Cross-Modality and Embodiment of Tempo and Timing

Abstract

This chapter explores the insights that research into cross-modal correspondences and multisensory integration offer to our understanding and investigation of tempo and timing in music performance. As tempo and timing are generated through action, actions and sensory modalities are coupled in performance and form a multimodal unit of intention. This coupled intention is likely to demonstrate characteristics of cross-modal correspondences, linking movement and sound. Testable properties predictions are offered by research into cross-modal correspondences that have so far mainly found confirmation in controlled perceptual experiments. For example, fast tempo is predicted to be linked to smaller movement that is higher in space. Confirmation in the context of performance is complicated by interacting associations with intentions related to e.g. dynamics and energy, which can be addressed through appropriate experimental manipulation. This avenue of research highlights the close association between action and cross-modality, conceiving action as a source of cross-modal correspondences as well as indicating the cross-modal basis of actions. For timing and tempo concepts, action and cross-modality offer concrete and embodied modalities of expression.