Different Attitudes of Expressive Movement Awareness in Professional Musicians

This chapter explores professional musicians’ awareness of expressive bodily movements, referring to Godøy’s concept of sound-action awareness in music. Three professional musicians (a pianist, a violinist, and a guitarist) performed three tasks, each corresponding to a phenomenological reduction. Data were collected using a phenomenological approach through semi-structured interviews, observations, and audiovisual recordings. The analysis revealed three different attitudes to expressive movement awareness. The pianist showed theatrically unsynchronised expressive movements, with her musical intentions remaining at a level of pre-reflective self-awareness, perhaps due to her lack of introspective competence. The violinist became aware of his body parts involved in playing but was unaware of his performed expressive movements. The guitarist gradually reduced the expressive movements to achieve optimal performance. This study may encourage expert musicians to explore new practising procedures by developing body self-awareness. Self-reflecting on movement and its kinaesthetic feedback may contribute to achieving sound-action awareness in music, positively affecting musicians’ performance and enabling them to self-correct inappropriate postures.