Embodying the Score: Learning & Teaching Perspectives

Every performer refers to the score to transform signs into sounds, rendering thoughts, body and feelings to this goal. In this process there is a moment when the performer goes beyond the score and transforms it into gestures and sounds by embodying it, revealing it as something that is embodied in blood, soul and thought before being transformed into an artistic event.

The aim of this case study is to explore what embodying the score can mean for a musician, by looking into a performance from a holistic perspective, observing the context in which the embodiment of the score is achieved, rather than embodiment as such, and interviewing the performer on the most important aspects of this process. It involves the analysis of the chosen score, and of its performance, as the result of an artistic process, and the investigation of the performer’s training context, above all in relation to the use of performative and learning strategies. Analytical studies on performance preparation, and on performers’ awareness, have now become widely shared in the community of music analysis scholars. However, understanding the embodiment process means focus the link between the score and its performance. The embodiment could be the actual manifestation of the score, and performance itself the way to investigate its full potential. This type of knowledge characterises the performer’s expertise, which differs from other kinds of knowledge, and generates peculiar methodology.