Musical Motifs Research Articles

The ideological aspect of intersemiotic translation and montage

The Estonian film The Last Relic offers an interesting case of ideological intersemiotic translation. At the same time, it is an innovative film from the point of view of text composition as well as combination of traditional montage with intersemiotic montage in which the speech of the heroes, the messages of the songs and repetition of visual and musical motifs are juxtaposed to create historical and ideological ambiguity. The specificity of this film is very close to later tendencies in using montage: the movement from a temporal understanding of montage to spatial montage in contemporary new media and 3D-movies. A new understanding of montage is also fruitful for the new interpretation of the chronotopical structure of narrative texts. The traditional theory of montage is rooted in classical literature, while new media experience opens up new possibilities for understanding mechanisms of montage. On a very general level, contemporary tendencies of montage can be analysed as chronotopical montage.

Towards a cultural-developmental psychology of music in adolescence

Music is a fundamental cultural product with which adolescents are finely attuned within and across sociocultural contexts. However, very little is known about the intricate interplay among music, psychology, and culture in adolescence. The purpose of this literature review is twofold: (1) to define, ground, and situate a new perspective towards a cultural developmental psychology of music in adolescence; and (2) to find and organize the extant literature pertaining to the cultural and developmental roles of music in adolescence. The rationale is organized in two sections. The first section defines the meaning of a cultural-developmental psychology of music in adolescence. It also explains how this perspective can be grounded in principles of cultural psychology, notably the mutual constitution between culture and the person. It then situates this perspective within established cultural research on music (evolutionary psychology, music perception, and ethnomusicology). The second section presents a critical outlook on the slowly growing but fragmented literature pertaining to culture, psychology, and music in adolescence (music preferences; music motivation and functions; dance; language; social network and multitasking; ethnicity and cultural diversity; and cultural competence in music-based interventions). In conclusion, theoretical and methodological directions are suggested for future cultural research on music in adolescence.

German Film Scores from the Silent Era

German Film Scores from the Silent Era Daniel Bishop Gottfried Huppertz. Metropolis, op. 29: Musik zum Fritz-Lang-Stummfilm von 1925/26. Bearbeitung zum Film von Berndt Heller für Orchester. Erstausgabe mit einer Einleitung von Friedemann Beyer und Berndt Heller. Berlin: Ries & Erler, 2006. [Introd. in Ger., p. iii–vii; score, p. 1–394. ISMN M-013-51150-1, pub. no. 51150. €149.] [End Page 180] Wolfgang Zeller. Musik zum Lotte Reiniger-Stummfilm Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed für kleines Orchester bearbeitet von Jens Schubbe. Berlin: Ries & Erler, 2008. [Score, p. 1–73 (1. Akt), 1–121 (2. Akt), 1–99 (3. Akt), 1–126 (4. Akt), 1–64 (5. Akt). ISMN M-013-51216-4 (score), M-013-83024-4 (parts), pub. no. 51216. €84.] Edmund Meisel. Berlin, Die Sinfonie der Großstadt: Musik zum Ruttmann-Stummfilm. Bearbeitung für 16 Instrumente, auf der Basis des Klavierauszuges der Original-Musik Edmund Meisels [von] Mark-Andreas Schlingensiepen. Berlin: Ries & Erler, 2009. [List of percussion requirements, inside front cover; score, p. I/1–I/97 (I. Akt), II/1–II/67 (II. Akt), III/1–III/108 (III. Akt), IV/1–IV/146 (IV. Akt), V/1–V/108 (V. Akt). ISMN M-013-51242-3, pub. no. 51242. €149.] Eduard Künneke. Musik zum Lubitsch-Stummfilm Das Weib des Pharao, op. 15, für Salonorchester. Bearbeitung zur Filmfassung 2011 von Frank Strobel. Berlin: Ries & Erler, 2011. [Instrumentation, 1 p.; score, p. 1–390. ISMN M-013-51286-7 (score), M-013-30339-2 (parts), pub. no. 51286. €149.] It is always a problem for teachers of music history to deal with music for which no published score exists. Although this problem arises less frequently when teaching the Western canon, when teaching film music, it is simply the normal state of things. Within the subfield of German silent-film music, a series of scores published by Ries & Erler represents a significant step toward addressing this problem. Under consideration here are Eduard Künneke’s score for Ernst Lubitsch’s Das Weib des Pharao (usually translated as The Loves of the Pharaoh, 1922); Wolfgang Zeller’s score for Lotte Reiniger’s Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed, 1926); Gottfried Huppertz’s score for Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927); and Edmund Meisel’s score for Walter Ruttman’s Berlin: Die Symphonie der Großstadt (1927). These recent publications—all from 2006–2011—belong to a well-established and, it is hoped, ongoing project that includes numerous other films (twenty-one at present), which are listed, with some descriptive notes, at http://www.stummfilmmusik.com/filmmusik/ (accessed 15 May 2013). All four films are historically important, and all are gems of the German late silent cinema. We have here a virtuosic benchmark in the animation medium (The Adventures of Prince Achmed); the lavish apex of legendary director Ernst Lubitsch’s German career just prior to his emigration to Hollywood (The Loves of the Pharaoh); and a feature-length avant-garde masterpiece that strikingly exemplifies the interwar aesthetic of “New Objectivity” (Berlin). And, of course, in Metropolis, we have one of the most complex, analyzed, and debated works in film history, as well as—with its dazzling images and provocative politics—one of the few silent films to continually appeal to an extremely broad contemporary audience. The publication of such scores is a significant aid for the teaching of film-music history. Without relying upon transcription, memory, or the availability of archival resources, educators can lead students to delve into specific details of orchestration, large-scale tonal structures, and interrelated musical motives within a score. This, however, is not the scores’ only potential function. Venues still exist through which silent films can enjoy screenings with live music, and these publications (two of them—Metropolis and The Loves of the Pharaoh—appearing in conjunction with specific restoration projects) demonstrate that a contemporary German exhibition culture for silent-film music is alive and well. Thus, another purpose of these scores is to facilitate new performances through commercially available materials. [End Page 181] What are the various expectations for scholarly versus performative use of this material, and how do the editions represent...

On Mathematical Modelling of Time-Related Musical Structures

In this article, the first steps towards mathematical modelling of time-related musical structures are taken, and the algebraic structure of musical time relations is elaborated starting from a perceptive point of view. A basic characterization of fundamental properties of perceived time relations and their interpretations regarding musical context are given, and some mathematical properties of the proposed definitions are examined. Stemming from musical motivation, a category is found whose objects are finite strict (partially) ordered sets and whose morphisms are weakly monotone and reflect the strict order of the codomain. The category is found to have initial and terminal objects, equalizers, and coequalizers but fails to have binary products or coproducts.

‘We're all going global’: cricket's new rhythms in an age of revolution?

This essay examines cricket's past and present relationship/s with music in order to track the notable continuities that are evident in the ongoing connection between the two cultural forms. The discussion also questions whether the so-called globalization of the game and all that is associated with the televisual spectacle of ‘entertainment’ mark new modes of intersections or are outgrowths of earlier forms, genres, tropes and popular musical motifs. It asks: how do and have cricket and music intersected, and is their relationship now structurally different to their relationship in the past, most notably the imperial past of England, Britain and the British world system? The essay is subdivided into five parts with each taking its title from a track on The Duckworth Lewis Method album of cricket pop songs from duo Neil Hannon and Thomas Walsh.

Music motivation and the effect of writing music: A comparison of pianists and guitarists

The purpose of this study is to examine a set of motivation variables within guitar and piano players. We also tested for motivational differences among three groups: those who write music, those who plan to write music in the future, and those who do not write nor intend to write. An international sample of 599 musicians was obtained (guitar: N = 292, piano: N = 307) through the use of an online survey. Self-Determination Theory, a prominent perspective in the motivation literature, was utilized along with other motivational constructs, including perceived competence, musical self-esteem, effort, desire to learn, willingness to play, and possible musical selves. Findings revealed differences between pianists’ and guitarists’ levels of motivational intensity, desire to learn, introjected regulation, perceived competence and willingness to play. Results also indicated that the group who write music had significantly higher levels of musical self-esteem, willingness to play, motivational intensity, desire to learn, and perceived competence. Findings from this study suggest that pianists and guitarists both are intrinsically motivated, but for different reasons. The underlying motivational needs that are met by the instrument’s “culture” appear to focus on competence for pianists and on autonomy and relatedness for guitarists.

DYNAMICS OF BRAIN ACTIVITY UNDERLYING WORKING MEMORY FOR MUSIC IN A NATURALISTIC CONDITION

Event Abstract Back to Event DYNAMICS OF BRAIN ACTIVITY UNDERLYING WORKING MEMORY FOR MUSIC IN A NATURALISTIC CONDITION Iballa Burunat1, 2*, Vinoo Alluri1, 2, Petri Toiviainen1 and Elvira Brattico1, 3, 4 1 University of Jyväskylä, Finnish Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Music Research, Department of Music, Finland 2 University of Jyväskylä, Department of Mathematical Information Technology, Finland 3 University of Helsinki, Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Finland 4 Aalto University School of Science, Brain & Mind Lab, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Computational Science, Finland Despite working memory's (WM) critical role in high-level cognitive functions in the integration of information over time, its implementation in the neural tissue is poorly understood. Auditory WM has been mainly studied using vocal stimuli and only recently a few studies have started investigating the neural networks engaged in auditory WM for music. Moreover, in neuroscience WM has not been studied in naturalistic conditions but rather using artificial target detection tasks (e.g., n-back and Sternberg) and simpler, manipulated materials, all of which might create mental states not characteristic of brain’s behaviour in more natural, attentive situations. In music, WM allows us to form a coherent representation of the otherwise undifferentiated musical stream, and to emotionally respond to it, i.e., by tracking tonal, rhythmic and timbral dynamics. Our goal was to study the functional neuroanatomy of WM memory for musical motifs as it emerges in the brain while listening to music. We followed a naturalistic, non-standard procedure: a) participants’ (musicians) brain responses were recorded while attentively listening to a piece of music, instead of performing auditory cued tasks; b) we adopted a modern tango as stimulus, containing shifts in tempo, timbre, dynamics, tonality and rhythm, a complex stimulus more representative of the complex auditory scene environment our brains have evolved to respond to; c) we used a behavioural test to identify the stimulus motifs and build a time-course predictor of WM neural responses; d) activation of WM-related neural networks was studied by tracking in the neurovascular responses the temporal evolution of motivic repetition that naturally occurs in Western tonal music, assumed to trigger WM; and e) in order to fine-tune the identification of WM function in the brain, the variance accounted by a set of the stimulus’ acoustic features was pruned from participants’ brain responses. Correlational analysis revealed a distributed network of cortical and subcortical areas responding to motif repetitions, including a right lateralized dorsal area in the prefrontal cortex, bilateral basal ganglia, and left hippocampus. The findings suggest that WM encoding of motifs while listening to music emerges from the integration of neural activity spread out over cognitive, motor and limbic subsystems. The recruitment of the hippocampus stands as a novel finding in auditory WM. We hypothesize this activation to be enabled by the use of a realistic listening condition, which might evidence the formation of long-term memories for the music. Keywords: working memory, Music, naturalistic, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, Hippocampus, segmentation, neuroinformatics Conference: Neuroinformatics 2013, Stockholm, Sweden, 27 Aug - 29 Aug, 2013. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: General neuroinformatics Citation: Burunat I, Alluri V, Toiviainen P and Brattico E (2013). DYNAMICS OF BRAIN ACTIVITY UNDERLYING WORKING MEMORY FOR MUSIC IN A NATURALISTIC CONDITION. Front. Neuroinform. Conference Abstract: Neuroinformatics 2013. doi: 10.3389/conf.fninf.2013.09.00005 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 20 May 2013; Published Online: 11 Jul 2013. * Correspondence: Ms. Iballa Burunat, University of Jyväskylä, Finnish Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Music Research, Department of Music, Jyväskylän yliopisto, Finland, iballa.burunat@jyu.fi Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Iballa Burunat Vinoo Alluri Petri Toiviainen Elvira Brattico Google Iballa Burunat Vinoo Alluri Petri Toiviainen Elvira Brattico Google Scholar Iballa Burunat Vinoo Alluri Petri Toiviainen Elvira Brattico PubMed Iballa Burunat Vinoo Alluri Petri Toiviainen Elvira Brattico Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

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Musikalische und soziale Bedingungen des Singens: Eine Studie unter deutschsprachigen Chorsängern

Choral singing is a common leisure activity in many countries. Amateur choirs are characterized by a high degree of social coherence. Obviously, common musical motivations and goals lead to long-term commitments between choirs and their individual members. In this study, amateur singers ( N = 3145) filled out a questionnaire (online or on paper) which included demographic and musical background information. The results reveal a long-term musical socialization of choral singers, about half of whom had experienced choral singing at school and have been members of one or more choral societies for 19.5 years on average. High levels of both general and musical education were observed. About 40 % of respondents had received formal vocal training at some point. Catalysts of later choral activities appeared to be other family members, especially parents, in addition to choral singing in school. Thus choral singing activates strong forces of social coherence, which foster long-term commitments. At the same time, the landscape of choral societies is subject to dynamic changes in response to individual musical needs and lifestyles. To what extent so-called project choirs, which often exist only for a few months for the purpose of specific productions or concerts, and choirs dedicated to particular musical genres (e.g. Popular/Jazz or Gospel) or lifestyles (e.g. sexual orientation) complement or instead replace traditional choral societies could be the subject of future research.

The Socio-Educational Model of Music Motivation

The well-established socio-educational model of second language learning motivation developed by R. C. Gardner was adapted and applied to study instrumental music learning motivation. The similarities between music and language suggested that the adaptation might lead to new insights in the study of music motivation. At the heart of the proposed model is a multifaceted description of the relationships among motivation, attitudes, anxiety, support from others, perceived competence, and achievement. A sample of 107 high school band students was selected to participate in this study. Results of a path analysis of questionnaire responses indicate that the adapted and expanded socio-educational model fit very well with the present data and described key motivational structures. The key support for motivation to learn was supplied by integrativeness (an interest in taking on the characteristics of musicians, positive attitudes toward learning instruments, and an interest in music learning), plus attitudes toward the learning situation (music teacher and course).

„Amadeusz”. Miloš Forman i Peter Shaffer

The study is devoted to Milos Forman’s film, a story about Mozart’s life, taken from Peter Shaffer’s drama. The author proposes a detailed analysis of Forman’s film as an autonomous work in the production of which the film was a medium. The film was an effect of collaboration between the author of the play and the director. The effect of the work is a film which is an example of a close connection of the form and the content – harmony between picture and music, which becomes almost one of the main characters. Individual compositions of Mozart form a network of motives closely connected with the visual aspect and make its sense deeper according to several rules of showing music as a part of the film medium, such as musical motives, explaining the music by the composer or music which uses media. Connecting the music and the aesthetics of the film make Amadeus a harmonious audio-visual performance.

Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema by Tim Palmer

the DVD, “[a] nightmare from which no one awakes [...] in a nameless African country teetering on the brink of an all-out civil war.” At the center of this “nightmare” is Isabelle Huppert, who brings extraordinary physicality to the role of Maria Vial, mother of a shiftless teenage son and manager of a coffee plantation belonging to her ex-in-laws. Her story flashes back and forth over a span of some forty-eight hours that begin with the military flying over to drop survival supplies and exhort her to flee. Her workers leave, her ex-husband, played by Christophe Lambert, schemes to sell the plantation to an African official, and anonymous child soldiers pose a persistent threat. Meanwhile, Maria clings desperately to the place she loves, doggedly insisting that she needs just one more week, then the coffee will be ready. As this unfolds, le Boxeur, a charismatic rebel hero brilliantly portrayed by Isaach de Bankolé, finds his way onto the plantation, where Maria periodically tends to him in his final hours. The film ends in a state of anarchic horror depicted with the kind of visceral cinematography we have come to expect from Denis, an experience that will leave no viewer indifferent. As Huppert notes in her interview on the DVD, “tout a son importance” in Denis’s œuvre. White Material is no exception. Everything in the film seems to be exactly as it should, from the cinematography and lighting to the costuming and script, which Denis co-wrote with Marie NDiaye. Huppert and Bankolé, whose credits include Protée in Chocolat, deliver powerful performances, as do the local actors, especially those playing the child soldiers, a particularly compelling aspect of the film. Denis skillfully underscores the disturbing nature of their existence by emphasizing their childishness even more than their crimes, in large part through the mise en scène. The child soldiers’ musical theme, one of three primary musical motifs, further highlights this dichotomy between innocence and horror. Indeed, the entire score, composed by Tindersticks, suits the film perfectly, with haunting strains that help establish the tone for every character, every scene. In White Material, whose title refers to both the Europeans’ possessions and the transformation of said Europeans into disposable objects, nothing is overstated. Instead, the audience must interpret what they see and hear, as well as imagine back stories to which there are limited clues. As with Denis’s other films, White Material rewards the attentive viewer, and it will doubtless occupy a place of note in the filmography of one of France’s most talented contemporary directors. University of the Cumberlands (KY) Laura Dennis PALMER, TIM. Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema. Middletown CT: Wesleyan UP, 2011. ISBN 978-0-8195-6827-4. Pp. 286. $28.95. Aspiring to broaden the canon of contemporary (i.e., twenty-first century) French cinema, Tim Palmer, “cineliterate” and revisionist, has created a denselywritten , generally jargon-free volume replete with informative detail and provocative analyses. Focusing on aspects he considers less-known or neglected, of necessity he ventures away from the mainstream and into “fringe” areas. To examine productively what he finds there he eschews the traditional critical approach (antiquated and no longer useful) that distinguishes art-house (auteur) fare from commercial, endeavoring instead to analyze films on their own terms. This approach leads him to emphasize style and cinematic design over themes. Reviews 935 Brutal Intimacy opens with “The Contemporary French Film Ecosystem,” a helpful roadmap to what follows and an overview of the process and pitfalls of filmmaking in France; and concludes with “Instructive Cinephilia: Film Literacy and la Fémis,” an instructive look at the program and educational orientation of the elite state-funded film school that has formed the craft and cineliteracy of many of the young directors discussed in this study (the appendix listing the school’s 156 must-see films provides intriguing reading). Four central chapters, whose titles indicate their focus, are each constructed around discussions of factors relevant to contextualizing the topic at hand, followed by analyses of representative films. Within the frame of what Palmer deems the unique systematic emphasis in France on débutants filmmakers and the amount of...

Art with a Slap

Art with a Slap Christine Masters Jach (bio) Cutting Across Media: Appropriation Art, Interventionist Collage, and Copyright Law. Edited by Kembrew McLeod and Rudolf Kuenzli. Duke University Press. http://www.dukeupress.edu/index.php. 376 pages; cloth, $94.95; paper, $25.95. Cutting Across Media: Appropriation Art, Interventionist Collage, and Copyright Law explores collage and appropriation art through a critical, interdisciplinary framework. The collection emerged out of the 2005 University of Iowa conference, “Collage as Cultural Practice,” organized by the book’s editors, Kembrew McLeod and Rudolf Kuenzli. McLeod, University of Iowa professor of communication studies and music critic, is well known for his activism against copyright law and his prankish trademarking of the phrase “Freedom of Expression.” McLeod contributes his own essays and interviews throughout the volume—on topics such as copyright law, plagiarism, hip-hop, and digital sampling. Reflecting both McLeod’s spirited cultural critique and Kuenzli’s interdisciplinary approach to the arts, Cutting Across Media explores diverse forms of collage and appropriation in music, painting, publishing, spoken broadcasts, poetry, and narrative. In this collage of essays, readers are challenged to rethink notions of intellectual property and to consider the complex political and cultural issues that accompany collage and appropriation aesthetics. Several contributors take a postcolonial approach in order to reevaluate cultural assumptions about artistic freedom. Gábor Vályi’s piece, “Remixing Cultures: Bartók and Kodály in the Age of Indigenous Cultural Rights,” draws attention to Bartók and Kodály’s borrowing musical motifs from a common folk heritage—actions that would now be scrutinized as colonizing practices when framed in postcolonial thought. Similarly, Jeff Chang asks, “How do advocates of freedom of expression account for the reality that, especially in the case of some indigenous peoples, not all information wants to be free?” His essay, “A Day to Sing: Creativity, Diversity, and Freedom of Expression in the Network Society,” argues that the cultural expressions of indigenous peoples are not information to be exchanged over global networks, appropriated into the collages of colonizing cultures. In contrast, Lorraine Morales Cox argues that appropriation art actually draws attention to marginalized voices. In her essay, “Cultural Sampling and Social Critique: The Collage Aesthetic of Chris Olifi,” Cox describes Olifi’s collage paintings as inspiring a “postcolonial subversion of the colonial gaze” through appropriated African American imagery. She emphasizes important historical and cultural distinctions between two styles of collage—one is a folk aesthetic, born out of scarcity, while the other emerges from a formalist method—arguing that Olifi’s collages draw from both styles. He takes a Rauschenberg-esque formalist approach, yet he uses found materials such as magazine cutouts of American rappers and elephant dung collected in Africa, engaging both pre- and postcolonial African identity and critique. Even as it engages these important cultural critiques, the book heavily focuses on the recording industry. Making a well-reasoned case for fair use, Negativland (the avant-garde music group who controversially parodied U2 in the early 1990s), argue in their piece, “Excerpts from ‘Two Relationships to a Public Domain,’” that “[t]here is a certain perceptual stance most artists have always taken in relation to their work and their environment—a perception that sees everything out there as possible grist for their mill.” Accordingly, Chuck D and Hank Shocklee of Public Enemy explain their musical development in an interview with McLeod. Shocklee insists that a pre-recorded sound is “going to hit the tape harder. It’s going to slap at you. Something that’s organic is almost going to a have a powder effect…. So those things change your mood, the feeling you can get off of a record.” However, Public Enemy’s early [End Page 11] sampling gave way to the use of in-house beats in the wake of stricter copyright enforcement for samples that overtook the music industry. While Public Enemy has continued to generate recordings over their twenty-three year career, other groups like the KLF failed to survive the shift to digital media. In his forgotten history of the KLF, McLeod calls them the first recording group to challenge paradigms of ownership and authorship before a broad audience, noting that “[t]heir...

Diegetic Musical Motifs in Ibsen's A Doll's House and John Gabriel Borkman

The music used to accompany a drama can be divided into two main categories: ‘Non-Diegetic Music’ and ‘Diegetic Music.’ These two terms draw a distinction between music which is presented as existing within the storyworld (diegetic) and that which emanates from an external position (non-diegetic). However, neither of these designations refers to a specific technique, rather they are the titles of two different categories into which specific aural applications can be divided. This paper focuses on a form of aural accompaniment that will be referred to as ‘diegetic musical motifs.’ Both diegetic and non-diegetic musical motifs are used to complete a primarily communicative function in the conveyance of narrative themes, developments, and action. However, using diegetic music in a scene generates a number of considerations that do not apply to non-diegetic underscoring. Its presence leads the audience to ask, where is the music coming from, who is playing it, which type of composition has been selected, what does this choice reveal about the character who chose it, and how do other characters respond when it is played? In order to highlight the dramatic potential of this complex signification process the following paper will analyse the motivic construction of two pieces of music used in Ibsen’s plays A Doll’s House and John Gabriel Borkman.

Elegia na progu. Antyczne dziedzictwo motywu paraklausithyron w twórczości elegijnej renesansu (usque ad Ioannem Cochanovium)

Paraklausithyron — a lover’s lament at the closed door of the beloved, desiring entry, is a very old literary and musical motif, deriving from the archaic genre of komos, characteristic for Greek comedy. Paraklausithyron was successfully adopted by Roman literature to become one of the basic motifs of love elegy in the Roman Empire of Augustan times. The present study explores the history of the motif and outlines the main features of its Roman variety. Then, its reception in Italian elegiac poetry of the Renaissance period is presented, and, within this context, the use of the motif in elegies written in Latin and Polish by Jan Kochanowski is discussed. Vigils at the beloved one’s door are presented here as an essential element of an elegiac confession of love containing a characteristic line of arguments and distinguishable key words which, in the course of time, came to substitute the motif and the confession of love itself. The motif also pervaded other forms of modern lyric love poetry, in particular the serenade; just as the elegiac sense of love initiated the sentimental trend in European poetry.

Figuring Musical Motifs and Textual Polyphony in Nancy Huston's Prodige: Polyphonie

NANCY Huston, originally from Calgary, Alberta, has been living in Paris and writing in French for nearly four decades. (1) During this time, she has become increasingly well known in France and abroad for a thought-provoking textual production that testifies to her interest in experimenting with generic and narrative form and includes novels, plays, essays, literary criticism, and children's stories, as well as two volumes of correspondence. Throughout her works, Huston has been engaged in a critical questioning of the complex relationship between women and the artistic vocation, focusing in particular on issues surrounding the thematics of pro/creation (2) and of mother-daughter relationships. In La Virevolte (1994), for example, the protagonist must ultimately choose between her family and her career as a dancer, while in Instruments des tenebres (1996), the protagonist--whose mother had been a talented violinist forced to renounce musical performance after marriage--refuses maternity in order to devote herself to her writing. The figuring of musical motifs and female protagonists as musicians provides an additional point of intersection between many of Huston's texts, including Les Variations Goldberg (1981), Huston's very first novel, and Prodige (1999), written nearly two decades later. Les Variations Goldberg, like Johann Sebastian Bach's composition of the same name, is comprised of 30 variations and two arias, and the musical variations correspond to personal reflections made by a diverse cast of listening to a harpsichord recital of this piece performed by protagonist Liliane Kulainn. David Powell cogently describes the foundational nature of music in Huston's work as a whole, calling attention to the critical significance of her innovative narrative forms: Ses recits constituent un tour de force magistral ou, grace a des renvois musicaux, l'on peut voir s'enchevetrer de nombreux fils narratifs. Avec chaque nouveau texte, elle fait comprendre d'une facon penetrante en variant constamment son expression musico-litteraire la complexite de cette polyvalence metaphorique (113). In this essay, I plan to examine the importance of music as a leitmotif and a structuring device in Prodige, looking specifically at the ways in which multiple narrative voices are used to provide an intimate portrait of the main characters through the inscription of their individual reflections on life and on artistic inspiration. Prodige, (3) while reprising many of the same themes of artistic creation to be found in Les Variations Goldberg, does so through a less rigidly structured narrative form in which the time frame itself is more fluid and open-ended. Again, however, the emphasis remains on the way in which music structures the lives of the characters, as the text limns the personal relation of each character to the creative process. Huston's novel, which bears the subtitle polyphonie, is constituted of eight narrative voices that intertwine and play off one another, while at the same time maintaining their individual identities throughout the narrative. (4) Anne-Rosine Delbart, in an insightful discussion of Huston's use of polyphony as a lyrical and structural element in her text, underscores the salient link between musical and narrative form, positing that: Par son sous-titre Polyphonie le roman Prodige propose donc explicitement un concert de voix dont un deus ex machina (l'auteur) gererait les interventions a la maniere d'un chef d'orchestre designant les instrumentistes ou ... d'un metteur en scene reglant les entrees les sorties des acteurs (51). (5) As in a polyphonic musical composition, various motifs become established as the text progresses, and certain voices resonate more strongly at different narrative moments. (6) The following passage, in which one of the characters traces out the unfolding of a musical fugue, emblematizes the multi-layered texture of the novel itself: et puis les differentes voix qui debarquent les unes apres les autres se mettent a danser entre elles, a faire des trilles des accords, ca devient plus fort, elles insistent, chacune veut avoir son mot a dire (132). …

The Logic of Biblical Subversion in Chaim Potok’s “The Trope Teacher”

a brief overview of the novella's plot summary, I analyze Potok's treatment of the biblical myth in tandem with an expose of the character liana Davita Chandal, who is a central figure in all three of the short stories in Old Men at Midnight, and who originally appeared in Potok's novel Davita's Harp (1985). The Trope Teacher is an allegorical tale structured around the fate of Isaac Zapiski, an observant Ashkenazi Jew who makes his living in the United States by teaching trope - the punctuation marks for musical motifs and tones used in the chanting of Biblical Hebrew. Although gravely wounded during World War I and expelled from his university in Vienna on account of his being Jewish, Zapiski still feels himself to be very much a part of civilized Europe. At the beginning of the story, he decides to leave behind the America in which he does not belong, in order to return to Vienna on the eve of the Second World War. Benjamin Walter, the narrator of the story (as well as Zapiski 's student and the tale's main protagonist), describes him thus: A small, bumbling, stooped man who wore his hat low over his eyes . . . looking to all intents and purposes like a turtle in the act of withdrawing into its shell. He had a habit of shaking his head in a sort of nervous twitch . . . as if trying to disentangle himself from some web in which he had been caught

Relationship between pre-service music teachers' personality and motivation for computer-assisted instruction

The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between pre-service music teachers' personalities and their motivation for computer-assisted music instruction (CAI). The ‘Big Five’ Model of Personality served as the framework. Participants were 83 pre-service music teachers in Turkey. Correlation analysis revealed that three dimensions of personality (Extroversion, Openness and Conscientiousness) were positively related to participants' motivation for CAI. Stepwise regression analysis revealed that only Extroversion and Openness dimensions made a significant contribution to the prediction of motivation. These results suggest that pre-service music teachers who see themselves as extroverted, sociable, organised, careful and disciplined tend to be more motivated to use CAI than those who see themselves as introverted, reserved, disorganised, careless and impulsive.

Older amateur keyboard players learning for self-fulfilment

This article investigates self-reported music learning experiences of 21 older amateur pianists and electronic keyboard players. Significant changes in their lives and the encouragement of friends were catalysts for returning to or taking up a keyboard instrument as an adult, although not all returners had positive memories of learning a keyboard instrument as children. Most participants had experience of learning democratically in a group, obtaining benefits that usually outweighed the drawbacks of limited time available for individual tuition. Those who also engaged with other musical activities used them to enhance their keyboard skills or used their keyboard learning profitably in them. As an outcome of their learning, the participants were able to sustain a personal and social musical identity. The findings suggest that the interaction and interdependence of music learning, musical motivation and musical identity construction can foster the personal growth needed for achieving self-fulfilment as a mature adult.

The just noticeable difference of center time and clarity index in large reverberant spaces

Just noticeable difference (JND) values are available for most acoustical parameters currently used in practice. However, they have been determined with reference to conditions typically encountered in concert halls and in rooms for speech, covering a range of reverberation times (T) spanning from 0.5 s to 2 s. When reverberation gets longer, the relationship between measured parameters describing acoustic clarity may change significantly and subjective perception might also be different. The proposed research investigates the influence of reverberation time on JND for clarity measures taking into account three reference cases having T values varying from 2 s to 6 s. Measured B-format impulse responses were properly modified to introduce the desired changes and then auralized with two music motifs for presentation on a 4-channel playback system. Listening tests based on paired comparisons were carried out to determine subjective limens. The results proved to be independent of music motifs and showed that JND in the clarity index is almost independent of T, while JND in the center time is significantly related to T and can be assumed as the 8.5% of the reference T(S) value.