A multimodal model for musical meaning making – designs for learning in choir

Abstract

This article presents musical communication from a multimodal, social semiotic and design-oriented perspective. Based on the notion that communication and learning constitute a social process of transformative sign-making, the article explores how choir conductors during video-recorded rehearsals and concerts use different modes of communication, such as gestures, gazes, body movements, singing, printed score and piano playing, as representations of the music they are working with, and how these modes are transformed into singing voices through translation, reshaping and imitation. The way conductors design their approaches to the music affords various choices and conditions for choir singers to learn and perform the music. The article draws attention to the complexity and multiplicity of an audiovisual music culture, characterised by different repertoires of action in performing and illustrating the music and by choir-specific, genre-specific and locally specific musical language constructions, in which learning is equated with interpretation and performance.