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Natalie Rosado

Dr. Adrienne Cassel

English 1201-217

19 September 2017

It means to me .. faith. That in my darkest hour, when I feel as if I can move one more step

forward I can call on a high power that someone, in my case, my Mom...is always there.

Always watching. Always caring. - Scott Winters

The rustling of the flags in the wind, the snap of the rifle strap when it was caught, the

clicking sound of the hilt on the sabre, the blaring music coming from the speakers, those were

the sounds I lived for. I remember as a little girl I would spy on my neighbor while he spun his

flag, mesmerized as I watched the 6ft pole with the most vibrant colored silk spin in the air so

elegantly. I would go outside and I would mimic his flag tossing with my teddy bear that I never

left the house without, not even realizing that years later Id fall in love with this sport. Some

people would ask why I chose it but I would say it chose me. As I grew older, colorguard

became my escape, the way to let all my frustrations out and to forget about everything going on

outside of the sport. Every season the instructor, in this case, Scott Winters would choose a song

that we would perform to.

That song is what we lived and breathed for the next six months. I remember walking

into that old, creaky, unairconditioned building on the first day of winter season and being so

ecstatic to listen to the song that we would be performing to. We sat down on the wooden

bleachers and Scott said The song this season is about my mom. It is about our last Christmas
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together. Scott pressed play and we all sat there and listened in awe of this song, Calling All

Angels. I was mostly a dancer that season, and the song was so easy to dance to. It made emotion

pour out of me and it was as if the music literally moved me. It made me dance like no one was

watching and made me thankful that I still get to spend Christmas with my mom. To me that

song meant everything, because it meant everything to Scott, which made true emotion show in

my performance versus just acting. How does emotional expression of a performer affect the

audience's actions?

Research shows that the single criterion for aesthetic value that both performers and

listeners appear to consider the most important is that the performance is emotionally expressive

(Juslin, Lindstrm 2016). Listeners are more likely to have an emotional response to the music

if the performer is emotionally expressive because expressive performance enhances attention

and emotional response, as revealed by autonomic arousal and brain activity (Lindstrm).

There has been research shown that contributes to the idea that [a] musician cannot move others

unless he too is moved (Bach quoted in Zijil). I believe that the same is true about performers.

You cannot move your audience and make them feel and understand the music unless the music

moves you as well.

According to Juslin (2003), the term interpretation refers to the individualistic shaping

of a piece according to the musical ideas of the performer. In a study completed by Lindstrm,

almost all of the participants in Lindstrms study believed that music can express emotions.

Interestingly, the majority of the music students claimed that they feel the intended emotion

while playing, and over half of the students regarded it as necessary to feel the emotion in order

to communicate it successfully to a listener (Lindstrm et al., 2003).

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Persson found that in order for some performers to be able to portray or feel emotion to

an audience they very consciously manipulate recall of certain memories (emotional memories

and memories of emotions) (as quoted in Zijil). As I was performing to Calling All Angels, a

song that I thankfully cannot relate to, as I have not lost a family member close to me, I would

think about Scott. I would think about what he means to me and about what his mom meant to

him. I would also think about how lucky I am to still be able to spend Christmas with my family

and that is how I was able to show/feel emotion so my audience could as well.

Works Cited

Juslin, Patrick N, and Erik Lindstrm. Emotion in Music Performance. Ebscohost, 2016.
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Zijil Van, and John Sloboda. Performers Experienced Emotions in the Construction of

Expressive Musical Performance: An Exploratory Investigation. Sinclair Remote

Database Authentication Page, Sage Publications, Apr. 2011.

Calling All Angels, Winterguard Performance Miamisburg High School, 2015.

Link to the performance/song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_dK5URv80g