ABSTRACT

Although recent studies have explored the cognitive and neurological bases of musical imagery (Zatorre et aI., 1996), questions of the actual sonorous content or sonorous qualities (such as timbre and texture) in musical imagery seem to have received less attention. Questions of sonorous qualities are difficult because they do not fit well with the symbol-oriented paradigm of our musical culture (such as discrete pitches and durations), as sonorous qualities are highly multidimensional (evolving spectra, transients, etc.) and also rely heavily on introspective reports (Le. pose difficult methodological problems for any experimental approach). Nevertheless, musicians, composers, musicologists, and non-professional music-lovers for that matter, all rely on imagining musical sound, and for composers and/or arrangers, developing a capability for imagining sonorous qualities is quite simply an integral part of musical craftsmanship. In this paper, I will argue that images of sound-producing actions (such as hitting a drum, plucking a string, blowing on the tip of a bottle, etc.) can enhance this capacity for imagining sonorous qualities. I will do this by presenting a conceptual model of imagined sound-production which separates excitation and resonance and relates this to some ideas from the domains of motor control and motor imagery.