Field Of Music Research Articles

`New Music' between Search for Identity and Autopoiesis

The so-called New Music in Europe after the Second World War was based on the idea of progress, similar to technological progress and related to it, and aimed at a complete rationalization of composing. The ideal of music as autopoiesis, which appeared in the 1950s, became inherent to this development. It supposed a kind of communication on music as a reified object, which opposed music making and listening as communication between partners. Separated from the life-world and conceived as a self-referential system, New Music should represent not only the logical achievement of the historical development of European music, but also the superiority of Western musical thought in the more developed countries (like the USA, France, West Germany) over the music cultures of the world. Therefore, the integral serialism, which should rule the musical composition, became a form of symbolic power within the musical field, in correspondence with similar forms of domination within the economic, political and technological fields. However, some European composers rejected this trend and tried to find an alternative to aestheticism by means of political engagement. For instance, the Italian composer Luigi Nono (1924-90) explores the dialectic between subject and object, technological development and critique of technology, avant-garde and critique of progress, globalization and anti-imperialistic resistance. In his strategy, in which Gramsci's and Walter Benjamin's thought played an important role, aesthetics became inseparable from politics. His search for identity as a composer transforms the tragedy of listening into an allegory of human condition.

The 'liedhafte E-Melodik'

For Hungarian ethnomusicologists it is a well-known idea that the melodic material of medieval plainchant repertory may have left its mark on the folkmusic tradition either in the form of concrete melodies or perhaps even more in the use of melodic models. When firstly Zoltan Kodily drew attention to the possible connection of the two musical fields he still remained at the level of supposition but urged musicologists to investigate more deeply this topic.' His wish was fulfilled by further research: Benjamin Rajeczky, Liszl6 Dobszay, Janka Szendrei, Lajos Vargyas to mention only a few names discussed a great number of instancies where the influence of the liturgical plainchant repertory on folk tradition can be detected even if the number of concrete melodic correspondences proved to be relatively small. Although, it is also a commonplace in the history of research that the medieval musical practice existing outside the frame of the liturgy may also have influenced the late medieval formation of plainchant repertory, we encounter relatively rarely a detailed discussion of this subject based on concrete evidence. In the following, I shall offer a brief survey of a special area of the medieval liturgical plainchant repertory that firstly, belong to a relatively late stage of the history of gregorian monody, secondly traditionally offered a large scope for creative endeavours in every epoch and region and finally, might have incorporated features coming from outside of and alien to traditional gregorian melodic thinking. Furthermore I shall summarize and subject to criticism the opinions of musicologists concerning the melodic style under discussion.

MediaWeaver—A Distributed Media Authoring System for Networked Scholarly Workspaces

We describe MediaWeaver—a software framework for composing distributed media in the context of university research and instruction. Authors compose networked media, software tools and mediastreams, and can freely annotate media by media of any form using schema of their own design. Faculty and student authors compose distributed media using common Macintosh, World Wide Web and NeXTSTEP applications, supported by services from UNIX workstations. The MediaWeaver system mediates between network multimedia services and interface kits with which novice programmers and non-programmers may easily create radically different interactive views into shared mediabases. The network services include search engine abstractions, filters, relational modeling frameworks. MediaWeaver has supported collaborative projects in history, drama, music, art, anthropology, environmental studies, and other fields since 1993. Applications range from traditional relational text databases and indexed HTML WWW sites to course readers, research archives, journals and seminar spaces.

Nonprofit and Commercial Music: Three Musicians' Experience

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsSusan AllenSusan Allen is the associate dean of music at the California Institute of the Arts and an instructor of harp. She has worked extensively in the nonprofit and commercial music fields.

Change and Invariance in the Traditional Performing Arts

This article draws upon evidence from four areas of the traditional performing arts in Scotland oral balladry, popular printed song, the light music (ceol beag) of the Highland bagpipe, and piobaireachd to examine the mechanisms of change and consider whether these may be in some way inimical to 'tradition'. 1 The traditional performing arts are closely related. Singers borrow tunes and re­ create words; musicians develop ideas from their own and adjacent musical fields; the instrumental tradition is in turn inseparable from the dance culture which it serves. Words are linked to all these activities through 'genealogies of learning,' (the process by which performers trace their descent through a succession of distinguished schools or master teachers), 2 verbal teaching routines and performance directions, and tales of every sort concerning the famous players and composers, ranging from anecdotes about people like Niel Gow, to folk tales about doomed MacCrimmons grappling with nameless horrors in the Cave of Gold. 3 All of these strands may be present in a single individual: for example, the Highland piper is an instrumentalist sometimes a multiinstrumentalist, adept also at the small-pipe, fiddle, or accordion; he will also be a singer, using chanted vocables to convey tunes and interpretations of them; many of his piobaireachds have song versions; he may also be a dancer; and he will certainly be steeped in the rich verbal lore that surrounds the pipe and its culture. Some scholars are responsive to this cultural breadth. For example, David Johnson's Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1972), takes the whole musical culture of the Lowlands and the institutions which supported it under review, from the most serious of 'serious' music to the most 'folksy' of folk, and traces their links with Scotland's richly varied song tradition. More recently, John Purser's comprehensive general survey, Scotland's Music. A History of the Traditional and Classical Music of Scotland from Early Times to the Present Day (Edinburgh, 1992), likewise shows a keen awareness of the creative links between the various different forms. The general tendency, however, has been to treat each strand of the traditional performing arts as an autonomous field of study. Ballad scholarship has displayed this feature particularly markedly during the last hundred years, often treating songs simply as poems which happened to possess an accompanying air which could be safely ignored in analysis. 4 A wider perspective is necessary before we can begin to generalise safely about 'tradition' and how it works. The concept of tradition is itself problematic and theories invoking it are many and various. 5 One of the most important to appear in recent years directs our attention to a phenomenon called 'invented tradition.' This springs from the perception of neoMachiavellian theorists of the right that society is dominated by elites manipulating a

International Who’s Who in Music and Musicians’ Directory (in the Classical and Light Music Fields) 1996/97 (15th ed.)

International Who’s Who in Music and Musicians’ Directory (in the Classical and Light Music Fields) 1996/97 (15th ed.)

Text and act: essays on music and performance

Gathers together for the first time Taruskin's influential and insightful essays and articles on musical performance practice written over the past decade. Links issues in musical performance with wider cultural scene. Author's highly respected and controversial viewpoints and reputation will spark intellectual debate in the musical field. Text and Act, a collection of essays and reviews, published over the last dozen years, offers a brilliant evaluation of the movement, transforming the debate about early music and authenticity. Demolishing the argument that the movement to revive instruments and performance practices represents the recovery of an ancient truth or a reinstatement of a lost tradition, these writings show that the movement actually represents the triumph of a modernist esthetic - and consequently that period performances are in fact the only truly modern performances of classical on offer. Yet far from impugning the movement's claim to authenticity, Taruskin argues that as the only truly contemporary performance practice, early music is authentic in a much more profound and relevant sense than a mere historical verisimilitude could ever be. These essays cast fresh light on many aspects of contemporary music-making and music-thinking, with lighthearted debunking taking its place alongside impassioned argumentation. A wide-ranging, newly written introduction explores the relationship between issues surrounding musical performance and other areas of contemporary intellectual ferment in the humanities and the social sciences, including philosophy, law, history, and anthropology. Bringing his considerable skills as a scholar and a performer to bear on the situation, Taruskin's essays, ranging from theoretical speculation to practical criticism, cover a repertory that includes Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Stravinsky.

The Theremin Enthusiasts Club International

AnthonyJ. Henk (retired electronic and telecommunications engineer, theremin designer), 10 Aston Way, Epsom, Surrey KT18 5LZ, United Kingdom. est in the theremin is growing in ited Kingdom in both the opud cla sical music fields. In 1995, ountry saw its first public concerts i ated to theremin music for many s. 7, the UK saw its firs th remin ert, when Leon Theremin gave a stration in the Royal Albert Hall, Cole was one of the very few people in this country to continue to promote the theremin and to make radio and televi-

Multi-paradigm software environment for the real-time processing of sound, music and multimedia

The paper introduces a system and a software architecture for the representation and real-time processing of sound, music, and multimedia based on artificial intelligence techniques. This system, called WinProcne/HARP, is able to represent objects in a two-fold formalism—symbolic and analogical—at different levels of abstraction, and to carry out plans according to the user's goals. It also provides both formal and informal analysis capabilities for extracting information. In WinProcne/HARP the user can build, update, browse, and merge various knowledge bases of sound, music, and multimedia material, as well as enter queries, start and manage real time performance, using a high-level graphical user interface. The system is currently used by researchers and composers in various experiments, including (a) advanced robotics projects, in which the system is used as a tool for interacting, cotrolling and simulating robot movements, and (b) theatrical automation, where the system is delegated to manage and integrate sound, music, and three-dimensional computer animations of humanoid figures. The paper explicitly refers to some applications in the music field.

Middle School — Where the Action Is!

Judith Petersen Evans received her BME at Baldwin Wallace College, her ME at Florida Atlantic University, and a Specialist Degree in Educational Leadership from Nova University. She has taught for 25 years, first in Ohio and then in Florida. She is currently orchestra director at Pine Ridge Middle School and Barron Collier High School in Naples, Florida. She has appeared as guest conductor or orchestra festivals in a number of states and is a freqwuent adjudicator and consultant to public school orchestra programs. Evans has been active in the music education field as president of the Florida chapters of ASTA and NSOA and of the Florida Orchestra Association. She has recently been elected national secretary of ASTA and is publications editor for NSOA.

Dictionary of musical technology

From the Publisher: This remarkable encyclopedia is the first comprehensive book on the technology of music, written by one of the world's leading experts on electronic music. Its 600 copiously illustrated main entries and 200 subsidiary ones cover an immense musical field. Included are entries on traditional and electronic instruments, and on such topics as computer music composition, microphone placement, and psychoacoustics. They are carefully cross-referenced so that readers can approach a topic from different angles and then be drawn into its complexities, both technical and musical, as far as they wish.

‘Teach you to rock’? Popular music in the university music department

During the last decades in most Western countries music education on all levels has undergone significant changes. In response to changes in the musical field in society at large, various popular music styles, previously almost totally neglected in institutional forms of music teaching based on Western art music, have been given increasing significance in the curricula of music education. This development has not, however, taken place without controversies. In most popular music genres the theoretical framework, learning principles and aims of musical practices differ in significant respects from those of the regulated activities of traditional institutions of music education, and the successful integration of popular genres into such institutions requires that these differences be acknowledged and resolved rather than ignored.

Information Needs and Library Uses in Music Field

Information Needs and Library Uses in Music Field

The 1987 International Computer Music Conference: A Review

N 1975 THE University of Illinois hosted the second International Computer Music Conference, then known as the Music Computation Conference. At that time the computer music field as an organized community was just in its infancy. Thirteen years later, in 1987, the International Computer Music Conference returned to Urbana/Champaign; what had been tentative and esoteric had grown into a robust and stable institution. This maturity was not only confirmed by the research papers and concerts of music produced at the thirty some odd computer music studios affiliated with academic institutions in the United States and abroad, but also by the insurgence of industry as certain aspects of computer music have become big business. For instance, hardware development has led to compact disk storage compression and digital cassette storage, and the advent of MIDI development has touched every commercial aspect of music from

Stilna orientacija glasbe protestantizma na Slovenskem

Stilna orientacija glasbe protestantizma na Slovenskem

"Keep It in the Head": Jazz Elements in Modern Black American Poetry

The subject of jazz music is reflected in the poetry of many Black American writers. Rhythm or imagery, and sometimes both, are often affected by this artistic concern. In defining the Black American identity, contemporary minority poetry has devoted itself to the ideas of freedom, protest, and cultural pride, and by dramatizing the importance of jazz as part of a proud, ongoing cultural tradition, Black writers continually remind us of the close connection between poetry and music. Though much has been written about the general connection between Black music and Black poetry, notably Stephen Henderson's introductory essay to his Understanding the New Black Poetry (1973) and his long essay in The Militant Black Writer (1969), I wish to concentrate specifically on the subject of jazz, and exclude references to other types of Black music like gospels, field songs, shouts, spirituals, or Black popular songs. In this paper I will briefly identify two general patterns1 by which jazz elements are manifested in contemporary Black American poetry: (1) the use of syncopated rhythms which hope to approximate the sounds and cadences of jazz (as in poems by Langston Hughes, Victor Hernandez Cruz, and to some extent, Gwendolyn Brooks), and (2) the focus on specifically named jazz musicians to enhance imagery or theme (as in works by Imamu Amiri Baraka, Calvin Hernton, and A. B. Spellman). The poems I will be discussing, with one exception, are not included in Henderson's anthology. My paper will conclude with an examination of the poetry of Al Young, a writer who, as much as or more than other Black poets, regularly and quite beautifully incorporates the subject of jazz into his work.

The Fine Art of Faculty Recruitment

completeness or even representation of the music field at large (there are currently 499 institutions that belong to NASM; the College Music Society's 1978-1980 directory lists 1,381 music departments nationwide), a perusal of its Job Opportunities Survey for the years 1976-1977 through 19791980 is revealing. In NASM's research several trends are evident: (1) turnover in music executive positions averaged five to seven percent annually over the past four years; (2) vacancies in basic musicianship and theory/analysis positions decreased while those in composition remained about the same; (3) the number of music history and musicology positions decreased; (4) choral and orchestral conducting positions declined while band vacancies remained strong; (5) opera vacancies increased while

Double Exposure: More Time For Students

Richason, chairman of geography department at College in Waukesha, Wisconsin, is a hearty and self-assured man of demonstrated abilities. One thing is not is a musician, and doesn't hesitate to admit that has a tin ear. But an early foray into music field suggests much about man and how has come to personify geography at Carroll. It seems that at time of his junior high school graduation, volunteers were needed to fill out program. Well, I wanted to be on that platform on graduation day, Richason recalled in his home one evening this spring. So I told them, 'Sure, I can do something. I can play clarinet.' Trouble was, I couldn't really play clarinet at all. Predictably, performance was a disaster, with young Richason hopelessly and cacophonically out of step with his accompanist. The reaction of those assembled must have been one of confusion and even derision, but in laughter-filled retelling, Richason doesn't dwell on that. It was clearly just a funny thing that happened on way to life. And if things are worth having, seems to say, it may be necessary to stick one's neck out to get them. All of which goes a long way toward explaining why College, a church-affiliated liberal arts school 30 miles west of Milwaukee with a full-time enrollment just over 1,250, has a geography department that is highly regarded by many experts in field. The department is creation of Doc Richason; built it from scratch. And while has had enthusiastic support of Carroll's administration, it seems likely that a man less sure of his mission would not have had that advantage. Richason went to in 1952, having developed and interpreted aerial photographs for Army and having taught briefly at J. Sterling Morton Junior College in Cicero, Illinois. Trained as a geographer (AB and MA, Indiana University; PhD, University of Nebraska), was hired as Carroll's one-man department of geology and geography. Now, a quarter of a century after his arrival in Waukesha, his threeman geography departmentthere is no geology department any more is perhaps Carroll's proudest boast and principal claim to distinction among many good, small liberal arts colleges in Midwest. In promotional literature, Richason and geography get equal billing with College's (unsubsidized) championship football team. He was president in 1976 of National Council of Geographic Education and a recipient of its distinguished service award. He's such an able teacher, says Morris Spencer, dean of College and vice president for academic affairs, he was encouraged to keep dreaming and building. I doubt department would have developed if hadn't been here. I can't talk enough about Ben Richason. Probably most distinctive aspect of Richason's department is its use of an elaborate audio-visual-tutorial (AVT) method developed for teaching introductory courses, which cover physical geography. (A student commencement speaker, elaborating on theme Carroll College Is..., included in her recital the geography department audio-visual-tutorial course.) In addition, authorities in geography education rate department highly for its breadth and sophistication in a discipline whose areas of interest are almost limitless. Richason uses AVT method for Geography 101, Weather and Climate, and 102, Maps and Landforms. Instead of attending standard lectures and separate laboratory sessions, students learn in individual booths where lectures and

Training in musical rhythm and field dependence of children.

The present experiment investigated the effects of musical rhythm training on field dependence in children. An experimental group of 12 Ss showed significant improvement on the Children's Embedded-figures Test and the Rod-and-frame Test after training, while a matched control group did not improve. Pretest scores on the children's Embedded-figures Test and the Rod-and-frame Test were not correlated.

Reciprocal Controls Exerted by Ballad Texts and Tunes

NOT ENOUGH RESEARCH has been done on the music-poetry relationship in songs. In folksong it is especially close, flexible, and harmonious. The present study, having taken for its materials ballads collected in the southern states, is designed to point the way toward identification of problems in text-tune fit that merit investigation. Southern traditional ballads are of several kinds: the older English and Scottish (Child) pieces; other later imported ballads; and ballads of New World provenience.l It should be emphasized that items admitted to consideration in this study were whole pieces-words and music-of the narrative type of folksong (ballad) collected from oral tradition within the general borders of the American South, available for use either in print or on recordings. More even than in art song, the text and tune of a ballad are aspects of a single phenomenon. For a study of interrelationships, then, no better field exists than folksong, because of its significance to human culture, its freedom from confusing complexities, and the axiomatic cose association of text and tune. For many years the folklore and folk music fields have recognized the need for investigations of the interrelationships of words and melody in folksong, but there has been little evidence of endeavor to fill the need. Scholars have repeatedly called for such work without themselves engaging to produce it. Without doubt there are cogent reasons for the stalemate: dearth of material, lack of joint competence in literature and music, and the unusual difficulty of forging new machinery for the breaking of uncultivated ground, together with the certainty of erring. Within its narrowly stated and implicit limits the present study offers a beginning to this work in combined music-poetic art. First, let us consider the influences of folk music on folk poetry. Melodies are of two kinds: strong and weak. A weak melody, used customarily in only one variant of a ballad, obviously is too subservient to its poem to wield any appreciable controls over it. On the other hand, the larger group of strong tunes, of a definite, clear-cut melodic profile and considerable integrity and longevity, control in a number of ways the poems that are sung to them.