Exploring Differences in Observed versus Produced Gesture in Vocal Pedagogy

Gestures are meaningful hand movements that often accompany speech and have been shown to serve various pedagogical functions in both classroom and musical instruction. Emerging patterns suggest better comprehension from producing rather than observing gesture (Dargue et al., 2019) and that performing gesture while singing creates an audible acoustical difference in vocal quality (Pouw et al., 2020). We compare singers’ perceptions of the utility of seeing versus doing gesture during vocal performance, and examine acoustical differences in singers’ vocal quality and when seeing or doing gesture while singing.