(Salle F101)
Ashley, Richard (Northwestern University, Evanston)
A neo-Gricean framework for understanding music conducting
This research presents the results of a long-term project into the
way in which ensemble musicians interpret conductor’s gestures and
facial expressions in musical contexts. Our materials were videos of
master conductors, conjoined either with the “congruent” original
soundtracks they were conducting, or carefully constructed “mismatches.”
In the “congruent” condition, brief video excerpts, along
with the accompanying soundtracks, of conductors were shown on
videotape to highly experienced ensemble musicians. The “incongruent”
condition presented the same video excerpts to another
group of participants, with different audio excerpts, where some
aspects of the music—principally those of rhythm and timing—were
kept constant with the original, but some others—such as the rise
and fall of melodic contour (ups and downs) or dynamics (loudness)—were mismatched. More subtly, in some combinations, all was kept
the same but the degree of change in loudness.The participants
were called upon, at specifi ed moments, to judge the “fi ttingness”
or “appropriateness” of the conductor’s behavior. Analysis of the
results reveals that a neo-Gricean framework of scalar implicature
explains much of the respondents’ reactions to the fi ttingness of the
conductors’ behaviors, supportingt a Gricean approach to nonverbal
as well as verbal activities.
