Open AccessCommentary: "Up" within "Down"
Author(s) -
Robert S. Hatten
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
empirical musicology review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1559-5749
DOI - 10.18061/emr.v10i1-2.4578
Subject(s) - movement (music) , ballet , field (mathematics) , gravitational field , gravitation , psychology , cognitive psychology , human–computer interaction , computer science , physics , acoustics , mathematics , dance , visual arts , classical mechanics , art , pure mathematics
This commentary considers ways in which meter implies a virtual environmental field, one that has close correlations with dancers’ actual experiences of movement within gravitational constraints, despite their verbal descriptions that might suggest the contrary. Upward movements on downbeats are interpretable as virtual agents’ expenditures of energy against virtual gravitational constraints, akin to those dancers experience in ballet. Thus, “up” as movement can imply “down” as gravitational field.