Multimodality and Music Performance. The Lexicons of Gesture and Gaze in Orchestra and Choir Conductors

This paper examines recent studies within a general project, aimed at writing down the lexicons of a Conductor's body signals. Three observational studies focusing, respectively, on the semantic area of intensity and on the modality of gaze, through annotation of several fragments of orchestra and choir conduction in concert and rehearsal, discovered a total of 100 signals of intensity in various modalities, out of which, 21 intensity gestures and 20 conducting items of gaze. Subsequent perception studies on a subset of these signals reveal slight differences in interpretation by music Experts, Non-Experts and Amateurs, but confirm their comprehensibility, probably due to their underlying semiotic devices, the same holding also in everyday life gestures and gaze.