speaks of musical motion. Scruton (1999; 2009a; 2009b) and Kania (2015) both speak of musical movement. There is a vast literature on musical gestures as well (Levinson 2006;
Hatten 2004; Gødoy and Leman 2010; Gritten and King 2011). I clarify here the way I use these terms.
I begin with the distinction between motion and movement. Several languages do not actually make a distinction between these two terms. Norwegian language for instance has only one word, bevegelse. The word ‘motion’ in French only refers to the proposal one may submit to a committee or legislature (which is only one definition of motion in the English language). French language uses the term movement both in physics (e.g. les lois du mouvement) and other disciplines such as dance. In Latin, there are two words: motus and motio (motionis). The Lewis and Short dictionary however gives the same definition: both mean ‘a moving, a motion’. Both Descartes and Newton use the term motus, but the word is not circumscribed to scientific and philosophical investigations, for the phrase motus corporis – found for instance in Cicero’s Pro Archia 17, refers to the body movements of actors (see Gaffiot dictionary).13 In Italian and English, by contrast, there are two words:
moto and movimento in Italian, motion and movement in English.
In a blog page (2011)14, Alexander Jensenius points out that the words motion and movement have been used interchangeably in the music literature. He adds that the distinction is far from evident, and suggests that disciplines such as biomechanics and physics favour the word ‘motion’ whereas other disciplines including music and dance
13 Admittedly, one may suggest that this use of the term ‘motus’ may be archaic in the 17th century.
I leave aside this point.
14http://www.arj.no/2011/10/02/difference-between-the-terms-movement-and-motion/
prefer the term ‘movement’. Following from Jensenius’ observation, one way to make sense of the distinction between motion and movement is to suggest that our concept of motion has a degree of complexity such that authors have found it useful to prefer to speak of motion or movement depending on what perspective they are taking with respect to it.
A scientific perspective on the nature of motion will prefer the word motion, whereas in an aesthetic consideration (for instance) of the phenomenon, we tend to speak of movement.
For the purposes of the thesis, I will use the term ‘movement’ when talking about the way the phenomenon is experienced. One can perceive that one is in movement through proprioception. When considering what it is like to run, jump, etc., we speak (so I assume) of movement. Movement can be seen or heard as well. I can see how fast a car passing past me goes. I can hear a dog approaching me. I speak of movement when focusing on the perceptual experience of the phenomenon. My concern regarding music is the experience of melodies rising and falling, etc. Hence I will speak of musical movements.
By contrast, a ‘scientific’ perspective is not concerned with what it is like to experience movement. We do not see light traveling through space. Hence, I would be inclined to speak of light motion rather than movement. Indeed, people speak of wave motion. When applying Newton’s laws on the relation between a body and the forces acting upon it, one is not concerned with the experience of movement, but with the laws that govern motion.
In this chapter, the authors I discuss are not concerned with what it’s like to experience certain kinds of movement, but rather with the more general conception of motion. Hence, I will use the term ‘motion’ in this chapter.15 To sum up, I don’t claim that motion and movement are two distinct phenomena. I think that one word or the other is privileged depending on the perspective taken on the phenomenon. Admittedly, this tentative characterisation would need more finesse in further research.
An alternative distinction between motion and movement is given by Eric Clarke (2005).
In a footnote, Clarke writes that he speaks of ‘motion’ to denote “the abstract category of spatial displacement in time, and ‘movement’ to denote specific examples of particular spatial displacements” (2005: 209). If we agree with Clarke, we could not use deictic words with the term motion. We could not, referring to the movement of the Earth, say that ‘its motion is processional, elliptic, etc.”. A defender of Clarke’s view can reply that in the phrase ‘its motion is processional’, we mean that the kind of motion it has is processional.
15Descartes and Newton both used the word motus, which has been translated as motion. The term kinesis in Aristotle’s Physics has been translated both as movement (e.g. Sentesy 2012) and motion (e.g. Kosman 1969).
Still, Clarke’s distinction may appear too prescriptive. I cannot talk of fast and slow movement unless I mean the speed of a particular spatial displacement (e.g. the movement of this car coming towards us is fast). This seems to conflict with everyday use of the term movement. For this reason, I prefer the ‘perspective view’ I have gestured at above. This
‘perspective approach’ leaves more flexibility to the way the terms are used, which chimes better with the everyday use of the words. We can speak of the motion of the Earth (without meaning the kind of motion it has), and by contrast speak of the movement of heart beats (without having in mind particular heart beats, e.g. my heart beats). I concede that the distinction between motion and movement would need to be developed in future research.
Robert Hatten defines a gesture as “energetic shaping through time that may be interpreted as significant” (2004: 1). Rolf Gødoy and Marc Leman write that “gestures are movements of part of the body to express an idea or meaning” (2010: 5). The second chapter of Gødoy and Leman’s edited volume distinguishes between different kinds of gestures: sound-producing, sound-facilitating, sound-accompanying, and communicative gestures (Jensenius et al. 2010). These categories are not mutually exclusive: one gesture fits in more than one category. Sound-producing gestures are the movements which directly produce the sounds, e.g. the fingers touching a piano keyboard or the arm moving the bow on a violin. Sound-facilitating gestures are the gestures that contribute significantly to the production of sounds, although they are not directly involved. The movements of the hands, the arms and even the upper body of the pianist are, for instance, sound-facilitating gestures. Sound-accompanying gestures follow the contour of sonic elements or can mimic the sound-producing gestures (Jensenius et al. 2010: 23). One striking example is Warren Burt in his performance entitled ‘6 Wilson Tunings’.16 Burt performs on an iPad, using three apps at the same time which are all being played live. He touches the iPad to modulate the sounds but also follows these sound-producing gestures by slow, supple movements of the arms. Such gestures seem to amplify the sensation of tranquillity that is heard in the music.
The above definition of gestures seems to capture many of the phenomena I engage with in the thesis.17 Sound-producing movements, such as a bowing movement, fall into the
16The performance can be seen on the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MGEA3s5Bk8
17 I mention the phenomenon of a glissando sliding upwards. It is not obvious that an isolated glissando is a gesture.
category of sound-producing gestures. Melodic movement may ultimately be best characterised as gesture as well. This is since, given that it is expressive, it is aesthetically meaningful. I think that these forms of movements are gestures, given that they bear meaning. However, it is a difficult question to clarify what meaning they bear and I consider this issue only in Chapter 7; only then will I use the term ‘gesture’. For the sake of simplicity, I shall speak of motion and movement in the rest of the thesis. I think that the questions I raise do not require the additional layer of complexity that the notion of gesture contains. I focus on the following issues: a. Is motion necessarily a spatial displacement?;
b. Does music involve experiences of spatial displacement?; c. How does the spatial content of music feature in our experience?; d. Can the acousmatic thesis accommodate the perception of sound-producing movement?