How Useful Are Theories of Gesture and Embodiment

How useful are theories of gesture and embodiment for understanding musical experiences? The fundamental claim of this thesis is that music perception and cognition are embodied activities. This means that they depend crucially on the physical constraints and enablings of our sensorimotor apparatus, and also on the sociocultural environment in which our music-listening and -producing capacities come into being. This claim shows a strong similarity to that of John Blacking (1973), who wrote, "Music is a …

…his attention to detail, the way he rigorously reworks and dissects a turn of phrase. Once this had happened, we were free to bring our own ideas to this context -- to embody his language. When he returned to the rehearsal room, he would find that we had made something out of his "hieroglyphics." Evidently, Taylor's aesthetic privileges the sound of personalities interacting over conventional concepts of form. Because of the heightened role that gro