How is singing like a gestalt?

Answer 1

Well, in choir singing, anyway, it's like gestalt because the total result is greater than the sum of the individual parts.

"Gestalt theory focused on the mind’s perceptive processes (Kearsley, 1998). The word "Gestalt" has no direct translation in English, but refers to "a way a thing has been gestellt ; i.e., ‘placed,’ or ‘put together’"; common translations include "form" and "shape" (EB: "Gestalt Psychology", 1999). Gaetano Kanizca refers to it as "organized structure" (Moore, Fitz, 1993). Gestalt theorists followed the basic principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, the whole (a picture, a car) carried a different and altogether greater meaning than its individual components (paint, canvas, brush; or tire, paint, metal, respectively). In viewing the "whole," a cognitive process takes place – the mind makes a leap from comprehending the parts to realizing the whole."

Answer 2

I am an experienced amateur singer and semi pro caliber musician (classically trained).

I think of a gestalt as a moment when one grasps an entire concept, emotion, or set of facts.

The art of singing (as, for instance, a Schubert lieder) requires the artist to be completely in the moment and yet to have a sense and calculation of the whole emotional and intellectual goal and thrust of the piece.

It's that grasp of the songwriter's (and/or poet's) intent, together with a comprehension of the harmonic and melodic structure of the song, necessary to the successful performance, that is like a gestalt.

But the singing performance itself, and the audience's perception of it, is an accumulation of a thousand tiny details of pitch, rhythm, words, inflection, diction, and so forth. The opposite of a gestalt.