDP (parallel distributed processing) see cognitive processing performance anchor 135 performance scripts see scripts Pigat, Paul 75, 80 – 97

tacit aspects 16, 33, 38, 54, 109 tacit knowledge 31 – 33, 44 – 45, 53, 59, 147, 149 target of focal awareness 42 – 44, 92; layering 42 – 44, 53, 57 technique see instrumental particulars theoretical grounding 9

referential directness 39 – 59 rehearsal scripts see scripts repair 134 – 135 representation 5 – 6, 17 – 21, 63 – 67, 69 – 75, 78 – 92, 106, 122 – 124, 147 representational blind spot 18 – 21, 37 resist and distort 156 restructuring instrumental particulars 32, 43, 59, 110 roles see musical activity

164 Index theory: cognition 4 – 8, 29 – 31, 38, 54, 64, 70 – 75, 147 – 148; language 2 – 4, 29; music 2 – 4, 19, 64, 110; schema 5 – 8 tonal thinking 85 – 86 tone: color 47 – 52, 57 – 58, 120; production 24, 27, 46 – 59; quality 26 – 33, 46 – 53, 107 – 109, 156 tracks see Clark, Herbert H.

tuning 17, 30, 105 – 106, 110; altered 94 voice leading 82 – 83 vowel shape 49, 53, 58 Winget, Megan 17 – 18, 30 Zbikowski, Lawrence 20, 28, 64