Higher or further? The creative use of metaphors in singing classes

This contribution focuses on the creative use of metaphors in the instructional language teachers use in singing classes. The starting point for this endeavour is the problematic iconic body movement observed in the behaviour of non-trained singers: attempts to sing high notes are mirrored by vertical stretching out one or more body parts (neck, head, shoulders, eye brows) (see, among others, Zbikowski 2002; Casasanto et al. 2004; Dolscheid et al. 2011). This iconic behaviour is grounded in the culturally wide-spread, yet non-universal metaphor of representing pitch in terms of verticality. It poses a problem to achieving a good singing practice as the stretched body posture hinders the optimal air flow thus interfering with the production of a high-quality vocal sound. Accordingly, one of the major challenges of singing teachers is to alter their students’ physical behaviour and experience through neutralizing the deeply entrenched iconicity relation between the vertical representation of pitch and body posture. In order to achieve that goal teachers resort to different verbal and gestural strategies. In this presentation, we present a multimodal and interdisciplinary perspective on this issue. Within the multimodal perspective, first, we report on empirical results of three KU Leuven master studies, the first of which (Van Ingelgem 2002) documents teachers’ creative use of verbal metaphors, either by introducing novel metaphors to avoid verticality or by creatively elaborating the conventional verticality metaphor. The second, experimental study (Baptist 2014) revolves around treatments for avoiding any verbal or conceptual reference to verticality and thus expecting to diminish people’s vertical behaviour. The third MA thesis (Prové 2019) documents the systematic use of metaphorical gestures and/or expressions by singing teachers as observed in a video corpus of 4 hours of singing class. Our second, interdisciplinary perspective on the matter envisages a real-life singing experience as closing part of this talk. To that end, co-author and professional (co-)singing teacher Sien De Smet (LUCA School of Arts) will demonstrate – with anyone willing to participate - the qualitative effect of using different, creative metaphorical imagery on the acoustic experience of both singers and hearers. References Baptist, M. (2014). The influence of the western conventional verticality metaphor for pitch on physical behavior while singing. An experimental study. KU Leuven, Dept. of Linguistics, master thesis. Casasanto, D., Boroditsky, L., Phillips, W., Greene, J., Goswami, S., Bocanegra-Thiel. (2004). How deep are effects of language on thought? Time estimation in speakers of English, Indonesian, Greek, and Spanish. In K. Forbus, D. Gentner, & T. Regier (Eds.), Proceedings of the 26h Annual Conference Cognitive Science Society (pp. 575–580). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Dolscheid, S., Shayan, S., Majid, A., & Casasanto, D. (2011). The thickness of musical pitch: Psychophysical evidence for the Whorfian hypothesis. In L. Carlson, C. Hölscher, & T. Shipley (Eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 537-542). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society. Prové, V. (2019, in prep.). The use of metaphorical gestures in singing classes. A qualitative multimodal corpus study. [working title]. KU Leuven, Dept. of Linguistics, master thesis. Van Ingelgem, T. (2002). Imagery in singing pedagogy. KU Leuven, Dept. of Linguistics, master thesis. Zbikowski, L.M. (2002). Conceptualizing Music: Cognitive Structure, Theory, and Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.edition: https://aflico8.sciencesconf.org/status: publishe