Collective Singing Research Articles

ПРОФЕСІЙНА МАЙСТЕРНІСТЬ ЗАСНОВНИКА УКРАЇНСЬКОГО НАРОДНОГО ХОРОВОГО СПІВУ ГРИГОРІЯ ВЕРЬОВКИ

In the article the professional skills of the founder of Ukrainian folk choral singing Hryhoriy Veryovka are highlighted. It is determined that the professional skill of the founder of Ukrainian choral singing H. Veryovka takes into account the national song traditions and ensures the receptivity of these traditions in the modern socio-cultural environment, applying them to the actual process of preserving and increasing national spirituality. It is proved that the artist promoted an axiological approach to the upbringing and education of the younger generation, saw the purpose and content of education in ensuring of the connection between Ukrainian folk songs and choral compositions of foreign classics, recognition of the process of personality formation in Ukrainian choral traditions. It is actualized the statement that the uniqueness of H. Veryovka’s professional skill in all its dimensions – performing-conducting, composer, pedagogical, educational, organizational – lies in the development of his special choral intonation, palette of sound tones, sound production in organic integrity, which takes place at the fundamental level of the national song and choral tradition and European principles of collective singing. The main pedagogical conditions in the educational process of the students’ comprehension of the national song and choral heritage are outlined.Thus, analyzing the professional skill of the founder of Ukrainian folk choral singing H. Veryovka, we can conclude that the features of his vocal pedagogy played an important role in the national choral school. The scientific study of H. Veryovka’s musical and pedagogical experience became the basis of the national and world conducting and choral pedagogy, formation of the highly moral personality capable of multiplying the achievements of Ukrainian folk singing.

Choral works by Alexander Jacobchuk: genre and style parameters

Relevance of study. In the context of evolution of a modern Ukrainian musical space, choir performance plays a special role. This state of affairs is based on the strong long tradition of collective singing, the extensive system of its professional and amateur functioning in modern conditions — from the titular collectives of the country to choral circles in educational institutions, church choirs in temples, and in the end it owes a large and diverse composer's heritage of past and present times. Scientific knowledge of the latter one is a necessary component in understanding the processes of development in national musical culture. In particular, despite of the active presence in the performance, creative heritage in the field of choral music of a representative of the Kyiv composer's school, the Honored Art Worker of Ukraine, the winner of the awards to them. I. Ogienko, A. Vedel, I. Nechuy-Levytskyi, the winner of the national and international composer competitions of Alexander Jacovchuk (born in 1952) continues to remain unreleased by musicologists.Main objectives of the study. To highlight the genre priorities of choral works of contemporary Ukrainian composer A. Jacovchuk and to find out some features of the author's style of the artist.The methodology of the research is based on the application of the cultural approach, source study, textual methods, as well as methods of holistic analysis and interviewing.Results and conclusions. Genre parameters of choral works by A. Jacobchuk are concentrated around the arrangement of folk songs, spiritual compositions, cantatas, poems, lesser oratorios, mini cycles, mixed genre of symphony oratorios. Among the stylistic features of the author`s manner in choral music — modality as the basis of mode thinking, vibrant polyphonic technique, drama of choral timbres, tactful application of intertextuality and stylization, originality of compositional solution (reduction of reprise), derived from reading the word concentration of musical intonation and its main influence on the entire intonational field of the work. In the future for next investigation of the artist`s works an important separate step is to find out the genre-style features of his large-scale compositions — the oratorios "Scythian Pectoral", "Passion for Christ."

Intragroup Emotion Convergence: Beyond Contagion and Social Appraisal

Mimicry-based emotion contagion and social appraisal currently provide the most popular explanations for interpersonal emotional convergence. However, neither process fully accounts for intragroup effects involving dynamic calibration of people’s orientations during communal activities. When group members are engaged in shared tasks, they simultaneously attend to the same unfolding events and arrive at mutually entrained movement patterns that facilitate emotional coordination. Entrainment may be further cultivated by interaction rituals involving rhythmic music that sets the pace for collective singing, dancing, or marching. These rituals also provide an emotionally meaningful focus for group activities and sometimes specifically encourage the experience of intense embodied states. Intragroup emotion convergence thus depends on interlocking processes of reciprocated and context-attuned orientational calibration and group-based social appraisal.

Shōka and Naniwa-bushi in Inoue Hisashi's Manzanar, My Town (1993): Violence, Vulnerability, and Women's Solidarity / 井上ひさし『マンザナ、わが町』における唱歌と浪花節：暴力、脆弱性、女性の連帯

This article explores Inoue Hisashi's 1993 play, Manzanar, My Town (Manzana, waga machi), as both his critique of the Japanese imperialist past and his exploration of women's solidarity in the context of Japanese American internment during World War II. Unlike many literary works depicting internment, the play mainly targets Japanese audiences in the 1990s. In light of the Reagan administration's official apology in 1988 for internment, the play, at a glance, addresses women's solidarity against the injustice of internment. However, by depicting the simultaneous singing of two types of Japanese popular songs symbolizing Japanese imperialism—a shōka song authorized by the state to nurture schoolchildren's national pride and naniwa-bushi chanting that promoted patriotism for adult audiences—Inoue also situates internment as a site where the female Japanese American characters uncritically celebrate their homeland Japan while revealing their ignorance of how other Asians suffered from Japanese imperialism. The latter revelation emerges when one of these female internees turns out to be a Chinese American "spy" whose father was killed by the Japanese authorities in China. The collective singing of the Japanese songs leads them to mobilize their vulnerability derived from their Japanese ancestry, the sole reason for them to face persecution, and to eventually protest against both American and Japanese imperialism. The harmonized voices of the Japanese American women illuminate how Inoue recreates the story of internment to challenge the Japanese public of his time on selective forgetting of empire, while addressing the importance of women's solidarity against injustice.

Zingende gemeenschappen: politieke liederen en gemeenschapsvorming in de Noordelijke Nederlanden rond 1800

Early modern songs were considered effective instruments to strengthen the formation of collective identities. However, in a culturally fragmented region such as the Netherlands around 1800, these were hard to define. Especially in turbulent times, songs were are [sic] a unique medium to voice and spread ideas of community. Not only because the unique combination of text and music could empower such ideas, but also because collective singing practices could lead to an embodiment of the imagined communities evoked in the songs. How songs could channel ideas of community for political mobilization is demonstrated in a discussion of the marching song Marsch voor de Burger-Compagnie de Zwarte Knegten (1784, Bellamy & Nieuwenhuysen).

Choral singing and the acquisition of educational values

The main objective of this study was to observe the extent to which the practice of collective singing in children’s and youth choirs offers a way of teaching values. The main working tool used was a questionnaire that was completed by the choir conductors and singers of the different choirs surveyed. The purpose of the questionnaire was to assess if choral singing can be a space for working on and developing values, and if these values lead to improvements in the overall education of the person. On the one hand, choir conductors considered respect to be the most important value for a choral group and friendship the most valuable aspect for singers. This view was not shared by the singers, who considered friendship to be less important. On the other hand, they agreed on the influence of respect and communication and that spontaneity is undervalued.

Harvard Crooners: Building Intergenerational Relationships Through Participatory Music Making

ABSTRACTThe world is rapidly aging, and yet aging is fraught with many difficulties. In particular, the rights of older people to participate fully in cultural life are frequently not met. To help address this issue, we propose an innovative model for intergenerational, participatory music-making between younger people and older people. Specifically, instead of giving traditional, non-participatory performances for older people as is commonly done in nursing homes and other elderly institutions, we advocate for engaging seniors in collective music-making and singing. We believe this kind of collective music-making will better meet the rights of older adults to participate in cultural life and will lead to stronger intergenerational relationships.

الملالاه : غناء نسوي قروي فلسطيني = Al-Mlalah : Vocals Womanly Palestinian Villager

فولكلور | قالب غنائي | طقوس | رقص فولكلوري | لازمة شعرية | املالاه | رويللو | التراويد | مقام موسيقي | الدحاريج | غناء جمعي | غناء فردي | غناء تبادلي | Folklore | Lyric Template | Ritual | Folklore Dance | Capillary | Imlalah | Roelello | Extention Voice (Pro Long) | Music Shrine (Maqam) | Aldahareej | Collective Singing | Individual Singing | Alternative Singing

La práctica del canto colectivo como eje transversal de conocimientos, actitudes y valores: una propuesta dirigida a alumnos de Grado en Educación Infantil y Primaria

La práctica del canto colectivo trabaja, eminentemente, aspectos específicos de índole musical, destacando en mayor medida la técnica de la voz cantada, el empaste vocal, las progresiones armónicas, o la estética y gusto musical, entre otros. No obstante, existen multitud de elementos transversales que sin ser específicamente musicales no dejan de ser importantes en dicho ejercicio. En el presente artículo recopilamos y analizamos, precisamente, algunas referencias y estudios relevantes vinculados al valor del mismo. Muy recurrente en centros de enseñanza infantil y primaria, la práctica del canto colectivo aparece con menor frecuencia en el proceso de formación musical de maestros y otros estudios superiores de música. En este orden de cosas, un grupo de alumnos de grado en Educación Infantil y grado en Educación Primaria de la Universitat de les Illes Balears, participaron voluntariamente en un proyecto de canto común vinculado a las asignaturas de música. A través de un cuestionario valoraron los diferentes aspectos trabajados a lo largo de las diferentes sesiones. Más allá del goce estético, las valoraciones finales se centraron en ciertas potencialidades de tinte psicosocial y actitudinal que fueron apareciendo a lo largo del proceso. A través de este artículo pretendemos hacer una aproximación a la documentación existente y a estudios relevantes en cuanto a la importancia del canto colectivo y, finalmente, a la experiencia llevada a cabo en la Universitat de les Illes Balears.

Music and the Aesthetic in Worship and Collective Singing: England since 1840

The article surveys the course of the tension within Christianity over the role of the aesthetic in music for worship and in religious music more widely, from Augustine to the present day. It outlines the recurrent features of debate. It then focuses specifically on England, beginning with the tension over the aesthetic in music during the sixteenth century Reformation and in the two subsequent centuries. It looks at major changes, such as the autonomy of the aesthetic, associated with nineteenth century romanticism. The main section of the article traces debates over both church music and mass collective singing, in part as they bear on the construction of national identity. The article concludes with developments in Evangelicalism and in spirituality in a secular society.

Singing the Nation: Imagined Collectivity and the Poetics of Identification in Dutch Political Songs (1780–1800)

Collective singing can be a powerful instrument to establish (or counter) political identities. Poets such as those who were involved in the revolutionary Dutch Patriot movement of the 1780s (re)discovered this performative power of song in the second half of the eighteenth century. This article explores how three main principles of the genre unity of feeling, simplicity, and singability contributed to a poetics of identification in Dutch eighteenth-century political songs. Through different musical-rhetorical techniques songs had to arouse feelings of collectivity in relation to political abstractions (such as fatherland, freedom, liberty) to which a felt tie would not develop automatically.

August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean: Translating Multilayered Sensory Experience

The powerful impact of the plays by African American playwright August Wilson largely relies on the way his words appeal to the senses, whether explicitly by calling upon the characters’ sensory experience or more indirectly through his use of syntactic rhythm, or indeed his specific modulation of AAVE. When we set out to translate Gem of the Ocean, the first of the ten plays in his Pittsburgh cycle, for the stage, we had to try and convey similar effects in French, first somehow finding a way of negotiating the specificity of the African American idiom. The article discusses the translating issues raised in the central scene in this play which is located at the very beginning of the twentieth century, so at a time when slavery is still very much present in people’s memories, and stages a hypnotic trance in which a young man who needs to have his “soul washed” is made to live the Middle Passage and reach the mythical City of Bones where the drowned slaves literally have “tongues on fire”; this can only happen because all his senses are called upon simultaneously, including through the collective singing of spiritual songs. The peculiar rhythms of August Wilson’s poetics, the AAVE accent and flow as well as the alliterative, anaphoric use of language channel the climactic, sensory experience depicted in that trance scene which leads to a reconnection with the spiritual forces of the submerged people. This article describes how the translators tried to create a French idiom that induces the same sensory impact on an audience and, at the same time, reflects the multilayered referentiality of the text.

The effects of music listening on pain and stress in the daily life of patients with fibromyalgia syndrome.

Music listening is associated with both pain- and stress-reducing effects. However, the effects of music listening in daily life remain understudied, and the psycho-biological mechanisms underlying the health-beneficial effect of music listening remain unknown. We examined the effects of music listening on pain and stress in daily life in a sample of women with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS; i.e., a condition characterized by chronic pain) and investigated whether a potentially pain-reducing effect of music listening was mediated by biological stress-responsive systems. Thirty women (mean age: 50.7 ± 9.9 years) with FMS were examined using an ecological momentary assessment design. Participants rated their current pain intensity, perceived control over pain, perceived stress level, and music listening behavior five times per day for 14 consecutive days. At each assessment, participants provided a saliva sample for the later analysis of cortisol and alpha-amylase as biomarkers of stress-responsive systems. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that music listening increased perceived control over pain, especially when the music was positive in valence and when it was listened to for the reason of ‘activation’ or ‘relaxation’. In contrast, no effects on perceived pain intensity were observed. The effects of music listening on perceived control over pain were not mediated by biomarkers of stress-responsive systems. Music listening in daily life improved perceived control over pain in female FMS patients. Clinicians using music therapy should become aware of the potential adjuvant role of music listening in daily life, which has the potential to improve symptom control in chronic pain patients. In order to study the role of underlying biological mechanisms, it might be necessary to use more intensive engagement with music (i.e., collective singing or music-making) rather than mere music listening.

Shana L. Redmond. Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora

Shana L. Redmond's Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora examines six songs that became associated with black freedom movements around the world. In chapters devoted to the songs—“Ethiopia (Thou Land of Our Fathers),” “Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing,” “Ol' Man River,” “We Shall Overcome,” “To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” and “Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika”—she plumbs every aspect of each song's origins, lyrics, and performance practices, and links them to specific black protest movements. Many, but not all, of these songs fit the popular understanding of an anthem: a song that is officially and publicly understood to be associated with an organization or cause, known and sung by groups of people. In her introduction, Redmond lays out a more expansive and precise grounding for how she understands the idea of “anthem” as an organizing principle for her study. For her, anthems are songs that “symbolize and call into being a system of sociopolitical ideas or positions” (p. 2) and in doing so mobilize communities. Anthems represent not just the practice of collective singing but also collective listening, and the songs in this study all functioned to create necessary representations of blackness outside of what mainstream culture was selling. For Redmond, anthems are songs that listeners are invested in, they “demand something of their listeners…. [And they] require subscription to a system of beliefs that stir and organize the receivers of the music” (p. 2). Like all culture, anthems are not static; their meanings change in different contexts, and they accumulate those meanings and associations over time. Redmond argues that these anthems, studied comparatively, allow us to see the political formations of African diaspora in a new and more complex way.

A (Trans)National Emotional Community? Greek Political Songs and the Politicisation of Greek Migrants in West Germany in the 1960s and early 1970s

AbstractThis article examines the emotional standards and experiences connected with the entehno laiko music composed by Mikis Theodorakis that was immensely popular among left-wing Greek migrants, workers and students, living in West Germany in the 1960s and the early 1970s. Expanding on a body of literature that explores the transnational dimensions of protest movements in the 1960s and the 1970s, the article demonstrates that these transnational dimensions were not mutually exclusive with the fact that at least some of those protestors felt that they belonged to a particular nation. Drawing on the conceptual framework put forth by Barbara Rosenwein, it argues that the performance of these songs was conducive to the making of a (trans)national emotional community. On the one hand, for Greek left-wingers residing in West Germany and, after 1967, for Greek centrists too, the collective singing of music composed by Theodorakis initially served as a means of ‘overcoming fear’ and of forging committed militants who struggled for the social and political transformation of their country of origin. On the other, from the late 1960s onwards those migrants increasingly enacted this emotional community with local activists from West Germany as well.

From performance to politics? Constructing public and counterpublic in the singing of red songs

This article uses the conceptual constructs of ‘public’ and ‘counterpublic’ to examine the collective singing of ‘Red Songs’, a state-approved, ideology-laden popular culture, in the city of Guangzhou, China. It approaches these two concepts from actions, practices and shared meanings which render the public/counterpublic visible and concrete. In Guangzhou, the interplays between hegemonic ideas expressed in the red songs and ordinary singers’ agency of re-interpreting and re-reading have shaped the fluidity and complexity of the cultural meanings and political discourses in which this grassroots public dwells. Singers do not simply re-assert the post-reform party-state’s political legitimacy by expressing political allegiance via red songs, but also creatively reconstruct and re-appropriate the meanings woven into red songs to critically reflect upon the social, cultural and moral transformations, as well as new cultural and ethical zeitgeists in the post-reform context. In the meantime, red song singing is also appropriated by New Leftist activists for cultivating new counterpublic political potentials.

Collective Singing in Romanian Fascism

ABSTRACTThe Romanian fascist group known as the Legion of the Archangel Michael, or the Iron Guard, made extensive use of collective singing to articulate its ideology and to create a sense of group unity. This article examines legionary music and the contexts in which legionaries sang to show how fascist social movements used culture to mobilize people behind their cause. Fascist music initially drew on folk roots as well as a genre of patriotic anthems learned in school and in the army. Once the Legion became stronger and more self-confident, these songs developed into a unique fascist style written by professional poets and composers.

Surveillance, urban governance and legitimacy in late Ottoman Istanbul: spying on music and entertainment during the Hamidian regime (1876–1909)

ABSTRACT:The topic of this study is the control of urban space in late Ottoman Istanbul, particularly during the reign of Abdülhamid II (1876–1909). Issues of the control and surveillance of public gatherings and popular entertainment are investigated by focusing on the Greeks of Istanbul, the largest non-Muslim population in the city. The article is based on an investigation of petitions, the Ottoman Police Ministry records and spy reports on various planned and spontaneous, private and public activities, such as charity concerts, theatrical performances, and collective singing in private and public meetings.

Music education in Shanghai from 1895 to 1945: the cultural politics of singing

This article discusses the development of music education in China and the integration of cultural politics and nationalism, using Shanghai, twentieth-century China's most developed city, as a case study; it examines the historical and political processes in Shanghai's music education to show what is cultural about politics and what is political about the culture of singing. Significant internal and external events both have contributed to contemporary Chinese national identity and music education. The former include the 1911 end of the Qing dynasty and establishment of the Republic of China, the 1919 May Fourth Movement and the 1925 May Thirtieth Movement; the latter include the 1842 Sino-British Opium War, the 1894–1895 Sino-Japanese War and the 1937–1945 Sino-Japanese War. By means of historical review and analysis, this article traces the development of music education in Shanghai and examines the political and cultural forces that have, for many years, informed the integration of collective singing and political (anti-imperialist and nationalist) activities. This article argues that singing (in particular the singing of songs that express popular anti-imperialist attitudes) has played a critical role in mobilising Chinese nationalism in school music education, which has, in turn, reinforced national identity in the face of foreign aggression and fostered nation-building. Chinese intellectuals and musicians were the dominant forces in arousing patriotic sentiments through music education from the late Qing dynasty to the 1910s, whilst Chinese social activists and Communist revolutionaries were powerful promoters of patriotic and revolutionary songs from the 1920s to the 1940s.

The Sociological Role of Collective Singing during Intense Moments of Protest: The Disengagement from the Gaza Strip

Collective singing has been viewed as an important sociological component in the literature written about social movements. However, it has seldom been the explicit focus of examination. This study analyses the use of collective singing during the intense moments of the Yesha movement protest against Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip. Content analysis of interviews with 14 protesters and 14 security force members (SFMs) shows that protesters used collective singing to evoke emotions that would help them raise morale, vent negative emotions, strengthen solidarity, experience spiritual transcendence, foster hope, empower themselves, mourn and achieve closeness to the SFMs. The results are discussed in the light of sociological theories.