Abstract:
Bodily movement is an important channel of communication in music performance. Interpretative intentions are often embodied in performers’ gestures and/or overall motion patterns, and contribute to the observers’ perception of expressive-related attributes. With the goal of developing pedagogical cues on embodied communication for saxophonists, my ongoing research focuses on understanding the role of ancillary bodily movements in saxophone performance by combining performers’ and observers’ perspectives. The following questions arise: How do saxophonists move while performing? What gestures are the core of the sax player’s body language, and what inherent intentions do they carry? Are we able to augment meaningful performances by matching our bodily behavior with the musical result we practice for years? In this talk, I will discuss the results of the systematic observational procedure applied to the database at study (including motion capture, audio and video recordings of saxophone performances), along with further research directions
Bio:
Nádia Moura is currently a PhD candidate (FCT fellowship – Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) at the CITAR – Research Centre for Science and Technology of the Arts, at UCP – Portuguese Catholic University. She holds an M.Ed. in Music Teaching (2019) from the same institution and a B.Mus. in Saxophone Performance (2017) from Aveiro University, PT. Has lectured saxophone class in music schools and conservatories and frequently performs in wind orchestras, big bands and chamber music ensembles. Her ongoing research is focused on the analysis of expressiveness/communication through body language in saxophone performance using multimodal datasets.