Musical Devices Research Articles

‘After All the Years of Separation’: Musically Representing Author L.M. Montgomery’s Suspended Romances

Canadian author L.M. Montgomery did not set out to write stories about romance. As she indicated in her journals, she wrote character-driven stories of young girls navigating their way through girlhood. However, she understood that the public, and her publishers, expected these girls to experience romance that culminated in marriage, following the societal traditions of the time. Montgomery managed this dichotomy by having many characters experience a suspended romance, delaying the romantic aspect of the relationship for as long as possible. Arts-based practice is a mode of analysis and offers the opportunity to find a new way of understanding and communicating Montgomery’s type of suspended romance. Music is, in many ways, considered romantic, so it is an appropriate medium to communicate Montgomery’s romantic narrative structures. This paper investigates Montgomery’s use of suspended romance in her novels and how this delay provided her characters with time to develop other areas of their lives. An arts-based methodology was used to identify and analyse recurring themes in Montgomery’s work, as the question is not can Montgomery’s theme of romance be musically represented but how. The result of this creative experimentation is a new musical composition that articulates these suspended romances using six different musical devices. This creative work exemplifies the intertextual link that exists between Montgomery’s work and new musical compositions.

Musician-AI partnership mediated by emotionally-aware smart musical instruments

The integration of emotion recognition capabilities within musical instruments can spur the emergence of novel art formats and services for musicians. This paper proposes the concept of emotionally-aware smart musical instruments, a class of musical devices embedding an artificial intelligence agent able to recognize the emotion contained in the musical signal. This spurs the emergence of novel services for musicians. Two prototypes of emotionally-aware smart piano and smart electric guitar were created, which embedded a recognition method for happiness, sadness, relaxation, aggressiveness and combination thereof. A user study, conducted with eleven pianists and eleven electric guitarists, revealed the strengths and limitations of the developed technology. On average musicians appreciated the proposed concept, who found its value in various musical activities. Most of participants tended to justify the system with respect to erroneous or partially erroneous classifications of the emotions they expressed, reporting to understand the reasons why a given output was produced. Some participants even seemed to trust more the system than their own judgments. Conversely, other participants requested to improve the accuracy, reliability and explainability of the system in order to achieve a higher degree of partnership with it. Our results suggest that, while desirable, perfect prediction of the intended emotion is not an absolute requirement for music emotion recognition to be useful in the construction of smart musical instruments.

Observable flow experience in Japanese children’s interactions with musical instrument digital interface instruments, violins, and bells

Despite the existing research on flow in music education, there remains a lack of researches in understanding children’s flow experiences in the context of playing musical instrument, electronic technological instruments, and other traditional instruments. This study investigates the observable flow experience among young children during their interactions with musical instrument digital interface instruments, violins, and bell-like instruments. The research employed a case study approach, with 20 children aged two to nine (11 females and nine males) participating in the study. In the study, we, as practitioner-researchers, offered workshops for children to experience a variety of traditional and non-traditional musical instruments. Throughout the study, researchers collected 89 video clips for analysis, using four cameras operated by four assistants who were trained to capture children’s flow in a musical context. These monthly sessions, each lasting an average of 60 min, began with the first session dedicated to capturing the very first encounter of children with various musical devices, instruments, and materials. Custodero’s Flow Indicators in Musical Activities captured children’s flow experiences during workshops. The findings included interpretations of the children’s flow experiences as they explored different devices, instruments, and materials, with a particular emphasis on accessibility and developmental considerations within the social context of children’s musical flow.

Autisme et médiation thérapeutique musicale immersive : l’espace comme composante du timbre

ObjectivesThe aim of this article is to highlight the clinical effects of an immersive music device used as a therapeutic mediator with autistic children. As musical immersion is based on the hypothesis that space is a component of timbre, the aim is to bring together in a novel way two major problematic issues in autism: space and voice. To do this, post-Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytical references are mobilized and discussed. MethodAfter a technical presentation of the immersive device and an explanation of the spatial and aesthetic characteristics of the works played on it, the authors describe the clinical case of an 11-year-old autistic child and identify the different stages of the relationship. The initially observed effects of containment were quickly limited, and the child almost rejected the system. It was only during a work based on different spatializations of a voice that the child was able to reengage with the device and with the relationship with the caregiver as “a double,” going so far as to invent games that included him. To shed light on the subjectivizing effects of these sessions, the authors first recall the specific relationship that the autistic subject has with the voice as an “a object,” relying in particular on the notion of “delocalization of the voice,” which is active in all devices for distancing the timbre, the latter being understood as one of the names of the Real of the voice. The article goes on to describe in detail the spatial characteristics of the work to which the child was so sensitive in renewing his relationship with the other. After analysis, the work in question turns out to be composed not of a single unified or unifying space, but of several sound spaces, sometimes broadcast simultaneously. ResultsThe notion of the delocalization of the voice is then confronted with the fact that the work of immersive music can offer much more than a simple point of delocalization of the voice in the same space: it offers the experience of several simultaneous sound spaces, which we call a “delocalization of the delocalization of the voice,” making it possible to relieve the autistic subject of what Lacan called the “real weight of the subject” implied by the voice object. DiscussionThe article raises several points for discussion: firstly, immersive musical works should not be considered as recreating a realistic sound environment (of the virtual reality type), but rather as proposing impossible sound spaces. In this respect, there are both aesthetic and ethical issues at stake in the clinical use that can be made of these immersive musical devices. Moreover, the construction of autistic space is not just a matter of the gaze but also of the voice in its impulsive dimension. Finally, the “delocalization of the delocalization” of the voice would enable the autistic subject to experience the atopic part of it, i.e. its impossible localization. Space is thus constructed around an atopic point. ConclusionsThe article seeks to demonstrate how the clinical use of therapeutic mediation through art can intersect with current research in electroacoustic composition, making it possible to revive theoretical and clinical questions about both space and voice. The immersive dimension is thus considered from both a musical and a transferential perspective.

MUSIC OF NAMES IN EDGAR ALAN POE’S WORKS

This paper is an attempt to survey aesthetic potential of E. Poe’s anthroponomy and to analyse the author’s unique strategy in the process of creating the names of his characters. This study aims at explicating the functioning of literary names in the works of American romanticist and at defining the specific features of their semantic content. The writer worked out theory of musicality within the frames of his own concept of “unity of effect”. Masterly balancing the sounds as figure melodies of a musical staff became the basis of his nomination principle, adding special emotional content both to the name itself and the tale or the poem, mobilizing reader’s emotional intelligence in the process of poetic reception. As a result, several kinds of Poe’s musical devices have been sorted out. Among the most widely used components of writer’s musical approach to anthroponomy are sonority (phonetic musical level); symbolic content of sounds or psychological parallelism (sematic musical level); rhythm (repetition of sounds in the nominative segments, acoustic symmetry); melodiousness (as a tendency towards elegiac, muted beauty); connection with visual arts. The above characteristics became the markers of Poe’s idiostyle, demonstrated the unity of “sound and thought” as a prerequisite for creating new meanings. These factors help to underline the specific features of E. Poe’s aesthetic and philosophical perception. Such an approach may be used for investigation of modern technique in the works of contemporary writers and poets as it helps to delve into some principles of synthesis of Arts in Post-modern paradigm.

Arabic literature: Ali Ahmed Ba-Kathir’s Omar ibn Al-Khattab an epic verse drama (1)

This paper attempts to cast light on a leading poet-playwright who signifies several Arabic cultures, proficiencies, and skills. The study aims at revealing to what extent the play Omar is a modern Arabic poetic play. Omar is a historical drama that deals with social problems. Omar presents a vision of Arabic drama in the modern age, but it is also a poetic play. For that, it is the task of the researcher to try to prove that Omar bears several grounds, such as poetic devices and connotative symbols, to be called a poetic drama. The investigator adopts the critical-descriptive method in analyzing the first scene of the introduction of the play, Omar. The paper is planned with an introductory overview dealing with a brief view of poetic drama and blank verse. The second part deals with Ali Ahmad Ba-Kathir as a pioneer poet-dramatist. The main part of the study deals with the epic play Omar with reference to the first scene of the introduction, shedding light on the skillfulness of the writer in manipulating poetic and musical devices. The task finishes with recommendations and a brief conclusion.

Design and Assessment of Digital Musical Devices Yielding Vibrotactile Feedback

Touch has a pivotal importance in determining the expressivity of musical performance for a number of musical instruments. However, most digital musical devices provide no interactive force and/or vibratory feedback to the performer, thus depriving the somatosensory channel of a number of cues. Is the lack of haptic feedback only an aesthetic issue, or does it remove cues essential for digital instrument playing? If so, at which level is the interaction objectively impoverished? What are the effects on musical performance? In this survey article we illustrate our recent research about the use of vibrotactile feedback in three digital instrument interfaces, using tools that we developed over several years and made available to the community in open-source form. These interfaces span a wide range of familiarity and gestural opportunities, enabling us to explore the impact of haptic feedback on different types of digital instruments. We conducted experiments with professional musicians to assess the impact of vibratory cues on both the perceived quality of the instrument and the playing experience, as well as on musical performance. Particular attention was paid to scientific rigor and repeatability of the results, so as to serve as a reference for researchers and practitioners of the musical haptics community. Our results suggest a significant role of vibrotactile feedback in shaping the perception of digital musical instruments, although the effects on musical performance varied depending on the interfaces tested.

From Grinder to Nipper: Opera, Music Technology and Italian American (Self-)Representation

AbstractIn this article I argue that the longstanding practice of depicting Italian Americans as opera lovers stems from a tradition associating Italian immigrants with mechanical music devices. As a growing number of Italian unskilled labourers entered the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, they were stereotyped as street musicians, and especially as organ grinders, in mainstream popular culture. Beginning in the 1900s, recording manufacturers strove to make home phonographs appealing to the middle class by breaking the chain of mechanical, social and racial associations that connected the phonograph with earlier musical devices such as the barrel organ, and with those who played them. Because of the prominent marketing role that record labels assigned to Italian opera, this commercial strategy had important consequences for the genre as well as for Italian immigrants, who leveraged opera's renewed visibility and audibility into an effective vessel for social and political empowerment.

Exotic Toys, Musical Centralities and Power Reversals: The Early Reception of European Keyboard Music and Instruments in East Asia 20

Western music first achieved a sustained presence in East Asia during the sixteenth century, brought to this ‘distant’ region by European traders and missionaries. However, its dissemination remained limited for some three centuries to specific locales such as the area of southern Japan around Nagasaki and the Chinese imperial court in Beijing. Even so, investigation of the early phases of this cross [1]cultural encounter helps to illuminate the process by which Asian listeners gradually assimilated the alien quality of Europe’s musical sounds as transmitted especially by its keyboard instruments, to such a degree that these came to function as a native language of sorts. The present article will discuss the following aspects: the exotic fascination with the technological complexity of the foreigners’ musical devices, taking precedence over any aesthetic engagement with the music; the initial clash and then shift in musical centralities in the sense formulated by Bruno Nettl, that is, the selective emphasis of parameters (e.g. polyphony, timbre) that define musical creation, listening and thought; the applicability to the history of Sino-Western exchange of Emily Dolan’s notion of ‘keyboardisation’, an idiosyncratic reconceptualisation of musical content that would eventually acquire normative force; questions of colonisation and reverse colonisation in understanding the complex power dynamics that shaped this global musical encounter.

ИСПОЛЬЗОВАНИЕ ИСКУССТВЕННОГО ИНТЕЛЛЕКТА ДЛЯ ЭМУЛЯЦИИ ГИТАРНЫХ ЭФФЕКТОВ

The work is devoted to the creation of an open library and special solutions in the field of artificial intelligence technologies, tools for working and analyzing speech, sounds and music. The project is based on the artificial intelligence training. Work will be done on the extraction of analog sound, the creation of trained neural networks. The end product will be the creation of musical devices in the form of a music playback and creation tool and preprocessors and sequencers for electric guitars and synthesizers, which is able to combine several music processing processors, as well as unique algorithms for arpeggiators and playing style modulations.

'FOR EVERMORE': AN EXAMINATION OF MUSICAL EKPHRASES OF E. A. POE'S "THE RAVEN".

This article analyses the transfer of poetic language into music, focusing on Edgar Allan Poe’s celebrated poem “The Raven” (1845). After a theoretical study on poetic language and theoretical questions regarding transmediation, I look into different pieces of instrumental music directly inspired by Poe’s lines. To this end, I draw on groundbreaking research regarding media transformation by authors such as Lars Elleström, whose work provides the theoretical framework, and, most especially, Siglind Bruhn, who has written about the relation between poetry and music, and who coined the term “musical ekphrasis”. Finally, I argue that these composers transmediate Poe’s “The Raven” by using musical devices similar to those employed by Poe in his poem. Particularly important for this analysis will be compulsive repetition and variation as strategies of the musical ekphrasis, and the re-presentation of the uncanny in music. This article analyses the transfer of poetic language into music, focusing on Edgar Allan Poe’s celebrated poem “The Raven” (1845). After a theoretical study on poetic language and theoretical questions regarding transmediation, I look into different pieces of instrumental music directly inspired by Poe’s lines. To this end, I draw on groundbreaking research regarding media transformation by authors such as Lars Elleström, whose work provides the theoretical framework, and, most especially, Siglind Bruhn, who has written about the relation between poetry and music, and who coined the term “musical ekphrasis”. Finally, I argue that these composers transmediate Poe’s “The Raven” by using musical devices similar to those employed by Poe in his poem. Particularly important for this analysis will be compulsive repetition and variation as strategies of the musical ekphrasis, and the re-presentation of the uncanny in music.

Tugging at Heartstrings

The love theme is one of the central musicodramatic topics of classic Hollywood music but, thus far, little scholarly attention has been paid to the specific musical devices used by film composers to depict love. To the extent that musical analysis has entered the picture at all, it has tended to focus on the motivic level, despite the fact that much of the emotional alchemy of film music resides in its harmonic structure. This is particularly true for classic Hollywood love themes, which often draw on subtle chromatic inflections to weave their affective spells. In this article, we will address two particular harmonic schemas associated with romance during the studio era: (1) the Heartstring schema, which involves the inflection of a major tonic by a chromatic chord usually centered on b6^, and (2) the downstep modulation, a variant of the circle-of-fifths sequence. Both schemas rely on the bittersweet frisson between major and minor modes, a tension that contributes significantly to the emotional punch still packed by the great love themes of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Against Augmentation

This article originated from a conversation between John Richards and Tim Shaw. The conversation is a response to the journal’s theme, Augmented Instruments. Instead of focusing on just one instrument, the authors decided to talk more generally about their overall aesthetic and process of making performance-installations. The conversation touches on augmentation, DIY instruments, unpredictability, and offers the reader examples of their own self-made musical devices. The discussion concludes with three emergent themes: Reductionism, Raw Materials, and Fields of Influence. They hope this transcribed conversation provides a useful starting point for readers interested in Richards’ and Shaw’s experimental approach to electronic music and idiosyncratic instrument design.

Exploring older adult needs and preferences for technology-assisted group music-making. A qualitative analysis of data collected during the participatory user-centred design process

Purpose Engagement with arts, recreation and leisure is highly valued by older adults, with positive links to their continued wellbeing. Despite an availability of new music technology, these devices are rarely designed with older adults in mind. This project explores the needs and preferences of older adults in residential care as they interact with digital music interfaces in a group music-making context. Materials and methods Twenty participants at an Australian residential aged-care facility were involved in a user-centred design process (20 sessions across six months) to develop digital music interfaces suitable for group music-making. Participants’ verbal comments were audio-recorded and transcribed, supported by further written observation notes made by the activity facilitators. Results A hybrid inductive and deductive approach to thematic analysis revealed three main themes: individual music-making, ensemble music-making and social engagement. Our results suggest that when interfaces are designed with older adults in mind, technology-assisted group music-making can facilitate bringing together residents with different experiences and abilities. Conclusions These findings suggest implications for rehabilitation in developing a range of musical devices for older adults to account for required flexibility, whilst maintaining an appropriate and satisfyingly “rich” musical outcome.

The Exotic in Nineteenth-Century French Opera, Part 2: Plots, Characters, and Musical Devices

Nineteenth-century French opera is renowned for its obsession with “the exotic”—that is, with lands and peoples either located far away from “us” Western Europeans or understood as being very different from us. One example: hyper-passionate Spaniards and “Gypsies” in Bizet’s Carmen. Most discussions of the role that the exotic plays in nineteenth-century French opera focus on a few standard-repertory works (mainly serious in nature), rather than looking at a wider range of significant works performed at the time in various theaters, e.g., the Opéra, the Opéra-Comique, and Offenbach’s Bouffes-Parisiens. The present article attempts to survey the repertory broadly. Part 1 examines various “different” (or Other) lands and peoples frequently represented on stage in French operas. Part 2 discusses typical plots and character types found in these operas (sometimes regardless of the particular exotic land that was chosen) and concludes by exploring the musical means that were often employed to impel the drama and to convey the specific qualities of the people or ethnic group being represented (as a community—through chorus and authority figures—and through the feelings and actions of individual characters). These musical means could include special or unusual traits: either all-purpose style markers of the exotic generally (oddities, one might say) or more specific style markers associated with an identifiable people or region (e.g., tunes, rhythms, and other devices understood as signaling one particular region). But the musical means could also include any of the rich fund of devices that opera composers normally used when creating drama and defining character: melodic, harmonic, structural, and so on. This last point is often neglected or misunderstood in discussions of “the exotic in music,” which tend instead to focus primarily on elements that indisputably “point to” (as if semiotically) the specific land or people that the work is seeking to evoke or represent. In both Parts 1 and 2, instances are chosen from works that were often quite successfully performed at the time in French-speaking regions and that, even if little known today, can at least be consulted through recordings or videos. The works come from the standard recognized operatic genres: e.g., five-act grands opéras, three-act opéras-comiques, and short works in bouffe style. Composers whose works are mentioned, or discussed in some detail, include (among others) Adam, Auber, Berlioz, Bizet, Chabrier, Clapisson, Félicien David, Delibes, Flotow, Gomis, Gounod, Halévy, Messager, Meyerbeer, Hippolyte Monpou, Offenbach, Ernest Reyer, Saint-Saëns, Ambroise Thomas, and Verdi (Les vêpres siciliennes, Don Carlos). Examining certain lesser-known works reveals merits that have gone relatively unheralded. As for the better-known works, approaching them in this wide-angled way grants us a richer appreciation of their strengths and their often-enlivening internal contradictions.

A Story of us: A New Look at Human Evolution

A Story of us: A New Look at Human Evolution

Commentary on "Imagist Poetry and Clinical Medicine: Arts of Observation, Precision, and Expression".

Commentary on "Imagist Poetry and Clinical Medicine: Arts of Observation, Precision, and Expression".

Elk Audio OS

As the Internet of Musical Things (IoMusT) emerges, audio-specific operating systems (OSs) are required on embedded hardware to ease development and portability of IoMusT applications. Despite the increasing importance of IoMusT applications, in this article, we show that there is no OS able to fulfill the diverse requirements of IoMusT systems. To address such a gap, we propose the Elk Audio OS as a novel and open source OS in this space. It is a Linux-based OS optimized for ultra-low-latency and high-performance audio and sensor processing on embedded hardware, as well as for handling wireless connectivity to local and remote networks. Elk Audio OS uses the Xenomai real-time kernel extension, which makes it suitable for the most demanding of low-latency audio tasks. We provide the first comprehensive overview of Elk Audio OS, describing its architecture and the key components of interest to potential developers and users. We explain operational aspects like the configuration of the architecture and the control mechanisms of the internal sound engine, as well as the tools that enable an easier and faster development of connected musical devices. Finally, we discuss the implications of Elk Audio OS, including the development of an open source community around it.

Orchestrating Public Opinion: How Music Persuades in Television Political Ads for US Presidential Campaigns, 1952–2016 by Paul Christiansen

Reviewed by: Orchestrating Public Opinion: How Music Persuades in Television Political Ads for US Presidential Campaigns, 1952–2016 by Paul Christiansen Sarah J. Dietsche Orchestrating Public Opinion: How Music Persuades in Television Political Ads for US Presidential Campaigns, 1952–2016. By Paul Christiansen. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018. [276 p. ISBN 9789462981881 (hardcover), $120; ISBN 9789048531677 (e-book), price varies.] Music examples, tables, interviews, glossary of musical terms, bibliography, index. As art forms go, music has a unique ability to tap into our most primal emotions. It can shape our perceptions, change our moods, literally alter our brain function. Yet we often view music as safe. We see ourselves as in control of the music in our lives. We can, after all, choose what we listen to, switch songs, or simply turn it off. We forget that there are times we do not have such control. There are times that we might not even consciously register that music is being played, like when watching television or a movie. Even when we do notice the music in these environments, we rarely consider its effect on us. Paul Christiansen's book addresses this exact situation. Christiansen offers an in-depth rumination on the power of music to persuade voters and potentially alter election results in a medium where viewers are neither actively choosing nor often aware of the music they are hearing. In Orchestrating Public Opinion, Christiansen argues that music is one of the most, if not the most, influential components of political advertising. He makes the case that the other elements in advertising rely on music to convey emotional content. In the most effective ads, the use of music can circumvent logical reasoning and activate an autonomic emotional response. Christiansen notes that in previous work regarding political ads, music is barely mentioned or is given perfunctory treatment. He seeks to fill this void and provide a historically informed and musically literate perspective on how music can be used in televised political ads to persuade voters. His stated goal in this is to help viewers understand and counteract this form of persuasion. Christiansen is an associate professor of music at Seton Hall University. Though much of his early career was devoted to research on Czech music, he has spent the last decade focused primarily on music in political advertisements. His research interest in this area grew out of his undergraduate work in media and television production as well as a seminar he taught on music in television commercials. Several of the discussions in Orchestrating Public Opinion are taken from earlier [End Page 616] published articles and conference papers on the music used in specific election cycles. The main body of the book follows the historical evolution of political ad music from its jingle-like origins in the days of Dwight D. Eisenhower to its more cinematic iterations today. The discussions are limited to the general elections, and the ads Christiansen chooses are generally one minute long or less. Certain ads are presented in more detail, particularly those seen as groundbreaking. He begins each chapter with a short summary of major world events during the year being discussed. This helps the reader understand the societal context within which the election was happening and, therefore, the issues that influenced voters. He follows this with a short overview of the candidates, the election, and the ways music was used in the election. Often this introduction serves as a conclusion of the chapter's findings as well. Following these introductory portions, Christiansen offers several case studies of specific ads from each year that exemplify the musical devices in use at that time. He describes all aspects of each ad, including the visuals, voice over, on-screen text, and of course, the musical/aural elements. These aural elements are contextualized as to how they accentuate, detract, or give meaning to the other components of the ad. The case studies range from short to in-depth. In the more detailed discussions, Christiansen provides theoretical dissections of musical elements. For a musically literate audience, these provide a concrete way of understanding the ways that music can be used to manipulate a listener's emotional response. Throughout the book, Christiansen...

Technology-centred learning processes as digital artistic development: On the reciprocal effects of conceptual models, metaphors and presets

This case study looks at a self-directed learning process of a professional classical-trained musician adopting a previously unknown digital-material musical device. In order to achieve the desired artistic result, the musician has to modify his music-related action in favour of the device’s calls for action, which are shown to him by a preset session. For this purpose, a specific interface relation must be established in the connection between the user and the device. The case study is contrasted with data from its framing research project. Findings include aspects as affirmation or degrees of unfamiliarity and their respective impacts on the subject’s action repertoires. A model of learning in the context of digital media or interfaces is introduced and discussed. It offers a specific potential for identifying particularities of how meaning and functionality of digital-material musical devices are embedded into everyday artistic contexts.