Affordances in Real, Virtual, and Imaginary Musical Performance

Marc Duby bases his exploration of sound and imagination on James J. Gibson’s affordance concept. In this chapter, Duby shows how musicians benefit from real and imagined actions in their interaction with real (such as pianos), virtual (such as MIDI controllers), and air instruments (such as air guitars [imaginary instruments]). In each case, Duby explores the connection between gesture and sound and how the various instruments afford creativity. This leads to discussions of the range of imaginary possibilities the instruments afford musicians in the act of performing, composing, and listening, and how the special case of the air guitar challenges existing theories of embodied cognition.