Music Ensembles Research Articles

Collaborative composing with inclusive music ensembles: What attitude, knowledge and skills do composers need?

Collaborative composing with inclusive music ensembles: What attitude, knowledge and skills do composers need?

Ensemble width estimation in HRTF-convolved binaural music recordings using an auditory model and a gradient-boosted decision trees regressor

Binaural audio recordings become increasingly popular in multimedia repositories, posing new challenges in indexing, searching, and retrieval of such excerpts in terms of their spatial audio scene characteristics. This paper presents a new method for the automatic estimation of one of the most important spatial attributes of binaural recordings of music, namely “ensemble width.” The method has been developed using a repository of 23,040 binaural excerpts synthesized by convolving 192 multi-track music recordings with 30 sets of head-related transfer functions (HRTF). The synthesized excerpts represented various spatial distributions of music sound sources along a frontal semicircle in the horizontal plane. A binaural auditory model was exploited to derive the standard binaural cues from the synthesized excerpts, yielding a dataset representing interaural level and time differences, complemented by interaural cross-correlation coefficients. Subsequently, a regression method, based on gradient-boosted decision trees, was applied to the formerly calculated dataset to estimate ensemble width values. According to the obtained results, the mean absolute error of the ensemble width estimation averaged across experimental conditions amounts to 6.63° (SD 0.12°). The accuracy of the method is the highest for the recordings with ensembles narrower than 30°, yielding the mean absolute error ranging between 0.8° and 10.2°. The performance of the proposed algorithm is relatively uniform regardless of the horizontal position of an ensemble. However, its accuracy deteriorates for wider ensembles, with the error reaching 25.2° for the music ensembles spanning 90°. The developed method exhibits satisfactory generalization properties when evaluated both under music-independent and HRTF-independent conditions. The proposed method outperforms the technique based on “spatiograms” recently introduced in the literature.

Conductors of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra: A Centenary Overview

AbstractIn 2023, a major European musical ensemble, the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, celebrates its centennial. In the course of 100 years, this institution faced numerous obstacles, but thanks to the enthusiasm of great musicians, especially conductors, it has survived and laid the foundation for further musical and cultural development in Serbia. This article discusses the activity of the most important orchestral leaders (Stevan Hristić, Lovro von Matačić, Krešimir Baranović, Živojin Zdravković, Horst Förster, Vassily Sinaisky, Emil Tabakov, Uroš Lajovic, Dorian Wilson, Muhai Tang, Gabriel Feltz, Daniel Raiskin and Zubin Mehta), who have vastly contributed to or changed the course of the orchestra's development and left a big mark in its hundred-year-long history. In its centenary year, we will look back into the past, review the present, but also take a glimpse into the future the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra has already started to write for itself.

Effect of time delay on performance and timing control in dyadic rhythm coordination using finger tapping

In musical ensembles, people synchronise with each other despite the presence of time delays such as those related to sound transmission. However, the ways in which time delays in synchronisation are overcome remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate the basic characteristics and mechanism of synchronisation with time delays using a dyadic synchronisation-continuation finger-tapping task with time delays ranging from 0 to 240 ms. The results reveal that synchronisation performance improved under time delays of 40–160 ms compared with in the other conditions. This tolerance to the time delay could have been because such a delay allowed both participants in each pair to tap before receiving the stimuli from their partner, as seen in synchronisation with a constant-tempo metronome. In addition, the dependency of the timing control on the partner’s previous inter-tap interval decreased at a time delay of 80 ms, relating to the fact that the acceleration and deceleration of the tapping tempo reduced under certain time delays, while the synchronisation performance improved. Uncertainty in the timing of the partner’s stimulus could induce greater anticipatory responses, making it possible to tolerate longer time delays in dyadic finger-tapping tasks.

Minahasa Kulintang Music (Musicological and Ethnomusicological Studies on Birth History)

This article describes the birth history of the Kulintang music genre or the Minahasa Wooden Kulintang Music Ensemble. Through the qualitative research method, using a multidisciplinary approach with musicology and ethnomusicology as an umbrella approach, it was found that the Wooden Kulintang Music Ensemble was born in Tumantangtang village of Tomohon Minahasa, made by Lodewijk Supit Kaligis in 1947. The entertainment needs of refugees drove the birth of this music genre during turbulent times in Japan. Kulintang Minahasa was a new music genre due to the transmutation of the Portuguese Keroncong music genre.

A Theoretical Review Towards a Conceptual Framework for Creating ‘Neoclassic Big-Band Highlife Music’

It is a truism that highlife, Ghana’s first acculturated popular music, presents various styles employing various musical ensembles and playing to different audiences. However, the diverse highlife stylistic trends have declined in musical works recently due to generational differences and tastes. As a result, modern-day recorded highlife compositions sound similar and, in some cases, the same. Despite its iconicity in Ghanaian popular music, it is also quite surprising that highlife music still struggles for compositional and theoretical relevance in Ghanaian academic programmes of schools, colleges and universities. This paper, therefore, presents a characterisation of the diverse highlife music trends as an attempt to develop a conceptual framework for creating ‘neoclassic big-band highlife music’ that transcends diverse styles and generational tastes. Drawing on my experience as a highlife practitioner and music educator, I reviewed theories, concepts, and literature relevant to highlife music to conceptualise a framework for creating works that transcend the generational differences and tastes of highlife music. This paper expands the frontiers of highlife music practice and scholarship. Therefore, it is not just a recommendation but a call to action for Music composition professors to adopt this conceptual framework as a blueprint to begin a taught course on ‘Highlife Music Composition’ in music institutions. The involvement of Music composition professors in this process is crucial to enhancing the structural and theoretical trajectory of highlife music.

La trompa de la salsa: the role of the French Horn in Afro-Cuban music

Discovering Afro-Cuban music as a classical musician was an outstanding moment in my career. Realizing how unusual it is for French Horns to be involved in this style inspired me to start this research and further develop my skills. Even though it is usual to find trombones and trumpets in Afro-Cuban music ensembles, it is challenging to find examples with French Horn players. Currently, the most successful horn player in this genre is Sarah Willis, who fell in love with Cuban rhythms and decided to share them by creating innovative albums. The methodology of this research includes a literature review of existing works related to Afro-Cuban music, interviews with experienced players in this field, and practical demonstrations in video form. The theoretical framework provides a brief review of Afro-Cuban music from its origins until today, paying special attention to the practically non-existent presence of French Horn players in this field. The practical framework collects data on the challenges that a classical French Horn player may encounter when playing this music and offers possible solutions. As a result of this study, I now have a better understanding of this style and why the horn is not usually included in it. Also, having the experience of playing Afro-Cuban music as a classical musician has clarified the differences and difficulties of approaching this music but more so how it can nourish my musical practice with new skills. The chosen format of presentation will be a public exposition of the results of the research.

Improving Social Relations Between Students Through Learning Dayak Music Ensembles Using the Peer Tutor Method

Preserving Dayak culture and developing musical abilities among the younger generation are important aspects in the revitalization of society. Learning Dayak music ensembles can help students to improve their social skills more effectively, so that they can be more calm, focused and productive in making music. This research used a qualitative descriptive method involving first semester students of the Performing Arts Education Study Program. Dayak music ensemble learning is carried out once a week. This learning includes theoretical and practical material for playing Dayak musical instruments, such as dau, gedobokng and agukng. These three instruments are often found in accompanying music for Dayak traditional ritual ceremonies. Learning activities take the form of exercises in ensemble format so that in the process students need to interact and socialize in order to be able to play music correctly. The development of students' social skills is obtained through observation, interviews and documents. Data analysis shows that the peer tutoring method makes a significant contribution to the development of social skills among students. This technique is used to determine aspects of social abilities, such as the ability to communicate, collaborate, leadership and responsibility effectively. The findings of this research contribute to the development of structured Dayak music ensemble learning strategies to improve students' social abilities which are reflected in aspects of social sensitivity, the emergence of a sense of empathy and self-confidence. Additionally, these findings highlight the transformative power of peer mentoring in fostering social-emotional development and musical skills.

Traversing the Urban Soundscape: Black Sonic Geographies within The Minneapolis Sound

AbstractThis paper illuminates The Minneapolis Sound's emergence from the urban soundscapes of late 20th century Minneapolis. Turning to the 1960s and 1970s, I trace the genre's geohistorical emergence to a Black diasporic community who found within marginality the possibilities to spatialise an experimental world across the urban margins. Disclosing how this experimental world was upheld by improvisatory musical ensembles and their dynamic reaffirmations of a Black sense of place, the paper reveals how The Minneapolis Sound was insurgently pioneered as a Black sonic counter culture amidst unequivocal oppression. I then temporally propel the paper into the 1980s and 1990s and explore how the artist Prince and band The Time radically re‐imagined the city's anti‐Black spatial histories towards more just ends. This elucidates how, after emerging from the spatiality of the racialised metropolis, The Minneapolis Sound provided a speculative avenue of decolonial poetics through which alternative Black futures were made imaginable.

Participation and Persistence in High School Elective Music Ensembles

In this study, we examined demographic patterns of participation and persistence in high school elective music ensembles. We extend prior research that has only compared music and non-music students by explicitly modeling persistence across multiple years of ensemble enrollment. The research draws on data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 and employs a zero-inflated Poisson regression model to analyze the data. This hurdle model, suitable for count data with a large number of zero observations, allows us to jointly examine factors related to enrolling in at least 1 year of a music ensemble (moving from 0 years to 1 year of music) and those factors related to accruing additional years of music ensemble enrollment (moving beyond 1 year to multiple years). We found that family socioeconomic status, birth-assigned sex, academic achievement, shared parent/student outside arts event attendance, and out-of-school arts engagement were significant predictors of both students’ music participation and persistence. By examining persistence, we add important nuance to the prior research examining demographic predictors of elective high school music enrollment, particularly for issues of birth-assigned sex and socioeconomic status in the choral context.

Leadership qualities as a component of the professional activity of a conductor-choirmaster

Statement of the problem. Recent research and publications. The relevance of the problem of developing leadership qualities is associated not only with the professional characteristics of the conductors but also with various directions of their professional career. After all, a conductor is not just a musicianperformer but also an artistic leader of the ensemble, and sometimes even an artistic leader of the musical community. Each of these positions requires an analysis of competencies, which in turn constitute criteria for evaluating the productivity of the professional activity of the specialist. The question of the formation of leadership qualities for the successful professional activity of a conductor-choirmaster is included in the circle of discussion topics of modern musicology, music pedagogy and psychology. Among the recent publications dedicated to leadership theory are articles by O. Bortnikova (2017), O. Kozak (2019), A. Chornyi (2018), R. E. Riggio & T. Newstead (2023), works by P. G. Northouse (2018), A. Menehetti (2019). The question of the psychological characteristics of the professional activities of a musician-performer and the qualities necessary for its successful implementation is addressed in the works of T. Smirnova (2021), I. Poluboiarina (2013), O. Komarovska (2014), O. Prokulevych (2017). Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The discourse on acquiring, along with professional knowledge and skills, the so-called “soft skills” – the skills that help to grow professionally and achieve success in the field of conducting and choral skills remains open. The purpose of the research is to determine the influence of leadership qualities on the effectiveness of the professional activity of a conductor-choirmaster and to justify the connection between the formation of necessary competencies and successful multi-vector career growth of the specialist. The study primarily involves a systematic, competence-based, and activity-based approaches to analyzing factors influencing the effectiveness of the professional activities of a conductor-choirmaster, the development of his/her leadership potential, and the success of career growth. Conclusion. Formation of leadership qualities involves providing tools for self-realization both in the professional sphere and in the social environment as a leader. In turn, leadership is an essential component for achieving professional competence, without which the full self-realization of the conductor-choirmaster is impossible. Statement of the problem. Recent research and publications. The relevance of the problem of developing leadership qualities is associated not only with the professional characteristics of the conductors but also with various directions of their professional career. After all, a conductor is not just a musicianperformer but also an artistic leader of the ensemble, and sometimes even an artistic leader of the musical community. Each of these positions requires an analysis of competencies, which in turn constitute criteria for evaluating the productivity of the professional activity of the specialist. The question of the formation of leadership qualities for the successful professional activity of a conductor-choirmaster is included in the circle of discussion topics of modern musicology, music pedagogy and psychology. Among the recent publications dedicated to leadership theory are articles by O. Bortnikova (2017), O. Kozak (2019), A. Chornyi (2018), R. E. Riggio & T. Newstead (2023), works by P. G. Northouse (2018), A. Menehetti (2019). The question of the psychological characteristics of the professional activities of a musician-performer and the qualities necessary for its successful implementation is addressed in the works of T. Smirnova (2021), I. Poluboiarina (2013), O. Komarovska (2014), O. Prokulevych (2017). Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The discourse on acquiring, along with professional knowledge and skills, the so-called “soft skills” – the skills that help to grow professionally and achieve success in the field of conducting and choral skills remains open. The purpose of the research is to determine the influence of leadership qualities on the effectiveness of the professional activity of a conductor-choirmaster and to justify the connection between the formation of necessary competencies and successful multi-vector career growth of the specialist. The study primarily involves a systematic, competence-based, and activity-based approaches to analyzing factors influencing the effectiveness of the professional activities of a conductor-choirmaster, the development of his/her leadership potential, and the success of career growth. Conclusion. Formation of leadership qualities involves providing tools for self-realization both in the professional sphere and in the social environment as a leader. In turn, leadership is an essential component for achieving professional competence, without which the full self-realization of the conductor-choirmaster is impossible. Leadership enables organizing and motivating the team, effectively managing the performance process, and ensuring high-quality professional activity. Such professional efficiency in work leads to an enhancement of the conductor’s reputation in the artistic field and may provide new opportunities for career advancement, including obtaining higher positions or the chance to work with prominent musical ensembles.

On Intonation in Chamber Music Ensemble

As an important form of music performance, chamber music ensemble requires a high skill and cooperation of the player. Among them, the pitch is particularly critical, which directly affects the harmony of the performance and the feeling of the audience. This article aims to explore the causes, effects and solutions of the pitch problem in chamber music ensemble. Through the combing of relevant literature, combined with practical experience, it analyzes many factors of the pitch problem, and proposes targeted solutions.

Leadership dynamics in musical groups: Quantifying effects of musical structure on directionality of influence in concert performance videos.

Music ensemble performance provides an ecologically valid context for investigating leadership dynamics in small group interactions. Musical texture, specifically the relative salience of simultaneously sounding ensemble parts, is a feature that can potentially alter leadership dynamics by introducing hierarchical relationships between individual parts. The present study extended previous work on quantifying interpersonal coupling in musical ensembles by examining the relationship between musical texture and leader-follower relations, operationalised as directionality of influence between co-performers' body motion in concert video recordings. It was hypothesised that the directionality of influence, indexed by Granger Causality, would be greater for 'homophonic' textures with a clear distinction between melody and accompaniment parts than for 'polyphonic' textures with less distinction between melody and accompaniment. This hypothesis was tested by using pose estimation algorithms to track instrumentalists' body movements in a string quartet and a clarinet quintet, and then applying Granger Causality analysis to their head motion to estimate directional influence between instrumentalist pairs for sections of the pieces that varied in texture. It was found that Granger Causality values were generally higher (indicating greater directionality of influence) for homophonic than polyphonic textures. Furthermore, considering melody and accompaniment instrument roles revealed more evidence for the melody instrument influencing accompanying instruments than vice versa, plus a high degree of directionality among accompanying instruments, in homophonic textures. These observed patterns of directional information flow in co-performer body motion are consistent with changing leader-follower relations depending on hierarchical relations between ensemble parts in terms of the relative salience of melodic material in the musical texture. The finding that automatic pose estimation can detect modulations of leadership dynamics in standard video recordings under naturalistic performance conditions has implications for investigating interpersonal coordination in large-scale music video datasets representing different cultural traditions, and for exploring nonverbal communication in group activities more generally.

The Neural Orchestra: Cognitive Instrumentalities

Abstract Over the past several decades, the field of cognitive neuroscience has drawn with increasing frequency on the figure of the “neural orchestra,” a metaphor mapping the activities of localized cortical areas onto sections of a musical ensemble. Popularized by (among others) the neuroscientist Elkhonon Goldberg, the trope is often hailed by contemporary scientists as a new invention—a modern alternative to computational paradigms of cognition. And yet, as I argue here, the concept of the brain orchestra is far from new. Neural-orchestral cartographies originated in the phrenological theory of Franz Joseph Gall in the 1810s, then threaded through medical, ethnographic, anthropological, and pedagogical writing of the later nineteenth century, from the phreno-magnetic tracts of Mariano Cubí y Soler to the psychiatric diagnoses of Théodule-Armand Ribot. Fusing metaphysical concepts of harmony with theories of hierarchical cerebral organology, symphonic minds were products of an epistemological overlap between neural and musical discourses. Crucial to both domains was the newly powerful figure of the podium conductor, conceived as an overarching form of attentional control yoking players into powerful cognitive, musical, and political wholes. The result was a musical neurophysiology refracted through the lenses of imperial technocracy and authoritarian forms of centralization. Today, the historical and neuropolitical forces that generated the Romantic mind orchestra have been largely forgotten, but they continue to exert a spectral influence, hovering behind our conception of the “well-conducted mind,” our descriptions of “orchestrated” attention, and our psychopolitical fear of distraction.

Negotiating Genre, Style, and Contemporality in an Intergenerational Irish Music Ensemble

This article examines community negotiations of genre and style through the lens of intergenerational collaboration in a contemporary Irish music ensemble at Florida State University. In this ensemble, community members participated alongside university students in the ensemble through a state-funded senior education program. Throughout this process, students and community members navigated differences between local scene-established formats of musical material and new student-directed arrangements. Community members articulated desires to ‘keep the scene going’ and establish community longevity while negotiating this “shifting topography” (Shuker 2001: 6) of popular-traditional genre practice. The practices of this ensemble, explored through an autoethnographic lens with interview contributions from student and community members, build on existing studies on intergenerational ensemble practices (Harrington 2021, Conway and Hodgman 2008, Jang 2020), genre negotiation (Holt 2007), and aging identity (Bennet and Hodkinson 2012). This suggests important implications for intergenerational music-making and building music communities with deep generational and musical diversity.

Upsetting the gender imbalance in African popular music: The example of Diepreye Osi of the Ịjọ (Ijaw) of Nigeria

For sometime now, there has been a conversation among scholars about male hegemony in African popular music and how some women performers resist the established status quo. In joining the discourse in this article, I focus on the owigiri music of Diepreye Osi, a female bandleader among the Ịjọ of Nigeria’s Niger Delta region. With particular attention to the departments in the bands of that premier neo-traditional music in the Ịjọ community, including instrumentation, dancing and singing, I argue that Diepreye contests patriarchy in her musical ensemble. Data for the study was gathered from unstructured interviews of artists and non-artists, and observation of live performances.

Music and community in South Tyrol: Perspectives, projects and research

This article deals with the importance of music-making within both instrumental and vocal ensembles in South Tyrol based on the results of two different research projects: ‘Cultura musicale e funzione sociale della musica in Alto Adige’ (‘Music culture and the social function of music in South Tyrol’), by Paolo Somigli and Ilaria Riccioni, and ‘Going to the Source’, carried out by Antonella Coppi. Through a reflection on the two research projects, this article aims to provide an image of the role of music in the South Tyrolean community; although the two research projects were carried out between 2011 and 2019 overall, they are still relevant, as they represent ground-breaking research in this region. The two research projects complement each other in a reciprocal contextualization of issues about the role of non-formal musical ensembles in developing the social and cultural fabric in South Tyrol. The different perspectives and objects of the two studies offer a broader view of music-making, not only from a musicological but also from a sociological and pedagogical perspective.

Ability-Responsive Instruction in Secondary Ensembles: Lessons From COVID-Era Interactions

After making instructional changes due to COVID-19 lockdowns, secondary ensemble teachers reported stronger personal connections with students and increased focus on developing individual musicianship. Using an online survey, we examined if and how the shift to online instruction affected secondary music ensemble teachers’ perceptions and practices regarding individualizing instruction, particularly for students with Individual Education Plans (IEPs) or 504s. Respondents ( N = 99) answered short-answer and Likert-type items. Overall, they rated themselves as effective at individualizing instruction and meeting music learning needs for students with IEPs and 504s both online and in person. Participants shared strategies they used online and in person, including using individual video assessment submissions and at-home practice videos. We conclude with suggestions for how secondary music ensemble teachers could extrapolate the practices we described in this article to their classrooms.

Student-perceived social interactions in university musical ensembles predicted group identification

Group identification is a key process in the development of an individual’s social identity. This study examined whether student-perceived social interactions in university ensembles could shape their group identification. The sample included 517 university students from 7 ensembles of 2 universities in China. Student-perceived teacher–student relationships, peer relationships, cooperation, and equity in university ensembles were measured by the revised College and University Classroom Environment Inventory. Students’ group identification was measured by the questionnaire for identification with art-based groups. Data were collected and further analyzed by structural equation modeling via Amos 23. The results showed that students’ perceptions of teacher–student relationships, peer relationships, and cooperation had positive effects on their identification with the university ensemble, but the teacher’s differential treatment had negative effects on their group identification.

Networking concert halls, musicians, and interactive textiles: Interwoven Sound Spaces

ABSTRACT Interwoven Sound Spaces is an interdisciplinary project which brought together telematic music performance, interactive textiles, interaction design, and artistic research. A team of researchers collaborated with two professional contemporary music ensembles based in Berlin, Germany, and Piteå, Sweden, and four composers, with the aim of creating a telematic distributed concert taking place simultaneously in two concert halls and online. Central to the project was the development of interactive textiles capable of sensing the musicians’ movements while playing acoustic instruments, and generating data the composers used in their works. Musicians, instruments, textiles, sounds, halls, and data formed a network of entities and agencies that was reconfigured for each piece, showing how networked music practice enables distinctive musicking techniques. We describe each part of the project and report on a research interview conducted with one of the composers for the purpose of analysing the creative approaches she adopted for composing her piece.