Music as Movement in Signed Song: Analyzing Rosa Lee Timm’s “River Song”

Music created and performed primarily in a visual-kinesthetic or tactile modality, such as signed music, presents important challenges for our existing methodologies and paradigms in the field of music theory. The existence of music that does not necessarily involve sounds prompts us to reconceptualize music in terms of organized movement, and to consider how musical parameters such as vocal quality, melody, and rhythm can emerge in a visual-kinesthetic musical medium. This video considers these parameters through a detailed analysis of the original signed song “River Song,” composed and performed by Rosa Lee Timm. The video uses music analysis and video interviews with Timm to reveal the meaning of a purely signed piece of music.