Abstract
Verbal metaphors are common in the teaching of musical instruments but are generally applied by teachers in an implicit and personal way. Possibly, this strategy has not been fully understood, since specific investigations on it are relatively recent.
In an attempt to outline the state of the art on the subject, 17 empirical studies about the use of verbal metaphors in the teaching and learning of musical instruments were, using the PRISMA methodology, compared and related to theoretical studies. The studies analyzed involved teachers and students—the latter were most of them university students at an advanced musical level. All instrument families were represented, but there was not a significant presence of genres outside the realm of Western classical music.
Results suggest that verbal metaphors in the teaching and learning of musical instruments: (a) are a phenomenon with a complex definition and can be difficult to distinguish from mental imagery; (b) are used to convey a wide range of contents and behaviors and foster interpersonal relationships; (c) perform functions both of simplification and complexification of contents; and (d) may be perceived as imprecise or unpredictable, but these features could be partially compensated by a wider knowledge of the context (musical, pedagogical, and personal) involved in each instruction and by using such metaphors in conjunction with other teaching strategies.
Further specific investigation into cognitive processes and context variables involved in the use of verbal metaphors in the teaching and learning of musical instruments is recommended.
Keywords
Introduction
Verbal Metaphors in the Teaching and Learning of Musical Instruments
One-to-one tuition is widely recognized as a critical component of a musician's training (Gaunt, 2008). Research indicates that a significant part of one-to-one classes is devoted to verbal interaction, primarily led by the teacher (Karlsson & Juslin, 2008). In this context, verbal strategies become extremely important. One such strategy involves the use of metaphors to create relationships between elements belonging to the musical context and elements external to it (Zorzal & Soares-Quadros, 2021). If we accept, as many authors do, that music depends on metaphor to be conceptualized and communicated, it is possible that this strategy is inevitable in teaching musical performance (Alves & Nogueira, 2024; Leech-Wilkinson, 2009; Zbikowski, 2008).
Empirical and theoretical studies on the use of verbal metaphors in the teaching and learning of musical instruments are relatively recent, but their number has been increasing over the years. These studies indicate that verbal metaphors have been used by teachers in musical instrument teaching areas as diverse as notation and terminology, form and musical relationships, expressiveness, technique and use of the body, and context of pieces (e.g., Romero et al., 2021; Stevanovic, 2021; Wolfe, 2019). In Western classical music, some of these metaphors are integrated into official musical terminology (e.g., “allegro con fuoco … was it fire?” [Jakobsen & Hebert, 2025, p. 84]), while others seem to constitute a supporting terminology. Wolfe (2019) identified among the latter both conventionalized metaphors—used so frequently by teachers and students as to become a sub-technical language in music (such as the idea of certain sounds being “feminine” or “masculine”)—and unconventional, original, and personalized metaphors (for instance, a pause can be described as “that moment when you twist the knife” [p. 1]).
When examined closely, however, some data in these studies appear to diverge. Regarding effectiveness, for instance, there is evidence that metaphors may promote motivation, self-regulation, and the processes of content internalization and memorization, as well as facilitate interpersonal relationships in the teaching environment (e.g., Brenner & Strand, 2013; Rosenthal et al., 2009; Stevanovic, 2021; Wolfe, 2019; Zorzal & Soares-Quadros, 2021). Students tend to appreciate the strategy, remember metaphors years after hearing them, and have little difficulty understanding them (Barten, 1998; Bonastre & Nuevo, 2020a). At the same time, however, there is evidence that metaphors might be perceived as imprecise or unpredictable, causing feelings of confusion and frustration in students (e.g., Persson, 1994; Woody, 2006a). Regarding the functions performed by metaphors, while many data indicate their capacity to facilitate the understanding of musical contents or bodily behaviors related to music (e.g., Spieker, 2017; Stevanovic, 2021), some data point to their power to mirror the complexity of these contents or even to add new layers of meaning to them (e.g., Jakobsen & Hebert, 2025; Schippers, 2006; Wolfe, 2019).
The evidence thus indicates that verbal metaphors are widely used in the teaching and learning of musical instruments, but some specific aspects of this use may not yet be fully understood. This lack of clarity may affect the pedagogical application of the strategy, and could help explain, at least partially, why strategies linked to metaphors are rarely spelled out in the formal teaching of music, why less experienced teachers have difficulty applying them with their own students, and why musicians frequently have to learn on their own how to translate verbal metaphors into musical sound (Jakobsen & Hebert, 2025; Schippers, 2006; Spieker, 2017; Woody et al., 2024).
We therefore considered that a systematic literature review was needed to integrate the available evidence—identifying convergences and divergences across studies—and to map the current state of knowledge, clarifying what has, and what has not, been empirically established about the use of verbal metaphors in instrumental music teaching. By synthesizing this body of work, this review aims to provide a more solid foundation for future theoretical development, for more precise research questions, and for better-informed pedagogical practice.
Defining Metaphor
We considered very important for our review to establish the conceptual lens through which the selected studies would be examined, which would be facilitated by a clear definition of metaphor. As will be seen, however, explicit definitions were rarely provided by the selected studies. This may reflect a historical difficulty in defining the phenomenon itself: since Classical Antiquity, metaphors have been analyzed from different disciplinary perspectives—rhetoric, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and the cognitive sciences—which have generated different or even conflicting definitions of the phenomenon and divergent assessments of its status (Demjén & Semino, 2017).
An example can help illustrate how different perspectives can be applied to the same phenomenon. When discussing creative ways to teach musical structure to children, Strand and Brenner (2017) suggested that “[A teacher] can compare the ABBA form of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ to a sandwich. … the A section is ‘some type of bread’ and … the B section is a ‘mysterious and delicious filling’ of their choice” (p. 23). From a linguistic point of view, when a teacher states that “a musical form is a sandwich,” they are using “a word or phrase for one thing…to refer to another thing in order to show or suggest that they are similar” (Britannica, n.d., Definition 1). Thus, the word sandwich, which literally refers to two slices of bread with a filling, is now used to refer to musical form, suggesting some similarity between such different referents. From a cognitive linguistics point of view, however, sandwich also offers us a way to “see, experience, think and communicate” (Demjén & Semino, 2017, p. 1) musical form. Form is a complex, abstract, and disembodied concept and, for a child, is likely unfamiliar and affectively neutral. Its understanding may be even more difficult when the concept is related to music, a phenomenon that is perceived auditorily and unfolds over time. Through metaphor, however, characteristics of sandwich are projected onto form, leading to form being perceived as a simple, concrete, embodied, and familiar object with positive affective value, while music itself comes to be understood in a more visual and spatial way. Moreover, the metaphor may facilitate the understanding of abstract concepts as used in music, such as tonic and stability (“some type of bread”), dominant, tension, and movement (“a mysterious and delicious filling”), as well as repetition and contrast, while also drawing attention to the aesthetic and emotional aspects embedded in these concepts (“mysterious,” “delicious”) (Strand & Brenner, 2017, p. 23).
Thus, for cognitive linguistics, metaphors are not merely linguistic resources, but tools for structuring our thoughts and actions; embodied conceptual phenomena influenced by personal, affective, and sociocultural factors (Gibbs, 2017; Lakoff & Johnson, 2003). This understanding gave rise to conceptual metaphor theory (CMT), proposed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in 1980, which has since grown and diversified into several strands (Kövecses, 2010; Lakoff & Johnson, 2003). The basic idea of CMT is that a metaphor is formed when we use one conceptual domain (our knowledge or conceptual representation of any coherent segment of experience) in order to understand another conceptual domain. The domain to be understood is called the target domain (in our example, the ABBA musical form), while the domain that structures it is called the source domain (in this case, the sandwich). Typically, sources are more concrete, and targets are amore abstract (unidirectionality principle). Mappings are established between sources and targets—connections based on real or structural similarities or on perceived correlations in experience. Mappings would be always partial, highlighting certain aspects of the source and target while hiding others. Finally, only the parts of the source that do not conflict with the schematic structure of the target could be mapped onto the target (invariance principle) (Kövecses, 2010; Lakoff, 1993; Lakoff & Johnson, 2003).
Given that cognitive linguistics and conceptual metaphor theory constitute dominant frameworks in contemporary metaphor research (e.g., Gibbs, 2017), and that our findings were broadly consistent with their assumptions, we adopted for this review the theoretical understanding of metaphor informed by this tradition.
Aim and Structure of the Review
The aim of this review was to outline the state of the art in research on the use of verbal metaphors in the teaching and learning of musical instruments. To this end, we selected, analyzed, and compared several empirical studies and related their data to relevant theoretical works.
We first describe the selection procedure that led to the inclusion of these studies. We then provide an overview of the main results, which are subsequently explored in relation to three general themes. Finally, we present a discussion of the findings.
Search for and Selection of Studies
The review was prepared according to the PRISMA methodology (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) (Page et al., 2021).
The descriptors music*, metaphor* OR “figurative language”, and educ* OR instruc* OR teach* OR learn* were defined through tests and consultation of articles. They were then used in searches by Title, Abstract, Keywords and, when possible, Full Text in the Web of Science, SCOPUS, ERIC, and PUBMED databases, in January 2023. The selection was updated in February 2025.
We searched for studies: (a) published in peer-reviewed scientific journals; (b) published on any date; (c) written in English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, or Italian; (d) in which there was some type of experiment or direct data collection; and (e) that had as its main subject, or as a sufficiently important subject, the teaching and learning of musical instruments, 1 for any age group, through metaphors expressed predominantly through spoken or written language.
We also carried out an additional search in the bibliographical references of the selected studies. The studies found were subjected to the same set of criteria as the previous ones. At the end of the process, two external observers, PhD professors at the institution where the review took place, separately evaluated the studies regarding their adequacy to the pre-established criteria. Only the studies that found consensus among them were kept. Figure 1 illustrates the process, which resulted in the selection of 17 studies.
PRISMA flow diagram of the selection process of the studies.
Results
Overview of the Studies
Table 1 summarizes the content of each study. Priority was given to information related to the use of metaphor.
Overview of the Included Studies.
Classification of student participants: A (age range): 1 ≅ 5 to 15, 2 ≅ 15 to 18, 3 ≅ 18 or more; E (educational level): 1 = elementary to middle school, 2 = high school, 3 = university; M (musical level): 1 = basic, 2 = intermediate, 3 = advanced.
Distribution of selected studies according to year of publication.
Regarding musical topics, only Brenner and Strand (2013) referred to genres beyond Western classical music (pop music and jazz). The musical aim of most studies was the teaching and learning of expressiveness (10), followed by the teaching and learning of musical instruments in general (5), of bodily behaviors related to music 4 (1), and of contemporary repertoire (1). All families of musical instruments were represented: strings (10), keyboards (9), woodwinds/brass (7), voice (4), 5 and percussion (4), in addition to musical ensembles (4).
Main Themes
Although two themes emerged most prominently in the corpus (the role of metaphors in teaching expressiveness, addressed in 10 studies, and comparisons between metaphors and other teaching strategies, addressed in five), the heterogeneity of variables and aims across studies made a systematic comparison along these lines unfeasible. We therefore chose to present the results through more general themes that permeated all studies and allowed a larger proportion of data to be meaningfully compared. The themes adopted were: Functions of verbal metaphors in the teaching and learning of musical instruments; Imprecision and unpredictability attributed to verbal metaphors and possible compensation measures; and Suggestions for future research.
Functions of Verbal Metaphors in the Teaching and Learning of Musical Instruments
An inductive thematic analysis of the studies was carried out to find functions performed by verbal metaphors in musical instrument teaching, either explicitly mentioned or inferable through the information and examples of metaphors available. In line with CMT (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003), we assumed that metaphors in this context are typically structured through an extramusical source and a musical target (or a target involving bodily behavior related to music), and that the pedagogical function of a metaphor depends on the specific way in which the source operates on the target. For instance, we considered that a metaphor performs an organization function when its extramusical content (source) seems to organize its musical/bodily content (target).
When a function was identified, we searched for further evidence of its presence in the remaining studies. In addition, we examined whether each function was consistent with the CMT principles stated in the Introduction (see Discussion). The functions found were classified as functions of simplification or complexification, according to the effect attributed to the extramusical content on the musical/bodily content in each case (Table 2). We observed that functions often co-occur and may conceptually overlap. Thus, this systematization should not be taken as a precise instrument capable of determining that a certain function rather than another is “at work” in a given moment; rather, it is an attempt to identify possible functions. Finally, it should be noted that this systematization was developed based on a limited set of sources and does not aim to provide an exhaustive account of all possible metaphor functions or their organization.
Functions of verbal metaphors in the teaching and learning of musical instruments.
Functions of Simplification
We considered that a verbal metaphor performs simplification functions when its extramusical part—the source—seems to make its musical part (or its part of bodily behavior related to music)—the target—simpler or more intelligible.
Think of the flow of this music as a river of calm waters. (Zorzal & Soares-Quadros, 2021, p. 501)
In this example, we considered that the extramusical content of the metaphor (the embodied experience of encounters with “rivers of calm waters”) was used to explain or describe its musical content (the “musical flow”—the way in which the sound elements produced by the musical instrument are linked together over time). Therefore, the metaphor performed a function that we called translation.
Wolfe (2019) found systematic associations between extramusical and musical/bodily elements in the teaching and learning of expressiveness. These associations were marked by mechanisms of multivalence (a single extramusical source structured multiple musical targets) and diversification (multiple extramusical sources structured a single musical target). Acoustic topics that relate to tone (individually pitch, loudness and timbre) commonly associate with dimension, motion, force/gravity, picture/colour, illumination, physical and material qualities. Temporal topics (timing and tempo) are, not surprisingly, on the move as objects, people, cars, animals and water. And they can be physically controlled and respond to force. Expressive devices, such as articulation and phrasing, associate with painting a picture, illuminating an object, grasping something, navigating, reshaping and resizing something, and breathing and speaking. (p. 7)
In the field of interpersonal relationships, teachers used translations to provide simultaneous instructions, parallel to the student’s musical performance. The use of metaphors moment by moment, before, during, or after actions of the student contributed to the ambiguity of their purpose, somewhere between description, instruction, and correction (Stevanovic, 2021).
If musicians receive musical instructions translated into extramusical forms, it is important to ask whether, at some point, these instructions need to be retranslated into musical terms. Woody (2006a) and Woody et al. (2024) found that university music students may follow two paths: either remain within the metaphor, developing and personalizing it, or subject the metaphor to a process of cognitive translation, converting it into explicit plans to modify sound properties. In both studies, participants who engaged more in cognitive translation tended to show more significant changes in expressive performance.
Try to make something suddenly coming, like an animal coming. What could it be? (Jakobsen & Hebert, 2025, p. 83)
In this example, the real or imagined experience of a sudden encounter with an animal was used to explain or describe a particular sound effect, which will differ depending on the animal envisioned. The example could be regarded as an instance of translation. It should be noticed, however, that the musical/bodily part of the metaphor remained hidden in the instruction, perhaps intentionally. We considered that in situations in which the extramusical content, more than describing or explaining, seems to replace the musical or bodily content, the metaphor performs a replacement function.
Rosenthal et al. (2009) found that teachers and students use metaphors when they think that a musical term will not be precise enough to convey a certain expressive idea or when they do not know or do not remember appropriate musical terms. Coherently, Meissner (2017) found that improvising music with a theme or character allows children to explore ways of communicating characters and emotions without the need to be acquainted with musical notation. Replacement, therefore, would occur in two cases: when the metaphor is regarded as more precise or effective than the equivalent musical term, and to make up for a lack of knowledge or lack of mastery of the musical or bodily area.
We also considered that the extramusical content of the metaphor in the example would have, to some extent, the power to draw to itself the focus of attention, which would normally fall on the musical/bodily content or the performer themself. This function, which we called displacement, can be of great importance in the field of interpersonal relationships. Stevanovic (2021) found that by asking children to perform figurative sequences, teachers were able to monitor their level of knowledge in a positive way as the focus was on the realization of metaphors and not on prior knowledge of musical content. Likewise, metaphors allowed teachers to externalize evaluations by directing them to what the metaphors represented, as if they were independent of the student. The teachers often directed their evaluations to the represented objects (e.g., “good [tree] roots” [p. 7]; “then the trunk…it is handsome” [p. 5]), not to the corresponding body positions or movements (“good placement of the feet on the floor”, “handsome posture of the back”).
Like the freeway you see across the river…underneath that beautiful line are the pillars that hold the thing up. We need more of the pillars. (Wolfe, 2019, p. 8)
In this example, a musical configuration formed by melody and rhythm was replaced with the idea of a freeway supported by pillars, drawing attention to the role of rhythm as structuring the melody. We considered that the extramusical elements of the metaphor (freeway, pillars) were also used to simultaneously:
organize musical relationships, particularly the relationship between melody and rhythm. compress musical contents (melody and rhythm) into a scale that allowed for clearer visualization and mental manipulation; integrate distinct musical elements by transforming them into a single conceptual unit (the freeway).
In cases such as this, we considered that metaphors perform functions of organization, compression, and/or integration of musical/bodily contents.
Evidence of the functions was found in the studies. In the field of expressiveness, extramusical elements cemented the various “ingredients” of the pieces practiced by the students, interconnecting them into a consistent body and form (Romero et al., 2021). Teachers compared the expressive organization of sounds to the rearrangement of furniture and lighting in a house or to an architecture that involves phrases, movements, and the entire piece (Brenner & Strand, 2013; Wolfe, 2019). In the field of technique and use of the body, metaphors could help the performer to organize and produce expressive changes that occur over microseconds (actions that may be below their threshold of perceptive capacity or conscious motor control) and could transform a complex series of bodily actions related to music into a single gestalt of intelligible behavior (Rosenthal et al., 2009; Stevanovic, 2021).
Functions of Complexification
We considered that a verbal metaphor performs complexification functions when its extramusical part—the source—seems to turn its musical part (or its part of bodily behavior related to music)—the target—richer or more complex.
Send out the tenor, screaming his lungs out. (Jakobsen & Hebert, 2025, p. 84)
In this example, the way a performer should produce sound on their instrument in a given musical excerpt was replaced by the visceral image of a tenor's forceful performance. Probably, the main characteristic projected from the source (tenor) onto the musical/bodily target in this process was the idea of a loud, committed, and intensely focused sound. It is reasonable to assume, however, that other characteristics linked to tenors may also be projected onto the musical/bodily target. These might originate in how the culture and society the student is part of sees tenors, the student's personal experience with tenors, the emotions attributed to tenors and to the repertoire commonly associated with them, the way tenors usually move and use their bodies, among other possibilities. Thus, we considered that this metaphor, in addition to other possible functions, performs an aggregation function: its extramusical content aggregates its own complementary elements to its musical/bodily content.
We found three main types of aggregate content in the studies:
Cultural and Social. Socially and culturally codified extramusical elements facilitated the learning of musical/bodily content and worked as a form of social and intellectual mediation, causing students to understand and appreciate contemporary musical language (Romero et al., 2021; Stevanovic, 2021). Personal and Emotional. Personal and emotional experiences related to extramusical elements were used to assist musical interpretation (Brenner & Strand, 2013; Meissner, 2017; Romero et al., 2021). Possibly, metaphors have an inherent affective charge (Stevanovic, 2021). Movement. Romero et al. (2021) observed that non-musical movements enabled the learning of the technical actions needed for performing musical pieces in contemporary language. Some associations between music and movement were more conventionalized (e.g., “in a movement of climactic crescendo, the boy goes up the roof” [p. 150; translated from the original Portuguese work]), while others referred to highly specific and regional movements (e.g., “a thick chord in the attack, leaving only two notes retained” [p. 151; translated from the original Portuguese work] represented the action of scutching, of beating flax to eliminate impurities). Emotional and movement content appear to be related: a metaphor may add an affective component to the experience of movement, which could be important in learning the movement itself
6
(Stevanovic, 2021).
Tasting the sound: chocolate. (Jakobsen & Hebert, 2025, p. 84)
In this example, the aesthetic appreciation of a musical sound as it is being produced was translated into the sensory experience of tasting chocolate. We considered that this metaphor may pose more challenges to understanding than more conventionalized metaphors because: (a) its musical target (sound) is connected to an unusual extramusical source (chocolate); (b) the mappings that can be established between the source and its target are few or non-obvious; and (c) there is a tension between source and target that cannot be resolved, given the taste/hearing synesthesia that results in the logical impossibility of eating a sound. We propose, therefore, that metaphors that have at least one of the features attributed to the example above perform, in addition to other possible functions, the function of dissonance in the teaching and learning of musical instruments: their extramusical content provokes cognitive dissonance 7 in relation to their musical/bodily content, causing the subject to try to establish mappings between the two types of content.
Table 3 presents examples of verbal metaphors from the analyzed studies that we interpreted as performing a dissonance function.
Verbal metaphors performing a dissonance function.
Examples taken from all sections of each study, including the contextualization sections.
Imprecision and Unpredictability Attributed to Verbal Metaphors and Possible Compensation Measures
A thematic analysis of the contextualization, results, and discussion sections of the studies showed a strong association between verbal metaphors in musical instrument teaching and learning and the characteristics of imprecision, as shown in Table 4. Additionally, Woody (2006a) observed that metaphors could also be unpredictable or difficult to control, leading performers to produce considerable changes in performance but not necessarily in the intended direction.
Perception of the imprecision of verbal metaphors.
Translated from the original Spanish work.
Translated from the original Portuguese work.
However, the review points out that metaphorical instructions in musical instrument teaching become more precise and controllable insofar as they take into account elements of the context, either the context of the subjects involved or the musical and pedagogical context. It also points out another way of making up for the variability attributed to metaphors: using them in conjunction with other teaching strategies. These possibilities of compensation will be discussed below.
Context of the Subjects Involved
Individual differences seem to play an important role in the effectiveness of metaphorical instructions. The success of this strategy seems to largely depend on a student's ability, according to their individual characteristics and cultural context, to understand the meaning of the metaphors used by the teacher (e.g., Bonastre & Nuevo, 2020b; Zorzal & Soares-Quadros, 2021). If, however, the use of verbal metaphors is conditioned and limited by the particularities of each student, it is possible that it can be adjusted to act precisely on these particularities, promoting highly personalized instruction and encouraging the student to find their own way (Jakobsen & Hebert, 2025).
It is possible that the effectiveness of metaphorical instructions is also influenced by subjects’ variables of a more general nature:
Age and Musical Level. The studies analyzed dealt with musical instrument teaching and learning for children, adolescents, and adults, and in most cases, these age groups could be related to basic, intermediate, and advanced musical levels. While the use of verbal metaphors to overcome a lack of specific musical knowledge seems to be a feature of music teaching for children (e.g., Meissner, 2017), metaphors were equally applied to the three groups to facilitate the learning of technique, expressiveness, form and context of pieces, the personal and emotional connection with the repertoire, and the relationship of students with teachers and the audience (e.g., Brenner & Strand, 2013; Romero et al., 2021; Stevanovic, 2021; Wolfe, 2019). In all age groups, some subjects had difficulty to translate verbal metaphors into musical sounds, which suggests that this skill needs to be taught, and metaphors were used in conjunction with complementary strategies, especially varied when applied to children (e.g., Meissner, 2017; Romero et al., 2021; Woody et al., 2024). The review thus indicates that teaching and learning through metaphors can be effective for all levels, but that the vocabulary and complementary strategies used by teachers must fit the age and level of experience of the students. It is possible that more creative uses of metaphor occur in advanced teaching, when students have already overcome technical limitations, acquired a repertoire of extramusical models, and are able to connect it to sound automatically (Rosenthal et al., 2009; Wolfe, 2019, Woody, 2006b; Zorzal & Soares-Quadros, 2021). Role (teacher or student). In a study that compared teaching strategies, teachers rated metaphors less positively than their advanced students, perhaps because they attributed a subjective and ambiguous character to the approach (Bonastre & Nuevo, 2020a). However, in another study, master instrumental music teachers used more figurative language and evaluated it more positively than novice instrumental music teachers, who might have not had an adequate model of the strategy in the academic environment they had recently left (Spieker, 2017). Gender. In a study comparing teaching strategies (Bonastre & Nuevo, 2019), advanced-level female participants ranked metaphors higher than male participants and reported having been in teaching situations involving the strategy more often. On the other hand, male participants rated technical instructions better in terms of correctness of the strategy. It is possible that, due to a gender bias, women have been taught to use metaphors to a greater extent than men. Nevertheless, in a study with adult students of various levels (Zorzal & Soares-Quadros, 2021) teachers used more images and metaphors to teach expressiveness to male students than to female students. In this study, however, all teachers were male, and the number of female participants at more advanced musical levels was significantly lower than that of males.
Musical and Pedagogical Context
In a study involving adult students of various levels, teachers used metaphors across all areas of musical instrument teaching, but most frequently in metacognition (reflexive behavior, self-assessment, and self-regulation), music theory, work-composer context, and expressiveness (Zorzal & Soares-Quadros, 2021). In line with this, a thematic analysis showed that the reviewed studies associated verbal metaphors with a range of areas, but the strength of association was greater with some areas than with others. The strongest association was between metaphors and expressiveness, found in 14 studies. This was followed by technique and use of the body (8), context of pieces (6), form and musical relationships (6), interpersonal relationships linked to instrument teaching (such as student/teacher and student/audience) (5), and notation and terminology (4). We also assessed the presence of metaphorical functions in the studies, considering that different functions can represent different pedagogical objectives. The most common function was translation (17), present in all studies. This was followed by aggregation (16). The equal use of organization, compression, and integration (16) highlights the hypothesis that these functions commonly act together. The least present functions were replacement (13), dissonance (11), and displacement (5). Obviously, the relationships found in a limited number of studies may not correspond to those found in real teaching situations.
Use of Verbal Metaphors in Conjunction with Other Teaching Strategies
Five of the studies analyzed systematically compared verbal metaphors to other musical instrument teaching strategies, the main ones being aural modeling (offering a musical model to be reproduced through imitation), technical instructions (offering comments that directly address acoustic parameters), and the use of one’s own emotions (focusing on the student's felt emotions, trusting these emotions will translate into fitting sound properties). 8
When comparing the use of these strategies in the teaching of expressiveness, Bonastre and Nuevo (2019, 2020a) found out that the use of technical instructions is the strategy that teachers and students come across more often in their careers and the one they value the most. The use of metaphors ranked second or third place in use and second place in appreciation. Woody (2006a) compared the effectiveness of metaphors or images, aural modeling, and technical instructions in the teaching of expressiveness, and concluded that none was more effective than the others. 9 The key to success might be using them in different proportions or combinations.
In actual teaching practice, teachers use different strategies, combined or not, so that distinguishing between them can be somewhat arbitrary (Meissner, 2017). The studies analyzed indicated that the effective choice and combination of teaching strategies should explicitly take into account several variables in connection with the student (age, level of experience, personal and cultural characteristics, specific needs, level of emotional competence), the teacher, the musical and the pedagogical content (characteristics of the piece, pedagogical objectives), and other elements of the context (Bonastre & Nuevo, 2020b; Brenner & Strand, 2013; Woody, 2006a; Zorzal & Soares-Quadros, 2021).
Finally, the studies indicated possibilities of combining verbal metaphors with different strategies. Technical instructions were commonly used to clarify ambiguities in metaphorical language, to translate metaphorical language into musical terminology, to translate metaphorical instructions into action plans on concrete properties of sound, and to adapt expressive responses elicited by metaphorical instructions (Woody, 2006a, 2006b; Zorzal & Soares-Quadros, 2021). Regarding aural modeling and the use of one's emotions, an extramusical model would help the student to memorize the many details of the sound model, and metaphors could be used to induce real emotions in musicians (Woody, 2006a).
Suggestions for Future Research
Suggestions for future research were first derived from the limitations and recommendations reported by the authors of the studies analyzed.
With respect to methodology, the authors proposed conducting more longitudinal studies employing qualitative or mixed-methods approaches, with intentional or randomized sampling (Alves & Nogueira, 2024; Bonastre & Nuevo 2019, 2020a; Jakobsen & Hebert, 2025; Spieker, 2017). Such studies may be situated in natural learning environments or in contexts that prioritize internal validity and researcher control (Rosenthal et al., 2009; Woody et al., 2024; Zorzal & Soares-Quadros, 2021). They could also be enhanced through procedures for comparing or evaluating performance quality, including, when relevant, assessments by audiences or, in studies involving children or adolescents, by parents or guardians (Brenner & Strand, 2013; Romero et al., 2021; Spieker, 2017; Woody, 2006b).
Recommendations concerning participants encompassed variables of quantity (involving larger samples), age (including younger participants or comparing age groups), gender (increasing the participation of women, comparing genders, or examining the influence of teacher gender), geographical, social, and cultural background (including participants from diverse contexts or comparing such contexts), and personal characteristics (considering students’ perceptual learning styles and teachers’ personalities) (Bonastre & Nuevo, 2019, 2020b; Brenner & Strand, 2013; Jakobsen & Hebert, 2025; Meissner, 2017; Romero et al., 2021; Rosenthal et al., 2009; Spieker, 2017; Woody et al., 2024; Zorzal, 2021; Zorzal & Soares-Quadros, 2021). Music-related participant variables included level (focusing on intermediate learners or comparing levels), teacher/student roles (involving more teachers, privileging the student perspective, or comparing teachers and students as well as more and less experienced teachers), and other pedagogical roles (involving academy administrators, coordinators, and piano accompanists) (Alves & Nogueira, 2024; Bonastre & Nuevo, 2020a; Jakobsen & Hebert, 2025; Meissner, 2017; Spieker, 2017; Woody et al., 2024; Zorzal & Soares-Quadros, 2021).
Suggestions concerning the musical and pedagogical context involved variables of quantity (studies including more educational institutions), musical genre and instrument (involving different instruments; comparing genres or instruments; contrasting instrumental and vocal teaching), and musical/pedagogical content (comparing different musical content; exploring figures of speech other than metaphors; examining students’ individual practice strategies; comparing teaching strategies; or contrasting established strategies with new ones) (Bonastre & Nuevo, 2020a; Brenner & Strand, 2013; Jakobsen & Hebert, 2025; Meissner, 2017; Rosenthal et al., 2009; Spieker, 2017; Zorzal, 2021; Zorzal & Soares-Quadros, 2021)
In addition to gathering suggestions from the authors themselves, we collected some themes that, although present in the selected studies, have been little explored: the relationships between metaphors and mental imagery, verbal and non-verbal metaphors (e.g., expressed by gestures or images), and metaphors and different learning theories (either musical or not); cognitive processes linked to creating and receiving metaphors; personalized and/or real time metaphor creation; the possible role of metaphors in the relationship of students and musical instruments (as in personification, in which characteristics of living things are attributed to the instrument) and of students and audience (as in promoting a flow state or fighting performance anxiety).
Discussion
Previous research indicated that, although verbal metaphors are broadly used in the teaching and learning of musical instruments, some specific aspects of this use remain insufficiently understood. The aims of this systematic literature review were therefore to integrate the existing evidence and to map the current state of knowledge on the theme. The review yielded some particularly interesting results, which will be discussed next.
First, the findings indicate that verbal metaphors are difficult to define and to distinguish from mental imagery. In fact, the observation of Zorzal and Soares-Quadros (2021) that metaphor frequently functions as an umbrella term in music education research becomes evident in the lack of metaphor definitions in the studies, in the adoption of different preferred terms, like analogy, figurative language, or extramusical element, and in the use of metaphor alongside imagery-related terms.
Analogies, from the standpoint of cognitive sciences—particularly structure-mapping theory (Gentner et al., 2001)—would be comparisons that share primarily relational information. Thus, not all metaphors would be considered analogies, since some metaphors may rely only on common object attributes. The study that adopted the term (Zorzal, 2021), however, seems to have used it simply in the sense of “comparison of one thing with another thing that has similar features” (Oxford University Press, n.d., Definition 1), since there is no reference in the text or in the bibliographical references to analogy theories. In any case, it should be noted that the term analogy (which also appeared occasionally in the other studies analyzed), much like metaphor, has been used across a wide range of disciplinary fields (e.g., cognitive science, linguistics, mathematics, natural sciences, philosophy, psychology, and other social sciences), and can therefore take on different interpretations across those fields (e.g., Guarini et al., 2009).
Regarding mental imagery, a recent study defined verbal metaphors applied to music as a kind of imagery, and a recent publication on the relationship between music and this phenomenon required each contributor to provide their own definition, resulting in 24 multifaceted versions from fields such as psychology, philosophy, musicology, music therapy, and music education 10 (Black, 2022; Küssner et al., 2022). This may suggest that the lack of consensus regarding the definition of metaphor is mirrored in the case of mental imagery, and that a conceptual overlap may occur when these phenomena are related to music. Possibly, with a greater understanding of the relationships of music, metaphors, and mental imagery, the results of previous studies could be integrated to some extent. Presicce (2022), for example, classified the visual imagery used by music performers into three general categories with fluid boundaries: spontaneous (which emerges unexpectedly during a performance activity), heuristic (which influences interpretation through shortcuts based on experience), and strategic (which intentionally targets a specific aspect of the performance). The language used by the participants in the study, highly metaphorical (e.g., “roaring lion, parading his territory” [p. 249]), seems to indicate that such a classification could also be applied to the study of verbal metaphors.
The review findings also indicate that metaphors may perform a variety of functions within instrumental music teaching and learning. To better substantiate the functions we found, we considered it relevant to examine their possible consistency with the CMT principles outlined in the Introduction.
Translation, replacement, organization, compression, integration, and aggregation were considered broadly consistent with the principles of CMT. For a better understanding of the aggregation function, according to which extramusical content can aggregate its own complementary elements to musical/bodily content, it may also be helpful to consider other ideas related to CMT. For example, we would have a wide knowledge about the sources we use to build metaphors, usually determined by our direct experiences or folk theories built around them (Lakoff & Kövecses, 1987). Thus, we could establish, as well as basic constituent mappings, a series of metaphorical entailments between source and target—mappings that are non-essential, but that could enrich and deepen the meaning of the metaphor (Kövecses, 2010; Lakoff & Johnson, 2003).
The displacement function, according to which extramusical content could draw to itself the focus of attention, was considered potentially consistent with CMT. We found evidence that CMT has investigated how the choice of a given source draws the listener's attention to certain aspects of a target rather than others (e.g., Lakoff & Johnson, 2003), but not the possibility that one source could draw the listener's attention to itself while keeping on acting on a target. It is plausible, however, that upon hearing a metaphor, the subject may shift their attention to its source to some degree, since it is through the source that the target will be understood. Indirect evidence can be found in the purposeful use, in teaching not only music, but also dancing, sports, and even mathematics, of external foci of attention (focusing on the intended effects of one's actions instead of focusing on one's movements, allowing the motor system to ‘self-organize’) or attentional anchors (focusing on a specific object, area, or aspect while engaged in a task), frequently defined through verbal metaphors (Hutto et al., 2015; Keller, 2012).
On the other hand, the dissonance function, according to which extramusical content can provoke cognitive dissonance in relation to musical/bodily content, was considered partially consistent with CMT. Contrary to the view of metaphor as a device of poetic imagination and rhetorical embellishment, Lakoff and Johnson (2003) argued that the same metaphorical thinking mechanisms used throughout poetry are present in our most ordinary concepts. From this perspective, the basic mechanisms underlying metaphors that perform a dissonance function would not differ from those underlying more conventionalized metaphors. This idea was further developed by Lakoff and Turner (1989), who argued that unconventional metaphors, such as those used in literature, are often grounded in conventionalized metaphors and shaped through specific operations, such as extending (introducing a new element into the source domain), elaborating (developing an existing element in the source), questioning (challenging the adequacy of a conventionalized metaphor), and composing (activating multiple metaphors simultaneously) (see also Kövecses, 2010). The possibility of opposed aspects being kept in tension within the same metaphor, however, seems to contradict the invariance principle, according to which only those parts of the source that do not conflict with the schematic structure of the target could be mapped onto the target (Lakoff, 1993). This particular issue appears to warrant further investigation. Another CMT principle that could be questioned would be unidirectionality, according to which metaphors structure more abstract contents through more concrete contents (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003). Lakoff and Johnson (2003), however, treated the principle more as a tendency than an absolute constraint, and Kövecses (2010) later observed that reversed courses may occur, imparting an unusual, often literary or formal function to the metaphor. Indeed, although many examples of verbal metaphors found in the studies analyzed and in theoretical works seem to “turn” the abstract into the concrete (e.g., a musical event is “like a chicken coming out of the egg” [Jakobsen & Hebert, 2025, p. 84]), examples can also be found in which the concrete seems to be turned into the abstract (e.g., “she was playing very evenly, cleanly”; “I asked [her] to be ‘cloudier’…to ‘smoke’ the sound” [Alves & Nogueira, 2024, p. 20]) and also some in which metaphors seem to remain in the abstract realm (e.g., the Chinese instrument qin must be played like “the dragon grabbing a cloud in his flight” [Schippers, 2006, p. 211]), which is consistent with Wolfe's (2019) observation that the complexity of metaphors may well correspond to the physical complexity of sound phenomena.
It is important to note that CMT is not the only theory concerned with metaphor interpretation, and that other accounts approach the phenomenon from different angles. For example, while CMT assumed that the interpretation of metaphors depends on entrenched cross-domain conceptual mappings, relevance theory proposed that ordinary pragmatic processes, such as narrowing and broadening, allow hearers to construct ad hoc categories in context, without the need to posit pre-existing conceptual metaphors (Gibbs, 2017; Sperber & Wilson, 2008). In a middle-ground position between these accounts, the “career of metaphor” view proposed that the processing of metaphors evolves over time: novel metaphors would tend to be understood via comparison, whereas conventionalized metaphors would tend to be processed categorically (Gentner et al., 2001). Moreover, since its original formulation CMT has been substantially expanded and diversified—which has led to some confusion regarding its scope and objectives—and it has also been the target of several criticisms, including the claim that protocols for identifying and interpreting metaphors have not yet been sufficiently standardized; that the theory sometimes makes broad generalizations (by deducing complex cognitive mechanisms from language) and lacks methodological rigor (by relying heavily on the intuitions of individual analysts); and that it does not always adequately explain the relationship between metaphors and embodiment, sociocultural forces, or interpersonal communication (for discussion, see Gibbs, 2017).
Finally, the review findings suggest a strong association between verbal metaphors in the teaching and learning of musical instruments and the characteristics of imprecision and unpredictability. Possibly, part of these characteristics stem from the way metaphors have been applied in music teaching. Karlsson and Juslin (2008) observed the lack of clear objectives, specific tasks, and systematic patterns in private instrument lessons, and noted that teachers’ conservative tendencies may lead them to neglect the teaching of expressiveness or to conduct it implicitly. Indeed, there is evidence that students frequently do not receive explicit instructions on how to deal with the metaphors they hear (Schippers, 2006; Spieker, 2017; Woody et al., 2024).
Part of the imprecision and unpredictability, however, may be inherent to metaphors themselves. Within CMT, Kövecses (2010) proposed that these would act on three levels: subindividual (linked to sensorimotor experiences and correlations in experience), individual (linked to a given individual), and supraindividual (linked to a specific language and culture). The interpretation of metaphors would, therefore, be more universal at the first level and more subject to personal and cultural variables at the others. These layers of meaning may help explain the complexity of interpreting unconventional metaphors, which require “students with heightened cognitive perception to interpret indirect verbal expressions involving imagination, aesthetic artistry, irony, humor, and cultural references in their own unique ways” (Jakobsen & Hebert, 2025, p. 85). Coherently, interpretation may also involve bodily perception. Abrahamson (2020) analyzed the effect of an unconventional verbal metaphor in cello teaching. On being instructed to hold the neck of the instrument as though he were holding a strawberry, the subject (the author himself) tried to strike a balance between not crushing the string and not letting it go, which led him to unexpectedly perceive the string's vibration on the tip of his finger. Thus, the metaphor would be a sensory constriction projected onto an action: when we are instructed to interact with a situation as though we were doing another thing, what we do is try to interact with the situation even as we are doing that other thing—which can originate new sensations and actions in the target domain. Finally, the interpretation of unconventional metaphors may involve also an element of intuition—the intellectual technique which allows the formulation of plausible ideas (even though not definitive) without following analytical formal steps to verify their validity (Bruner, 1977; Schippers, 2006).
A related question is whether metaphors may be more effective for teaching certain content or for achieving certain pedagogical objectives. The studies reviewed strongly associated verbal metaphors with expressiveness and with the metaphorical functions of translation, aggregation, organization, compression, and integration, but the relationships found in a limited number of studies may not correspond to those found in real teaching situations. It would be important to investigate whether metaphors are indeed more commonly associated with certain areas and goals, since such associations could indicate greater pedagogical effectiveness for certain types of content. Yet one should consider that links such as that between metaphor and expressiveness have been constructed and reinforced since at least the 19th century (e.g., Doğantan-Dack, 2012), whereas other associations have only recently begun to be explored.
To conclude the subject, it is worth noting that even imprecision and unpredictability may themselves serve as pedagogical tools. Schippers (2006) proposed that learning music requires “a partially unmapped path of discovery…one that leaves room for lateral connections and even confusion” (p. 214), whereas Ruiz and Vieira (2017), when analyzing metaphors in children's choir practice, observed that interpreting metaphors is not finding already existing similarities between sources and targets, but rather creating them. By reviewing key research on creativity, Abramo and Reynolds (2015) identified the following characteristics shared by creative music teachers: they would have the ability to monitor, evaluate and react to students and environments, accepting to take risks, adapt their classes, and improvise in a structured manner; they would be comfortable in situations of tension or confusion, valuing new ideas and ambiguity itself and establishing dialogic relationships with their students; they would know how to combine innovative and apparently incongruent ideas in a useful and interesting way; and they would know how to integrate their different social identities and access their multiple “selves” when teaching, while also recognizing and valuing the (multiple) identities of their students. All of these characteristics appear strongly related to the creative, versatile, permeable, integrative, and aggregating nature of metaphors.
This review was based on a limited number of studies and may not fully capture how verbal metaphors are employed in real-world teaching. Even so, the findings indicate emerging trends and outline promising directions for further research. Additional studies are needed to clarify the cognitive processes underlying metaphor use in instrumental pedagogy and to examine how different variables shape these processes. Such work could contribute to transforming what is currently intuitive knowledge into a more structured and shareable understanding, thereby supporting more deliberate and effective teaching practices.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Luís Carlos Borges for the English translation, Julia Vidile for proofreading, and the three reviewers for their valuable feedback on earlier versions.
Ethical Approval
Not applicable. The study did not involve human participants directly.
Consent to Participate
Not applicable. The study did not involve human participants directly.
Consent for Publication
Not applicable. The study did not involve data of individuals.
Author Contributions
Bráulio Vidile researched the literature and performed the main procedures of the data selection, analysis, and interpretation stages.
Helena Rodrigues and Ana Isabel Pereira contributed significantly to the conception and design of the study and to the selection, analysis, and interpretation of the data, in addition to critically reviewing the work.
Bráulio Vidile wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors reviewed and edited the manuscript and approved its final version.
Funding
The authors declare that the research, authorship, and publication of this article were supported by FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., within the scope of the R&D Unit UID/00693: Centre for Music Studies at NOVA FCSH [DOI identifier: 10.54499/UID/00693/2025] and LA/P/0132/2020 [DOI identifier: 10.54499/LA/P/0132/2020] and through a Ph.D. Grant [2022.09973.BD].
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.