Verbalising musical engagement: First-person accounts of movement and emotion in musical experience
Andrea Schiavio, Caroline Owen, Adrian Kempf, Nicola Di Stefano, Sarah Kraeutner, Anja-Xiaoxing Cui
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractMusical experience is consistently described as bodily grounded, spanning overt movement, subtle micro-movements, motor imagery, physiological sensations, and stillness. Emotion and movement are portrayed as mutually constitutive, with bodily engagement not only expressing but also intensifying and shaping emotional experience. A positive association was found between emotional engagement and urge to move. Musical expertise shaped descriptive language: musically trained participants used more abstract, structural vocabulary, whereas dance-trained participants emphasized sensorimotor terms. The findings support embodied and enactive accounts of musical experience and highlight the value of first-person methodologies for understanding how music is felt and made meaningful.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Qualitative study |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 56 |
| Population | Adults with varying musical and dance expertise |
| Key finding | Musical experience is consistently described as bodily grounded, with emotion and movement mutually constitutive, and expertise shapes descriptive language. |
Abstract
AbstractThe present study examines how individuals articulate the relationship between bodily engagement and affective experience with music, and how these processes vary with musical and dance expertise. Fifty-six adults completed an online survey combining standardised measures of musical and dance sophistication with open-ended questions about everyday listening and emotionally salient musical experiences. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis alongside exploratory quantitative analyses of linguistic patterns. Findings indicate that musical experience is consistently described as bodily grounded, spanning overt movement (e.g., dancing), subtle micro-movements, motor imagery, physiological sensations, and stillness. Participants often portrayed emotion and movement as mutually constitutive, with bodily engagement not only expressing but also intensifying and shaping emotional experience. Exploratory quantitative analyses showed a positive association between measures of emotional engagement and urge to move, while expertise shaped descriptive language: musically trained participants used more abstract, structural vocabulary, whereas dance-trained participants emphasised sensorimotor terms. Our findings lend support for embodied and enactive accounts of musical experience and highlight the value of first-person methodologies for understanding how music is felt and made meaningful in lived experience.