Abstract

In the present study I will analyse the multifaceted functions of the external vocal gestures of the chironomical type and their influence on the first trace-forms of music writing : neumes. I will also outline the impact of vocal gestures within the dynamics of the learning process in singing and in the transitional process from oral musical culture to music writing. My aim is to extend the study of vocal gestures towards the exegesis of the writing of music. From an ontological and epistemological standpoint I will draw hypotheses concerning the processes leading from an audiooral musical memory culture to an oral-visual musical memory culture all the while maintaining the former in our Western countries. I will rely on a methodology as it stands at the crossroads of clinical observations on the use of vocal gestures as mnemonic auxiliaries for singers, and a theoretical reflection on perspective processes, from ontological and epistemological perspectives. From my theory on external vocal gestures I will develop an analysis of the first musical sign-traces. My personal results will be backed up by videos and different materials. The gestures of the instrument-voix – and not those of another musical instrument – are truly the tools that made possible the magical and paradoxical act of “fixing” Music.