title: Empathetic embodiment in the compositional process: A 4E perspective on the relationship between composer and performer
Creators: name: Boyle, Michael
Publisher: name: Universität Graz
Year: 2020

description: Background in the philosophy of mind. Attempting to understand the "boundaries of the mind"
has been a resurgent theme in the philosophy of mind in recent years. The advent of computers
led to the dominance of "cognitivism", or the idea that- the brain works as a computer with
discrete input and output. Contemporary theories which contest this view are many, and the most
dominant are grouped under the "4E" umbrella: extended, embedded, embodied and/or enacted
cognitive theories. Some of these, or versions of these, preclude, imply or exclude each other,
but the central point of contention remains: The mind extends beyond the brain. Creative
cognition in particular has been fruitfully explored through these lenses, with insightful studies
on fields as diverse as theatre, literature and painting. The idea of embodied cognition is often
explored in terms of developmental or performative engagement with the arts. The embodied
nature of more complex creative processes, such as musical composition, is still to be fully
explored.
Background in musicology. With one or two exceptions, musicological exploration of 4E
cognition has been limited to studies of improvisation, performance, musical development and
musical emotion. There are studies exploring the relationship between composer and performer,
most notably Elizabeth Le Guin’s Boccherini’s Body (2005), which explores the bodily
connection a performer feels with a long dead composer. A study of composition from a 4E
perspective should lead to new insight into and ways of understanding the compositional process
and the relationship between composer and performer.
Aims. To argue that understanding the "empathetic embodiment" between composer and
imagined or future performer is a crucial part of a specifically 4E understanding of the
compositional process, and that this understanding leads to insight into 4E theories of cognition.
Main contribution. Through contrasting the act of working closely with a performer with that
of writing for a future or imagined performer, the depth of bodily empathy in the latter case is
revealed. The composer acts out the physical gestures necessary to produce the desired music,
attempts to communicate with the eventual performer through notation, performance norms and
written instructions, and forms an empathetic link with the imagined performer of the work. The
act of "offloading", so crucial to a 4E (extended, embedded, embodied, enacted) understanding
of cognition, is limited by the absence of a real performer. Instant access to observed gestures
and the instant access to the emotional state of the room and the performer are similarly limited.
As such, composing for an imagined or future performer necessitates a deeper level of empathetic
embodiment than that necessitated by working closely with a performer.
Implications. This paper shows how a study into the extended nature of compositional cognition
will impact not only the ways in which the act of composition is perceived, but also, due to the
perhaps unique nature of composition as a creative process, assist in developing a 4E
understanding of creative cognition more generally.
Keywords: Composition, Cognition, Embodiment, Empathy, Performance, Relationship