Daniel Stern (1985) developed several interesting concepts that turn
out to be related to music.The first is that of vitality affect:“many qual-
ities of feeling that occur do not fit into our existing lexicon or taxon-
omy of affects.These elusive qualities are better captured by dynamic,
kinetic terms,such as ‘surging,’ ‘fading away,’ ‘fleeting,’ ‘explosive,’
‘crescendo,’ ‘decrescendo,’ ‘bursting,’ ‘drawn out,’ and so on.These qual-
ities of experience are most certainly sensible to infants and of great
daily,even momentary,importance”(1985:54).These vitality affects are
thus characters related to emotions,to the ways of being,to the differ-
ent ways of internally feeling emotions.They will be,for example,all that
distinguishes explosive joy from fleeting joy,or the thousand ways of
smiling,of getting up from one’s chair,of taking a baby in one’s arms,
feelings that are not reducible to classic categorical affects but that color
them in a sensitive way for the person.
If I were to translate Stern’s idea differently,I would say that these
feelings are first of all of a temporal and dynamic nature,and that is what
makes for their originality.They give weight to the moment,to the
present action,or to the emotion in progress,and this is undoubtedly
what the baby first perceives in the acts,gestures,and attitudes of its
mother or other people.These are ways of feeling—of being with—
before being emotions or particular feelings.The comparison with music
or dance seems evident,since the choreographer or composer translates
a way of feeling rather than the feeling itself.
The notion corresponding to that of vitality affect in music is undoubt-
edly what,on the basis of experiments on the semantization of musical
experience,I suggested characterizes the dynamic and temporal aspects
of forms:it is the notion of a dynamic vector.Dynamic vectors are
musical elements that transport temporal significations of orientation,
progression,diminution or growth,and repetition or return.Perceived
and felt change is thus a dynamic vector that orients the listener’s per-
ception,anticipation,and internal representations.The quality of orien-
tation depends on what the dynamic vector refers to,assimilated here to
a set of vitality affects that the subject experiences or relives immedi-
ately in listening.
From all that precedes,the notion of temporal feeling-shape derives
naturally.It is defined by Stern (1995) as a form of representation of
affective experience.It is thus a contour of affectivity,the temporal form
of a set of profiles of intensity,rhythm,and duration of vitality affects,of
which it ensures,for the subject,the coherence in a present that lasts.Its
emergence for the subject is an event that is produced in real time,on
the inside of experience.But to understand the range of this notion,we
have to ask,what is being linked? what is being woven,like a plot is
woven,what is it that is waiting to be given meaning?459 Innate Competencies in Musical Communication