Composing Understandings: music, motion, gesture and embodied cognition

This paper focuses on ongoing research in music composition based on the study of cognitive research in musical meaning. As a method and result at the same time, we propose the creation of experiments related to key issues in composition and music cognition, such as music and movement, memory, expectation and metaphor in creative process. The theoretical reference approached is linked to the embodied cognition, with unfolding related to the cognitive semantics and the enactivist current of cognitive sciences, among other domains of contemporary sciences of mind and neuroscience. The experiments involve the relationship between music and movement, based on prior research using as a reference context in which it is not possible to establish a clear distinction between them: the Capoeira. Finally, we proposes a discussion about the application of the theoretical approach in two compositions: Boreal IV, for Steel Drums and real time electronics, and Converse, collaborative multimedia piece for piano, real-time audio (Puredata) and video processing (GEM and live video) and a dancer.