Solo Pieces Research Articles

FRAGMENTE2

The exposition provides an insight into the collaborative process of creating and performing Fragmente2 (2021) a choreomusical work by musician Kerstin Frödin and choreographer-dancer Åsa Unander-Scharin based on the Japanese avant-garde composer Makoto Shinohara’s solo piece for tenor recorder, Fragmente (1968). The exposition is an attempt to describe the methodology and creative process in this project, wherein music and dance intertwine in a non-hierarchical manner. The exposition follows the structure of the performance, which consists of a series of fragments, each of them analysed and descibed in terms of choreomusical interaction. We used Don Ihde’s experimental phenomenology and perspective variation (1986) as an artistic method to analyse and explore different aspects of our choreomusical materials and interaction concepts. To address and elaborate the choreomusical elements, we used Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s distinction between abstract and concrete movements (1945/2012), Pierre Schaeffer’s musical objects (1966/2017), and our own concept of choreographic objects. Furthermore, to jointly analyse and evaluate different interaction concepts we used video recordings, annotated scores, choreography scripts, movement instructions, personal reflections, and metaphorical descriptions of the 17 fragments. The process resulted in a contrapuntal choreomusical work where music and dance act as equal parts.

THINKING ALOUD: THE SOLILOQUY CYCLE

AbstractBeginning with Soliloquy I for solo violin in 1998, the author has been engaged in creating a series of highly virtuosic solo pieces for various instruments. Each piece presents a different character, yet all are framed by a single protagonist who narrates in different languages.This article focuses particularly on analyses of Soliloquies II, VI, VII, VIII and IX, but also offers a discussion of the genesis of and processes involved in the whole cycle, which now embraces instruments from every section of the orchestra; the most recent, Soliloquy IX, for solo trumpet, was written in 2022. The suitability of the title Soliloquy is also considered; this article in turn could itself be considered a soliloquy.

윤이상의 오보에 연주기법과 피리 연주기법과의 관계: 특수주법 교육방법을 중심으로

This study is to understand t he musical values of the world-renowned 20th century composer Yun Isang throughout his life, and to examine how his special playing techniques, which appear in the Western musical instrument oboe, are created and fused into his works, and to understand the relationship between special playing techniques of the piri and the oboe in his works, and to find an appropriate educational methods. Through this study, it is revealed that special techniques in his music, such as glissando, harmonics, double trills, rolling tone, quarter tones, multiphonics, flutter-tonguing, and bisbigliando are rooted in various playing techniques of traditional Korean piri, such as, sikimse, nonguem, chuseong, and toeseong, etc.. By understanding how these traditional elements of Korean piri are implemented in the work, the aim is to explore effective educational methods. This will help us to understand how the elements of traditional Korean musical instruments, piri are implemented in the work through special techniques and to find effective teaching methods. "The oboe solo piece "Piri" <"Piri" für Oboe solo, 1971> and concerto for two oboes <Invention> (“Inventionen” für zwei Oboen, 1983) by Yun Isang was examined as a representative work that well exhibits the sepcial playing techniques of the oboe and the techniques of Korean piri. The appropriate playing techniques and expression methods of the composers presented in the study results can be beneficial not only to oboe players but also to educators of music.

윤이상의 오보에 연주기법과 피리 연주기법과의 관계: 특수주법 교육방법을 중심으로

This study is to understand t he musical values of the world-renowned 20th century composer Yun Isang throughout his life, and to examine how his special playing techniques, which appear in the Western musical instrument oboe, are created and fused into his works, and to understand the relationship between special playing techniques of the piri and the oboe in his works, and to find an appropriate educational methods. Through this study, it is revealed that special techniques in his music, such as glissando, harmonics, double trills, rolling tone, quarter tones, multiphonics, flutter-tonguing, and bisbigliando are rooted in various playing techniques of traditional Korean piri, such as, sikimse, nonguem, chuseong, and toeseong, etc.. By understanding how these traditional elements of Korean piri are implemented in the work, the aim is to explore effective educational methods. This will help us to understand how the elements of traditional Korean musical instruments, piri are implemented in the work through special techniques and to find effective teaching methods. "The oboe solo piece "Piri" <"Piri" für Oboe solo, 1971> and concerto for two oboes <Invention> (“Inventionen” für zwei Oboen, 1983) by Yun Isang was examined as a representative work that well exhibits the sepcial playing techniques of the oboe and the techniques of Korean piri. The appropriate playing techniques and expression methods of the composers presented in the study results can be beneficial not only to oboe players but also to educators of music.

Tale of a Choreographer, Her student, River and an endangered Heritage

Choreographing in Pakistan since the 50’s, the country’s senior most 90+ years young classical dance maestro Indu Mitha has made trailblazing contributions within the Kalakshtera Bharata Natyam using North Indian music, interesting and contemporary content, while also producing more tableau forms of dance.
 In one of her recent solo pieces in the later style, titled “Qaseeda-i-Ilm of Jamal” or “An Ode to Wisdom and Beauty” Indu engages with symbolisms of a Hindu goddess of knowledge and Aesthetics_Saraswati and pays tribute to a forgotten dried up river of the same name. Indu Mitha allows the author, for whom and on whose body the dance is made, to bring in the forgotten river in her engagement with people’s histories of the land of present-day Pakistan and eventually facilitates her accessing of and embodying a pluralistic space of inter faith harmony which was occluded.

Gestural Tendencies in Composing Pieces for Solo Clarinet in Sequenza IX for Clarinet, Garisan, and Klibat

Abstract: Gesture in a broader sense is more than a physical movement but, can also be modes of expression representing specific meanings. Movements with meaning embodies gesture and gesture exists in various artforms like music because of its capacity to express. Its capability to transform through time and space makes it akin to energy and it is parallel with the art of composing music. Musical gesture however, are being studied at different levels so as to classify and to relate different functions of gestures. This article intends to demonstrate the use of musical gestures into composing music for a solo wind instrument. Three solo pieces for clarinet were written by three different composers approaching musical composition through gestural writing. To realize the imagined sound and movements of the clarinet, the composers’ composing process concentrated more on the gestural movements and tone colours of the selected wind instrument. The musical gesture in these three solo pieces is actually capturing the movement and sense of movement through music, and its essence lies in the subconscious lines connected to create direction and motion in both pieces. This compositional approach also gives the composers more compositional freedom and enriches their compositional process.
 Keywords: music composition, musical gesture, solo pieces for clarinet, contemporary music.

Aural Resilience

In 2018, the artist Chen Ting-Jung (b 1985) manufactured a sound installation that reclaimed the Beishan Broadcast Wall in Kinmen, Taiwan. Constructed in 1967, the wall’s seventeen loudspeakers broadcast political propaganda across a narrow stretch of water to the People’s Republic of China for three decades. In recognition of the sonic Cold War, Chen stripped down this fortress into its rudiments: a horizontal arc of speakers, playing one of Taiwanese cultural icon Teresa Teng’s famous solo pieces. She titled the installation You Are the Only One I Care About (Whisper). This article explores this reclamation, where the questions about the exploitation of female labour and the aestheticisation of the female voice confront the aurality of the Cold War. I argue that the female voice became a specific site of production during the sonic combat between the Taiwan Strait. Most importantly, I investigate how Chen’s intervention is both a feminist critique and a form of sonic resilience that is open to different political possibilities.

Just Do It! Exploring the musician's (use of) bodily performance

In the 21st century an increasing number of composers and performers include elements in their work that activate the musicians’ voice and body in ways not related to playing an instrument. The musician’s moving, dancing, touching, speaking, singing, shouting, grimacing, sounding body opens an novel and still expanding palette of expression – but its use also requires new skills that are currently not an explicit part of higher musical education or standard musical performance practice. Just Do It! is an artistic research project that seeks to explore the possibilities of bodily performance in an expanded field of music and to detect, define and describe some of the skills and knowledge needed to realize them. The project’s practice-based methodology is rooted in the creation of five new solo pieces for accordion and body and a concerto for ensemble and accordionist written by James Black, Marcela Lucatelli, Philip Venables/Ted Hufmann, Jennifer Walshe, Louise Alenius and Andreas Borregaard.

Influence of musical stimulus on the perception of clarity in rooms and its relation to [formula omitted

C80 is an acoustic parameter that evaluates the influence of the room on the perception of musical clarity. Numerous studies have been carried out to determine its just noticeable difference (JND). In those evaluations different musical pieces have been used, and different results have been observed depending on the pieces. In some studies, the difference was considered significant, while in others it was not. The lack of agreement on the effect that the musical piece has on the assessment of C80 is the main motivation for this research.A listening test was carried out in order to assess whether the musical motif has an influence on the perceived musical clarity of a room. In studying this influence, it was necessary to use musical motifs with very different characteristics. A total of five pieces were selected: one liturgical vocal piece, one fast tempo solo piece, one slow tempo solo piece and two orchestral pieces, one fast and one slow. These motifs were used to create the stimuli used in the test by convolution with impulse responses of rooms with different C80 levels. Impulse responses were obtained by modifying the virtual models of three rooms. Eighteen impulse responses were used with C80 levels between −5.90 and 6.75 dB. The listening test was carried out by 36 participants with varying degrees of musical training.It was intended to answer two different questions. Firstly, whether the participants were able to percieve C80 changes in all musical motifs. And secondly, whether the musical motif was a significant factor when assessing the C80 level of a stimulus. The first question was assessed using regression analysis and Cochran-Mantel–Haenszel (CMH) analysis. It could be observed that the participants were able to notice changes in the C80 level for the solo instrument pieces and the vocal motif. For the orchestral pieces, on the other hand, this differentiation ability could not be seen. To assess whether the motif is a significant factor in evaluating a C80 level, a CMH analysis was performed. The results indicate that, for all rooms, musical motifs are a significant factor in assessing the clarity of a venue. Consequently, it can be stated that the musical motif used for the evaluation of the clarity of a room by means of a listening test has an influence on the results obtained.

More Than One “Double Life”: Artistic Conceptions, Networks, and Negotiations in Benny Goodman's Commissions to Paul Hindemith and Darius Milhaud

AbstractBeginning around the mid-1930s, clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman engaged with classical music, adding standard solo pieces to his regular performance and record portfolio. He also stimulated the emergence of a modern clarinet repertoire by granting commissions to composers, such as Béla Bartók, Paul Hindemith, Darius Milhaud, and others. In this article, I explore why and how these projects evolved and how the collaborations unfolded. My focus is on the commissions to Hindemith (1941/47) and Milhaud (1941). The newly found correspondence of Eric Simon, a Viennese-born clarinetist who advised Goodman and initiated contact with Hindemith and Milhaud, reveal Goodman's “double life” as a multilayered sphere for various actors, each with their own specific background and agenda. My analysis follows three topics that decisively shaped the investigated projects: Goodman's relationship with classical music, which I discuss in light of the intersectionally biased structures of U.S. musical life; the situation of European émigré artists experienced by Hindemith, Milhaud, and Simon; and the promotion of new music, which linked the lives, networks, and agendas of the aforementioned protagonists and even defined their relationships. By highlighting Goodman taking center stage as a performer-commissioner, I argue for more serious attention to performers’ impact on musical production and repertoire formation, given that they represent the ultimate gatekeepers to the living repertoire.

Is it Violin or Viola? Classifying the Instruments’ Music Pieces using Descriptive Statistics

Classifying music pieces based on their instrument sounds is pivotal for analysis and application purposes. Given its importance, techniques using machine learning have been proposed to classify violin and viola music pieces. The violin and viola are two different instruments with three overlapping strings of the same notes, and it is challenging for ordinary people or even musicians to distinguish the sound produced by these instruments. However, the classification of musical instrument pieces was barely performed by prior research. To solve this problem, we propose a technique using descriptive statistics to reliably distinguish between violin and viola music pieces. Likewise, a similar technique on the basis of histogram is introduced alongside the main descriptive statistics approach. These approaches are derived based on the nature of the instruments’ strings and the range of their pieces. We also solve the problem in the current literature which divide the audio into segments for processing instead of managing the whole song. Thereby, we compile a dataset of recordings that comprises of violin and viola solo pieces from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern eras. Experiment results suggest that our approach achieves high accuracy on solo pieces as compared to other methods with 0.97 accuracy on Baroque pieces.

데이비드 버어지(D. Burge)의 <고향>에 투영된 한국 문화와 음악기법 연구

This study analyzes the deep sentiments for Korea expressed in <Go-Hyang>(Ancestral Home, 1994), a piano solo piece by David Burge, a pioneer of contemporary American music in the late 20th century. In this 6-movement work, quotation of Korean folk song and imitation of the folk rhythm allude to the wartime Korea. He portrays his lifelong friendships with Koreans through frequently interrupted melodies, linear progressions and nuances of soft dynamics, while chromatic harmonies, cluster, and poly-rhythm express Burge's identity as a contemporary composer. His relationship with Korea- his 'ancestral home' in heart, and his conflict and embrace of foreign culture noted in the autobiographical novel, ｢Vanishing Spring｣, manifest as warm timbre of dissonance and imitation techniques. Created from cultural understanding and personal experience, <Go-Hyang> is a work that sublimates the embrace of conflicting cultures into music beyond the fusion of Eastern and Western music.

Artistic and Expressive Space of the Vocal Chamber Works of Bohdana Filtz

The paper studies the chamber and vocal legacy of the prominent Ukrainian composer Bohdana Filtz (1932–2021), whose musical thinking was influenced by the traditional Ukrainian romance songs, in particular, the old Galician ones. Her orientation towards the genre of romanсe manifests itself in the poetic intonation of the textual basis and in the manner of her musical writing. In Filtz’s chamber vocal works, she expands the boundaries of themes and genres of solo singing. Her solo pieces for voice are characterized by an attentive and careful attitude to the performance and skillful use of the entire range of the most “capricious and fragile” musical instrument—the human voice. In addition, she effectively builds the very part of the piano accompaniment, which always plays an important figurative and semantic role. Two significant components in the figurative and thematic content of Filtz’s vocal music were defined—civil and lyrical. In her chamber vocal compositions, Filtz combines a purely personal idea with a universal, humanistic principle at the figurative and meaningful level, closely intertwining epic characteristics with lyrics and drama. Her tendency for the psychological acuity of the musical images of her vocal works was traced through their philosophic nature, enriched with drama, and sometimes with tragedy. Ukrainian classical and modern poets prevail in the poetic stanzas of her romances.

Developing Kinesemiotics: Challenges and solutions using the Functional Grammar of Dance

This article aims to test the applicability and the possibility of adaptation of the Functional Grammar of Dance, which is at the core of the development of the new interdisciplinary research area called Kinesemiotics. As a model of analysis for movement-based communication, the Functional Grammar of Dance has already been used for the analysis of classical ballet choreography, and it is currently employed in a collaborative research project involving the authors of this article and their research group at Loughborough University in the UK, the University of Bremen in Germany, and the English National Ballet. The testing opportunity is provided by the challenging analysis of an iconic choreography of the 20th century: Lamentation, a solo piece created by Martha Graham. The analysis will show the applicability of the theory and the adaptability of the model of analysis, and it will also provide examples of the way a new type of annotation based on this grammar has been created and applied using the ELAN annotation software. The use of ELAN includes the implementation of a specifically compiled controlled vocabulary providing labels for coding the materiality, structure, and semantics of dance discourse systematically.

Analysis on the Artistic Characteristics of Sheng Solo "Lin Hai New Song"

The sheng solo piece "Lin Hai New Song" was composed by Tang Fu and Mr. Gao Yang in 1975. It uses the labor horn in the forest area as the keynote of the piece. The musical emotion is firm and powerful and the rhythm is clear. The heroic image also depicts the magnificent scene of towering trees falling down the mountain. In addition to the traditional single melody expression, this piece also uses polyphonic techniques to enrich the color of the performance and make the artistic expression more colorful. The piece highlights the ideology under the social background at that time, and it is one of the sheng tunes with contemporary significance. 's classic. This article will discuss and expound the artistic characteristics of "Lin Hai New Song" from the aspects of music imagery and emotion.

Формообразование в ариях Иоганна Симона Майра: на рубеже классической и романтической эпох

The evolution of musical composition in the Italian opera aria during the 17th–19th centuries saw a number of periods when some structural principles of the musical form were gradually replaced by others. One of them occurred at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. It was at this time that the system of romantic opera forms emerged. The process of the aria transformation was especially clearly reflected in the work of Johann Simon Mayr (1763–1845), one of the most remarkable opera composers of the transitional era. The article considers some compositional solutions characteristic for the then arias. The evidence is taken from several solo pieces from Ginevra di Scozia (1801). They were compared with previous and subsequent musical and theatrical practice. On the one hand, these forms are based on structures typical for the grand aria of the late 18th century (two-tempo forms and rondó) that were widely used in the Viennese tradition, in particular, by Mozart. On the other hand, Mayr’s operas feature arias indicative of the development of la solita forma—the aria form, which was later used by many composers of the Romantic era, from Rossini to Verdi. The analysis of these arias concludes that Mayr’s works demonstrate a complex process of the development of a romantic operatic form and serve as a kind of a link between the two eras.

О СОЗДАНИИ «NOANOA» И «PRES» – ДВУХ ПЬЕС ДЛЯ СОЛИРУЮЩИХ ИНСТРУМЕНТОВ И РАБОЧЕЙ СТАНЦИИ ОБРАБОТКИ СИГНАЛОВ (IRCAM) (Ксавье Шабо, Кайя Саариахо, Жан-Батист Баррьер)

This article is a translation of a musicological work written by the Finnish composer Kaia Saariaho with sound engineers Xavier Chabot and Jean-Baptiste Barrière from the Ircam. The study describes two solo pieces – «NoaNoa» and «Près» – one for flute, the other for cello, realized during 1992 by Kaija Saariaho with the Ircam Signal Processing Workstation (ISPW, based on the Next computer) and with Xavier Chabot from the Ircam Pedagogy department. These works are created in the pedagogical perspective to explore the potentialities of Max on the ISPW, and specially its connexion with Patchwork used to prepare data and patches. In the two pieces, the electronic parts amplify and develop the sonic structure of the solo instrument, exemplify the close relationship between sound material and musical structure, and explore real-time strategies for control over various synthesis and signal processing algorithms.

Guitar in the works of Edward Bogusławski

The present article discusses the guitar pieces of the Silesian composer Edward Bogusławski. His artistic achievements in the field of classical guitar include only three compositions, which prove that that his treatment of the instrument was very comprehensive; he employed it in composing orchestral music (in the form of Concerto per chitarra e orchestra), chamber music (Trio per flauto, oboe e chitarra) as well as solo pieces (Musica per chitarra solo). I shall also present the importance of Bogusławski’s guitar works for the development of Polish guitar literature. Moreover, this article attempts to outline the importance and role of Boguslawski’s guitar pieces in the context of the development of Polish guitar music.

Breves relatos de uma bailarina gorda

Este texto apresenta uma coleção de fragmentos a respeito do fazer artístico-acadêmico da bailarina gorda Jussara Belchior. A escrita trata de questões que discutem e interseccionam a gordofobia como a criação coreográfica do trabalho solo Peso Bruto (2017), a noção de representatividade gorda, experiências de invenção e reflexão sobre os modos de fazer (arte e pesquisa), um referencial gordo que cruza diversos campos do conhecimento, saberes que se constituem pela proposição de que o pessoal é político, de Carol Hanisch e uma escrita bruta que se dá através de procedimentos da prática em dança da autora.

Instrumentation of Ottoman/Turkish instruments

Music is a universal art and narrative, but its universality can only be perceived through the diversity of cultures and countries. In Turkey, especially Istanbul and its surroundings had a close commercial and cultural relationship with Europe during the Ottoman era, which instigated a cultural interaction maintained till now. The cultural and artistic exchange between the Ottoman state and Europe dates back to the 16th century. Despite the many differences between them, these two musical styles were combined over time, and many composers composed works that survived. Also, contemporary musicians developed many practices based on new harmonic theories. In addition, the characteristics of Turkish music were used in Western works. In particular, solo pieces for Ottoman/Turkish music instruments were composed for the polyphonic orchestra. In this article, the major pieces that were composed in this genre were analyzed, and the original characteristics of Ottoman/Turkish music instruments used in the polyphonic orchestra demonstrated. From this perspective, the aspects to be considered were specified and explained to preserve the structure of both musical styles.