Speaking of Music: The Use of Motor-Affective Metaphors in Music Instruction

Is all talk about music that does not use standard technical vocabulary nothing more than impressionistic twaddle, as claimed by George Steiner?' The purists insist that music itself, absolute music, resists efforts at description; its interest lies in notes themselves.2 This article is an attempt to show that, on the contrary, language is sometimes valuable, if not essential, in conveying certain aspects of music experience and performance. In particular, figurative language referring to motor-affective states, actions, and tendencies seems to be distinctly suited to communicating musical aesthetic experience. In a previous report, I attempted to demonstrate that instructors of advanced instrumental and voice students in a music conservatory setting often resort to figurative language, especially to metaphor.3 The figurative language conveyed how various aspects of a piece should be heard, and it functioned to persuade the student to aim for a certain experience and mode of performance. Interviews with students indicated that they recall their early teachers' vivid metaphors many years after the fact and that they had little trouble understanding them.4 These findings seemed to cast doubt on the conclusion, attributed to Mendelssohn, that the experience of music is too precise for words.5 Of course instructors do use standard musical terms and various non-