ABSTRACT
A common conception of musical fragments is as gestures or sequences of sound with characteristic shape, which appear as movement in pitch and time space. Like animation, a series of notes can provide the illusion
of movement even though it is only a series of stationary events. For example, a scale of ascending tones may appear as a rising gesture. ese musical impressions emerge from the overall eect of individual scale notes, and even when the pattern is interrupted with a brief descending tone, the overall shape of the line is maintained. is tendency of musical sequences to be perceived as gestural curves was observed by Roger Scruton, who wrote that, “It seems then that in our most basic apprehension of music there lies a complex system of metaphor, which is a true description of no material fact” (Scruton 1983).
