Extra-musical Meaning Research Articles

Rethinking Topic Theory

This essay gives a critical history of Anglophone topic theory as it evolved between the publication of Leonard Ratner’s Classic Music (". fn_cite_year($ratner_1980).") and The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory (". fn_cite($mirka_2014)."). Throughout this period, topic theory transformed from the identification of “characteristic figures” in eighteenth-century music into an analytical strategy for the intersubjective verification of correspondences between musical signifiers and extramusical meaning. Though Melanie Lowe (". fn_cite($lowe_2007).") upheld the intertextuality of topics as a way past music’s “flawed” opposition with the extramusical, the binary has exerted sustained influence even as topic theory has advanced beyond the eighteenth-century canon to encompass more repertoires and interpretive methodologies. And because the musical-extramusical opposition finds its roots in the nineteenth-century idea of absolute music, it turns out that aspects of present-day topic theory are symptomatic of a much older way of thinking that evidently still gatekeeps what counts as knowledge about music. Historicizing topic theory provides interfaces for reconsidering the mutually constitutive relationships among music, meaning, analysis, interpretation, power, and politics.

ПОСЛЕДНЯЯ ФОРТЕПИАННАЯ СОНАТА Ф. ШУБЕРТА: ОБРАЗ ПОГРАНИЧНОГО БЫТИЯ

The article is dedicated to the last piano sonata by Franz Schubert. The Sonata B-flat major is written in the composer’s last year of life. The first great compositor of the era of musical romanticism inherited from the Viennese classics sonata form, principles of musical drama, characteristic features of the polyphonic tissue organization. At the same time, in the sonata he introduces elements of variation development that extensively expand the sonata’s allegro. The song and dance genres characteristic of Schubert’s instrumental music play an important role in the Sonata B-flat major. Multi-genre deepens the figurative sphere, complicates musical dramaturgy. On the border between Viennese classicism and emerging romanticism, there is a particular tension. Here it is possible to cross previously impassable boundaries – tonal, scale, genre and figurative. The presentiments of a near end of life have left their mark on all of Sonata’s music. The world of content is filled with extra-musical meanings, each one becoming a perspective of the theme – a transition from being to being. The first part tells about the life of a lyric hero standing at the last line. The second one is about crossing this boundary, and it’s about an imaginary crossing of a river. The river separates the world of the living from that of the dead. The third part is Skerzo – the ghost world of memories. The finale is dedicated to overcoming the delicate imperative of the minor, searching for a way into the light world, illuminated by the radiant tonality of B-flat major.

Sonic Bouquet: Decoding Cross-Modal Correspondences Between Timbre and Scent

The examination of cross-modal correspondences between auditory and olfactory senses opens up an intriguing perspective into the study of extra-musical meaning. In a behavioral experiment, musically trained participants were presented with 26 complex synthetic tones and 12 aromatic stimuli. Their task was to report potential associations between the two. The data analysis revealed that the majority of scents featured at least one association with a sound that was above chance. The salient acoustical correlates of basic aromatic categories could be summarized as follows: both fruity (e.g., cherry, melon, and pomegranate) and sour aromas exhibited a positive correlation with pitch. Fruity scents, in addition, were more likely to be associated with sounds featuring pronounced low harmonic partials (1st–4th), low noise content, low roughness, and a greater number of distinct pitches. Conversely, sour aromas were linked with stronger energy in the higher frequencies. Sweet scents correlated with sounds characterized by a lower spectral centroid, whereas aromas in the spicy/other category were associated with weak lower partials (fundamental frequency in particular) and stronger noisy components.

The career of metaphor hypothesis and vocality in contemporary music

ABSTRACT The career of metaphor hypothesis advanced by Gentner et al, which describes differences in cognitive processing between metaphors encountered for the first time (novel metaphors) and metaphors encountered frequently (conventional metaphors), is applied to diverse relationships between instrumental music and the voice. A general account of musical metaphors hypothesizes that historical controversies over music’s capacity to communicate extramusical meaning are rooted in the problematic conceptual metaphor Meaning is Content and may be allayed by adopting an alternative, Meaning is Mapping. Historical practices of modelling instrumental performance and composition on the voice (e.g. cantabile, The Singing Style) are conceived as conventional metaphors and various contemporary approaches to voice-based instrumental and electroacoustic composition are conceived as novel metaphors. A brief survey of contemporary practices illustrates some of the ways recent music has exploited vocality with examples from recent repertoire, and points of comparison between conventional and novel approaches to vocality are summarized.

MAKNA NYANYIAN MA’KAARUYEN DALAM KEHIDUPAN MASYARAKAT MINAHASA

This research is a meaning of Ma'kaaruyen; a traditional musical work of art originating from Minahasa. Ma'kaaruyen is assumed to be one of the arts that reflects the life of the Minahasa community. Through a musicalological approach to the analysis of musical elements and the analysis of the texts of the Ma'kaaruyen song, meaning is found that integrates with the values ​​of the life of the Minahasa community. In the musical meaning it is known that Ma'kaaruyen has musical elements that form this song included in the category of melancholy singing, so that with lyrics or without lyrics this song is a melancholy song that is able to influence the soul. Ma'kaaruyen's extramusical meanings of the musical elements refer to the nature and character of traditional Minahasa community life, including: rhythm, melody, intervals, harmony, texture, and song form. The elements of music in Ma'kaaruyen are a reflection of the character and nature of traditional Minahasa society, which is associated with simplicity, calmness, gentleness, cooperation (mapalus), and mutual affection. Ma'kaaruyen's extramusical meaning from lyrics is that Ma'kaaruyen is a song that conveys religious messages, advice, affection, and expressions of heart (lamentations and regrets).

Giovanni Piana on musical meaning

According to Giovanni Piana, the extra-musical meaning of a work of music is determined by an imaginative uptake that is both constrained by the work’s features and historically variable. In this article, I reconstruct Piana’s account and compare it to other proposals. I conclude by pointing to an aspect of Piana’s view that I believe is worth investigating further, that is, the relation between imaginative uptakes occurring in the acts of composition, performance, and listening.

Out of Proportion

Guillaume Du Fay’s Nuper rosarum flores (1436) has been subject to symbolic interpretation ever since Charles Warren suggested that the structure of the motet reflects the architectural proportions of the cathedral of Florence. More recent analyses have accepted the premise that the motet’s form has extramusical meaning, in particular, that mensural and architectural proportions can be directly analogized. These tantalizing connections have led scholars to canonize this motet, now a mainstay of music history textbooks. The extent and specificity of the extramusical associations Nuper rosarum flores enjoys—an occasion, a place, and a secure attribution—are rare in the fifteenth century. This fact alone makes the motet appear to be exceptional. But reading Nuper rosarum flores alongside the norms of genre and notation and against the grain of the work’s modern historiography suggests that it isn’t all that special—or at least that it is no more special than Du Fay’s other ceremonial motets. The interpretive history of Nuper rosarum flores exemplifies what I call “false exceptionalism,” which relates to a more general problem in music studies—the alluring but often elusive relationship between musical form and social meaning.

Form and Meaning in Music: Revisiting the Affective Character of the Major and Minor Modes

ABSTRACTMusical systems develop associations over time between aspects of musical form and concepts from outside of the music. Experienced listeners internalize these connotations, such that the formal elements bring to mind their extra-musical meanings. An example of musical form-meaning mapping is the association that Western listeners have between the major and minor modes and happiness and sadness, respectively. We revisit the emotional semantics of musical mode in a study of 44 American participants (musicians and non-musicians) who each evaluated the relatedness of 96 melody-word pairs. Among the tonal melodies, we manipulated mode (major and minor) and timbre (clarinet and flute) while systematically controlling for other musical factors including pitch register and melodic contour. Similarly, among the English words, we manipulated word affect (happy and sad) while systematically controlling for other lexical factors including frequency and word length. Results demonstrated that participants provided a higher proportion of related responses for major melodies paired with happy words and minor melodies paired with sad words than for the reverse pairings. This interaction between mode and word affect was highly significant for both musicians and non-musicians, albeit with a larger effect for the former group. Further interactions with timbre suggested that while both clarinet and flute conveyed happiness when in the major mode, the clarinet was somewhat more successful than the flute at conveying sadness in the minor mode. Debriefing questionnaires suggested that the majority of the participants, including all of the non-musicians, had no awareness of the major-minor manipulation, and instead directed their attention to register and contour. We argue that the affective character of the major and minor modes is but one example of form-meaning mapping in music, and suggest further exploration of the roles of timbre, register, and contour in conveying musical emotions.

Music and the Crises of the Modern Subject by Michael L. Klein

Music and Crises of Modern Subject. By Michael L. Klein. (Musical Meaning and Interpretation.) Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015. [xii, 191 p. ISBN 9780253017208 (cloth), $40; ISBN 9780253017222 (e-book), $39.99] Musical examples, works cited, index. Michael L. Klein's latest book, Music and Crises of Modern Subject, discards traditional avenues of music theory and instead penetrates musical subjects primarily through writings of psychoanalyst Jacques (1901-1981). Following twentieth-century French philosophy, which is not new musicology, is an un common path for subjects of music theory and analysis in early twenty-first century. Although monograph contains fewer than 200 pages, all six chapters include innumerable nuggets of mind-altering, and often sobering, musings that challenge previous interpretations of musical works (and texts) ranging from Franz Schubert and Frederic Chopin Witold I.utoskuvski and Kaija Saariaho. Klein's intimate and piercing writing (a la Slavoj Zizek) elucidates Lacan's layers of subjectivity by repeatedly emphasizing central terms, using literature and recent films as intertextual examples, and placing interrogative subheadings within each chapter. In short, and in form of a chiasmus (just one of many), Klein tries to clarify what Lacan's model of subjectivity means for our approaches music, and what music means for our approaches Lacan (p-2). In first chapter (Music and Symptom), Klein introduces Lacan's symptom and three orders of subjectivity--the Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real--through early discourse of music theory and hermeneutics. An article by Edward T. that presents two contrasting modes of interpretation--structural and expressive--in context of Moment musical no. 6 in A[flat] Major provides Klein's starting point (see Cone, Schubert's Promissory Note: An Exercise in Hermeneutics, 19th Century Music 5, no. 3 [Spring 1982]: 233-41). Near beginning of his Moment musical, Schubert writes an odd in relative minor that features an unresolved E[natural] in top voice, an E[natural] that calls a promissory note, a pitch or chord that withholds its voice-leading obligations until a later passage (p. 10; original italics). To transform this observation into expressive meaning, Klein remarks that Cone whispers words syphilis, desolation, and dread at end of his study (p. 7; italics in original). Klein views Cone's initial approach as unnecessary, however: Structural analysis as first step toward hermeneutics is a hopeless methodology because it only reinforces idea that meaning works like an equation in which a structural detail here is equivalent an extra-musical meaning there (p. 11). The latter attitude becomes a theme throughout book. Following Lacan, who believes the task of analysis involves making symptom speak, rendering it in language, Klein considers strange and unsettling passages in Moment musical [as] symptoms demanding interpretation (p. 17). In final parts of chapter, Klein confronts Johannes Brahms's beautiful Clarinet Sonata in F Minor, op. 120, no. 1, with Lacan's three orders of subjectivity. In second chapter (The Acoustic Mirror as Formative of Auditory Pleasure and Fantasy: Chopin's Berceuse, Brahms's Romanze, and Saariaho's 'Parfume de l'instant'), Klein borrows phrase acoustic from critical theorist Kaja Silverman describe musical passages by Chopin, Brahms, and Saariaho that reflect period just before Lacan's mirror stage of human development (p. 40). Chopin's Berceuse, op. 57, projects stability and comfort: The simple rocking of tonic and dominant harmonies for nearly entirety of piece makes it easy forget that we are hearing a series of variations: we relive of maternal swaying (p. 44). Klein writes of an enduring nostalgic fantasy that persists following our entrance into culture through language (i. …

Association of Meaning in Program Music

We tested three theses on the construction of extramusical meaning in program music: (1) that some excerpts contain an “inherent” musical structure that facilitates the interpretation aligned with the composer’s intentions; (2) that “onomatopoeia” — musical imitation of natural sounds — is a frequent subclass of this “inherence”; and (3) that providing the title of the piece further facilitates the “proper” interpretation of intended meaning. Two hundred and one students were given six musical stimuli (three based on “inherent” and three on “arbitrary” association) and asked to write a one-sentence description of extramusical meaning associated with the examples. In the first trial, all participants provided descriptions without a suggestion. In the second, they were randomly assigned to three groups, receiving suggestions that were neutral, aligned with the composer’s program, or deliberately worded to contradict this program. Three raters then coded the responses on the basis of conformity with the composer’s intentions and presence of onomatopoeia. The result was (a) no difference in the numbers of conformant descriptions to “inherent” as opposed to “arbitrary” examples; (b) a negligible number of onomatopoeic descriptions; (c) a strong influence of “false” — but not “true” — suggestions. We discuss some implications for further studies of extramusical meaning.

The Mystery of Chopin’s Préludes by Anatole Leikin (review)

PIANISM Mystery of Preludes. By Anatole Leikin. Farnham, Surrey, Eng.: Ashgate, 2015. [xiv, 190 p. ISBN 9781409452249 (hardcover); ISBN 9781409452256, 9781472406811 (e-book), $104.95.] Music examples, illustrations, appendix, bibliography, index.Before Frederic groundbreaking collection of twenty-four preludes redefined genre, preludes served an introductory purpose. Noting seismic shift from ancillary utilitarian introduction to quintessential romantic character piece, Franz Liszt noted, Chopin's are compositions of an order entirely apart; they are not merely, as title would indicate, introductions to other morceaux (p. 6). Robert Schumann described mysterious preludes as strange pieces, sketches, (p. 1).In Mystery of Anatole Leikin argues that strewn among rubble of all twenty-four ruins are recognizable fragments-musical fragments of Dies Irae chant. Containing 124 bibliographic references and Alphonse de Les preludes in French alongside an English translation, wellresearched book is a pleasure to read and appropriate for any musician or listener wishing to learn more about preludes.In chapter 1, The Traditions, Innovations, and Predicaments, Leikin examines three clues: various preludes in opus 28 contain widely varying numbers of measures; Chopin performed them in groups; and Franz Liszt described them as 'poetic preludes similar to those of a great contemporary poet' clearly alluding to Alphonse de poem entitled Les Preludes (p. 11).In chapter 2, Lamartine's Les Preludes: Lyrics and Milieu, Leikin examines eleven cantos of Les preludes and observes their various lengths, paired groupings, and references to Gothic, which emphasizes death, nighttime, supernatural, apparitions, old ruined castles, and monasteries. For example, Leikin describes as eleven repeated sf bass notes in A-flat Major Prelude, which according to Chopin represented the sound of an old clock in castle which strikes eleventh hour (p. 16). Leikin concludes chapter with tantalizing, Mallorca, as Chopin was working on his Opus 28, he lived a tale (p. 21).In chapter 3, The Mallorca Factor, Leikin describes Gothic tale by drawing upon his experience in Carthusian Monastery of Valldemossa, an intriguing photo of which appears on book jacket. In Valldemossa, Chopin described his cell as being coffin shaped and experienced frightening hallucinations. Leikin's time in Valldemossa confirmed his intuition about aesthetic of death enshrouding preludes and helped him to illustrate successfully how composers' life experiences can influence their musical choices.Chapter 4, Lamartine's Les and Les Preludes, along with chapter 5, Deciphering Preludes, form core of book. Leikin examines words to better understand composer's approach to extramusical meaning. For example, after repeating clock-in-thecastle anecdote, incorrectly labeled D-flat Major, Leikin quotes Chopin, who stated about his different pieces, final chords sweep away cohorts of ghosts; a little shepherd takes refuge in a peaceful grotto from an approaching storm; a tyrant commands then someone asks for mercy (p. 43). Furthermore, on a score Chopin wrote After a representation of tragedy of Hamlet, but crossed it out, stating, Let them guess for themselves (p. 44). Most significantly, Chopin told his student, I indicate; it's up to listener to complete picture (p. 44). These important quotes not only challenge narrative that Chopin composed purely absolute music, meaning that music lacks ability to refer beyond itself, but also establish preference for indicating general moods rather than depicting vivid details. Furthermore, words let Leikin interpret as a series of tone-painting reflections of poem Les Preludes (p. …

The Meaning(s) of Chaos. A Semiosis of Stefan Wolpe’s Battlepiece

During his American exile in the period of World War II, Stefan Wolpe composed an epic piano work called Battlepiece. Though the piece includes exceptionally chaotic passages, it is counterbalanced by order and rigorous organization. The present article investigates these features both in their strictly material connotation and in their extra-musical meaning(s). Battlepiece is presented as a musical «metaphor» that relates to the broad imagery of modern warfare and to Wolpe’s ethical concerns (how this work embodies and resists the message of destruction and the suffering of emigration); it also makes references to the realm of visual art. In Battlepiece we glimpse the different aestheticexistential meanings that the composer and the communities around him have attributed to the dialectical tension between chaos and integration during the period between the two world wars, which was characterized by the rise of totalitarian regimes. The overall meaning of Battlepiece, both intra-musical and extra-musical, has to do with the modern sublime. This article discusses Wolpe’s own statements, passages from the published score, the Peer Musikverlag (1995) critical edition, and preparatory material from the Wolpe Collection in the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel.

A Quantum Approach to Vagueness and to the Semantics of Music

Quantum computational logics represent a suitable abstract environment for modelling semantic situations where vagueness and ambiguity play a relevant role. In this framework vague possible worlds can be described as a kind of abstract scenes, where individual concepts, relational concepts and events behave as quantum-like superpositions that ambiguously allude to a number of possibly antagonistic alternatives. The quantum semantics can be naturally applied to a formal analysis of musical compositions, where both musical ideas and extra-musical meanings are characterized by some essentially vague and ambiguous features. We investigate some examples.

N400-like responses to three-chord harmonic sequences with unexpected out of key endings: scalp topography, cortical sources, and perspectives for a clinical use.

A series of ERP components, each provided with both a precise timing with respect to stimulation and a specific cortical localization, reflects the temporal succession of processing stages of music information. This makes the musical stimulus potentially usable to probe residual brain functions in non-communicating patients with disorders of consciousness. In an attempt to find a simple stimulation protocol that was suitable for use in a clinical setting, the purpose of this study was to verify whether a minimum-length musical stimulus, provided with a definite music-syntactic connotation, was still able to elicit musical ERPs in a group of eight healthy subjects. The stimulus was composed of the minimum number of chords necessary and sufficient to enable the subject to predict a plausible closure of the sequence (priming) and, at the same time, to provide him/her with the closing chord of the sequence (target), either congruous (probable closing) or not (improbable closing) to the tonal context. The subject's task was to discriminate and recognize the irregular targets. The components that were expected to be elicited, in this experimental situation, were ERAN, N5, P600/LPC. Conversely, in addition to these former components, we unexpectedly observed a N400-like component. To determine whether this component was a real N400, we submitted our data to a sLORETA analysis in order to identify its cortical generators. Irregular chords showed higher current densities with respect to regular ones on the right-sided medial and superior temporal gyri, superior and inferior parietal lobules, fusiform and parahippocampal gyri, and on the bilateral posterior cingulate cortex. In particular, the N400-like wave seems to share with the word-primed music-elicited N400 certain generators that are located in cortical areas BA 21/37 and BA 22. This suggests that even chord-primed chord targets can convey extra-musical meanings and that, consequently, they might be useful in assessing residual higher-order information-processing capabilities in non-communicating patients with disorders of consciousness.

Between Freedom and Determination: Marios Joannou Elia's Music for Guitar

BETWEEN FREEDOM AND DETERMINATION: MARIOS JOANNOU ELIA’S MUSIC FOR GUITAR VERA GRUND ARIOS JOANNOU ELIA CALLS THIRTEEN WORKS of his oeuvre “music for guitar.” Five pieces are for solo instrumentation: In Between (1999), Ontologie Parallel (2001), Soliloquy (2002), Maneuver (2006), and Cursed (2008). The remainder consists of guitar duet (Ontologie Kubik, 2001), quartet (Apophis, 2001/08 and Staubzucker, 2007), or mixed instrumentation containing bowed, brass, and percussion instruments . His works for solo guitar can also be considered as chamber music in the manner of their construction.1 Elia’s style is typified by the use of differentiated sounds not only played in the conventional method but also through prepared instruments . Another characteristic is the complex rhythmical structure. His music is imbued with different timbres, leading to subtle expressions that surprise the listener with their dramatic effects. In this way, together with approaches regarding musical structure and extra-musical meanings, Elia’s music relates to ancient dramatic art-forms. Staubzucker (2007), a virtuoso piece for guitar quartet, uses not only the instrument but also the instrumentalists to simulate M 178 Perspectives of New Music percussion instruments. The composer creates myriad possibilities to provoke specific sounds by using non-usual playing techniques. The complexity of the score demands and challenges its performers to imitate the sounds of 23 percussion instruments. Additionally, the instrumentalists must create sounds with their own voices and bodies by clapping and by flipping or rubbing paper. These unconventional techniques provoke specific sounds, which create theatrical and musical expressivity. It is a piece which, undoubtedly, demands high concentration for its performance. The score hints at the composer’s purpose: “Since the happily failed meeting of Odysseus with the Sirens, all songs have ailed.”2 Powdered sugar (Ger.: Staubzucker) has a sweet taste, which is most often regarded as pleasurable. However, it can also be used in the production of highly explosive mixtures, which can bring catastrophe. Likewise, the Sirens—those beautiful creatures from Greek mythology, who played melodious songs to capture Odysseus—could become extremely dangerous, even fatal. Since the Sirens can be paralleled with powdered sugar in terms of their bipolar meaning (i.e., pleasure versus catastrophe , beauty versus death), the composer was led to give the specific title to the piece. In this guitar quartet, the guitar becomes “ill,” it is almost “destroyed,” for instead of being used in its “traditional” melodious way, it is treated as a percussion instrument. Actually, it is not the destiny of the Greek hero that attracts the composer but the means by which his literary creator, Homer, causes tension. Homer’s technique of using parallel plots, flashbacks, introductions , perspective, and narrator changes is the inspiration for Elia, who declares: “Like powdered sugar (Staubzucker) that can be used for a highly explosive alloy the sound of the guitars bursts like the ‘diseased’ songs from the sirens.”3 The piece was commissioned in memory of Wolfgang Roscher, the late dean of the Mozarteum University, and was premiered in Salzburg ’s Solitär Concert Hall in 2007. It has received over a hundred performances around Europe, South America, and the United States and was described in a review by Classical Guitar Magazine as a piece “the performance of which one is not likely to forget.”4 The Miscelanea Guitar Quartet Salzburg won several international competitions performing Staubzucker in 2008: the Competition for Contemporary Music in Salzburg, the Chamber Music Competition in Thessaloniki, and the International Guitar Competition “Luys Milan” in Valencia. Apophis is also for guitar quartet and references the Egyptian god of darkness and chaos. The constitutive musical device consists of imitations or imitations-in-pretense. Lyric parts using flageolets are disturbed Between Freedom and Determination 179 by violent unison parts. The morbid character of the piece is defined by the emphatic use of the chromatic interval. It commences in a homophonic way with two duets in rhythmic accord. The highest degree of polyphonic part-writing is focused on the middle of the piece, symbolizing the chaos which the ancient Egyptian goddess Apophis represents. Apophis, originally composed for clarinet quartet in 2001, was recommissioned for guitar by the Miscelanea Guitar Quartet and premiered at the Aula Magna Rectorado of the Carlos III...

N400-like responses to three-chord harmonic sequences with unexpected out-of-key endings: scalp topography, cortical sources, and perspectives for a clinical use

A series of ERP components, each provided with both a precise timing with respect to stimulation and a specific cortical localization, reflects the temporal succession of processing stages of music information. This makes the musical stimulus potentially usable to probe residual brain functions in non-communicating patients with disorders of consciousness. In an attempt to find a simple stimulation protocol that was suitable for use in a clinical setting, the purpose of this study was to verify whether a minimum-length musical stimulus, provided with a definite music-syntactic connotation, was still able to elicit musical ERPs in a group of eight healthy subjects. The stimulus was composed of the minimum number of chords necessary and sufficient to enable the subject to predict a plausible closure of the sequence (priming) and, at the same time, to provide him/her with the closing chord of the sequence (target), either congruous (probable closing) or not (improbable closing) to the tonal context. The subject’s task was to discriminate and recognize the irregular targets. The components that were expected to be elicited, in this experimental situation, were ERAN, N5, P600/LPC. Conversely, in addition to these former components, we unexpectedly observed a N400-like component. To determine whether this component was a real N400, we submitted our data to a sLORETA analysis in order to identify its cortical generators. Irregular chords showed higher current densities with respect to regular ones on the right-sided medial and superior temporal gyri, superior and inferior parietal lobules, fusiform and parahippocampal gyri, and on the bilateral posterior cingulate cortex. In particular, the N400-like wave seems to share with the word-primed music-elicited N400 certain generators that are located in cortical areas BA 21/37 and BA 22. This suggests that even chord-primed chord targets can convey extra-musical meanings and that, consequently, they might be useful in assessing residual higher-order information-processing capabilities in non-communicating patients with disorders of consciousness.

Discourse in Música Latinoamericana Cultural Projects from Nueva Canción to Colombian Canción Social

In this article, I follow the discourses elaborated around música latinoamericana (“Latin American music”), a broad musical category encompassing a wide range of Latin American—but especially Andean—folk genres within successive, interrelated “cultural projects.” I examine the extra-musical meanings attributed to this stylistic mode in the nueva canción (new song) movements of protest music in the Southern Cone, the transnational nueva canción latinoamericana network to which they gave rise, and ultimately focus on música latinoamericana’s development in Colombia. During the mid-1970s, the initial Colombian practitioners of música latinoamericana adopted several facets of the discourse pertaining to this music—along with the musical models themselves—from nueva canción latinoamericana. However, they later refined claims about the style’s significance, its distinctiveness from other musical genres, and its political symbolism to fit changing cultural contexts in the cities of the Colombian interior. I argue that the discursive “work” undertaken in these cultural projects has ensured that música latinoamericana continues to be equated with anti-establishment politics in Colombia, and hence that it remains closely tied to canción social (social song), the present-day category for socially conscious music.

Spatial conceptual associations between music and pictures as revealed byN400 effect

The processing of extramusical meaning can be reflected in N400 effects of the ERP. However, how conceptual representations can be activated in music still needs to be specified. We investigated the activation of iconic meaningful representations in music by using a cross-modal semantic priming paradigm with an implicit task. Pictures of spatial scenes were semantically congruent or incongruent to preceding music in three stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) conditions. The results revealed that the semantically incongruent target pictures elicited larger N400 amplitude than the congruent target pictures. Moreover, the semantic priming effect was modulated by the SOAs. The N400 effect was observed in the 200-ms and 800-ms SOA conditions, but not in the 1,200-ms SOA condition. These results suggest that extramusical meaning purely due to iconic sign quality can be activated, and that the conceptual activation in music can be rapid and automatic.

"Dancing Fingers": Embodied Lineages in the Performance of Okinawan Classical Music

Abstract In this paper I examine the use and meanings of body movements in the performance and teaching of Okinawan classical music. I draw on an extended period of participant-observation in Okinawa itself, as well as a series of recorded interviews and demonstrations by performers, made in 2010 and 2011. I present these results in the context of a number of recent studies of physical gesture from the ethnomusicological and music psychology literature, and argue that these gestures hold a number of musical and extra-musical meanings that are actively debated and constructed by performers themselves.

Conference Report: “Fifth International Schenker Symposium”

is living motion of tones in nature-given space (Heinrich Schenker)(1)[1] Three intense days of theory, analysis, and history marked Fifth International Schenker Symposium, held at Mannes School of Music and The New School between March 15 and 17, 2013. As symposium revealed, field of Schenker studies not only provides a technical basis for understanding tonal music and an analytical approach to a broad range of musical repertoires; it also engages areas of musical scholarship such as analysis and performance, historical and cultural studies, contemporary theories of form, and sketch studies. To be sure, Fifth International Schenker Symposium attested to vitality of Schenker studies today.[2] Thirteen sessions took place over course of weekend-six were devoted to a specific composer or genre, four to strictly theoretical matters, two to history, and one to a special tribute-with a total of 34 presentations (the full conference program can be found in Appendix). The composer- and genre-oriented sessions included approaches to Brahms, Chopin, Schumann, modal/folk music, and music of Classical and Romantic eras.[3] Of these sessions, one devoted to Brahms deserves special mention, as all three speakers delivered superb presentations. Edward Klorman offered a perceptive analysis of second movement from Clarinet Sonata in F minor, op. 120, no.1. While constructing a possible derivation of ambiguous opening and comparing his reading to an unpublished analysis by Frank Samarotto, he went on to stress use of whole tone progressions and major third cycles in B section of movement, in contrast with Diatonie that prevails in flanking A sections. Klorman even gave a touch of extra-musical meaning to such symmetrical writing, suggesting a magical, almost heavenly, transformation during retransition from B section to A' section (measures 41-48). He observed, At precisely this moment, as major-thirds cycle begins, piano is untethered from its normal tessitura and floats up to its highest register, while clarinet stays below-again suggesting a glimpse of heaven, as viewed from earth-an image that accords wonderfully with 'suspension of tonal gravity' that Felix Salzer and Carl Schachter hear in such equal-intervallic cycles.(2)[4] Ryan McClelland, second speaker of session, discussed role of half-diminished seventh chord in three of Brahms's Lieder: Nachtigallen schwingen, op. 6, no. 6; Die Liebende schreibt, op. 47, no. 5; and Die Schale der Vergessenheit, op. 46, no. 3. Above all, he aimed to show structural potential of chord in these songs, and demonstrated how the initial half-diminished seventh is readily interpreted as an event belonging only to foreground, but in each case this striking launch is not without larger impact. The third and final speaker, Eric Wen, provided a deep reading of Adagio Mesto from Horn Trio in E-flat major, op. 40. Like Klorman, Wen not only probed depths of form and tonal structure through derived progressions and detailed graphs-particularly through a discussion of structural role of Phrygian II-he also offered a programmatic reading in connection with death of Brahms's mother in 1865.[5] Along with analytical papers, a number of scholars gave attention to technical issues in Schenkerian theory, including role of subdominant (Wayne Petty and Frank Samarotto), Quintteiler (Allen Cadwallader and David Gagne), sequence (Stephen Slottow), and various problems relating to linear progressions and reaching over (Peter Franck and Nicolas Meeus, respectively). One session was devoted to Schenker and contemporary theories of form, with contributions from William Marvin, Joyce Yip, and Peter Smith. Since resurgence of Formenlehre studies in 1990s (see Caplin 1998 and Hepokoski and Darcy 2006), scholars continue to produce ever-refined thinking around Schenkerian and formal approaches to tonal music; papers presented in this symposium are no exception. …