American Music Research Articles

P01.13.A The effect of musicality on language recovery after awake glioma surgery

Abstract Background Awake craniotomy is used to resect tumor while preserving language. However, differences between patients in post-operative speech/language outcome are observed despite careful intra-operative monitoring. Literature describes improved performance in language tasks during cognitive tests in musicians. Moreover increased white matter connectivity properties in the corpus callosum are described in musicians compared to non-musicians. We hypothesize better recovery of language in musical patients after awake glioma surgery, caused by higher connectivity properties from the corpus callosum. Material and Methods Adult patients undergoing resection for glioma with an awake resection procedure at two neurosurgical centers were prospectively included. Patients without standardized language tests at pre- and post-operative level, with a glioblastoma multiforme (WHO grade 4) or undergoing re-resection were excluded. Language was assessed with the Diagnostic Instrument for Mild Aphasia (DIMA) and corrected for age and education years from a healthy population. The patients’ musical skill was assessed through questionnaires, and divided in groups based on the Musical Expertise Criterion (MEC) which defines musicality based the duration and intensity of musical training. Volumetric measures of the corpus callosum, corrected for total brain volumes, was calculated of each included patient based on the pre-operative structural MRI. Results Forty-six patients, enrolled between June 2015 and September 2019, were followed-up (mean/SD; 240/174 days after craniotomy) and divided in: non-musician (41.3%, n = 19), amateur-musician (34.8%, n=16) and trained-musician (23.9%, n = 11). Overall a decrease in language was observed after craniotomy (mean/SD) of -0.361/0.771. Musical abilities correlated with less decrease in language (mean/SD) when comparing non-musicians (-0.543/0.683) to amateur (-0.272/0.910) and trained (-0.176/0.693) musicians. An increased but non-significant trend (p=0.28) between musicality and corpus callosum / brain ratio (mean/SD) was observed in non-musicians (0.763, 0.718;0.808), amateur musicians (0.792, 0.745;0.838) and trained musicians (0.835, 0.778;0.891). Conclusion Musicality seemed to improve language outcome after awake glioma surgery, possibly attributed due to a higher white matter connectivity in the corpus callosum. Future studies with larger sample sizes are needed to confirm our findings.

Celebrating the Inaugural American Music Honors Awards

Celebrating the Inaugural American Music Honors Awards

Appalachian Fiddle Music: Featuring 43 Fiddlers and 188 of Their Tunes by Drew Beisswenger and Roy Andrade, with Scott Prouty

Reviewed by: Appalachian Fiddle Music: Featuring 43 Fiddlers and 188 of Their Tunes by Drew Beisswenger and Roy Andrade, with Scott Prouty James Ruchala Appalachian Fiddle Music: Featuring 43 Fiddlers and 188 of Their Tunes. By Drew Beisswenger and Roy Andrade, with Scott Prouty. Fenton, MO: Mel Bay Publications, 2021. [212 p. ISBN 9781513466378 (paperback), $24.99; ISBN 9781513459936 (e-book), $19.99.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, map, tune indexes. This book is an attempt to provide “a well-rounded survey and exploration of the fiddle music of the Appalachian Region” of the United States (p. 5). The Appalachian region comprises all or part of thirteen states, though this book focuses on only six of those: Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Vir -ginia. The three authors present a brief bullet-point overview of the history and characteristics of the Appalachian fiddle tradition—also called “old-time fiddling.” The tradition started with the immigration of settlers from Great Britain into the region and absorbed the [End Page 89] influence of Native Americans, German immigrants, African American musicians, and published popular and spiritual music. The radio and recording industries popularized some fiddlers early in the twentieth century. In the middle of the twentieth century, surviving culture-bearers became teachers to generations of revivalists both within and without the region. The broad outlines of this history will be well known to most practitioners of old-time fiddling, and this book does not seek to make a broader interpretation of that history. What it does do is delve into the technical and musical detail of what these fiddle players were doing, as far as can be determined from extant recorded performances. The bulk of the book is dedicated to chapters on six Appalachian states, with sections on six to nine representative fiddlers from each state. Old-time music has been recorded in several different contexts, and this book includes musicians from each of them. There are some of the legends of the early recording era, like John Carson, Lowe Stokes, and Charlie Bowman; some whose influence comes to us mainly through field recordings made by researchers or family members, including John M. Salyer, Henry Reed, Bill Stepp, and Luther Strong; and some of the revival-era mentors like Tommy Jarrell, Melvin Wine, and Clyde Daven-port. West Virginia’s Clark Kessinger was a recording artist in the 1920s who lived into the revivalist era. Some figures are lesser known but just as worthy of study, including Emma Lee Dickerson, Osey Helton, and Sarah Singleton. One of the lessons to be derived from this book is the strength of the tradition and the high level of artistry to be found in all these contexts. Roy Andrade offers a short overview of the history of fiddling in each state and a capsule biography of each of the musicians. The bulk of the book—and the collection’s real value—comprises Drew Beisswenger’s detailed transcriptions of the tunes as played by these historic musicians, along with analytical notes. Each transcription includes references to help find the specific recording from which it was made. Most of the performances are from old commercial recordings on 78-rpm records or from field recordings. Many have not been reissued commercially but can be found for streaming or purchase on the internet, and the authors helpfully provide resources for locating these recordings. Most transcriptions of recordings fall somewhere between strictly descriptive and prescr iptive, while the quality and detail of the transcriptions is better than I’ve seen in comparable works. Having done some transcriptions of fiddling, I know that it can be both frustrating and enlightening. Most often, one hears more in the music than can be put on paper. Beisswengers’s transcriptions include many more details of ornamentation than found in comparable books like Jeff Todd Titon’s Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001) and Miles Krassens’s Masters of Old-Time Fiddling (New York: Oak Publications, 1983), both of which the authors acknowledge as influential. In some cases, the gap between what can be heard and what is notated begins to show. Benton Flippen’s frequent use of slides is...

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz 다시 쓰기: 미국 흑인 뮤지컬과 The Wiz Live!

The Wiz (1975) is a unique musical theatre work based on L. Frank Baum’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Although the two works share a similar plot structure, The Wiz has a different racial and ethnic context, as all the characters and most of its creators are African American. This paper analyses The Wiz Live! (2015), a live television adaptation of The Wiz, to explore how this work turned Baum’s novel into a contemporary African American fairy tale. The Wiz Live! enhances the African American identity of The Wiz in various ways. Firstly, the narrative highlights specific topics. For example, The Wiz Live! uses home as a central motive, one that is frequently expressed as the subject of desire in African American literature and in African Americans’ actual lives. In addition, the work dramatically depicts personal and racial liberation. Through this, the characters represent African Americans who move beyond the past of oppression and discrimination to equality and freedom. Secondly, the work inherits the African American popular music used in The Wiz, such as funk and soul, to audibly describe the physicality, spirit, and identity of African Americans. Lastly, the costumes, stage art and choreography in The Wiz Live! imply the cultural aesthetic of Afrofuturism, which evokes a futuristic African American culture and people, thus actively employing modern technology, contexts and media rather than following the example of the original works. The Wiz Live! successfully points the way forward for African American musical theatre in the future.

Perceptual grouping in complex rhythmic patterns.

Perception of simple temporal patterns has been shown to rely on accentuations in terms of intensity, pitch, or timbre, but also on grouping according to runs of the same events (intervals between successive sounds or light flashes) or significant gaps between them (Garner in The processing of information and structure. Lawrence Erlbaum, 1974; Preusser et al. in Am J Psychol 83(2):151-170 in 1970; Royer and Garner in Percept Psychophys 1(1):41-47, 1966; Royer and Garner in Percept Psychophys 7(2):115-120, 1970; Yu et al. in Atten Percept Psychophys 77(8):2728-2739, 2015). Here we investigate whether the run and gap principles can also account for participants' perceived start of complex rhythmic patterns. We also investigated the role of participants' musical training. Sixteen novices and 16 amateur musicians listened to rhythmic patterns and indicated perceived starting points by a single tap with a drumstick on electronic pads. Auditory patterns contained prominent gaps, runs, or a combination of the two for target intervals. We systematically varied task complexity in terms of the target durations of intervals constituting the patterns and overall tempos. Overall, run and gap principles proved to be useful grouping principles accounting for a large proportion (59.2%) of the selected starting positions underlining the universal relevance of these principles. Grouping principles were not as successful in predicting the perceived start of a rhythmic pattern compared to previous studies. Results indicate that additional grouping principles must be at play. Predictive power of the grouping principles varied depending on the structure of rhythmic patterns. For rhythmic patterns including longer intervals (i.e., longer gaps) the gap principle alone or in combination with the run principle showed the strongest predictive power. Novices and amateur musicians were similar in their usage of grouping principles suggesting that the underlying principles might be equally at the dispositions of performers and listeners.

Diogenio Bigaglia and His Dixit Dominus

AbstractIn his own time Diogenio Bigaglia (1678–1745) was viewed as the equal of Venice's three great amateur musicians active during the first half of the eighteenth century (Tomaso Albinoni, Alessandro Marcello and Benedetto Marcello), but he is largely forgotten today. Part of the reason is the secluded, uneventful life he led as a Benedictine monk at the abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore. This article analyses an impressive early work: a twelve-movement Dixit Dominus probably composed between 1700 and 1710. This work occupies the borderland between late seventeenth-century musical practice and the more progressive musical forms, styles and techniques introduced in the early eighteenth century. It survives in a late eighteenth-century copy by the Venetian copisteria of Giuseppe Baldan that probably passed via Domenico Dragonetti to Vincent Novello, who donated it to the British Museum in 1843. The music contains many attractive features, including an imaginative use of the instruments and dextrous counterpoint, pointing the way forward to the choral masterpieces of Bigaglia's maturity.

Sounding Together: Collaborative Perspectives on U.S. Music in the 21st Century, edited by Charles Hiroshi Garrett and Carol J. Oja

<i>Sounding Together: Collaborative Perspectives on U.S. Music in the 21st Century</i>, edited by Charles Hiroshi Garrett and Carol J. Oja

Bowing to Five Pecks of Rice? The Impact of Profit Expectancy on Artistic Creativity

Do independent and amateur producers in cultural industries curtail their creativity when they have higher expectations of economic returns? Previous studies on the “creative/commerce” pair of the cultural industries did not provide a clear answer. This paper tries to answer this question by studying the case of Chinesemusic.com, a music streaming platform that launched a monetization program, allowing musicians to directly profit from their songs on the platform. I collect 16,320 songs from the platform released before and after the launch of the monetization program and, using computational tools developed in the field of Music Information Retrieval, I propose a novel approach to measure the creativity of the songs based on their sound. The results suggest that whilst more independent and amateur musicians were attracted by the monetization program, their songs became less and less creative afterward with a more significant shift among the former. The findings indicate that independent and amateur producers will proactively make compromises in their creative activities when they are given resources for a more promising career in the business.

The Invention of Latin American Music: A Transnational History

Pablo Palomino's book The Invention of Latin American Music aims to trace the development and embrace of the notion of Latin American music as it is commonly used today, whether in academic circles, among listening audiences, in the realm of cultural policy and diplomacy, or with artists and performers themselves. The author argues that the concept, which began to take shape and exert its influence in the 1930s, did not emerge out of a cohesive and concerted regionalist project. Instead, it is the result of a process of layering of competing ideas regarding Latin America as a geographical entity, which intersect with modernist and nationalist desires for cultural distinctiveness and with more pragmatic concerns regarding the creation, protection, and expansion of networks and markets centered on different forms of musical production (live performances, radio broadcasts, recorded sound, music education programs, academic research, etc.). As a result, Palomino defines Latin American music as an aesthetic category, one that provides a convenient handle to those who engage with it, despite lacking a single discernible core or clear external boundary.Palomino further suggests that understanding this process of invention and naturalization also sheds light on the often-overlooked transnational dynamics that informed the various articulations of musical nationalism in Latin America. With this he adds a much-needed regional-level historiographical analysis of how musical nationalism and cosmopolitanism are interrelated and mutually constitutive rather than mutually exclusive. The book begins by considering how a heterogeneous collection of music performance circuits—local, national, regional, and intercontinental—led not to a unifying notion of Latin American music but instead to the emergence of multiple incarnations that partly overlapped and partly competed with one another. Additional conceptualizations of Latin American music grew out of a nascent commercial music industry, in which music critics, royalty collection organizations, and broadcasting stations used a variety of genre labeling practices to negotiate their positionality vis-à-vis national and transnational discourses of authenticity regarding the musics with which they were involved. Nationalist and populist state musical polices, for their part, relied on transnational notions of civilizing the citizenry and elevating the vernacular to help create a regional Latin American framework. That framework was then fleshed out by a transnational network of scholars who undertook the work of theorizing the nature of Latin American music and thus defining its aesthetic ethos. Finally, US foreign policy interests in the region, in particular as articulated by the Music Division of the Pan-American Union and later by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, helped to legitimize the work and expertise of these Latin American music scholars, naturalizing the aesthetic category defined by them and laying the foundation for decades of research, educational initiatives, cultural exchanges, music festivals, and music industry categories that continue to invoke the category.The Invention of Latin American Music covers a great deal of ground and offers a number of important insights for readers interested in the historiography of music research in Latin America. Based on meticulous archival research in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, and the United States, the various case studies included in this book are engrossing in their own right, many of them providing tantalizing leads for future research. The book is also important because of its emphasis on social actors, institutions, and perspectives within the regional context of Latin America, a much-needed complement to other recent research that has tended to privilege the role of US-based individuals and institutions. The book's regional emphasis also offers a good alternative vantage point from which to broach the subject of music nationalism in Latin America, one that meshes well with the work of music scholars like Cristina Magaldi, Fernando Rios, and Leonora Saavedra and that helps to highlight and complicate the overlaps and continuities between nationalism and cosmopolitanism.

Voicing Omnivorousness, Assembling the Omnivorous Voice: The American Musical Explored

This article focuses on the notion of cultural omnivorousness, as coined by Richard Peterson, to explore its various manifestations within the American musical, commonly known as the Broadway musical. Through two interconnected research questions, we explore how patterns of cultural omnivorousness are manifested within the American musical, contemporarily and in a historical perspective, and scrutinize what these omnivorous features demand from performers, more specifically, what it takes to perform what we name the omnivorous voice. Using the American musical as a site for exploration, the article aims to show that the omnivorousness is not only enjoyed by its audiences, but produced, brought about and enjoyed by its composers, producers and performers alike. Consequently, the article’s main argument is that the phenomenon of cultural omnivorousness not only concerns cultural consumption but is to be regarded as a matter of cultural production as well, manifested ultimately as specific artistic and embodied practices. The article conveys a theoretically informed discussion, drawing on works written within the fields of cultural sociology, musicology and voice studies, while incorporating illustrative references to specific recorded musical works and the vocal behaviours of named performers.

Spain’s Francoist Broadway: American musicals in Madrid, 1955-1975

This article traces the itinerary followed by the earliest Broadway musicals to be imported to Madrid in the 1950s and 1960s. Such innovative format dazzled critics and audiences, carving out a niche of enthusiastic followers that would grow larger over time. The handful of works borrowed in this period will receive attention, especially insofar as their reception is concerned. The final phase of the Francoist dictatorship brought an increased visibility to the form, as heated controversy surrounded the eventual importation and prohibition of titles such as Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar. In the case of the former, shows purporting to bring to Spaniards what the authorities had banned will be briefly discussed. The latter will receive closer attention. Both these plays will serve as privileged viewing platforms whence the tensions inherent to a moribund regime and its outdated cultural policies will become obvious.

Musical Amateur Performance in Ukraine of the 1930s as the Manifestation of Soviet Totalitarian Ideology

"The article comprehensively examines antinomies of the amateur performance development in Ukraine of 1930s. The factual basis of the research is the materials of the newspapers, magazines, and musical journals of this period. It is proved that the phenomenon of amateur performance, as one of the most significant phenomena of totalitarian society’s mass culture, consists in its contradictory nature: on the one hand, mass artistic movement, population’s sincere faith and enthusiasm, and on the other, politicization, ideological engagement, fear of physical destruction. The actions of the Soviet authorities in the one of most dramatic periods of the last century for Ukraine – the 1930s – regarding the dissemination and support of musical amateur music are analyzed (for example, regular financial support, awarding of bonuses, patronage, organization of public events, set-up of publishing activities, training systems for amateur performance leaders, which, in general, contributed to raising musical amateur movement in Ukraine to a professional level). At the same time, it is found that amateur performance was one of the tools for shaping the ideology of a totalitarian society. Keywords: Ukrainian culture of 1930s, amateur performance, totalitarian society, politicization of art. "

EFFECTS OF MUSIC STIMULATION ON PREGNANCY

The study aims to explore, review and report the effects of music stimulation among pregnant women. Music therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music to complete the individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a professional who has completed an approved music therapy program (American Music Therapy Association definition, 2005). Studies found that music increases the unborn child’s intelligence; sound stimulation enhances the brain’s maturation (McMahon, Wintermark, &amp; Lahaina, 2012); the Mozart effect boosts creativity; and in utero listening to lullabies improves prenatal and postnatal sleeping habits (Wolfgang, 2016). The study aims to explore the effects of music stimulation on psychophysiological problems. Music-related bonding, prenatal sound stimulation to trigger learning processes, pedagogical effects, an evolutionary perspective of music, and brain maturation among pregnant women psycho physiological problems among pregnant women were discussed in this study. The effects of music on pregnant women are powerful to overcome psycho-physiological mechanisms (Akmese&amp; Oran, 2014). Studies also discover how sound, rhythm, neural maturation, neuroplasticity, epigenetic processes, and cognitive development to music in prenatal care, benefit medical and academic performance (Mastnak, 2016). Music therapy affects the endocrine, autonomic, cognitive, and emotional domains of the human stress response. Music Therapy can also be utilized with healthy individuals to improve overall wellness (Scheve, 2004). Music has been utilized to provide quiet and relaxation for centuries and all across the world. These are the most extensively researched effects of music (Chanda &amp; Levitin, 2013; de Witte et al., 2020a; Juslin&amp;Vastfjall, 2008; Koelsch, 2015; Mehr et al., 2019). As a result, music therapy interventions are increasingly being used to reduce stress and improve client well-being across a wide range of clinical populations (Agres et al., 2020; Bainbridge et al., 2020; Juslin&amp;Västfjäll, 2008; Kemper &amp;Danhauer, 2005; Koelsch, 2012, 2015; Landis-Shack et al., 2017; Thaut&amp;Hoemberg, 2014). Key Words: Music therapy, pregnant women, prenatal care, postnatal care

Editorial Commentary

Editorial Commentary

LA BARBARA'S DOWNTOWN

AbstractThis article examines Joan La Barbara's role in New York's Downtown scene, where her career was nurtured. By ‘La Barbara's Downtown’ I mean her perspective on Downtown as reflected in where she performed, who she collaborated with and what she wrote. Beginning with her involvement in the Steve Reich and Philip Glass ensembles in the early 1970s, I follow her through explorations in improvisation with Frederick Rzewski, Garrett List and Charlie Morrow. At the centre is La Barbara's development as an experimentalist composer in various Downtown venues, reinforced by her important collaborations with Alvin Lucier and John Cage. She wrote about the Downtown scene in the SoHo Weekly News in the mid-1970s and after leaving New York continued to write about it in Musical America until the mid-1980s. In all these contexts, I explore the different elements of her experimentalism, which is the overriding thematic of her aesthetic.

Herrman S. Saroni: Paths to Success as a Composer in New York, 1844–52

Herrman S. Saroni: Paths to Success as a Composer in New York, 1844–52

Contributors

Contributors

Online Group Music-Making in Community Concert Bands: Perspectives From Conductors and Older Amateur Musicians.

At the beginning of the pandemic, many music ensembles had to stop their activities due to the confinement. While some found creative ways to start making music again with the help of technologies, the transition from “real” rehearsals to “online” rehearsals was challenging, especially among older amateur musicians. The aim of this case study was to examine the effects of this transition on three community band conductors and three older amateur musicians. Specific objectives were to explore (1) intergenerational relationships to support online group music-making; (2) digital literacy and access in later life; and (3) online music-making in a COVID-19 context. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and theoretical thematic analysis was undertaken (Braun and Clarke, 2006). Results were analyzed from the conductors’ and older musicians’ perspectives, and common trends were combined to facilitate interpretation. The first theme showed that being part of an intergenerational ensemble contributed positively to the learning experience online. The second theme demonstrated that because both conductors and musicians were new to the online rehearsals, it contributed to attenuate the age-related digital divide that may have been observed in other studies. Regarding access in later-life, older musicians reported benefits associated with rehearsing online, specifically in terms of distance/commute, time, energy, and cost. However, for those who did not already have internet and electronic devices, the cost of acquiring all the necessary equipment to make music online could have been too high. Finally, the third theme revealed that musicians appreciated the opportunity to make music online and indicated that it was definitely better than having nothing, especially for its social aspects. In conclusion, while participants noted several challenges associated with online music-making (e.g., zoom fatigue and technological issues), they were also appreciative of the opportunity to continue making music at a time when in-person rehearsals were not possible. Pedagogical implications are discussed, specifically the importance of the support network, of meeting people where they are, of learning to adapt, and of collaborative teaching.

Retuning music teaching: Online music tutorials preferences as predictors of amateur musicians’ music self-efficacy in informal music learning

Music self-efficacy has been acknowledged as a strong predictor of successful performance among musicians and music students, but is less researched among amateur musicians. The purpose of this study is to examine the connection between music self-efficacy and learning and playing habits of amateur musicians who had preferences for online music tutorials as an informal learning technique. Two hundred and twenty-two amateur musicians completed four research questionnaires: (a) a general background questionnaire including learning and playing habits, (b) music self-efficacy, (c) self-esteem, and (d) online music tutorials users’ preferences, which distinguish between autonomy online music tutorials (fostering independent learners, incorporating context, and background) and dependent online music tutorials (offering mainly imitation options and providing little further knowledge). The results of the study supported the hypotheses, which predicted high music self-efficacy to be associated with the use of autonomy online music tutorials, co-playing, studying with a teacher, and self-esteem, and low music self-efficacy to be associated with the use of dependent online music tutorials. As music self-efficacy is crucial for students’ learning processes, we argue that music educators could refer students to optimal use of online music tutorials, thus fostering autonomous learners. Further research is required for clarifying the impact of personal characteristics and playing habits among amateur musicians on their music self-efficacy.

Contributors’ Notes

Contributors’ Notes