The Image Behind the Sound

Abstract

The wide-ranging benefits visual imagery can bring to music performers have been extensively acknowledged throughout the literature (Clark et al., 2012; Connolly & Williamon, 2004). Although these works advance our knowledge of imagery, this phenomenon remains a complex one to pin down: even when focusing on the visual modality alone, several types of visual mental imagery are encountered. Taruffi and Küssner (2019) propose a more nuanced understanding of music listeners’ experiences of visual imagery, building on Christoff et al.’s (2016) conceptual framework to account for several typologies of visual mental images that vary in their degree of automatic and deliberate constraints. The aim of the present chapter is to adapt aspects of Taruffi and Küssner’s (2019) framework to describe a typology of (but not limited to) visual imagery in music performance. In the first part of this chapter, the author reviews selected literature through the lens of Taruffi and Küssner’s framework and develops three broad categories for music performers’ uses or experiences of visual imagery: spontaneous, heuristic, and strategic. In the second part, these categories are discussed in relation to extracts of qualitative data drawn from the author’s personal accounts as a pianist, as well as a brief piano-duet case study. Overall, visual imagery can be a powerful and versatile tool available to performers.