Specific Music Genres Research Articles

A proposed Critical Theory of Music Vilification to explain “problem music”

Links between certain music genres and detrimental behaviors and impacts have often resulted in labeling specific music genres as problematic. The resultant concept of so-called problem music (SCPM) typically focuses on hip hop and rock as well as their related genres. However, researchers have repeatedly found a lack of causal empirical evidence of SCPM and noted that the essential aspect is not the music genre, but rather how the music functions for the individual. This paper proposes the Critical Theory of Music Vilification (CTMV) to explain the vilification of SCPM. First, individuals exist within greater societal systems that oppress and marginalize people. Drawing from theories of social and musical identities, people may embrace SCPM to critique oppressive systems and develop social cohesion through in-group identities. Based on theories of stereotypes in music, societal systems often further ostracize people based on their music preferences and musical identities and people may experience harm. The experienced vilification and harm can reinforce people’s music preferences and corresponding musical identities. Societal systems then may vilify the music that was meant to critique their own systemic and policy failures, resulting in a cycle of music vilification. By including systems of oppression, classism and stereotypes in music, and music preferences and musical identities that critique systems and provide social cohesion, the CTMV provides context to SCPM as a socially constructed idea lacking empirical evidence. Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are provided.

Maker music education: Towards a post-digital, participatory and empowering music education

This theoretical paper aims to delineate a music-specific interpretation of a concept known as maker education by addressing substantial challenges within educational technologies, particularly in music education. Challenges include the potential constraints on musical agency, limitations to specific music genres and sounds and the environmental impact of increased music technology use in classrooms. In response, the maker education concept is introduced, adapted and refined as a pathway towards a post-digital, participatory and empowering music education. Employing a Design-Based Research approach, design principles for ‘maker music education’ are delineated, and the subsequent steps in the research process are outlined.

Does music heal? Opera and the mood of people over 50 years of age

The authors of this work, noticing that opera is a combination of music and theater, examined the relationship between listening to opera music and mood changes in people over 50 years of age. The study took the form of a quasi-experiment. Recipients were invited to the previously prepared room, where the audiovisual material – a recording of the opera “La Traviata” – was presented for the first time. This was preceded by the respondents completing the SUPIN C30 and S30 questionnaires and a short survey by the authors. After the presentation of the stimulus, the subjects again filled in the SUPIN S30 questionnaire scale and the GEMS scale. The described procedure was carried out twice, using two different music materials. The procedure remained unchanged, while the audiovisual material changed. The second time, the participants were presented with a recording from the opera “The Barber of Seville”. The participants of the study were 30 people. In the studied group, there are no significant changes in emotional states in response to the opera “La Traviata”. In turn, the opera “The Barber of Seville” has no effect on a positive emotional state. Instead, it caused a statistically significant change in the level of negative emotional states. The results of this study are largely consistent with the results of other studies examining the relationship between music and mood, but there are also limitations – only two pieces of opera music were used and no control group was included. Research has shown that opera, as a specific musical genre, despite its peculiar form, affects mood and emotions.

CONEqNet: convolutional music equalizer network

The process of parametric equalization of musical pieces seeks to highlight their qualities by cutting and/or stimulating certain frequencies. In this work, we present a neural model capable of equalizing a song according to the musical genre that is being played at a given moment. It is normal that (1) the equalization should adapt throughout the song and not always be the same for the whole song; and (2) songs do not always belong to a specific musical genre and may contain touches of different musical genres. The neural model designed in this work, called CONEqNet (convolutional music equalizer network), takes these aspects into account and proposes a neural model capable of adapting to the different changes that occur throughout a song and with the possibility of mixing nuances of different musical genres. For the training of this model, the well-known GTzan dataset, which provides 1,000 fragments of songs of 30 seconds each, divided into 10 genres, was used. The paper will show proofs of concept of the performance of the neural model.

Framing performance and fusion: how music venues' materiality and intermediaries shape music scenes.

How do performances contribute to meaning-making processes in cultural fields? This paper focuses on the spaces where performances happen and how music is framed and staged by intermediaries. I engage critically with cultural pragmatics from a Bourdieusian perspective to argue that performance contexts are central to the structure of music scenes, and that fusion may be understood as a moment when the “rules of the game” (Bourdieu 1993) of a cultural field are enacted, perpetuated, or contested. This article points to the role that cultural intermediaries play in shaping performances, interpreting systems of collective representation, and achieving fusion. I devise a framework to analyze how the Parisian music scene is organized and structured by a pure/impure binary linking specific music genres to performance contexts. I also examine how cultural intermediaries in Paris work within this frame, playing with performance “rules” to shape audiences’ understandings and experiences of music in particular venues. Drawing on ethnographic observations conducted in two major venues, I show how bookers attempt to transform the “rules of the game” and position their venues as part of the avant-garde by mixing “pure” and “impure” elements of performance during the events.

Sounds familiar(?): Expertise with specific musical genres modulates timing perception and micro-level synchronization to auditory stimuli

Musical expertise improves the precision of timing perception and performance – but is this expertise generic, or is it tied to the specific style(s) and genre(s) of one’s musical training? We asked expert musicians from three musical genres (folk, jazz, and EDM/hip-hop) to align click tracks and tap in synchrony with genre-specific and genre-neutral sound stimuli to determine the perceptual center (“P-center”) and variability (“beat bin”) for each group of experts. We had three stimulus categories – Organic, Electronic, and Neutral sounds – each of which had a 2 × 2 design of the acoustic factors Attack (fast/slow) and Duration (short/long). We found significant effects of Genre expertise, and a significant interaction for both P-center and P-center variability: folk and jazz musicians synchronize to sounds typical of folk and jazz in a different manner than the EDM/hip-hop producers. The results show that expertise in a specific musical genre affects our low-level perceptions of sounds as well as their affordance(s) for joint action/synchronization. The study provides new insights into the effects of active long-term musical enculturation and skill acquisition on basic sensorimotor synchronization and timing perception, shedding light on the important question of how nature and nurture intersect in the development of our perceptual systems.

Auto-communicative reconstruction of meaningfulness in musical randomness: reclaiming musical order on Facebook

This article investigates how music-specific communities on Facebook self-organize in and respond to the digital music ecosystem dominated by streaming platforms such as Spotify and their algorithmic restructuring of music. By building on earlier work on digital platforms as archives, we differentiate between the “old” and “new” orders of music cultures. We also utilize Juri Lotman’s cultural semiotics and his concepts of semiosphere and auto-communication to make sense of communicative self-ordering and memory work by music-related communities on Facebook in Estonia. Based on ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews with local music experts, we demonstrate how communities focused on record collecting, specific music genres or music quizzing work auto-communicatively, build shared memories, identities, and self-organize in order to resist the “new musical order” that has resulted from the datafication and platformization of music markets.

Music Genre Classification Using Deep Learning Techniques

Music genre labels are useful to organize various songs, albums, and artists into broader groups that share related musical genres such as similar sound etc. A music genre is a conventional group it helps us to identify some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although this terms can be used as viceversa. Music can be divided into genres in varying ways such as into popular music and art music,hip hop music or religious music and secular music. The artistic nature of music means that these classifications are often biased and notorious and some genres may overlap. We will classify the various music genres by using deep learning algorithm. We will train the model and by using various music genres of test dataset we will predict the specific music genre.

The art of composing: between autonomy and heteronomy

The art of composing: between autonomy and heteronomy

Reimagining Nashville: The Changing Place of Country

ABSTRACT For as long as there has been country music, Nashville has been its spiritual if not actual home. This city of recording studios, rehearsal spaces, music shops and venues is one of a small number of cities associated with a specific music genre and the creative cultures and attention this inevitably attracts. But just as heritage is never fixed and always becoming, Nashville - and the perception of Nashville - is changing, to the point where it may no longer have the primacy it once held. In a globalised music industry where not all country music is from Nashville, nor even the United States, new ‘Nashvilles’ emerge and grow, commensurate with actual or relative decline in the prominence of the original. This might be considered a heritage dilemma (heritage ‘at risk’, and a challenge to traditional views on authenticity), but equally the argument can be made for a new heritage replacing or augmenting the old. By considering the city’s ‘at risk’ status, and assessing the fictional representation of a reimagined Nashville in the Scottish city of Glasgow in the 2018 film Wild Rose, we explore this dilemma, and its challenge to heritage convention.

Review Essay: “Free Radical: Music, Violence and Radicalism”

Review Essay: “Free Radical: Music, Violence and Radicalism”

Frequent music festival attendance: festival fandom and career development

PurposeThe purpose of the study is to compare features of career development and fandom in frequent festival attendance in the context of Finnish music festivals.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a mixed methods research approach and employs two theoretical frameworks: theories of career development and fandom.FindingsIn frequent festival attendance, both festival career development and festival fandom are most clearly present in motivation development and social dimensions.Practical implicationsStrategically, frequent festivalgoers should be considered as crucial stakeholders, who might mobilize the co-creation of a sense of community or festival brand.Originality/valueMusic-related fandom has been previously investigated in relation to artists and specific musical genres, but not so much in relation to music festivals in general. Career studies, on the other hand, concentrate heavily on sports events. There is a scarcity of research scrutinizing both career development and fandom in the festival context within the same study, and festival attendance as part of music tourism is an under-researched area.

Jamming with implementation research

ABSTRACT This article offers a methodological exercise to enrich implementation research. Accordingly, one question was repeatedly asked: If implementation were to be perceived as a specific music genre (classical, blues, rock and roll, jazz), what would implementation research be? The result of this exercise is twofold. First, it enables us to revisit the field of implementation research, offering a narrative based on an interpretation of assumptions researchers hold regarding implementation as a concept and the impact these assumptions have on the research questions and findings. Second, it reveals a gap in the literature concerning the research goal, the implementation actors involved in the implementation process, their interactions throughout the process, the implementation research outcomes and their impact on public values. Specifically, the metaphor exercise revealed a gap in the literature that ties implementation to discourse and professional identity, offers the possibility of celebrating policy evolution, and raises different types of implementation.

Gender Differences in Short-term Memory Related to Music Genres

The purpose of the present research was to examine whether different music settings could influence one’s cognitive function – particularly memory. The examined sample consisted of 168 college students with a male:female ratio of 1:2.2. The participants were asked to complete a short-term memory test regarding word recollection while exposed to auditory stimuli. They were divided into three groups, each experiencing very different auditory stimuli (classical music; heavy metal music; no music). The results indicated that gender (as a single parameter) played a significant role in the recall process, with female subjects achieving significantly higher scores than males (p-value = 0.006). Music as an external stimulus was also found to affect the recall process significantly (0.02 < p < 0.04). Gender did not present any statistically significant association with specific music genres although, based on the limitations of this study, findings are in need of further exploration. The results of the present study may direct forthcoming research to address this issue further by examining additional variables as well.

Turbotronik – On the Border between the Local Music Scene and a Genre in the Making

This paper shows preliminary results from an ethnographic study of the modern musical phenomena that gathers “authors from the Serbian scene”, who’s creations are based on the mixture of the newly composed folk music and turbo-folk, along with various alternative music genres and styles. The research is conducted through the technique of semi-structured interviews with the artists and event organizers, as well as attending different events (concerts, compilation promotion, festivals Zasram and FESRAM), and using written and audiovisual materials that are accessible on the Internet. One of the main aims of this study is to designate the form of “turbotronik” phenomena in the context of music genre and scene, as well as recognizing its local characteristics. Through the analysis of different processes that influence the formatting of a specific music genre (name of the genre, the narrative on genre origin, visual identity, specific sound, the thematic of the songs and characteristics of the genre’s public) “turbotronik” is being observed as sort of a “genre in the making”.

Wpływ muzyki popularnej na odbiór emocjonalny materiału obrazowego u młodzieży gimnazjalnej

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Among adolescents, the importance of music reveals itself in their subjective experience (feelings), expression and emotional behaviors, as well as their physiological reactions. Music is of particular value because it is accepted and liked by young people, it stimulates imagination, provides many aesthetic impressions and has a significant impact onthe personal experience of the listeners. Adolescents have their own preferences regarding music, conditioned by their personality or situational factors.The primary purpose of this study is to determine the impact of different genres of music on experiencing emotions by young people.Materials and methods: In the project we assumed that the effect of music depends on many factors, such as its genre and the age or gender of the listener. We argue that listening topopular music causes changes in teenagers’ emotions, the music genre determines the nature of invoked emotions and that gender differentiates perception of emotions depending onthe kind of music one is listening to. We conducted a psychological experiment with a questionnaire to assess the participants’ initial mood, upon which they were presented with athree minute music video (hip-hop, pop, or heavy metal, depending on the group) and asked to evaluate 21 IAPS pictures (The International Affective Picture System), then they filled out a self-designed questionnaire including questions on demographic data, music preferences, or potential hearing problems. The study involved 388 second and third-grade secondary school students from Szczecin.Results: The experiment permitted identifying the cause and effect relationship between listening to music and emotions of the youth. It has been shown that in adolescents, listening to popular music evokes changes within emotions. These changes have more negative than positive effects on young people’s emotional reception of reality. In adolescents, gender has a differentiating function in the emotional reception of visual stimuli while listening to music.Conclusions: The experiment results show that listening to a specific music genre during the period of adolescence can have an important and specific role in development and socio-emotional functioning, and also indicates the need for further research on this issue.

Povezanost glazbenih preferencija s osobnim vrijednostima te crtama ličnosti

The main goals of this research were to explore the relationship between music preferences, Schwartz's personal values and Dark Triad traits, as well as to investigate whether there are stereotypes on listeners of specific musical genres. There were 510 participants, Croatian students, in the first part of the research, focused on exploring the mentioned relations. Participants completed the musical preference questionnaire constructed for the purpose of this research, the Short Dark Triad (Jones & Paulhus, 2014) and Portrait values questionnaire (Schwartz et al., 2001). In the second part, 115 participants from the first part of the study estimated the typical fans of specific music genres in a questionnaire constructed for this research based on the Dark Triad questionnaire and Portrait values questionnaire. The results have shown a low-to-medium correlation between the Dark Triad and personal values, as well as low and in most cases insignificant correlation of music preferences with the Dark Triad and personal values. The results also point out the existence of stereotypes of an individual's characteristics based on their preferred music genre, which were especially negative towards fans of turbofolk music.

Segmenting beyond behavioural intentions

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine whether a music festival leads to additional intangible benefits such as the appreciation of the specific music genre and music tourism. This was done by using visitors’ behavioural intentions related to these benefits as a tool for market segmentation.Design/methodology/approachThe research followed a quantitative approach by conducting a visitor survey at an international jazz festival in South Africa.FindingsThe results showed that visitors’ post-festival behavioural intentions are a useful market segmentation tool. This approach revealed three distinct market segments with different levels of post-festival behavioural intentions (high, medium, and low). The results further showed that music festivals have the potential to create benefits beyond the festival itself or the host destination in the form of music tourism and the appreciation of a music genre. However, influencing visitors’ behavioural intentions can only be achieved by a thorough understanding of the characteristics of the market.Originality/valueThis research applied an innovative market segmentation approach that showed the post-festival behavioural intentions of different visitor segments at a music festival. The findings confirm that music festivals can have far-reaching benefits that can contribute to their legacy.

UAE public participation in the musical arts

Over the last decade the UAE has invested heavily in improving its traditional and contemporary cultural arts institutions, including music. However there has been little effort to understand the nature of public participation in the arts in the UAE. The aim of the present study is to explore attendance in live music performances. We adopt a binary probit and multivariate probit model to investigate the factors that influence attendance in general, and attendance in four specific genres of live music performances (Arabic, Indian, Western popular and European classical music). The data consist of 650 and 727 households from Abu Dhabi and Dubai respectively. The results show that ethnicity and residency, among other variables, affect participation in live performances. However key factors show varied effects on the four music genres underlining the importance of evaluating specific music genres. Consider, for example, ethnicity and length of residency. Relative to UAE nationals, other Arab groups are more likely to attend Arabic music, while belonging to Western group positively affects likelihood of attending Western pop and European classical music. However belonging to Asian group positively affects likelihood of attending Indian music, but it reduces the likelihood of attending Arabic and European classical music. Relative to a short stay of up to three years, longer residency shows a positive effect on the likelihood of attending Indian, Western pop and European classical music, but has no effect on Arabic music.

Musical rhythmic pattern extraction using relevance of communities in networks

The rhythmic background of a musical piece is usually composed of featured elements that define the musical genre. For each song, such elements form rhythmic patterns, the most repetitive ones defines the rhythm of a specific musical genre and the less frequent ones correspond to fortuitous patterns that comply a transition, diversification, introduction or conclusion function. In this paper, we introduce a network-based method for automatic extraction of rhythmic pattern of a single song. We also propose a method for rhythmic summarization of a set of songs from the same genre, artist, and combinations of genres and artists. The method can be used to extract any type of rhythm pattern, both monophonic and polyphonic, represented by symbolic data. A musical piece is generally formed by one or more predefined rhythmic patterns and such patterns are composed of rhythmic cells (RCs), which are groups of rhythmic figures derived from nth division of a larger rhythmic figure. At the pre-processing and encoding phases of the proposed method, the RCs of drums percussion lines are represented in duration-weighted notation (DWN). Then, the vector of DWN is encoded to be free of the dimensional dependence on the number of figures in the RC. After that, a network is constructed from the encoded DWN using the method proposed in this paper. We find that the rhythmic patterns of the musical work are related to the formation of communities in the constructed music network. In order to confirm such a finding, three network community detection algorithms are applied: Modularity Optimization algorithm and Louvain algorithm for the disjoint community detection, and Bayesian Non-negative Matrix Factorization algorithm for detecting overlapped communities. Furthermore, a new measure for quantifying the relevance of communities to differentiate types of rhythmic patterns is introduced. The proposed technique has been applied to automatic extraction of rhythmic pattern and rhythmic summarization of the songs of The Beatles, Bob Marley, and other artists, respectively. The results show that the method of extraction and summarization has good performance.