Seeing a band live is a much more engaging experience than listening to a recording at home. But it’s not just the atmosphere of a live event, it’s also the singer’s facial expressions and gestures which enhances our emotional experience.
It’s a
rare singer whose face remains impassive as they sing. Think of jazz greats
like Ella Fitzgerald, blues artists like B. B. King or pop acts like Michael
Jackson. As they sing, their faces are conveying the emotion in the music,
sometimes it seems, even struggling with the emotions. Part of the beauty of a
live performance is seeing singers’ faces as they interact with both the music,
the other musicians and the audience. Their facial expressions often seem part
of the music itself.
Facial expressions
affect perception of music
In what
way, then, do facial expressions while singing affect the perception of the
music? There is a well-known phenomenon in psychology called the McGurk effect.
This demonstrates that what listeners hear is profoundly affected by what they
see. This suggests that singers’ facial movements may have large effects on how
we perceive music.
In a series of
simple experiments, Thompson, Graham and Russo (2005) showed just how important
the McGurk effect is when we are looking at singers, compared to when we only
have the sound to go on.
