Music Theory Research Articles

Score Images as a Modality: Enhancing Symbolic Music Understanding through Large-Scale Multimodal Pre-Training.

Symbolic music understanding is a critical challenge in artificial intelligence. While traditional symbolic music representations like MIDI capture essential musical elements, they often lack the nuanced expression in music scores. Leveraging the advancements in multimodal pre-training, particularly in visual-language pre-training, we propose a groundbreaking approach: the Score Images as a Modality (SIM) model. This model integrates music score images alongside MIDI data for enhanced symbolic music understanding. We also introduce novel pre-training tasks, including masked bar-attribute modeling and score-MIDI matching. These tasks enable the SIM model to capture music structures and align visual and symbolic representations effectively. Additionally, we present a meticulously curated dataset of matched score images and MIDI representations optimized for training the SIM model. Through experimental validation, we demonstrate the efficacy of our approach in advancing symbolic music understanding.

A Conceptual Framework for Curriculum Development Utilizing the FCM Module in a Flipped Classroom for Music Theory

A Conceptual Framework for Curriculum Development Utilizing the FCM Module in a Flipped Classroom for Music Theory

The Effect of Music Theory in Hollywood Film Scoring

The Effect of Music Theory in Hollywood Film Scoring

Technology and Interspecies Musical Practice

This case study on the work of interspecies musician David Rothenberg explores how engaging with the songs and rhythms of other species continues to challenge his musical practice and aesthetic. Technology, science and art come together in an artistic and research practice, which is grounded in the belief that technologies can bring us closer to nature. The article outlines how Umwelt theory, enactive music cognition, biosemiotics and the phenomenology of human-technology relations are engaged in the perception and creation of musical experiences. It also looks at how interdisciplinary research practices that traverse zoomusicology, the visual and performing arts, and data visualisation contribute to interspecies music theory and practice. The article concludes by presenting four interspecies auditory dispositives as a guide to how knowledge, tools and practice are entangled in concrete examples from Rothenberg’s musical collaborations with nightingales, humpback whales, periodical cicadas and pond life.

RL-Chord: CLSTM-Based Melody Harmonization Using Deep Reinforcement Learning.

Automatic music generation is the combination of artificial intelligence and art, in which melody harmonization is a significant and challenging task. However, previous recurrent neural network (RNN)-based work fails to maintain long-term dependency and neglects the guidance of music theory. In this article, we first devise a universal chord representation with a fixed small dimension, which can cover most existing chords and is easy to expand. Then a novel melody harmonization system based on reinforcement learning (RL), RL-Chord, is proposed to generate high-quality chord progressions. Specifically, a melody conditional LSTM (CLSTM) model is put forward that learns the transition and duration of chords well, based on which RL algorithms with three well-designed reward modules are combined to construct RL-Chord. We compare three widely used RL algorithms (i.e., policy gradient, Q -learning, and actor-critic algorithms) on the melody harmonization task for the first time and prove the superiority of deep Q -network (DQN). Furthermore, a style classifier is devised to fine-tune the pretrained DQN-Chord for zero-shot Chinese folk (CF) melody harmonization. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model can generate harmonious and fluent chord progressions for diverse melodies. Quantitatively, DQN-Chord achieves better performance than the compared methods on multiple evaluation metrics, such as chord histogram similarity (CHS), chord tonal distance (CTD), and melody-chord tonal distance (MCTD).

GENRE-STYLE AND SPIRITUAL-ETHICAL METAMORPHOSIS OF FRENCH MUSICAL THEATER OF THE 17TH-20TH CENTURIES

The purpose of the work is to identify the genre-stylistic and spiritual-meaning specifics of the French musical theater of the New Age and its evolutionary paths in the European culture of the 17th-20th centuries. The historical paths of the development of French musical theater of the 17th–20th centuries reveal its genre and stylistic diversity, represented by the typologies of “lyrical tragedy”, “salvation opera”, Empire opera, “grand” French opera, lyric opera and numerous varieties of samples of experimental musical theater and synthetic genres formations of the 20th century. The timbre-intonational and dramaturgical palette of the mentioned genres is organically inscribed in the stylistic priorities of French culture and music of the New Age Baroque, Classicism, Empire, Romanticism, Biedermeier, etc. At the same time, the mentioned typologies of the French musical theater combine a number of common features, among which we single out the essential role of its cult-mysterious primary basis, the corresponding types of imagery and their leading features, oriented to the cultivation of Christian virtues, the idea of spiritual transformation, the harmonious union of the earthly and sacred worlds. The appeal to educational and didactic, as well as spiritual and ethical factors in French opera (even at the level of biblical thinking of own history) conditions its appeal to large-scale bright spectacular performances with a large number of mass and ballet scenes, the genesis of which went back to the spiritual traditions of the culture of French absolutism in its historical development The specified genre metamorphoses of modern French opera at the level of “genre memory” focused the attention of the listener-spectator first of all on the original manner of conveying the poetic Word, its spiritual and ethical meaning, which went back to the “mysterious mode” of the French musical theater, on a clear fixation of dance-plastic movement-gesture, which collectively retained its significance at all stages of its historical existence.

Redefining Catholic Sisterhood: Intersections of Autonomy and Religion in Sacrilege and Nunsense

Feminist Catholic sisters epitomize progressive and autonomous women who defy the stereotyped sisterhood, confronting the gender hierarchy within the patriarchal Catholic Church. The religious reforms post-Vatican II and the desideratum of inclusivity for avowed women in decision-making roles have contributed to the emergence of a feminist theological movement that thwarts the erasure of women from religious histories. Delving deep into the feminist theological tenets mirrored in Diane Shaffer’s Sacrilege: A Drama in Two Acts and Dan Goggin’s Nunsense: A Musical Comedy, the present study aims to examine the thespian representation of religious reforms post-Vatican II, exploring the strategies Catholic sisters adopt in their struggle for autonomy. The study contends that the representations of the radical and feminist sisters in the plays potentially challenge the rigid ecclesiastical hierarchy and uphold the deconstruction of sisterhood.

From ‘musique concrète’ and Acousmatic Art to the ‘New Music Theater’. The Austrian Composer Dieter Kaufmann

This article follows the way the Austrian composer Dieter Kaufmann has gone with his conceptions taken from musical and extra-musical domains, as literature, visual arts, religion and politics, describing some of his theatrical works. For him the function of music is to improve the society and therefore his works are a critic to politics or to religion. Having studied in Paris by Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Schaeffer, François Bayle and René Leibowitz, he contributed to the development of the electronic music in Austria with his creation and his teaching of electroacoustic composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. He went further than the Parisian ‘musique concrète’, which worked with sound objects, and consciously selected and worked with objects of sound ambient in order to manage the sound environment, to musically shape it. The acousmatic art deals with sound objects, which are recorded and projected in another space, the theatre scene being an ideal space of it. A large part of his works are included in the genre of New Music Theater of the 20th and 21st century, where sound (tone and word) and movement come together, each of them having the same weight. Keywords: musique concrète, sound object, acousmatic art, multimedia, electroacoustic composition

“The Real Kazakh is a Dombyra”?: Musical Instruments and Nation Branding in 21st-Century Kazakhstan

ABSTRACT Although both the two-string plucked lute dombyra and two-stringed horsehair fiddle qyl-qobyz possess strong ties to the nomadic heritage of the Kazakhs, the dombyra embodies a much more public, accessible, and officially endorsed musical representation of Kazakh-ness than the mysterious and complicated qyl-qobyz. This article will explore the characteristics that have come to define the dombyra and qyl-qobyz in the Kazakh national imagination, and how musical instruments participate in “nation branding” by reinforcing a desirable image of the nation-state – and by extension promoting a particular narrative of national identity – while also complicating that image by embodying complex and occasionally difficult histories.

Voice Disorder Prevalence and Vocal Health Characteristics in Adolescents

Voice disorders impede communication and detract from quality of life, yet little is known about how voice problems present in adolescents. This study characterized the prevalence of voice problems and vocal health characteristics of adolescents throughout the US. To determine the prevalence of adolescent voice problems in the US as well as the symptoms, voice use patterns, and risk factors associated with these problems. This prospectively performed, cross-sectional survey study conducted from March to June 2023 included a probability sample of adolescents (aged 13-17 years) who were located across the US. Adolescents were surveyed concerning voice use, voice symptoms, demographic information, and substance use patterns. The Vocal Fatigue Index (VFI) was also completed. Fisher exact tests, χ2 tests, and logistic regression were used to compare those with and without reported voice problems. Five-hundred and two adolescents participated (51.6% participation rate), including 248 female (49.4%), 7 nonbinary (1.3%), 254 male (50.6%), 4 transfemale (0.7%), and 3 transmale individuals (0.5%) (mean [SD] age, 15.2 [1.3] years). The lifetime prevalence of voice problems was 24.3%, and current prevalence was 7.4%. Voice-related diagnoses included dysphonia associated with acute illness, vocal hyperfunction, benign lesions, and muscle tension. The mean (SD) VFI score was 4.7 (8.09) for part 1, 1.6 (3.2) for part 2, and 2.1 (3.2) for part 3. Adolescents with voice complaints presented with significantly higher VFI scores than those without voice problems (Cohen d for part 1 = 0.78, part 2 = 0.59, and part 3 = 0.79). Voice problems interfered with daily tasks, prevented participation in extracurricular activities, limited the ability to sing, and were associated with school absences. Voice use patterns associated with voice problems included frequent loud voice use, coughing, and/or throat clearing. Risk factors for increased voice problem prevalence included part-time employment in childcare (odds ratio [OR], 6.4; 95% CI, 1.6-26.3), singing (OR, 2.08; 95% CI, 1.3-3.1), performance-related extracurricular activities (ie, musical theater [OR, 2.67; 95% CI, 1.1-6.6 ], karaoke [OR, 3.08; 95% CI, 1.3-6.9]), vaping (OR, 1.99; 95% CI, 1.1-3.5), and/or secondhand smoke exposure (OR, 1.83; 95% CI, 1.2-2.7). Adolescents identifying as transgender were more than 4 times (OR, 4.44; 95% CI, 0.63-31.2) as likely to report voice problems compared with cisgender adolescents. The results of this survey study illuminate the nature of voice problems in adolescents and may guide clinicians in preventing and treating voice disorders in this population. Future work may define the mechanisms through which these factors are associated with the risk for voice disorders in adolescents and determine whether observed relationships are causal or associative.

A unified representation framework for the evaluation of Optical Music Recognition systems

Modern-day Optical Music Recognition (OMR) is a fairly fragmented field. Most OMR approaches use datasets that are independent and incompatible between each other, making it difficult to both combine them and compare recognition systems built upon them. In this paper we identify the need of a common music representation language and propose the Music Tree Notation format, with the idea to construct a common endpoint for OMR research that allows coordination, reuse of technology and fair evaluation of community efforts. This format represents music as a set of primitives that group together into higher-abstraction nodes, a compromise between the expression of fully graph-based and sequential notation formats. We have also developed a specific set of OMR metrics and a typeset score dataset as a proof of concept of this idea.

A New Model of Vocal Music Teaching in the Context of Internet Distance Learning

As Internet technology evolves, distance learning emerges as a pivotal mode of education. In music education, vocal teaching faces limitations in traditional face-to-face methods. This paper explores the advantages of Internet-based remote vocal music teaching and proposes a new mode leveraging an online platform, multimedia technology, and real-time interaction. The study assesses its impact on theoretical knowledge, vocal skills, singing proficiency, satisfaction, and improvement. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of Internet-based remote teaching, overcoming geographical barriers and providing flexible learning opportunities. Multimedia tools enhance skill demonstration, making learning more intuitive. The study reveals that Internet distance vocal teaching rivals traditional methods in improving singing skills and outperforms in teaching music theory. Moreover, students express higher satisfaction with this innovative approach, establishing it as a promising mode in vocal music education.

'We Feel Something'

On February 11, 1965, less than one year after the outset of the Brazilian military dictatorship, singer Maria Bethânia assumed one of the principal roles in the musical theater piece Opinião in Rio de Janeiro. Taking over for Nara Leão, who helped conceive the play, Bethânia was celebrated by fans, especially for her performance of co-star João do Vale’s song ‘Carcará.’ The song’s lyrics invoke imagery of the Brazilian northeast, home region of both Vale and Bethânia, and the performance includes a spoken statistical report on the migration of people from the northeast to the southern cities. Although the song’s composer denied that the song was an act of protest or political commentary, General Riograndino Kruel, then head of the Federal Police, identified it as one of the ‘subversive’ elements in the show that needed to be cut. This call to censorship contradicted the censor board’s 1964 approval of the show, during Nara Leão’s run as star. This article analyzes singer Maria Bethânia’s participation in Opinião to consider the potential for musical performance to engender political community by affective means. Drawing on archival materials and interviews conducted with audience members and participants, I argue that Bethânia’s performances were the catalyst for the formation of an oppositional ‘community of feeling,’ a collective predicated the expression of negative emotional energy toward the nascent authoritarian state. I show how audience members’ and critics’ affective response to Bethânia’s performance evidenced a shift in the tenor of the public for Opinião, which subsequently raised the suspicions of the military government. Additionally, I investigate how the dictatorship’s repressive response illustrates the possibilities and limits of a community formed through musical performance. Photo caption: Maria Bethania in the show Opinião, at Teatro de Arena, São Paulo, 1965. (Public domain / Arquivo Nacional Collection)

ВКЛАД ЖАНА КАРЗУ В ТЕАТРАЛЬНО-ДЕКОРАЦИОННОЕ ИСКУССТВО ФРАНЦИИ

In the 50-60s of the last century the famous French-Armenian artist Jean Carzou (Garnik Zouloumian, 1907-2000) created seven works of theatrical-decorative art for musical and dramatic theaters of France, having designed Jean-Philippe Rameau's opera-ballet «Les Indes Galantes», Adolphe Adam's ballet «Giselle», Jean Racine's drama «Athalie», Jacques Offenbach's operetta «La Périchole», etc. The aim of this article is to present concisely and analyze Carzou's theatrical-decorative work on the basis of archival materials.For stage designs of the productions by venerable directors and choreographers of France of the time, like Maurice Lehmann, Roland Petit, John Butler and others Carzou worked for a long time, combining their vision with his own unique aesthetics. These vibrant, highly artistic works were a success, in some cases contributing to the polymodal synesthesia requisite for theater. These works have graced the stages of the world's most prestigious theaters - Grand Opera, Comédie Française, La Scala...

Two Latin Translations of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Problems on Harmony (Section 19) Compared

Abstract Out of the whole corpus of the so-called Musici scriptores Graeci, the only texts to be translated into Latin, and therefore to be known in the West during the Middle Ages, were the two sections of the pseudo-Aristotelian Problems dealing with musical matters: the Questions on the Voice (Section 11) and the Questions of Harmonics (Section 19). This article tackles the two most relevant Latin translations of the latter, by Bartholomew of Messina and Theodore Gaza (13th and 15th cent. AD respectively), which stand out as turning points in the reception of this work. Bartholomew’s translation was widespread in the main Italian and European cultural centres; it was through it that the text, which at that time was considered genuinely Aristotelian, was made accessible to medieval music theorists. Theodore’s version, on the other hand, was meant to offer a style palatable to the humanists’ more refined tastes; however, although undoubtedly more elegant than Bartholomew’s somehow clumsy Latin, it failed to entirely replace it. A comparison of the two is provided here, in order to describe, on the one hand, their authors’ different approaches to a text which is often arduous and even damaged in some points; on the other hand, to notice how their rendition of the Greek is in some cases affected by the musical culture of their own times.

Frontera de Valldemosa’s Equinotación and the Nineteenth-Century Textbook Controversies It Sparked

Abstract. Francisco Frontera de Valldemosa (1807-1891) published the first edition of his treatise, generally known as Equinotación, in 1837. The book purported to simplify musical notation by reducing the complex system of clefs to only three. From the moment it became public his clef method became controversial. First, it sparked a long controversy in the Revue et gazette musicale de Paris regarding the system’s originality, usefulness, and possible plagiarism. Subsequent editions decades later also sparked debates and even a couple of lawsuits, as reflected in several articles in the Gaceta musical barcelonesa. At the bottom of these polemics and under the guise of music-theoretical arguments there were the commercial interests of the textbooks’ authors. Keywords. Equinotación, Francisco Frontera de Valldemosa, Jose Gil y Navarro, musical notation, textbooks, music theory and solfège methods, Revue et gazette musicale de Paris, Gaceta musical barcelonesa.

Corpus Studies and ‘Close Listening’

ABSTRACTThis article provides a detailed response to Markus Neuwirth and Martin Rohrmeier's article ‘Wie wissenschaftlich muss Musiktheorie sein?’, published in the Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie in 2016. I undertake to nuance their call for the wholesale adoption of machine‐assisted corpus‐based methods in music theory through a detailed appreciation of work‐specific analysis as is has been practiced in American music theory. The argument unfolds through three case studies: of David Lewin's 1982 analysis of Schubert's ‘Auf dem Flusse’; of Vasili Byros's more recent approach to the Eroica Symphony; and then of Lewin again, on Schubert's ‘Morgengruß’. By means of these examples, I probe where corpus‐based methods can enhance traditional approaches and what new avenues of research they make possible, but I also emphasise those aspects of work‐specific analysis that elude their grasp.

Adoption of Virtual Reality Technology in Learning Elementary of Music Theory to Enhance the Learning Outcomes of Students with Disabilities

Adoption of Virtual Reality Technology in Learning Elementary of Music Theory to Enhance the Learning Outcomes of Students with Disabilities

Interpretation of the Tiger Trappers Novel by Ivan Bahrianyi in the Ukrainian Cinematography of the 1990s and Musical Theatre of the 2020s

Attention is paid in the article to the landmark event of modern Ukrainian culture – the book celebrating its anniversary in 2024 – Ivan Bahrianyi’s novel the Tiger Trappers and the rethinking, interpretation of this work in the modern Ukrainian artistic space, in particular in cinematographic and theatrical texts. This year, 80 years have passed since the world saw the adventure work with autobiographical elements, which resonated not only at home, but also abroad. And this is not surprising, because Tiger Trappers has been translated into many languages of the world and had a circulation of over a million copies. Ivan Bahrianyi has submitted to a wide audience a very Ukrainian in spirit and worldview action, which even today in the 21st century is able to interest young people with its truthfulness and insight, its thirst and desire for freedom. The film version of the Tiger Trappers novel, which has appeared in 1994 at the Ukrtelefilm studio is analysed in the investigation. A well-known figure of Ukrainian culture Rostyslav Synko is a director and screenwriter of the film. The film text is based on the original source, but there are also differences those testify not only to another time period, the other era in which the film was shot, but also to certain new accents, a new vision, a reinterpretation of Ivan Bahrianyi’s novel about the young aviator Hryhorii Mnohohrishnyi. According to the plan of the author of the film story has another name. He is called Andrii Chumak in the film. There are also the other details those differ in the novel and in the fictional strip of the same name. And this is quite natural, because it is about the author’s interpretation, reinterpretation of a well-known work. The film of the same name also draws the viewer’s attention to the two Ukraines of the main characters: to the distant, dreamed-of real Ukraine with Golden-topped Kyiv and to the Second Ukraine, which immigrants, exiles from their native land, have built for them in the Far East in the bloody 20th century. In our time, this motif acquires new shades, because again, already in the 21st century, there are Ukrainian immigrants, again there are people who are forced to seek refuge all over the world, escaping from the terrible Russian invasion. Will new immigrants be able to find their Second Ukraine? Will they be able to return to their homeland? Life will show... The interpretation of the novel in modern Ukrainian musical theater is considered. Last year the musical Tiger Trappers directed by Serhii Pavliuk has been released basing on the novel of the same name by Ivan Bahrianyi. This fact, without exaggeration, has become a landmark artistic event, which has success with the audience and favourable reviews of critics. It is emphasized in the article that when we see a finished cultural product of the Ukrainian artistic space, whether it is a film or a theatrical production, a musical, etc., based on a certain work of fiction, we realize that this is already an interpretation, a reinterpretation. So, we are already talking about the creation of a new cultural text – a film text, a theatrical text, a musical text, etc. The significance of modern theater and film art is understood. It is claimed that the mission of art today is exactly rehabilitation through art. An artistic product should give hope, show a happy version of the course of events. Faith in the victory of good over evil, glorification of love that does not pass away – all this should be present in modern theatrical, musical and film texts today. After all, there is a demand for such cultural products in the modern time slice of the 2020s.

Terminological Issues and Propositions in the Search for an Ontology of Harmonic Structures

This article presents a fragment from a larger research with the intention of anticipating some of its main topics, which aim to assemble a pedagogical theoretical body for music harmony in the context of the globalized and diverse world of the 21st century. The research fragment presented discusses terminological issues and propositions for an ontological study of harmonic structures that concerns itself with the definition of what types of musical sound objects of definite pitch do exist, how many are there, which properties they possess and their musical consequences, all organized in a logical taxonomical system referred to by means of an adequate terminology. The text first establishes the need for such an ontology, and proceeds with a description of the terminological issues involved in a secondary term formation action, a subsequent renaming effort that is all the more challenging when dealing with a field with a huge lifetime such as music theory. The methodology used in the terminological recreation is then described, explaining its preference for terms that, regardless of their lexicographic origins and prevalence, are single-words that provide biunivocal association, that avoid ambiguity by synonymy and polysemy, that are self-explanatory, and that are of easy translation using same-lexeme words similar in graphical form. It is then given a brief summary of the structure of the created ontology, followed by the definitions, lexicographic origins, and neologism-creating derivational strategies for all its main proposed terms, including those to be used in the classifications of harmonic structures according to the criteria of cardinality, chirality, azimuth, triadic intrinsicality, monadic, triadic, and transpositional proclivities, limiting characteristics, and modalization, superset and subset relationships. To close the text, a schematic view of the organizational structure of the ontology is shown, together with its translation into three different languages.