Empathy as a Tool for Embodiment Processes in Vocal Performance

Abstract

One way of understanding empathy in music performance is as a process by which singers closely identify with the characters they encounter and portray in opera or art song. As singers embody these characters, they literally give them voice. Music performance humanizes characters as well as performers and audiences through shared empathetic engagement, resulting in the development of knowledge and understanding within and beyond the immediate musical experience. What is the process a singer goes through in empathizing with a character? How can young classical or musical theatre singers learn to empathize with the characters they are tasked with portraying, even when they may find the characters or their behavior to fall outside of their own moral convictions? This paper posits that empathy is a necessary part of the role preparation process for singers and introduces the "role journal" as a way for young singers to track embodiment processes and develop healthy habits of empathy and boundaries in their work.Submitted 2014 March 28; accepted 2015 April 8. KEYWORDS: empathy, vocal performance, singing, vocal pedagogy, opera, musicAS empathy becomes a more popular subset of the fields of music psychology and music performance philosophy, it is important to remember that live music is an immediate, visceral experience for performers and audiences. The music performance experience functions as a multi-faceted vortex of communication passing not only between performers, between audience members, and between collective and individual subsets of performers and audience members, but also between the characters realized through the performance, whether embodied by the performers or not (orchestral tone poems, for example, may create a character without actual embodiment), and finally creating links across time as performers and audience members engage, in a sense, with a composer. Within the multiplicity of communication processes in performance situations, perhaps the most significant are the most intimate. I suggest that the most intimate experience of empathy in music is between a singer and the character he or she portrays. The singer who embodies and realizes a character engages in a process of intimate and meaningful empathy with the character throughout preparation and performance processes. By extension, audience members may feel an empathic connection to characters they see on the stage, both through the performer's portrayal as well as through the music experience. For these reasons, I contend that conceptual theories of empathy in music can benefit from including practical applications for artists. Mindful recognition and development of empathy in music, especially in vocal performance, can enhance the experiences of performers and their audiences.According to music education philosopher David Elliott, "the concept of music as knowledge is rich with possibilities" (Elliot, 1991, p. 21). As an extension of this notion, I posit that the creation and development of knowledge in and through music is relate...

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