THE CHOICE OF VISUAL MEANS OF NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION IN SINGING BY ACADEMIC NOVICE VOCALISTS
Keywords:
body language, gesture, abstract meaning, academic singing, means of non-verbal communication, vocal pedagogy.Abstract
In the current article some factors that influence making the choice of the visual means of non-verbal communication by unskilled vocalists are analyzed. Watching other people performing means of communication and connecting these occurrences to the meaning expressed create associational stereotypes. This way, young professionals develop their nonverbal vocabulary by following the performance of other students, profes-sionals, popular singers as well as behavior of non-musicians. Kendon’s Continuum determined by David McNeill is used as the framework to sort the stages of conventionalization of the gestures. According to McNeill, visual means of the non-verbal communication may be on the different levels of their conventionalization. Geneviève Calbris mentions that metaphors are sometimes revealed when abstract concepts as the sources for gesticulation are analyzed. Daniel Casasanto and Sandra Lozano conveyed experiments to prove the connection between literal spatial language, metaphorical spatial language, non-spatial language, and the fluency of speech. They found out that congruent gesticulation facilitated speech as well as incongruent gestures impaired verbal fluency. Therefore, we may decipher that 1) a vocalist has another mechanism to support concepts expressed in his singing and 2) incongruent gesticulation may harm the performance. Priming is caused by the fact that more than one possible meaning to any means of communication may assigned. Hence, unconscious connotation choice may be defined by the temporary context of a conversation. In the case of singing this indicates that any element of music, such as the lyrics, melody movement, harmonic tensions, vocalist’s gesticulation, etc., may constitute a prime. This way, such domains as metaphors, perceived in music, may influence the selection of means of non-verbal communication. Another facet, described in the article, is the clarity of programmatic music, that is the literal understanding of lyrics. In case lyrics is understood and interpreted, it may constitute a factor of gesture emergence; otherwise, musical side is factored-in and prevails, which affects the vocalist’s visual cues.
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