Traditional Harmony Research Articles

Harmony Search Algorithm Based on Cloud Theory

The parameter bw is a distance bandwidth between 0 and 1 in harmony search algorithm, which helps the algorithm in finding globally and locally improved solution. In this paper, a new harmony search algorithm is proposed in order to improve the convergence speed and the global search algorithm of the harmony search algorithm. The parameter bw is adjusted based on cloud theory in this new algorithm. The new algorithm is tested on some benchmark functions and the results are compared with the result of the traditional harmony search. Experimental results indicate that the new harmony search algorithm has a good performance in the global search ability and convergent speed.

The perception of harmonic triads: an fMRI study

We have undertaken an fMRI study of harmony perception in order to determine the relationship between the diatonic triads of Western harmony and brain activation. Subjects were 12 right-handed, male non-musicians. All stimuli consisted of two harmonic triads that did not contain dissonant intervals of 1 or 2 semitones, but differed between them by 0, ±1, ±2 or ±3 semitones and therefore differed in terms of their inherent stability (major and minor chords) or instability (diminished and augmented chords). These musical stimuli were chosen on the basis of a psychoacoustical model of triadic harmony that has previously been shown to explain the fundamental regularities of traditional harmony theory. The brain response to the chords could be distinguished within the right orbitofrontal cortex and cuneus/posterior cingulate gyrus. Moreover, the strongest hemodynamic responses were found for conditions of rising pitch leading from harmonic tension to modal resolution.

Theory-Jamming

Musical improvisation (or jam) suggested as a method of rigourous eclecticism required by the diffusion of communication theory.

Getting to the What, How, and Why of Diversity on Campus

What kinds of diversity initiatives and cross-racial interactions foster learning among diverse students? In response to that question, the authors trace various social psychological theories that inform campus diversity programs. Making a case for moving beyond traditional intergroup harmony or intragroup solidarity approaches, the authors elaborate on a model that uses group identities as resources for intergroup understanding and collaboration. This model, which we call intergroup dialogue, engages students in exploring commonalities and differences in group identities and experiences, working constructively with intergroup conflicts, and building collective identities as socially just people. The article concludes with an agenda for future research addressing both substantive and methodological issues.

Optimality in musical melodies and harmonic progressions: The travelling musician

A `chord' is a collection of notes sounded simultaneously. A `melody' is a path through a sequence of chords, and can be represented as a graph. The paper describes an algorithmic approach to the generation of tiles that represent chord sequences, and a method for evaluating remarkable paths through these sequences. Traditional harmony is based on a set of rules such as variety, connectivity, tiling and enumeration that eventually produces a “beautiful” and “interesting” melody/chord relationship. A set of rules and criteria are defined in this paper to evaluate this melody/chord relationship. The proposed compositional programme contains two algorithms: (1) The first generates a list of possible sets of chords fulfilling the optimality criteria. (2) The second connects them and evaluates the criteria for each path. The optimal connection is a case of minimal spanning tree. A selection of the best tiles is then made with the help of the composer. A beautiful tile might show – or not show – high symmetry, and remarkable connectivity. The best tiles given by the algorithms are compared to the ones in traditional use. Furthermore, a category of chord-sequences, which we shall call `karo', shows interesting mathematical properties.

Bright Splinters of the Mind: A Personal Story of Research With Autistic Savants

Bright Splinters of the Mind: A Personal Story of Research With Autistic Savants

A Concise History of Christianity in Canada ed. by Terrence Murphy and Roberto Perin

534BOOK REVIEWS homes? And what about the traditional religious communities which have been experiencing steady growth in recent years? The Legionaries of Christ and the Daughters of St. Paul would be logical choices.These drawbacks notwithstanding ,Weaver and Appleby have made a very good start.This is a detaUed and fairminded overview of conservative CathoUcism which should be of interest to anyone concerned with post-concUiarAmerican CathoUcism. John E Qulnn Salve Regina University Newport, Rhode Island Canadian A Concise History ofChristianity in Canada. Edited byTerrence Murphy and Roberto Perin. (New York: Oxford University Press. 1996. Pp. xU, 456. $27.95 paperback.) Since the trilogy ofA History ofthe Christian Church in Canada byWalsh, Moir, and Grant was pubUshed in the early 1970's, the speciaUzation of Canadian history has produced new and more accurate methods of gathering information and deepening our understanding of the more sensitive issues of history. Fields such as gender, Native, reUgious devotion, and popular history have opened up whole new horizons which had been hidden or forgotten. Under the editorial leadership ofTerrence Murphy and Roberto Perin, Oxford University Press has pubUshed a new history of Canadian Christianity. Its emphasis is centered on the people's beUefs and practices in an effort to move away from institutional history.The five historians mobilized to write the lengthy sections of this substantial volume are skUled methodologists in researching and writing contemporary history. For instance, the American CathoUc Historical Association m 1995 bestowed its John Gilmary Shea Award on one of the authors, Brian Clarke, for his Piety and Nationalism: Lay Voluntary Associations and the Creation of an Irish-Catholic Community in Toronto, 1850-1895. And so the other authors are equaUy weU respected and weU pubUshed in their fields. Five essays averaging seventy pages each are carefully researched and skiUfuUywritten .The authors demonstrate that five researchers writing an historical synthesis are more powerful in skills and thoroughness than Individual researchers . Each of these speciaUsts has unique insights to share into the "fundamental turning-points" of Canadian church history. Although a bibUography is not compüed at the end of the volume, the endnotes of each section provide a record of the latest research on each topic. If this is the upside of the volume, the downside is that there is a wrench as one finishes one essay and goes on to the next. By means of the preface and epUogue, Murphy works to draw the volume Into structural unity and raise questions about the future of Christianity in Canada. In the first essay,Terry Crowley treats the French colonization tul its BOOK REVIEWS535 cessation at the British Conquest in Canada in 1763. He documents the rise of seventeenth-century baroque spirituaUty with a cast of colorful characters, such as John de Brébeuf, Marguerite Bourgeoys, Marie de l'Incarnation, and Kateri Tekakwitha. He misses, however, some outstanding Native Christians such as Joseph ChUiwatenha and LouisTaondechoren. Proceeding to the eighteenth century, Crowley reveals the creeping Influence of secularism and the superficiality to which religious practices had degenerated.With a dearth ofvocations and lack of funding, one of the few bright spots on the Canadian horizon was the founding of the Grey Nuns in Montreal by Marguerite d'Youvüle. Analyzing the period after the Conquest, Gules Chaussé focuses on the alienation which developed between the Church and the Québécois between 1791 and 1840. He refers to this period as the "hibernation" of the Canadian church, a period when it sidled up to the British government aUowüig the "new lay élite" in the Legislative Assembly to lead the Canadian community. Church officials at the time faUed to show sympathy for the pUght of an oppressed people. The breach between the upper clergy and faithful was later restored by the ultramontane renewal beginning in 1840. Murphy reviews the period from the founding of Scottish and Irish communities in the Atlantic region and Upper Canada to the disestabUshment oftheAngUcan Church in 1854.The assertion of the rights of the Protestant evangeUcals, the Church of Scotland, and the Catholics brought an end to the privUeges of the AngUcan Church. These changes and the emergence ofvoluntarism, however, did not fracture the traditional harmony...

Traditional Harmony Reconsidered

The author questions conventional attitudes to harmony teaching and describes his own approach based upon a careful observation of harmonic usage in masterworks. In particular he seeks to establish a view of chords as musical entities in their own right, not ‘group-related’ by principles such as ‘inversion’ but possessing a variety of possible functions arising from musical context rather than from established and immutable harmonic theory.

The Effects of Accompanying Harmonic Context on Vocal Pitch Accuracy of a Melody

This study examined the effects of five stylistically diverse vocal harmonisations (traditional tonal, chromatic, dissonant, quartal, and chords with extensions) on a singer's ability to sing an accompanying melodic line. Twenty-five college female sopranos enrolled in various university choral ensembles learned three unfamiliar melodies in an isolated setting, then sang each melody with each of the five different harmonisations. Performances were measured against a prerecorded reference tape using the Micro Music Pitch Master. Results indicated a statistically significant difference among performances with the various harmonic accompaniments and suggested a higher degree of vocal pitch accuracy oni melodies accompanied by traditional tonal harmony. Secondary findings indicated a statistically significant inverse relationship between years of choral ensemble experience and the number of trials needed to learn an unfamiliar melody, and between the number of trials needed to learn an unfamiliar melody and total performance score for each melody.

Traditional Harmony Reassessed

This article begins with a defence of the study of traditional harmony in schools, colleges and universities, despite the welcome and invigorating competition from expanding conceptions of the role and content of music in education, and in society as a whole. But if this study is to retain a place in our curricula it must be taught quickly and effectively. It must limit its demands on teaching time while expanding the techniques for developing facility both in sound and in the symbols used to notate it.

Technological Change and Industrialization among the Southern Pueblos

Among the Southern pueblos, decreases in the amount of irrigable acreage for agricultural purposes show a positive correlation with the rising importance of other means of livelihood. Population pressures, changes in the eco-system, and education have all contributed to the acceptance of industrialization and modernization, as well as a loss in native culture. A possible solution could be the development of a socibcultural model to cancel out the dichotomy and contradictions between technological innovation and Indian tradition - a solution easier stated than accomplished. A study of technological change among the Southern Pueblos reveals that the historically agrarian nature of their society is in transition, and today varies in degree of urbanization and industrialization from pueblo to pueblo with loss in native culture a by-product of this phenomenon.l Agriculture and livestock raising were still the major means of livelihood until the 1940's, when wage work, construction projects, the railroads, and government relocation programs replaced them (Dozier 1970:9). Although farming and cattle raising are still conducted on a limited scale, the majority of the Pueblos have some form of industrialization to assist in providing employment. Motivating factors for this transition were population pressures and deficiencies in the eco-system. The impact of these factors is explained by their direct relation to the economic survival of the Pueblos, for the traditional harmony of the Indian with his environment has been destroyed. Water and territorial disputes involving Pueblo lands are a matter of historical record and a source of continuing trouble illustrated by the case of Aamodt vs. the State of New Mexico now in federal court. Investigations conducted by John Collier, who was to become Indian Commissioner, showed that between 1922 and 1930, there had been practically no increases of irrigated land in pueblos around the Santa Fe area and that the amount

An Encoding Algorithm and Tables for the Digital Analysis of Harmony (II)

1HE PROBLEM OF organizing a large universe of objects is common to several research areas. Especially in musical theory, it is important to be able to identify classes (or sets) in such a manner that objects within a class are similar to each other, but are dissimilar from objects outside the class. Musicians have found that much can be said about a rather bewildering variety of musical objects called chords by lumping them together into sets called harmonies. Even harmonies can be reduced to a more manageable number by grouping those of like character into classes called sonorities.1 In attempting to analyze the musical works of others, the student of traditional harmony is confronted repeatedly with different tonal assortments. Although he may have little trouble classifying a given tone combination as a melody, arpeggio, scale, or chord, he might require additional instruction to identify every underlying harmony correctly and to state its proper name, e.g., major seventh, if indeed such a name exists. The average student's diiculty in mastering the principles of elementary harmony is increased by vagaries and ambiguities stemming from the use of literal notation and the definition of cllord roots. A more pronounced difficulty awaits the musical analyst when he undertakes the study of musical products of the twentieth century. Polytonality has given rise to awkward signature conventions in modern scoring, and by condoning an indiscriniinate mingling of enharmonic values, atonality has led to an unnecessary proliferation of variant chord spellings. Unfortunately, certain natural difficulties also arise when it becomes necessary to consider complicated harmonies. First, it is not easy to list correctly all of the harmonies of the type wanted. Secondly, it is not easy to shift some harmonies to new pitch levels accurately. Thirdly, it is not easy to recognize some harmonies after their transposition to new keys. It is customary to say that two harmonies are identical if and only if they contain the same tones, regardless of spelling. Two harmonies may

Learning through Composing

* There was a sense of keen excitement in the auditorium as sixty young musicians took their places in separated instrumental and vocal choirs. A few of those in the audience regularly attended the many orchestral-choral concerts of master works given by the students of Nanuet Junior-Senior High School. majority, however, were musicians who had come to hear a concert-type progress report of a new concept in the teaching of music. Among those present were composers, performers, and school and college music educators. From the first sustained notes of the low brass choir to the last polytonal chords of the voices and strings, the audience sat spellbound by the achievements of the students, for the hour-long cantata being performed was composed in twentieth century idioms and orchestrated by the nine students of the theory class, seven of whom were in their first year of theory. subject of the cantata was The Call, and each of the students had composed a section of the work around one specific call, i.e., The Call of Freedom, The Call of Space. various sections were then welded together by narrations on the same theme written by students of the English department. questions and comments from those in attendance reflected the keen interest of the musicians in the potentials of this concept of teaching and expressed their amazement at the musical insight and technical knowledge displayed by the young composers. Were they a select group of exceptional youngsters? No. Had they had previous extensive musical training and background? No. Could they write music in traditional harmony? Yes. Did they do all the composition and orchestration themselves? Yes. Was this the result of a new method logy? No. theory course is an elective available to all high school students. only requisite is that each student play or learn to play an instrument. None of the students had had previous training in theory or composition, except for the regular elementary and junior high school music classes (kindergarten through eighth grade). All had participated, however, in either orchestra, band, or chorus. entire program was, in reality, an oral demonstration-not of a method, but of a concept of learning as it applies to the teaching of music. basic ideas were developed at the Institute for High School Music Teachers (see AprilMay 1963 Music Educators Journal, p. 41) directed by Lionel Nowak at Bennington College; they include the following:

Discant, Counterpoint, and Harmony

Research Article| April 01 1962 Discant, Counterpoint, and Harmony Richard L. Crocker Richard L. Crocker Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the American Musicological Society (1962) 15 (1): 1–21. https://doi.org/10.2307/830051 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Richard L. Crocker; Discant, Counterpoint, and Harmony. Journal of the American Musicological Society 1 April 1962; 15 (1): 1–21. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/830051 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentJournal of the American Musicological Society Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1962 The American Musicological Society Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Aspects of Bach's Melodic Style

[After a short survey of the original phenomena of voice motion-discussed, for example, in Heinrich Schenker's books on theory or in William Mitchell's Elementary Harmony-, the original phenomena of the movement of chords were listed, with special emphasis on those progressions that are not part of a cadential movement proper, but in which, rather, tonics with different roots appear juxtaposed. Examples were presented, showing the co-operation of original phenomena of voice motion and of harmonic movement in producing musical effects. Finally the objection was made that traditional harmony indiscriminately analyzes as triads and seventh chords all vertical combinations of tones which outwardly look like such, even if they are only the result of voice movement and have nothing to do musically with such harmonies. An analytical method which would be justified if applied to a harmony as an isolated event may become completely misleading if it is applied to this same harmony as part of a continuous progression, where its meaning and direction are perhaps totally different from what the analysis according to root, position, and degree, would indicate. A few examples showed how such a procedure actually bars the perspective to the original phenomenon in the background and thereby obscures the meaning of the tonecombination analyzed instead of clarifying it.]

A Concentrated Course in Traditional Harmony

A Concentrated Course in Traditional Harmony