Creating an Unbroken Line of Becoming in Live Music Performance

Author

Bonnie B. McAlvin, The Graduate Center, City University of New YorkFollow

Date of Degree

9-2017

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

D.M.A.

Program

Music

Advisor

Norman Carey

Committee Members

Poundie Burstein

Joseph Straus

Aaron Kozbelt

Subject Categories

Music

Keywords

music performance, Stanislavski, grouping, embodiment schema, expression, music cognition

Abstract

The dissertation provides an approach to the pedagogy of musical expression in applied music study. Exercises are provided which support a student’s mastery of the mechanics of grouping, and this mastery is put to work in an adaptation of the work of the great Russian acting teacher, Constantine Stanislavski. Mapping of embodiment schema in the manner of Lakoff and Johnson (1980) is asserted as a useful interface between grouped pitch objects and meaning; mappings are utilized by the instrumental music performer in the same manner as Stanislavski taught his acting students to utilize given circumstances. The discourse situates all of these skills in a gradually-emerging present; the exercises challenge the student to achieve what Stanislavski calls an unbroken line—a spontaneous and unique line of continually-restructuring narrative that evolves in real-time. Throughout the work, the phenomenon of grouping is examined in terms of (1) its relationship to meaning, (2) the physiology which supports it, (3) the Gestalt laws of similarity and trajectory which model it, (4) the parameters of unmarked performance nuance (vibrato, articulation, etc.) which can be used by a performer to project it, and (5) the state of continual evolution which characterizes it in the diachronic context of music.

Recommended Citation

McAlvin, Bonnie B., "Creating an Unbroken Line of Becoming in Live Music Performance" (2017). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2270