[Xmca-l] Intonation and Gesture

[David Kellogg]

 One of my graduate students has been studying the way in which
children use their hands when they speak English.

We started with the observation that fourth and fifth graders will
gesture copiously when they speak, but fifth and sixth graders, when
you ask them to perform a dialogue in front of the class, will come
out and lock their hands behind their backs, apparently to prevent
themselves from gesticulating. Sure enough, their delivery is far more
flat in intonation. When we ask them to unlock their hands, there is a
notable improvement in intonation.

This morning I was looking at Natalie Dessaye rehearsing the mad scene
from "Lucia de Lammermoor". She gesticulates a LOT. But you can see
that her gesticulations are not at all mad--when her voice has to go
high, she puts her hand way over her head. When she has to go low, she
places her hand low.

Her "conducting" actually conflicts with that of the conductor,
because of course it's melodic and not rhythmic. But it's effective;
it produces that exquisite sense of "bloom" in her high notes. It's
not exactly what my students are doing, but it's close!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlVKw3_VXv4

David Kellogg
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies



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