Gesture

The very first drafts of the music learning materials, which were done back in the early 90's, included a section on gesture, as it seems a key to better understanding music making. Dynamics and articulations and tone qualities and rhythms can all be felt as gestures made audible. It's always been mysterious to me that the work of Manfred Clynes, what he calls "sentics", has never been taken up by music therapists or educators.

In some recent posts there's talk of the false dualism of mind and body, and it seems gesture is such a seamless blend of the two it's a way of breaking out of the categories.

Here's a link to a post on Boing Boing that has the following quote:

Talking with your hands as you speak helps you get your point across to the people you're talking to. But new research suggests gesturing can help you think too. For example, students who gestured while discussing math problems were better at learning how to solve the problems.... Now, researchers from the University of Chicago and University of Iowa are trying to figure out the relationship between gestures and abstract mental processes.