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Arts & Communication Composition based on singing gestures
worth noting that the accompanist here can be a musician two interlocutors to coordinate their contributions
who can flexibly operate an instrument or an electronic and fulfill their respective communicative
musician using electronic equipment, such as MIDI. The responsibilities. In the gestural creation and thinking
gesture processing model behind this procedure should of singers’ performances, they serve more as a guide to
also follow a certain logic, as discussed herein. communicate with the accompaniment musicians and
the audience. George Herbert Mead once said: “We
6. The gesture layer is used for the thinking are not… building up the behavior of the social group
logic of composing music in terms of the behavior of the separate individuals
composing it; rather, we are starting out with a given
To understand the basic logic of the gestures layer, we social whole of complex group activity, into which
first need to refer to the hypercube relationship of the we analyze (as elements) the behavior of each of the
music ontology. A more formal presentation of such a separate individuals composing it.” 15, p. 165 Therefore,
logic should be developed in future investigation. The when an individual receives external information
gestures layer has an inseparable causal relationship with from the group, the individual will process the
the most basic three-dimensional cube of music. In other information, changing his/her outlook on life and
words, focusing on the three dimensions of the facts values. For example, reflection on society and human
layer: realities, communication, and semiotics, we can nature. These experiences will allow singers to perform
further infer the physical and mental changes made by the lyric information when singing, conveying different
performer, following the logic of the basic gestural setup. meanings to the audience. 16-21
Following the previous ideas, the singer’s free creation (3) The influence of the singer’s emotions: To understand
through gesture consists of two aspects, namely, horizontal it from a popular perspective, it is the change of
melody and vertical collaborative musical structure. the singer’s mood when singing. According to our
The creation of a single melody line is derived from previous ideas, we know that the formation of a singer’s
the singer’s inspiration. It is a gesture that develops gesture is inseparable from one’s thoughts. When we
from consciousness and is usually spontaneous and regard the gesture in the singer’s consciousness as an
uncontrollable. The singer’s performance conveys some independent emotional expression, the corresponding
factual spatial information to the audience. In traditional movement trajectory is a single expression. However,
music, this fact is often created by the composer first, and in the compositional process, which is a smooth
then the singer performs secondary processing of spatial process of moving the music, the main melody is
information. However, for performers who create freely, composed of multiple different emotions. Therefore,
this follows from the fact that the spatial information has the mood in the music piece is often not static; its
already taken shape and comes from the singer’s inspiration. changes within different gestures will also change the
It follows from the following three possibilities: meaning of the lyrics and music. Moreover, this is what
(1) The singer’s own music education background: Usually, the accompaniment musicians need to understand
musicians who have experienced systematic education most carefully. The horizontal single melody line, as
in traditional music theory will have more rigorous a reality factor, is usually the most intuitively reflected
creative logic than musicians who have not received in musical facts.
systematic music education. These musicians have
many musical works in their memory as creative 7. Concrete application through gesture
materials, so the music they create will be more or less composition
mixed with the shadows of different types of music. After understanding the basic logic of the singer’s use
(2) The intention of the singer: This element is closely of gestures to create music, we understand that the
related to the life experiences of different singers. It accompanying gesture is a response to the singer’s gestural
contains two dimensions: individual intention and creation. Based on this point, the occurrence of the singer’s
collective intention. Personal intention focuses more gesture serves as the fundamental reason for musical
on self-reflection within the individual. Self-reflection creation. The most basic element for music to occur is time.
is the individual’s thinking after the fact. It includes In response to this, the singer’s breathing gesture becomes
emotional changes and the understanding of right a crucial part. Through some videos, we can find that
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and wrong. Music and language have very similar when singing with the symphony orchestra, some singers
aspects, and the concept of communication arises in usually open their mouths, make a surprised expression,
the context of several individuals. Communication and take a very fast breath. This cues the conductor that
is always a collective endeavor that requires at least they will sing at a faster speed subsequently. In some
Volume 2 Issue 4 (2024) 6 doi: 10.36922/ac.2625

