Melodic Lines Research Articles

FEATURES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF MUSICAL HEARING IN THE ORCHESTRA TRAINING OF A PLAYER OF WIND INSTRUMENTS

The article presents and characterizes the most important approaches to the development of the musical ear of brass musicians in the process of their orchestral training. Professional training for the development of musical hearing among brass performers in institutions of higher education of the artistic direction will be effective and purposeful, provided that the musician observes continuous and thorough auditory self-control, which will ultimately help the performer to coordinate and direct the work of the entire performing apparatus as a whole. Professional mastery of musical ear is a key element of musical perception by a brass musician, figurative and emotional thinking that is synthesized on the basis of the perception of musical language, and therefore becomes the main basis for revealing the composerʼs idea by the performer and the embodiment and transmission of a musical image filled with a wide variety of artistic content. Possession of absolute hearing gives the musician-performer certain advantages, because he can accurately imagine the pitch of each sound before its real sound begins. Practice shows that it is quite possible to fully master the art of playing an instrument if you have good relative hearing. It is only necessary that the musical ear of the performer is sufficiently subtle and flexible, capable of constant development and improvement in the process of communication with the instrument and music. In the process of purposeful development of auditory abilities, the performer must quickly master the ability to perceive music in a complex way ‒ to simultaneously listen to the pitch of the melodic line, its intonation development, timbre coloring, rhythm, harmony, character of presentation. Without this skill, the performer will not be able to fulfill his main task ‒ to understand and reveal the artistic content of the music being performed.
 Keywords: earing; brass musicians; orchestra training; institutions of higher education; performance; competence; components.

Fractal patterns in music

If aesthetic preferences are affected by the fractal geometry of nature, scaling regularities would be expected to appear in all art forms, including music. While a variety of statistical tools have been proposed to analyze time series in sound, no consensus has yet emerged regarding the most meaningful measure of complexity in music or how to discern fractal patterns in compositions in the first place. Here, we offer a new approach based on the self-similarity of melodic lines recurring at various temporal scales. In contrast to the statistical analyses advanced in recent literature, the proposed method does not depend on averaging within time-windows and is distinctively local. The corresponding definition of the fractal dimension is based on the temporal scaling hierarchy and depends on the tonal contours of musical motifs. The new concepts are tested on musical “renditions” of the Cantor Set and the Koch Curve, and then applied to a number of carefully selected masterful compositions spanning five centuries of music making.

Painting, poetry, and music in Nicholas Lanier’s ‘Hero’s Lament to Leander’

ABSTRACT In his composition, ‘Hero’s Lament to Leander’, Nicholas Lanier sought to interweave art forms. Lanier was painter as well as a composer, an art agent for Charles I, and the Master of the King’s Music. In 1625 he was sent to Northern Italy and ended up in Mantua where he likely encountered not just Domenico Fetti’s and Peter Paul Rubens’s paintings of the Death of Leander, but also ekphrastic poems of Giambattista Marino celebrating Rubens’s painting as well as a no-longer-extant work by Bernardino Poccetti. Responding to the works of Monteverdi and Sigismondo d’India, both whom Lanier would have been familiar with and may even have met during his time in Italy, Lanier wrote both text and setting for his own recitativo cantata, ‘Hero’s Lament to Leander’. His composition responded to musical innovations that were happening in Italy: the recitativo form, as outlined by Vincenzo Galilei in his Dialogo della musica antica, et della moderna, favoured ‘ancient monodic music to the intricate web of vocal polyphony’ found in the prevailing madrigal style. Galilei, Monteverdi, and Lanier himself, sought a return to ancient poetry as verse accompanied by an instrument and perhaps even sung, and thus to the original unity of speech and song itself. Galilei’s dialogue preferred the declamatory works of orators and of classical poets, and this is where Lanier drew his inspiration, as the heroic couplets of the written text are placed in syncopation with the melodic lines Hero sings. His composition is full of intertextual allusion, to the Hero and Leander poems of Marlowe and Chapman, as well as classical sources, and the recitativo style allowed him to play with the boundaries between speech and song.

AESTHETIC AND STYLISTIC FEATURES OF MUSICAL MODERN STYLE IN THE OPERA THE NIGHTINGALE BY I. F. STRAVINSKY

The article reveals the signs of musical modern manifested in Igor Stravinsky's opera The Nightingale . The modern style declared itself in the works of Russian composers of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, including Stravinsky. The aesthetic principles of the modern style, such as the cult of beauty, the tendency to synthesize the arts, conventions, interest in orientalism, fairy-tale plots, originated in painting, found the expression in music. It is shown that the opera Nightingale becomes one of the samples of the modern style in Russian music, which is manifested in the structure of the work, its thematic invention, rhythm and texture. The composer's appeal to an exotic theme allows him to create a bright coloristic musical picture in which the visual component is of great importance. The fairy-tale plot puts an imprint of conventionality on the performance. The composition is dominated by three-part structures, which demonstrates the desire for concentricity. The decorative nature of the modern style is manifested in the appearance of ornamental features in the melodic line of the vocal part of the Nightingale, which is a combination of flexible, plastic lines. It is shown that the style of the opera changes due to a long break between the creation of the first and subsequent actions. The composer's words confirm the fact that the experience of creating his ballets, which participated in S. P. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes , influenced the formation of the musical canvas of The Nightingale . The stylistic heterogeneity of the opera does not contradict the aesthetic attitudes of the modern style. The opera symbolizes the transition from the composer's style, based on the experience of his predecessors, to the search for updated means of expression.

Text to song synchronization using deep neural network

The most crucial aspect of the learning process is memory. There is no knowledge without memory. However, mostpeople lack memory because they memorize things through rote memorization. So in this paper, we implementeda deep neural network (DNN) model that converts plain text into a song, which is done by synchronization of aMusical Instrument Digital Surface (MIDI) file or the music with the text. MIDI files are symbolic representations ofthe music score. The melodic line of the composition is normally on one of them, while the background music ison the others. Analyzing the audio to identify voice portions where a human voice is present, as well as non-voicesegments in proximity to the voice segments, is part of a method for syncing text with audio. The text segmentsof segmented text related to the audio can be recognized and synchronized to the speech segments.

Методы исполнения кантилены в фортепианной игре как система биомеханических принципов

antilena music. The author analyzes the physical and psychological aspects of working with sound, consistently analyzes such technical components as preparing the finger for sound extraction, the position of the finger at the time of pressing the key, controlling the speed of pressing the key, using the movement of the extreme phalanx of the finger, the principle of using the elbow at the time of taking the sound. The role of dynamics in the construction of a melodic line is considered. Special attention is paid to the moment of control of musical thought in the intervals between taking sounds. The material of the article is based mainly on the personal pianistic experience of the author. However, the basic principles outlined in the article are confirmed by the opinion of recognized authorities in the field of piano art, such as G. Neuhaus, I. Hoffman, N. Perelman, V. Gornostaeva and others. The article is addressed to a wide range of piano teachers, as well as students of higher and secondary musical institutions.

The Evolution of the Vibraphone in the Development of Musical Styles

The paper analyses the evolution of the vibraphone in the development of musical styles. The vibraphone is recently built instrument in comparison to other percussion instruments. Its original version was built just over 100 years ago – in 1916. Although the evolution of the vibraphone is not a new subject of research in foreign literature, it is usually examined in the context of jazz performers. There are fewer works that discuss the evolution of the vibraphone in the development of various musical styles, and there are none that mention the Baltic countries, specifically Lithuania. During the research, the methods of analysis, synthesis and generalization of scientific literature and repertoires were used.
 The analysis of scientific literature showed that since 1921, when the vibraphone was presented at the World Instrument Exhibition in the United States, the performance style of this musical instrument has changed significantly, both in terms of timbre and technique. In the modern world of music, the vibraphone is used not only for melodic lines, but also for accompaniment, counterpoint, rhythm and harmony, damping, sound suppression and complex pedaling. This is a modern school of vibraphone performance. Unfortunately, due to historical and political circumstances in Lithuania, the vibraphone has not become a part of the music culture and is still considered a niche instrument.

The Dancesport Judging System and Its Evolution at National and International Level

DanceSport is a mix between art and sport as it combines an elaborate way of communicating the artistic movement fully synchronized to the character of the melodic line and the competitive character. This special activity is in a continuous transformation through the evolution of technical nature and complexity of dance elements/dance figures, with regulations that constantly adapt to the present time and society, constantly offering an amazing show. The purpose of the research is to structure the DanceSport judging systems, the problems that have arisen over the years and the changes that took place regarding the evaluation of dancers. The evolution of the judging systems and the criteria reflect the evolution of dancers over time, an evolution that became vital because of the technical/artistic nature of transformation and also, because of the complexity of the choreographies or dance routines.

Principles of libretto translation and problems of multimodal text interpretation

The multimodal nature of texts to music involves the complex interaction of verbal, auditory, in some cases visual and other components, which determines the functioning of the textual unity. In this regard, the translation of multimodal texts, and in particular the translation of opera librettos, puts forward special requirements for the translator, due to which even the knowledge of the subject area, terminology and style of the source text is not always sufficient to achieve high quality translation. Based on the analysis of the translation principles of one of the most prominent translators of opera librettos Viktor Kolomiitsov (1868-1936) and his translated texts, the article aims to determine the basic requirements to the translation of libretto as a multimodal text, combining the verbal and auditory components in the text unity. It also aims to answer the research question: what exactly is the special feature of multimodal text translation focused on auditory mode, and in case of opera libretto translations - what resources can be used to perform the translation? The material for the study included the texts to L. Beethoven and R. Wagner’s works and their translations. The comparative analysis of V. Kolomiytsov’s translations and several other translators’ approaches allowed us to confirm the assumption about the complexity of auditory multimodal texts translation, identify the main problems of libretto translation, and demonstrate different translation solutions in the transfer of the rhythmic logic of the source text, its syntactic features, alliteration and vocabulary. The procedure of text analysis involved elements of philological and comparative analyses of translations, as well as statistical calculations. It was revealed that the connection of the verbal component with the melodic line, its accents and rhythm predetermines the structure of the text to vocal works. For the translator, this means additional limitations, which are quite difficult to overcome. Equirhythmic translation correlated with music is one of the most difficult types of translation, in which preservation of “form” (rhyme, meter, number of syllables, coincidence of accents, etc.) plays an important role and predetermines the quality of auditory multimodal text translation.

A Taxonomy of Orchestral Grouping Effects Derived from Principles of Auditory Perception

The study of timbre and orchestration in symphonic music research is underexplored, and few theories attempt to explain strategies for combining and contrasting instruments and the resulting perception of orchestral structures and textures. An analysis of orchestration treatises and musical scores reveals an implicit understanding of auditory grouping principles by which many orchestration techniques give rise to predictable perceptual effects. We present a novel theory formalized in a taxonomy of devices related to auditory grouping principles that appear frequently in Western orchestration practices from a range of historical epochs. We develop three classes of orchestration analysis categories: concurrent grouping cues result in blended combinations of instruments; sequential grouping cues result in melodic lines, the integration of surface textures, and the segregation of melodies or stratified (foreground and background) layers based on acoustic (dis)similarities; segmental grouping cues contrast sequentially presented blocks of materials and contribute to the creation of perceptual boundaries. The theory predicts orchestration-based perceptual structuring in music and may be applied to music of any style, culture, or genre.

Fantasie nègre: The Piano Music of Florence Price, by Samantha Ege

<i>Fantasie nègre: The Piano Music of Florence Price</i>, by Samantha Ege

Adoption and Transformation of Traditional Forms in the Fourth String Quartet of Béla Bartók

Abstract In describing the form of his Fourth String Quartet, Bartók employed the terminology of the German Formenlehre with which he was acquainted thanks to the teaching of Hans Koessler. Bartók's elucidation suggests that the models for the construction of thematic units, contrasts, developments and closing segments, which were normative for the sonata cycle in the nineteenth century, continued to exercise their influence despite the distance from functional tonality. An analysis of the five movements of the Fourth String Quartet with systematic reference to Bartók's synopsis shows that a subtle dialectic between adoption and transformation was at stake. The principles of traditional form gained new strength through the reinvention of harmonic structures, melodic lines and hypermetric groups. The symmetrical–architectural framework was preserved but filled with unconventional tone progressions, irregular phraseology, and a new sense for development and reprise.

Cadential Melodies

This article proposes that engaging with structural melodic content can expand how we conceive of cadential function and add nuance to the more harmonically driven approaches of Caplinian form-functional theory. Drawing on discussions by Schenker, Marx, and Schoenberg, we posit parallels between structural melodic configurations and the temporal formal functions of Caplinian theory. Through several analytic examples we suggest that certain melodic directions have default association with Caplin’s temporal functions: ascending lines are typically associated with initiating functions, while the static prolongation of structural tones typically serves as either initiating or medial functions. Conversely, descending melodic lines, especially terminating on ".fn_scaledegree(1)." (authentic cadences) or ".fn_scaledegree(2)." (half cadences) are endemic of concluding functions. We do not suggest that melodic considerations replace harmonic ones, but rather conclude that the two domains are symbiotic in the sense that melodic consideration can reinforce or undermine harmonic ones, and vice versa. Ultimately, we use this rebalancing of analytic focus as a means of reengaging with various problematic phrase types and suggest further efficacy for this approach with respect to nineteenth-century formal expansions.

The inconstancy of music

A melody is often described as a line of music that evolves through time and, therefore, it is possible to draw its 2D pitch-time representation as a series of points implicitly defining a curve. We introduce to computational musicology a descriptor of this music curve: the inconstancy, a function that gives information on the curve's smoothness as well as some of its topological properties. A mathematical analysis of the inconstancy of music is provided, followed by a lengthy application of inconstancy to musicological tasks. We compare the inconstancy of melodic lines with that of typical accompaniment patterns such as the Alberti bass; this analysis, together with the case study of W.A. Mozart's Variations on Ah! vous dirai-je, maman, suggests a significant difference in the value of the inconstancy of a music line depending on its function. The inconstancy seems to be correlated also with the compositional style: the analysis on almost 10,000 musical themes of the common practice repertoire shows that Baroque music has higher inconstancy. Finally, we also define a windowed version of the inconstancy for studying longer scores and show the insights one can gain into, for example, structural analysis and cadence detection.

Neural Phenomenon in Musicality: The Interpretation of Dual-Processing Modes in Melodic Perception.

The confluence of creativity in music performance finds itself in performance practices and cultural motifs, the communication of the human body along with the instrument it interacts with, and individual performers’ perceptual, motor, and cognitive abilities that contribute to varied musical interpretations of the same piece or melodic line. The musical and artistic execution of a player, as well as the product of this phenomena can become determinant causes in a creative mental state. With advances in neurocognitive measures, the state of one’s artistic intuition and execution has been a growing interest in understanding the creative thought process of human behavior, particularly in improvising artists. This article discusses the implementation on the concurrence of spontaneous (Type-1) and controlled (Type-2) processing modes that may be apparent in the perception of non-improvising artists on how melodic lines are perceived in music performance. Elucidating the cortical-subcortical activity in the dual-process model may extend to non-improvising musicians explored in the paradigm of neural correlates. These interactions may open new possibilities for expanding the repertoire of executive functions, creativity, and the coordinated activity of cortical-subcortical regions that regulate the free flow of artistic ideas and expressive spontaneity in future neuromusical research.

Gagaku, Ensemble OnoTeruhisa Fukuda, maître de shakuhachi. Offrande musicale

Gagaku, Ensemble OnoTeruhisa Fukuda, maître de shakuhachi. Offrande musicale

Genre context of Ihor Shamo’s choral creativity

The purpose of this paper. The purpose of the study involves a thorough study on the genre system of choral heritage I. Shamo, as understanding the genre essence of choral work is an essential component of performing interpretation.&#x0D; The methodology. Methodological principles are the principle of historicism, historical-contextual method, genre-style analysis and acmeological method in musicology, used to understand the top achievements of I. Shamo in the context of the evolution of artistic thinking of the artist.&#x0D; The results. The genre system of I. Shamo’s choral heritage consists of the genres of choral song, suite, choral cycle, cantata, cantata-poem, cantata-oratorio, choral opera a cappella, oratorio (concert-performance). The directions of the composer’s creative search in the genre of choral song are connected with the usage of different choral compositions, appeal to the genres of lyrical song, stylization of ritual songs, romanticization of patriotic song. It is determined that the semantics of the first cycle of choirs a cappella by I. Shamo in the poem by I. Franko reveals the theme of the cycle of the seasons, drawing a parallel with the stages of human life. For the choral cycle “Flying Cranes”, the name of which is a symbol of unattainable happiness and, at the same time hope, the composer improves the techniques of sound recording, creates expansive melodic lines based on a synthesis of folk and romantic intonations. The third cycle of I. Shamo “10 choirs on the poems of Ukrainian poets” demonstrates the latest achievements of the artist in choral writing, timbre drama, the implementation of the principles of working with folk poetic sources, characteristic of the “second wave of folklore”. It is substantiated that the unity of the “Carpathian Suite” of the composer is promoted by: tonal plan, contrasting tempo drama and artistic sound images, intonational unity based on the theme of Ukrainian folk models. Based on the author’s genre definitions of the “Yatran Games”, it is determined that in I. Shamo’s choral opera a cappella there is a synthesis of genres: suite, choral scenes originated from folk life and ceremonial action under the auspices of the opera genre. It was found that among the genres of orchestral and choral compositions of the artist — cantata, cantata-poem, cantata-oratorio, which is dominated by civic themes. Innovative is the work of I. Shamo “Skomoroshyny”, which synthesizes the genres of oratorio and concert, with theatricalization of these genres. The choral opuses showed such features of the artist’s style as the synthesis of genres, the tendency to cyclicality, reliance on national roots, the creation of author’s melodies, where deep folklore manifestations, sprechstimme, sonorism, aleatorics.&#x0D; The scientific creativity lies in the analysis of the components of the genre system of I. Shamo’s choral heritage, in the awareness of the genre phenomenon of each choral work and in the identification of the evolution of the artist’s style.&#x0D; The practical significance of the obtained results is due to the need to determine the genre of choral work to create a performing interpretation.

No Evidence of Attentional Modulation of the Neural Response to the Temporal Fine Structure of Continuous Musical Pieces.

Speech and music are spectrotemporally complex acoustic signals that are highly relevant for humans. Both contain a temporal fine structure that is encoded in the neural responses of subcortical and cortical processing centers. The subcortical response to the temporal fine structure of speech has recently been shown to be modulated by selective attention to one of two competing voices. Music similarly often consists of several simultaneous melodic lines, and a listener can selectively attend to a particular one at a time. However, the neural mechanisms that enable such selective attention remain largely enigmatic, not least since most investigations to date have focused on short and simplified musical stimuli. Here, we studied the neural encoding of classical musical pieces in human volunteers, using scalp EEG recordings. We presented volunteers with continuous musical pieces composed of one or two instruments. In the latter case, the participants were asked to selectively attend to one of the two competing instruments and to perform a vibrato identification task. We used linear encoding and decoding models to relate the recorded EEG activity to the stimulus waveform. We show that we can measure neural responses to the temporal fine structure of melodic lines played by one single instrument, at the population level as well as for most individual participants. The neural response peaks at a latency of 7.6 msec and is not measurable past 15 msec. When analyzing the neural responses to the temporal fine structure elicited by competing instruments, we found no evidence of attentional modulation. We observed, however, that low-frequency neural activity exhibited a modulation consistent with the behavioral task at latencies from 100 to 160 msec, in a similar manner to the attentional modulation observed in continuous speech (N100). Our results show that, much like speech, the temporal fine structure of music is tracked by neural activity. In contrast to speech, however, this response appears unaffected by selective attention in the context of our experiment.

Vocal Ornamentation in the 18th century - Tosi and Mancini, first Theorists of Bel Canto

In a time of change, the two great vocal singing theorists, Tosi and Mancini, wrote their theoretical papers with the stated aim of clarifying for both students and their tutors what they considered to be good landmarks in that era. Too much freedom in ornamentation, through an abusive and discretionary use, highlighted more the virtuosity of the singers than the melodic line in the context of words and music. Thus, forced by circumstances, the two authors tried to develop, in the 18th century, a methodology capable of balancing freedom of expression with theoretical rigor. Their effort was directed towards collecting and organizing the data available at the time about the mechanics and theory of ornamentation applicable to the principles and rules of harmony, while supporting freedom of expression and variety of inventiveness and having as sole purpose the beauty of sounds harmoniously intertwined with expression. They evaluated and criticized their contemporaries, highlighting both the defects and abuses of vocal performances, considering as the only point of reference the balance of expression subordinated to the fundamental elements of vocal precepts considered at that time true axioms. They generously offered their knowledge and science with the ultimate goal of creating a vocal show based on balance, beauty and spontaneity.

INTONATION ANALYSIS OF THE PIANO TEXTURE AS A MEANS OF DEVELOPING THE PIANIST’S PERFORMANCE THINKING: THE CONTENT, HEARING STRATEGIES, AND THE METHODS

Intonation analysis of the piano texture as a means of developing the pianist’s performance thinking: the content, hearing strategies, and the methods The aim of this research is to substantiate the content of the piano texture intonation analysis, a means of developing the pianist’s performance thinking, with defining the auditory strategies, techniques, and relevant intonation-analytical skills that form the basis for piano intonation skills. The research methodology is based on the phenomenological approach. The author, by reducing, applying phenomenological analysis, and describing the content of the intonation performance thinking in the “phonic space” of piano texture, has sought to explore the intramusical nature of its essential components, which can be analyzed theoretically. The scientific novelty is in transferring the content basis of the intonation thinking to the plane of rationality by appealing to the intramusical factors of the intonation processes in the musical piece’s performance texture. Thus, it allowed us to single out the auditory strategies, the methods of the intonation analysis, which are methodologically important for the formation of the pianist’s performance skills, and to determine the system of the intonation-analytical skills, that provide access to the artistic level of performance. Conclusions. Being a modality of developing the pianist’s performance thinking, the intonation analysis is aimed at understanding the sources of dynamic integrity of the performance form at different levels of its organization, namely phonic (overtone micro-intonation), morphological (microstructural motive intonation and/or articulation), syntactic (organic, expressive semantic accentuation phrasing), compositional (intonation dramaturgy of the musical piece as an artistic whole). The object of the intonation analysis is the phonic environment of the musical piece performing texture, while its subject is the internal meaning-creating logic of the tonal connections in the projection of the melodic harmony and spatial timbre dynamics, a linear and deep coordinate of the intonation texture of the sound image. There are semantic guidelines for the analysis of the performance texture that are&nbsp;essential for the piano intonation, such as semantically significant melodic and harmonic tonal connections; features of the “declamatory” articulation of the motives in the projection of the integral texture; the syntactic structure of the melody and its corresponding voices and/or texture fragments; the intramusical logic of dynamic phrasing. The shift of the content orientation of the intonation analysis, proposed in the article, to the corresponding intonation-analytical skills, which form the basis for performing intonation mastery, demonstrates the direct connection between the appealing to the intramusical parameters of music in the intonation texture study and the formation of important thinking qualities. That is, the ability to hear the most subtle, high-pitched, timbre-dynamic changes within each tone embedded in the melodic line; the natural (corresponding to the internal musical logic) declamatory articulation of the text’s semantic structures; the expressive (in the sense of expressed) phrasing; the shift of the textual vision of the texture into intonationally flexible sound images; the coverage of the textural vertical in the dynamics of the figure-background relations of its elements; tracking of the forming intonation lines in the depth of textural fabric (harmonious voice leading).