Emmanuel Sowicz - Application of Basic Emotion Theory in Performance (Feb 6) Questions / Suggestions
Oh, my friends, do I have a special one for you today!!! 
My colleague, friend, fellow Royal Academy of Music graduate, and just all-around inspiring, musician Emmanuel Sowicz is joining us for a very special livestream this Saturday!
Check out the topic as described in his own words:
The Application of Basic Emotion Theory in Musical Performance: A Practical Model for the Effective Communication of Emotion.
It’s essentially a framework that can assist in making interpretative decisions. For example: what specific changes can I make to sound parameters such as rhythm, articulation, timbre, speed, etc., in order to best convey tenderness, or anger, or any number of emotions I may wish to express musically?
I think of it as a bridge that allows to best communicate our interpretative ideas of what we believe a piece or phrase ‘means’ through specific and targeted technical decisions, such as ‘play with a brighter attack’, or ‘play the dotted rhythms lazier’, etc.
Even more to the point: how do we go from ‘I think this music is about the bitter anguish of loss’ to ’should I play that note loud or quiet?’. Importantly, it’s not meant to constrain us with rules, but enable our expression… I think of it as a toolbox.
Though it’s based on the academic research of Patrick Juslin related to the perception of emotion by listeners, I take a practical approach on the subject and would make sure to demonstrate with pieces from the guitar repertoire.
Find the start time in your time zone by clicking the photo or following this event link:
https://app.tonebase.co/guitar/live/player/emmanuel-sowicz-basic-emotion-theory
We are going to be using this thread to gather suggestions and questions!
- What questions do you have on this topic?
- Any particular area you would like us to focus on?
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As promised, here are the presentation slides that Emmanuel used in his livestream!
Sorry for the delay, everyone. Enjoy
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I'm glad I saw this thread just now! I will try to attend. Question: How does one differentiate from he desire to play as technically accurate as possible with the human need to express emotion an intensity in a live performance? Is it possible?
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David Chidsey Very good question, David! Will make sure to feature it in our conversation tomorrow
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On octave equivalence, check out this page.
https://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/ttss.html
He demonstrates dissonant octaves. The book shows how they work (and much, much more).
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Peter This is absolutely incredible!!! Just listened to the first example and my jaw dropped
I'm going to have to read this entire book now. I wrote an entire paper for one of my doctoral classes on the lack of octave equivalence in certain xylophone traditions of the Central African Republic (and their rarity), and yet I had never seen any other book drawing a clear parallel between inharmonicity and differently perceived dissonance.
I encourage everyone to read this book NOW. It's super fascinating (and nerdy!) stuff!
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Mircea - I thought you´d find it interesting given what you said in recent classes.
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Peter I so did! Thank you so much for posting that!!!
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Can you share the slide? Or just the page about system?
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Krisztian Tobias I've requested the page from Manny! Hope he will be able to provide it to us
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Krisztian Tobias The slides have been posted! Go to the pinned comment above to download them.
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Hi Mircea, I found the video uploaded on Youtube very very useful, to be able to see it with subtitles and understand everything, it would also be very useful for other masterclasses, Thanks
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Giuseppe Gasparini Thank you, Giuseppe! So glad to hear you liked it - I didn't even think about the fact that you'd be able to use YouTube's automatic subtitles feature! This is great
we plan to stream 1-2 shows to YouTube per month - still quite a small part of what we offer here on tonebase, but still happy to hear they come with this unexpected advantage!
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Wonderful livestream. It would be interesting to explore the emotions we can evoke with our body language as players.
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Dan Wonderful idea! Let's see if we can program something around this topic soon
for a start, I recommend Steve Goss' stagecraft livestream! It touches on some of these topics - albeit somewhat adjacently.
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Thanks Mircea. I will check it out. I enjoyed his video on Sonata form. BTW great job on all the videos!
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Dan Thank you so much, Dan!
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