Gesture in Indian Vocal Music
Further information: Music of IndiaIndian vocalists move their hands while improvising melody. Although every vocalist has an idiosyncratic gestural style, the motion of the hand and voice are connected through various logics, and many students gesturally resemble their teachers. Nikki Moran, at the University of London, has done research on this topic, and it is one of the subjects of Martin Clayton and Laura Leante's Musical Experience Project at the Open University.
Clayton has published a paper on gestural interaction in Indian music performance: "Time, Gesture and Attention in a Khyal Performance." Asian Music, 38 (2), 71–96.
Matt Rahaim, a vocalist and ethnomusicologist, has published an article on the relationship between vocalization and gesture in Indian vocal music: “Gesture and Melody in Indian Vocal Music” Gesture 8(3): 325–347. Rahaim's work approaches gesture and vocalization as parallel expressions of melody, investigates isomorphisms between gesture space and raga space, and studies the inheritance of "paramparic bodies"--melodic/gestural dispositions handed down through teaching lineages.
Read more about this topic: Musical Gesture
Famous quotes containing the words gesture, indian, vocal and/or music:
“Few enjoy noisy overcrowded functions. But they are a gesture of goodwill on the part of host or hostess, and also on the part of guests who submit to them.”
—Fannie Hurst (1889–1968)
“The Indian gods are imposing, the Greek gods are not. Indeed they are not brave, not self-controlled, they have no manners, they are not gentlemen and ladies.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
“The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions. But there is also, it seems to me, a moment at which democracy must prove its capacity to act. Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal chords.”
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965)
“Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.”
—George Herbert (1593–1633)