ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines a conceptual approach to the musician–instrument relationship. The core idea of this approach, based on the theory of embodied music cognition, is that the merging of musician and instrument is the condition of possibility to engage in an embodied interaction with music while performing. The chapter situates the nature of the musician–instrument relationship in the context of musical expressiveness. It shortly defines the incorporation of the instrument as related to its transparency. The chapter focuses on the different levels of experience, rooted in the mechanism that allows separating self from non-self (presence). The ability to discern the internal and external world may even be regarded as the root mechanism of human signification processes and as such essential to the meaningful interaction with music. The chapter couples incorporation to the impact of the musical instrument on different levels of embodiment.
