Musical Motifs Research Articles

Visiting pop concerts and festivals: measuring the value of an integrated live music motivation scale

ABSTRACT To better understand the growing popularity of live music, this study analyses consumers’ motivations for live music attendance. In addition to existing literature, a generic approach to audience motivations contributes to our knowledge of the growing live music industry, where venues and festivals vie for the same artists and audience. Based on a survey among visitors of live music events (n = 1131), a principal component analysis was conducted to extract six motivations for visiting live music, the Live Music Motivation Scale (LMMS). Within this scale, for all motivations, a significant difference was found between visiting concerts and festivals. People predominantly visit festivals for social and personal reasons and predominantly visit concerts for artistic reasons and the uniqueness of the live experience. This study adds to the existing literature a more generic insight in motivations for visiting live music events and a clear comparison between motivations for visiting concerts and music festivals.

Wild Music: Sound and Sovereignty in Ukraine by Sonevytsky Maria A War of Songs: Popular Music and Recent Russia-Ukraine Relations by Hansen Arve (review)

REVIEWS 355 Sonevytsky, Maria. Wild Music: Sound and Sovereignty in Ukraine. Music/ Culture. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT, 2019. xxii + 249 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £20.50: $27.95 (paperback). Hansen,Arve;Rogatchevski,Andrei;Steinholt,YngvarandWickström,DavidEmil . A War of Songs: Popular Music and Recent Russia-Ukraine Relations. Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, 203. Ibidem, Stuttgart, 2019. 250 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Glossary. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $40.00 (paperback). Given how enmeshed popular music has been in Ukraine’s key political transformations of the past thirty or so years, it is perhaps surprising that this rich material has not come to scholars’ attention more often. Since Adriana Helbig’s pioneering monograph, Hip Hop Ukraine: Music, Race, and African Migration (Bloomington, IN, 2014), until recently, no dedicated booklength study has addressed the intersections of popular music and politics in contemporary Ukraine. That is why the appearance in 2019 of two such volumes at once constitutes a particularly important addition to the field. The two books span roughly the same decade, that is the years between 2004 and 2014, which in Ukraine were marked by two waves of mass anti-government protests, both culminating on the capital’s main square known as ‘Maidan’: peaceful in 2004, marred by violence a decade later. While Maria Sonevytsky focuses solely on Ukraine and its internal others, the co-authors of A War of Songs, Arve Hansen, Andrei Rogatchevski, Yngvar Steinholt and David-Emil Wickström, conceptually pitch Ukraine against Russia, exploring the fraught relationship between the countries through various musical stand-offs. Sonevytsky’s Wild Music is the product of the scholar’s ten years of fieldwork in Ukraine. One of her study’s strengths is the polyphony of voices she includes — from professional musicians to community activists, fellow ethnographers and people on the ground. In one of the book’s characteristically immersive passages, Sonevytsky, for instance, transports her readers into a packed intercity microbus (marshrutka) in Crimea where two local fishermen react to a Crimean-Tatar radio station blaring from the loudspeakers. However, beyond the richness of its ethnographic material, the book offers a meticulous theoretical exploration of the notions of sovereignty and citizenship, as well as their explication as lived experiences of Ukraine’s multiethnic population. In this volume, Sonevytsky offers a re-examination of the notion of wildness in the Ukrainian context, capitalizing the word when used as a symbolically loaded term rather than in its everyday meaning. She explores the concept’s subversive potentiality and the way in which Wildness ‘informs emergent sovereign imaginaries by destabilizing the hegemonies of the present’ (p. 179). In the first chapter of her book, Sonevytsky examines perhaps the most famous explicit take on Wildness in Ukraine’s contemporary popular music — pop- SEER, 99, 2, APRIL 2021 356 singer Ruslana’s 2004 win in the Eurovision music competition with the song ‘Wild Dances’. Sonevytsky traces the evolution of the concept through several of Ruslana’s interlinked projects over half a decade, from a self-exoticizing shtick based on the visual and musical motives of the Hutsul people of the Carpathian region to a de-ethnicized approach reflecting Ruslana’s ecoactivism on her 2008 concept album, Wild Energy. In chapter two, Sonevytsky reads the performance of the all-female Dakh Daughters band during the Euromaidan protests in December 2013 as an expression of what she terms ‘the Wildness of ambivalence’ (p. 84). Their song ‘Hannusia’, while including ethnic elements, aims for a more complex, hybrid performance of femininity and rurality. To Sonevytsky, this performance is an attempt to claim the space of Wildness as the Bhabhian ‘third space’ between the binary political choices of West or East, Europe or Russia. Where ‘Hannusia’ incorporates the ethnic through hybridity, the form of authentic folk singing known as avtentyka refuses to hybridize or restraint itself in order to fit into the sonic framework of reality TV. In chapter three, Sonevystky addresses the unbridled, even while professionally cultivated voices of avtentyka performers on Holos Krainy (the Ukrainian version of the global Voice franchise). Sonevytsky sees these singers as gesturing towards the Wildness that is local rather than national in nature and as such, reveals ‘the inadequacy of simplistic...

괴테의 『친화력』과 스피노자의 ‘감응’: 음악과 건축의 모티프를 중심으로

Spinoza has had a great influence on Goethe’s ideas. It spans a wide range of disciplines, from literature and art to the natural sciences. So far, research has been active mainly on Spinoza’s influence on Goethe’s natural science writings. This treatise shows how Goethe’s interest in “affinity of the intellectuals of chemistry born in the 18th century” appears through his novel work. The “affinity” formed between the characters in the novel is at the same time confirming the character and effect of Spinoza’s concept of “affect”. In this treatise, he shows that architectural and musical motifs characterize the notions of affinity and affect in his work.

What makes a child musical? conceptions of musical ability in childhood

ABSTRACT Tests of musical ability in children have relied on diverse conceptions of what musical abilities are. Recent investigations suggest that such conceptions can be seen as socially constructed and differ between cultures, sub-groups, and individuals. Based on a previous study on conceptions of adult musical ability, we designed a questionnaire targeting musical behaviours of 3–6-year-old children. 922 German adults who regularly spend time with children assessed how often a musical child would show these behaviours. Principal component analysis revealed four components of childhood musical ability: musical communication, enthusiasm and motivation, analytical understanding of music, and musical abilities in a narrow sense. The importance assigned to the components differed depending on musical expertise: Participants with higher expertise rated analytical music skills as significantly less important. Results suggest that ecologically valid tests of musical ability in childhood should cover a wide range of skills and observable behaviours.

Oto są baranki młode – an extraordinary paschal journey

Oto są baranki młode is a popular religious song born in the renewed liturgical and pastoral activity of Dominican friars in Kraków in the early 1990s. The sources of the music and text are explored here, beginning with a long responsory at the end of the first millennium, through new text and music in France about 1900, to another textual variant at Tyniec in 1960 and finally new music at Kraków. Text and Dominican music combine to build a religious song with intense paschal overtones celebrating the reception of Baptism and the Eucharist. The author compares the generation of the Dominican mix of text and musical motifs favourably with the earliest Sung Propers of the Roman Mass.

Music Education as Faustian Bargain: Re-Enchanting the World with Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus

Abstract This article explores the musical motifs in Thomas Mann’s 1947 novel Doktor Faustus and how they relate to the novel’s particular Bildung character. We claim that the novel allows for a challenging musico-pedagogical reading, which opens up new and highly imaginative perspectives on music and music education. Going beyond interpretations that mainly discuss the element of music in light of the novel’s metaphysical or sociocritical pretentions, we believe that Adrian Leverkühn’s musical Bildung materializes a discourse that is primarily educational and affirmative. Bringing in elements of various “posthumanist” philosophical traditions, our article elaborates a musico-pedagogical concept of technology. On the one hand, this enables a wholly new and more appreciative understanding of what Leverkühn’s Faustian bargain could be about; on the other, it allows us to radically rethink the theoretical narrative(s) of musical science and education. The outcome is the call for a “pedagogy of pure instrumentality.“ By seducing students to take part in an experimental and care-ful study for immanent musical technics (rather than techniques), education allows music to re-invent itself, to keep researching the magical procedures and instruments that link together sound and meaning in diverse musical practices, beyond any teleological appropriation.

‘Mama, he treats your daughter mean’: Reassessing the narrative of British R&B with Ottilie Patterson

AbstractThe phenomenon of British R&B is most often understood in terms of young, white, middle-class British men turning to the ‘down-home’ sounds of black American men for musical motivation. This article offers a revision to this dominant narrative by reinserting ‘slim, lively Irish girl’ Ottilie Patterson, the UK's most popular blues singer before 1963. I analyse the content and context of Patterson's 1961 album, Rhythm and Blues with Ottilie Patterson, drawing from contemporaneous mass-media discourse as well as Patterson's own notebooks held at Britain's National Jazz Archive. Patterson's performances captured on this record demonstrate how R&B was first publicly (re-)presented and understood in the UK. I argue that Patterson's work challenges the assumptions that (a) British R&B began with the formation of Alexis Korner's Blue Incorporated and (b) the R&B revival was predominately motivated by the appropriation and vicarious expression of African-American hypermasculinity.

‘Nonagon infinity opens the door!’

The re-use of motifs is relatively common as a method of structuring concept albums. These motifs can appear in several different formats, but generally are musical or lyrical references that serve to generate a sense of cohesion across a release. Australian band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have created what is referred to as the ‘Gizzverse‘—a collection of musical, lyrical and extra-musical motifs that are referenced across several releases. Their extensive re-use of motifs, discussed using Gérard Genette’s frameworks for understanding multi-textual references, or transtextuality, creates an interconnected mythology that this article argues ultimately constitutes a kind of uber-concept album.

THERAPEUTIC EFFECTS OF ANCIENT INDIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC

Music plays a vital role in each and every human being’s life. It’s undeniable that music affects human emotions whether it's sadness, happiness, anger, stress, or depression. Ancient Indian classical music originated 2000 years ago. It’s based on seven basic notes that were derived from sounds of birds and animals. The permutations and combinations of these notes create melodious structures with musical motifs called “Raga”. These Ragas create different types of emotions in mind that in turn make positive effects on the body. Different Ragas are sung (vocally) or played (instrumentally) in particular time of the day during the entire 24 hours for its immense positive impact on mind and body. Hence it is used in a form of therapy known as “Music therapy” to be used therapeutically to treat multiple diseases. The types of Ragas, time of different Raga and its effects on the human body therapeutically is shown in tabular form in this paper.

Can we measure musically active people’s music skills and achievement self-concept? Structure and invariance of CAMU, a Spanish questionnaire

ABSTRACT Music self-concept measurement tools are essential at all music educational levels in all contexts. Until now, the lack of a validated music self-concept questionnaire in Spanish-speaking countries has been noticeable. The aim of this study is to validate the Musical Self-Concept Questionnaire (CAMU) (Zubeldia, M. 2015. El autoconcepto musical, motivación y bienestar psicológico del alumnado de conservatorio [Musical self-concept, motivation and psychological well-being of conservatory students]. Doctoral thesis. Leioa: UPV-EHU), which is an abbreviated and culturally adapted Spanish language version of the Music Self-Perception Inventory (MUSPI), developed by Vispoel (1993a. The Music Self-Perception Inventory (Adolescent Form). Iowa: Author, 1993b. The Music Self-Perception Inventory (Adult/College Form). Iowa: Author). Participants comprised 407 students from mid-level music studies from conservatories located in different autonomous regions of Spain. The confirmatory factor analysis supports the hierarchical view of the music self-concept. Furthermore, the study also tests the scalar invariance across gender-differentiated subgroups, which is a prerequisite to compare factor mean differences between groups. This is the final step in the validation of the CAMU, which enables cross-cultural research into this construct. The educational implications for music students are discussed.

Validation and application of three-dimensional auralisation during concert hall renovation

During the renovation of auditoria and concert halls, the acoustic quality is normally evaluated from measurements of impulse responses. One possibility for evaluating the acoustic quality from the measurements (the simulations) consists of convolving anechoic music with the measured (or simulated) impulse responses. In this way, a psycho-acoustic test is achieved using a virtual sound field representation. The listening room ‘Arlecchino’ at the University of Bologna includes ambisonics (up to fifth order) and stereo-dipole playback for virtual reproduction of sound in rooms. In this article, the effectiveness of the listening room ‘Arlecchino’ is first analysed, comparing acoustic parameters obtained from binaural impulse responses measured in some opera houses (in Italy) and auditorium (in Japan) with those virtually measured after the virtual reconstruction obtained in the listening rooms. The similarity between real and virtual sound fields, has been evaluated by comparing different acoustic parameters calculated by real and virtual sound fields, in four halls in different configurations, by means of the stereo-dipole method. In the second part of the article, the listening room was used to analyse the variation in interaural cross-correlation measurements in rooms obtained considering different anechoic sound signals convolved with the binaural impulse responses, to quantify the variation of the interaural cross correlation with different motifs. For this purpose, two different musical instrument digital interface musical motifs, very different from each other for their music characteristics, have been considered. Moreover, for each musical motif, different sound characteristics (i.e. different musical instruments) were considered, to consider both the rhythmic and timbre aspect.

Non-human animals detect the rhythmic structure of a familiar tune.

The musical motives of a song emerge from the temporal arrangement of discrete tones. These tones normally have few durational values, and are organized in structured groups to create metrical patterns. In the present study we show that the ability to detect the rhythmic structure of a song, while ignoring surface changes, is also present in other species. We familiarized rats (Rattus norvegicus) with an excerpt of the Happy Birthday song. During test, we presented the animals with (i) the same excerpt of the familiarization, (ii) a constant-pitch version of the excerpt that reduced melodic intervals to only one tone (i.e., isotonic) but preserved rhythmic structure, and (iii) a rhythmically scrambled version of the excerpt that preserved the melodic intervals. The animals discriminated the rhythmically scrambled version from the versions that preserved the original rhythm. This demonstrates that rats were sensitive to at least some parts of the rhythmic structure of the tune. Together with previous findings, the present set of results suggests that the emergence of rhythmic musical universals might be based on principles shared with other species.

An Analysis of the relationship Among Young Children's Musical ability, Achievement motivation, Intellectual Ability and Motor ability.

An Analysis of the relationship Among Young Children's Musical ability, Achievement motivation, Intellectual Ability and Motor ability.

The effect of music performance efficacy on music intrinsic motivation

The effect of music performance efficacy on music intrinsic motivation

A Set of 200 Musical Stimuli Varying in Balance, Contour, Symmetry, and Complexity: Behavioral and Computational Assessments.

We present a novel set of 200 Western tonal musical stimuli (MUST) to be used in research on perception and appreciation of music. It consists of four subsets of 50 stimuli varying in balance, contour, symmetry, or complexity. All are 4 s long and designed to be musically appealing and experimentally controlled. We assessed them behaviorally and computationally. The behavioral assessment (Study 1) aimed to determine whether musically untrained participants could identify variations in each attribute. Forty-three participants rated the stimuli in each subset on the corresponding attribute. We found that inter-rater reliability was high and that the ratings mirrored the design features well. Participants' ratings also served to create an abridged set of 24 stimuli per subset. The computational assessment (Study 2) required the development of a specific battery of computational measures describing the structural properties of each stimulus. We distilled nonredundant composite measures for each attribute and examined whether they predicted participants' ratings. Our results show that the composite measures indeed predicted participants' ratings. Moreover, the composite complexity measure predicted complexity ratings as well as existing models of musical complexity. We conclude that the four subsets are suitable for use in studies that require presenting participants with short musical motifs varying in balance, contour, symmetry, or complexity, and that the stimuli and the computational measures are valuable resources for research in music psychology, empirical aesthetics, music information retrieval, and musicology. The MUST set and MATLAB toolbox codifying the computational measures are freely available at osf.io/bfxz7.

Music emotions and associations in film music listening: The example of leitmotifs from The Lord of the Rings movies

The aim of the present study was to investigate which musical emotions and associations appeared while listening to leitmotifs in film music. A sample of 157 participants took part in the study, in which musical associations and emotions were analysed in relation to seven groups of musical themes from The Lord of the Rings films (LOTR). The LOTR soundtrack is a good example of the use of symbols in music to represent ideas, characters, etc. The results show that both the respondents’ associations and the musical emotions they experienced were related to the characteristics of musical motifs. The results are discussed in relation to the assumed features of musical motifs composed by Howard Shore.

Wording Time. On Augustine’s Confessions XI: Transcriptions, Variations, Improvisations

Rather than abstracting Augustine’s exploration of time from the whole of the Confessions, as philosophers have been tempted to do, I take up his exploration in terms of what I call a ‘companioning relation’ between philosophy and theology. There is a porosity between religion/theology and philosophy in Augustine that need not be taken as a philosophical or theological deficiency. This reflection speaks of Augustine’s intentions and intuitions in terms of the theme: Wording Time. How might one word this wording, and how might Augustine’s approach to time be thus illuminated? I approach the question in different stages, dealing first with theological, ontological, and psychological considerations. Then I follow the breadth of Augustine’s concerns to a sense of sacred heterogeneities that yet are deeply intimate, and to a sense of time that is in communication with what is above time. In keeping with the musical motif that runs through this reflection, I offer some thoughts on agapē as not only an agapē sonans but an agapē personans. I will sometimes be transcribing Augustine’s themes, sometimes offering variations on them, and sometimes composing improvisations in tune with Augustinian themes.

Sinfonietta for String Orchestra by Weronika Ratusińska in the Context of the Issue of (Sub)Genre

The purpose of the article is to focus on certain terminological and historical aspects related to the genre of sinfonietta in the Polish music of the 20th and 21st century. In the introduction, the author presents the definition and general characteristics, listing the sources and the most representative works in the Polish music. Additionally, she presents numerical statistics and classification of the sinfonietta in Polish music and on this basis she analyses one of the most interesting works representing the type of sinfonietta-transcription – Sinfonietta for string orchestra by Weronika Ratusińska from 2009. The author analyses the use and manner of modification of musical motifs, the way in which the sound layer is shaped and the relation between Ratusińska’s work and tradition of the genre.

Музыкальный дискурс прозы И.С. Тургенева

The article analyzes the musical motives, as well as the mentions of musical instruments in Turgenev's prose. The purpose of this work is a cultural analysis of the context of «musical fragments» of I.S. Tur-genev's prose. Musical preferences are the subject of lively disputes of Turgenev's characters. Musical instruments are used as metaphorical figures in Turgenev’s work which indicates the «musicality» of the writer's thinking.

Music As Translation. Musical Motifs in Liebert’s Poetry

This article is devoted to analyses of musical motifs in poetry by a Polish author Jerzy Liebert (1901–1934). Two main kinds of metaphorically understood music can be distinguished in his work: the earthly, referring to human fi niteness, and the transcendental, which is the divine music of God. In the investigation of this problem, Boethian typology of music (musica mundana, musica instrumentalis, musica humana) is engaged. The results of these analyses contribute to the understanding of how the human condition confronts the perfect nature of the Creator in Liebert’s poetry. The article argues that musical motifs seem to be yet another expression of this problem, ubiquitous in the poet’s work; thus, they are essential to its correct interpretation.