Handhabung – Handzeichen – Musikalische Handstücke

Abstract

Signs and graphic characters are frozen acts that can be ascribed to hand and finger movements as well as arm and body gestures. The body’s ability to memorize movements, which are activated externally and informs actions like singing, is called cheironomy in music theory. This ensured an oral-gestic tradition before music was written down in mensural and neumatic notation, a process that was initially welcomed as a rationalizing advancement that fascilitated memory and made a more precise codification of musical meaning visable and readily accessible. The question remains, however, whether notation represents progress compared to a performance using hand gestures (whereby the oral-mimetic impulses of music are mostly lost), or whether present day conducting is able to surpass these original impulses.