Body. Sound Spaces and the Embodied Musical Mind

Each sound refers to the prenatal intrauterine life in which the Self, since the first months of intrauterine life, was formed. It is the sound world, the expression of the continuous maternal-foetal interaction, that defines the space where the foetus is immersed and determines the close relationship that will occur during the whole life between the body, its feeling, and sounds. Language and music have as a common ancestor the vocal signals that characterized primates’ communication, allowing them to exchange information as well as its related emotional content. Therefore, sound bears a wider meaning than that which can be expressed through words; it is able to embrace the same subconscious or unconscious dimension that characterizes both the individual being and its action. Apparently, music dynamics have direct access to the affective structures of our nuclear consciousness; therefore, sound becomes an expression of the deepest Self. Before emotion, at the base of the emergence of the Self, we have our body that characterizes the very quality of musical experience and today increasingly appears inextricably connected with cognitive processes.