Traditional Notation Research Articles

Punched Holes: Piano Rolls and the Visual Representation of Sound in White-Smith v. Apollo (1908)

Abstract In its ruling on White-Smith v. Apollo (1908), the Supreme Court declared that the punched holes of a player piano roll did not constitute a form of writing, and thus fell outside the purview of copyright statutes. Because the decision was superseded by the Copyright Act of 1909, which extended copyright coverage to piano rolls and sound recordings, commentators have relegated White-Smith v. Apollo to the status of legal footnote. The case, however, deserves closer attention. It reveals much about the fault lines between the auditory experience of music and its visual representation at the beginning of the era of recorded sound. Witness testimony is notable for its disquisitions on the history of musical notation, exegeses of recently patented notation systems, and philosophical ruminations on the nature of a musical work in relationship to its visual representation and sonic instantiation. Trial proceedings show how the perforations of a piano roll, which were more evocative of traditional musical notation than soundwaves etched on a phonograph cylinder or disc, destabilized the mundanity of reading music. Moreover, this instability suggests an explanation for why the piano rolls figuring in the case featured the music of Adam Geibel. The composer was blind, and in a lawsuit about the textuality of music, his disability served to contrast musical sights and sounds. Moreover, White-Smith v. Apollo furnishes a means of bringing the player piano out of the shadow of the phonograph, giving it a place in the “separation of the senses” that media scholars identify with modernity.

Bundle Structure of Massless Unitary Representations of the Poincaré Group

Reviewing the construction of induced representations of the Poincaré group of four-dimensional spacetime we find all massive representations, including the ones on interacting many-particle states. Massless momentum wavefunctions of non-vanishing helicity turn out to be more precisely sections of a U(1)-bundle over the massless shell, a property which to date was overlooked in quantum field theory and in bracket notation. Our traditional notation of states in Hilbert space enables questions about square integrability and smoothness. Their answers complete the picture of relativistic quantum physics. Frobenius reciprocity prohibits massless one-particle states with total angular momentum less than the modulus of the helicity. There is no two-photon state with J=1\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$J=1$$\\end{document}, explaining the longevity of orthopositronium. Partial derivatives of the momentum wave functions are no operators in the space of massless states with nonvanishing helicity. They allow only for covariant, noncommuting derivatives. The massless shell has a noncommutative geometry with helicity being its topological charge.

If Oskar Kolberg Had Had the Phonograph… Or How to Read the Oldest Archival Notes of Polish Traditional Music through the Prism of Phonographic Experience

The article explores the value of different types of sources (written, audio) of traditional music in the context of contemporary Polish folk music research and practices. The military twentieth century rendered a large gap in the records (especially in the sound recordings) of traditional music and in order to obtain a more coherent and complete picture of the essence and development of traditional music, it is necessary to combine all the bits and pieces in different types of recordings. The most recent research has allowed us to study the first notations of traditional music made by Oskar Kolberg in the nineteenth century in quite a new context – via audio experiences after listening to archival recordings. The “phonic age” delivered additional data about traditional music – not only lyrics, melody, intervals and formulaic notation of rhythms, but also every detail that could not have been captured and saved with the use of traditional musical notation. The appearance of new techniques of sound recording has a particular meaning and influence for the reconstruction of the ancient sound of village music and for styles and manners of performing. It is important not only for musical performers but also for theoreticians who often face the problem of how to interpret historical descriptions of music or how to truly perform historical reality (e.g., ethnomusicologists, ethnographers, film and radio-audience producers, etc.). An experimental study was conducted in collaboration with contemporary musicians on how they interpret the acquisition of a new piece written down over one and a half centuries ago. The results revealed notable differences between the musicians with academic education, younger generation revivalists, and traditional musicians in terms of acquiring the style of performance but also in shares of improvisation. In addition, the notation is not able to describe the nuances of performance and therefore the audio recordings or live models are of extreme value in the practical learning and researching of traditional music.

Rhombus: A New Spin on Macros without All the Parentheses

Rhombus is a new language that is built on Racket. It offers the same kind of language extensibility as Racket itself, but using traditional (infix) notation. Although Rhombus is far from the first language to support Lisp-style macros without Lisp-style parentheses, Rhombus offers a novel synthesis of macro technology that is practical and expressive. A key element is the use of multiple binding spaces for context-specific sublanguages. For example, expressions and pattern-matching forms can use the same operators with different meanings and without creating conflicts. Context-sensitive bindings, in turn, facilitate a language design that reduces the notational distance between the core language and macro facilities. For example, repetitions can be defined and used in binding and expression contexts generally, which enables a smoother transition from programming to metaprogramming. Finally, since handling static information (such as types) is also a necessary part of growing macros beyond Lisp, Rhombus includes support in its expansion protocol for communicating static information among bindings and expressions. The Rhombus implementation demonstrates that all of these pieces can work together in a coherent and user-friendly language.

Music literacy in higher education in Mexico: Current conceptions and teaching practices

This article presents an analysis of the perceptions of Mexican university professors about Music Literacy (ML), the practices used to teach it, and how the expectancies and values of professors influence the application of these practices. The literature review shows the relationship between the conservatory model and its influence on teaching ML in higher education in Mexico. Fifty-four professors from different states in the country answered a self-report questionnaire through Google Forms. The results suggest that the perceptions of ML are strongly linked to skills such as reading and writing traditional music notation. In their weekly planning, professors privilege the use of reading to learn repertoire from scores, over other aspects such as aural development and musical creativity. In addition, it was observed that professors tend to plan more frequently activities in which they feel competent, repeating the schemes under which they were taught. The article concludes by raising the need to develop alternative approaches, focused on a more holistic musical training, and the need to establish a basic set of skills in different areas that allows university graduates to have greater opportunities in the music profession.

A framework for topological music analysis (TMA)

In the present article we describe and discuss a framework for applying different topological data analysis (TDA) techniques to a music fragment given as a score in traditional Western notation. We first consider different sets of points in Euclidean spaces of different dimensions that correspond to musical events in the score, and obtain their persistent homology features. Then we introduce two families of simplicial complexes that can be associated with chord sequences, and leverage homology to compute their salient features. Finally, we show the results of applying the described methods to the analysis and stylistic comparison of fragments from three Brandenburg Concertos by J.S. Bach and two pieces from the Graffiti series by Mexican composer Armando Luna.

Междометия и междометные комплексы в пьесах А.Н. Островского

An analysis of the use of interjections and interjection complexes in the plays of A.N. Ostrovsky was carried out, whose 200th birthday is celebrated all over the world this year. The playwright’s works significantly changed the Russian theater; ordinary people, representatives of the merchant class and the lower social classes appeared on the stage. They spoke the folk language, in which dialectisms, vernacular units, proverbs, sayings, and phraseological units were widely used. There important component of folk speech are interjections. They represent a complex part of speech with contradictory lexical-semantic and grammatical properties. Among them there are units with non-standard phonetic composition. Attempts to convey such interjections by means of the alphabet lead to the use of traditional notation, which very approximately reflects their real sound appearance (ugh), which becomes the cause of ethnospecific forms of transmission of such physical phonations in different languages, and this causes difficulties in their translation. At the same time, it is hardly worth talking about a special phonetic system of interjections, since the overwhelming majority of primary units (well, ah, ah, ba, wow, alas, and many others) consist of standard phonemes of the language, and their prosody generally corresponds to the prosodic characteristics vocatives and other lingual units. Interjections are widely represented in the texts of A.N. Ostrovsky’s plays. A significant place in the speech of the characters is occupied by primary interjections, with the help of which the author reflects the diversity of feelings and experiences of the characters. Among the most frequent words in plays by A.N. Ostrovsky includes interjections, well, ah. In almost all works there are also primary interjections oh, eh, hey, etc. Secondary interjections in the plays of A.N. Ostrovsky is mainly represented by the interjectivated words God, God, Lord, used both independently and as part of interjectional constructions (God bless, God be with you, etc.). In many cases, it is not easy to draw a line between interjection and religious use of these units in the speech of characters.

한국 전통기보체계의 음악문자학 기초연구: 서양 전통기보체계와의 비교고찰

이 글은 음악문자학의 가능성을 탐구하는 기초연구 중 하나로, 한국 전통기보체계에 내재된 본질적 속성에 대해 서양 전통기보체계와의 비교를 통해 고찰한다. 서양이나 한국의 기보에 관한 선행연구들이 주로 기보의 역사 또는 특정 시기나 악기의 기보의 특징들을 다루었다면, 이 글에서는 한국 전통기보체계 중 대표적인 정간보, 합자보, 육보를 예로 들어 한국 전통기보의 규정적이기보다는 기술적인(descriptive) 성격, 그리고 한편으로는 개념적·추상적이면서 다른 한편으로 직관적·감각적인 속성에 대해 논의한다. 전통적 기보의 이러한 특징들은 서양음악과 달리 작곡(가)보다는 연주(가) 중심이었던 한국의 전통 음악문화와 음악전승에 대한 논의로도 연결된다.

The “open” notation as a tool for creating a composer’s text (self‑commentary)

Statement of the problem. Musical notation is an open, symbolic system of composer’s thinking. At the dry stage of its development, it becomes individualized in the creativity of a number of composers, which is thought out the development of new forms of overcoming the material through advanced piano techniques and atypical logic. The article introduces the concept of “open” musical notation as a method of musical composition. On the example of compositional analysis of his “Engravings” for piano (2021), the author sets out its principles. Analysis of recent research and publications. A number of works are devoted to the theme of notation, which can be divided into: 1) on history and typology of traditional notation (Rastall, 1983; Strayer, 2013; Ship, 2016; Kachmar, 2019); 2) non-traditional notation (Stone, 1980; Dubinets, 1999; Muzhchil, 2016). There are researches that reveal the idea of “open” work by U. Eco (1979), which corresponds to the theme of the article, among which – “From a Work to an ‘Open’ Work: Research Experience” (Zavialova & Kalashnyk & Savchenko & Stakhevuch & Smirnova,2020). Main objective(s) of the study is to identify the foundations of the composer’s thinking on the example of the cycle “Engravings” for piano and an attempt to propose a method of “open” notation, as a different way of creation. The scientific novelty is that it offers a method of musical composition, which was obtained by the author through many years of working, namely – the method of “open” musical notation. Methodology focuses on such methods of contemporary cognitivism as: genealogical – identifying the causal links between the creation of the method of “open” notation; contextual and comparative – the study of forms of existence of non-identical types of composer’s thinking; compositional and semantics – the disclosure of the principles of the structure of works in the context of the poetics of creativity. Results and conclusions. The article attempts to theoretically substantiate the method of “open” musical notation, which was used to create the author’s last opuses –“Engravings” for piano (2021) and “The Three Dead Kings” for viola solo (2022). Each type of notation used in the circles is a universe with a unique hierarchical structure, the elements of which are subject to the laws created by the author. Compositional and semantics analysis of “Engravings” reveals the positions of the method. It is manifested in the use of atypical clefs/staffs, the logic and existence of which correspond to the general idea and concepts of each part separately.

The Rebel Crank: redefining street barrel organs performance practice through physical gesture transgression

This paper redefines the performance practice of street barrel organs by transcending their conventional physical gestures beyond their role as mere music reproduction machines. We propose a new understanding of these instruments by establishing a parallel with how turntables started to be considered musical instruments through hand manipulation. Collaborating with Chilean organilleros, we experimented with the notion of ‘physical gesture transgression’ and explored creating new sounds through various body actions. We provide a list of ‘transgressive gestures,’ proposing expansions through instrument preparation or additional gestures, and how these new gestures can be annotated alongside traditional notation for other musical instruments.

Bis(1,2,3-trimethylpyridinium) Octa(μ2-bromido)Tetrabromidopentacuprate(II): Linear, Quasi-Planar Pentacopper(II) Oligomers Stacked to Form Egg-Tray Layers

The crystal structure of (1,2,3-trimethylpyridnium)2Cu5Br12 provides the second reported example of a fully halogenated, linear, quasi-planar, bibridged pentacopper(II) oligomer. The oligomers are aggregated into crosshatched layers that defy traditional notions and notations for quasi-planar oligomer stacking. The regularly arranged voids in the layers are occupied by inversion-related organic cation pairs similar to eggs in an egg-tray. The cross-hatched layer structure arises from a particular stacking of mixed organic cation/pentacopper oligomer sheets. The sheets consist of oligomers placed in a herringbone arrangement separated by zipper-like ribbons of organic cations in a structural motif similar to that found in other 1,2,3- or 1,2,6-trimethylpyridinium halidocuprate(II) structures. Alternative stacking of the sheets leads, on the other hand, to a conventional stacking pattern that conforms to traditional stacking descriptions. Interpretation of these structures in terms of the stacking of mixed cation/anion sheets, as is often performed for ABX3 systems, provides a complementary method for understanding these structures as well as providing a means to describe systems that are not easily described by traditional stacking notation.

Computer-Aided Composition Using a Sound-Based Notation

Abstract This article describes the music data format of the recently introduced Sound Notation system, and how it makes possible computer-aided composition of scores representing sound-based music. The Sound Notation system is an adaptation of Lasse Thoresen's spectromorphological analysis notation, developed for composition and analysis. A detailed description of the data format is followed by two examples of its application in a computer-aided composition process resulting in the sounding interpretation of two score excerpts of an electroacoustic composition. Generating sound structures as symbolic notation data in this way provided possibilities for the creation of sound-based music otherwise limited to works of traditional notation.

Notation as visual representation of sound-based music

This text describes the musical evaluation of a hybrid music notation system that combines traditional notation with symbols and concepts from spectromorphological analysis. During three academic years from 2017 to 2020, three groups of composition students learned to work with sound notation, recreating and interpreting short electroacoustic music sketches based solely on their notation transcriptions – they had not heard the original sketches. The students’ score interpretations bore obvious similarities to the original music sketches and their written reflections showed that there were no major difficulties in understanding the notation although some difficulties existed concerning finding suitable sounds, especially sounds with stable pitch.

Charge-Transfer Spectroscopy of Bisaxially Coordinated Iron(II) Phthalocyanines through the Prism of the Lever's EL Parameters Scale, MCD Spectroscopy, and TDDFT Calculations.

The position of the experimentally observed (in the UV-vis and magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) spectra) low-energy metal-to-ligand charge-transfer (MLCT) band in low-spin iron(II) phthalocyanine complexes of general formula PcFeL2, PcFeL'L″, and [PcFeX2]2- (L, L', or L″ are neutral and X- is an anionic axial ligand) was correlated with the Lever's electrochemical EL scale values for the axial ligands. The time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT)-predicted UV-vis spectra are in very good agreement with the experimental data for all complexes. In the majority of compounds, TDDFT predicts that the first degenerate MLCT band that correlates with the MCD A-term observed between 360 and 480 nm is dominated by an eg (Fe, dπ) → b1u (Pc, π*) single-electron excitation (in traditional D4h point group notation) and agrees well with the previous assignment discussed by Stillman and co-workers[ Inorg. Chem. 1994, 33, 573-583]. The TDDFT calculations also suggest a small energy gap for b1u/b2u (Pc, π*) orbital splitting and closeness of the MLCT1 eg (Fe, dπ) → b1u (Pc, π*) and MLCT2 eg (Fe, dπ) → b2u (Pc, π*) transitions. In the case of the PcFeL2 complexes with phosphines as the axial ligands, additional degenerate charge-transfer transitions were observed between 450 and 500 nm. These transitions are dominated by a2u (Pc + L, π) → eg (Pc, π*) single-electron excitations and are unique for the PcFe(PR3)2 complexes. The energy of the phthalocyanine-based a2u orbital has large axial ligand dependency and is the reason for a large energy deviation for B1 a2u (Pc + L, π) → eg (Pc, π*) transition. The energies of the axial ligand-to-iron, axial ligand-to-phthalocyanine, iron-to-axial ligand, and phthalocyanine-to-axial ligand charge-transfer transitions were discussed on the basis of TDDFT calculations.

Mundell Lowe’s Accompaniment Style on the Electric Guitar

This paper brings information and data about the work of jazz guitarist Mundell Lowe, who has influenced many musicians for over fifty years and is widely recognized for his imaginative and “orchestral-like” method of accompaniment. Mundell Lowe was born on a farm in Laurel, Mississippi, United States, on April 21, 1922, and died on December 2, 2017, he has often been described as a “guitarists' guitarist”. This study provides transcriptions and analysis of his accompaniment (comping) approach on all ten pieces from After Hours, the highly regarded 1961 album by the vocalist Sarah Vaughan. The data analysed in this paper is based on the biographical material and interviews of the guitarist plus transcriptions of the album mentioned - both transcriptions and interviews were done and conducted by the author as part of a doctored research. Lowe's complete accompaniment work is examined in detail and, for on this paper, few samples of his playing on the album were selected and presented for better explanation - the samples are written on traditional music notation. The findings disclose his techniques and tendencies pertaining to chord voicings, harmonic choices, treatment of intros and endings, double-stops, rhythmic devices, reharmonization, as well as several other techniques that embody his stylistic approach. Much of his style can be traced, and so related, to his musical background, his experience as a performer and arranger, and his interest in music styles beyond jazz.

GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION J. BRAHMS’ COMPOSITIONAL TECHNIQUE IN PIANO QUINTET IN F MINOR OP. 34

Under analysis is the issue of notation functioning as a sign system in the process of fixing a musical work, which is relevant in modern musicology. Scientific publications outline various aspects of musical semiotics, but do not highlight the relationship between the specifics of compositional techniques and ways of its rendering. Graphic signs are studied in the proposed article from the standpoint of this relationship which determines the scientific novelty of the results. The purpose of the research is to reveal the ways of graphic representation of the composer’s technique in the musical text on the example of J. Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor Op. 34 using semiotic and structural-functional methods of analysis. Results of research. In order to conduct this research, analysis of graphical representation of compositional devices in J. Brahms’ musical text has been done. His characteristic traits of writing include highly developed motivic technique. The composer finds new variants of musical units without changes of their rhythmical parameters or inner interval relations. In works by J. Brahms, variation presupposes such operations on motives, in which the composer changes either their articulation or temporal parameters as a result of shifting musical units in regard to the metric “grid” of the bar. Hence, there have been revealed new functions of the musical notation which becomes an important tool to fix and stabilize the musical work. Conclusions. As the composer fixes his musical intentions, formation of individual graphic sign system occurs; it is based on traditional notation but is marked by different functional and logical connections according to author’s intentions. As a result of this, various slurs, accents, “hairpins”, dynamic marks and their succession become one of the ways, in which composer’s thought acquires graphic representation. The specifics of graphic signs functioning in J. Brahms’ music requires their analysis as semiotic objects and understanding of the rules by which they can be deciphered. These rules cause relations between sign-bearers and their interpretants. Slur with its primal meaning of legato, placed in a new context, becomes a marker of motivic structure. Further joining of the slur with the “hairpin” allows indicating the principal tone, “emphasis” in a motive which influences its articulation. Thus, a circle of interpretants occurring in certain contexts expands.

Changes in Brain Responses to Music and Non-music Sounds Following Creativity Training Within the "Different Hearing" Program.

The “Different Hearing” program (DHP) is an educational activity aimed at stimulating musical creativity of children and adults by group composing in the classroom, alternative to the mainstream model of music education in Czechia. Composing in the classroom in the DHP context does not use traditional musical instruments or notation, instead, the participants use their bodies, sounds originating from common objects as well as environmental sounds as the “elements” for music composition by the participants’ team, with the teacher initiating and then participating and coordinating the creative process, which ends with writing down a graphical score and then performing the composition in front of an audience. The DHP methodology works with a wide definition of musical composition. We hypothesized that the DHP short-term (2 days) intense workshop would induce changes in subjective appreciation of different classes of music and sound (including typical samples of music composed in the DHP course), as well as plastic changes of the brain systems engaged in creative thinking and music perception, in their response to diverse auditory stimuli. In our study, 22 healthy university students participated in the workshop over 2 days and underwent fMRI examinations before and after the workshop, meanwhile 24 students were also scanned twice as a control group. During fMRI, each subject was listening to musical and non-musical sound samples, indicating their esthetic impression with a button press after each sample. As a result, participants’ favorable feelings toward non-musical sound samples were significantly increased only in the active group. fMRI data analyzed using ANOVA with post hoc ROI analysis showed significant group-by-time interaction (opposing trends in the two groups) in the bilateral posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus, which are functional hubs of the default mode network (DMN) and in parts of the executive, motor, and auditory networks. The findings suggest that DHP training modified the behavioral and brain response to diverse sound samples, differentially changing the engagement of functional networks known to be related to creative thinking, namely, increasing DMN activation and decreasing activation of the executive network.

The Musical Language of Rock

The Musical Language of Rock

A domain specific language notation for a language learning activity generation tool

Globalization has increased the need for society to master new languages. This need has encouraged the launch of many applications dedicated to language learning. This paper presents a graphical notation for a domain specific language to represent language learning activities. It describes how this notation enables developers to represent language learning activity characteristics using workflow, presentation, content, media and activity model conforming a metamodel that defines the abstract syntax of the domain specific language. This notation is implemented as part of an integrated development environment to build model-based applications. Finally, this proposal is evaluated with a framework that uses the cognitive dimensions of notations for notational systems. The proposed graphic diagram editor exceeds the experience that the user has with the reflexive model editor. In relation to the creation and editing of workflow models and presentation/activity models, the proposed graphical notation its more intuitive and easy to maintain visually than the traditional reflexive tree notation used by many model-based development frameworks.

Timbral Heuristics and the Sonorous Presence of Steven Jesse Bernstein

In recent years, music analysts have grappled with the sonic strategies from popular expressions that evade traditional notation. Their approaches often rely on harmonic spectrographs or various textual tools to decode the creative mechanics of these art forms. But for many practices with innate musicality—such as spoken-word poetry—these common techniques make limited explanatory headway. This article proposes an alternate path to fill the gaps: Adopt an analytic perspective, grounded in phenomenology, that listens for the musical subject’s negotiation of embodiment through their calculated treatment of timbre in the voice. Here, the analyst traces their perception of the subject’s bodily resonance through diagrams called timbral maps. And through these maps, two key concepts are discovered that structure the creator’s interior logic: timbral surfaces and timbral moments. Surfaces and moments are built into recognizable patterns, which in turn disclose the methods of these artists as lucid on their own terms. This “surface-moment” model is prototyped using a recorded performance of “This Clouded Heart” by the grunge-era Seattle poet and performance artist Steven Jesse Bernstein. The model reveals several stylistic tactics honed by Bernstein through his play with resonant shifts, but more significantly, argues for recasting timbre in analytic contexts: first, as a sustained and winding musical dimension, able to unfurl like other large-scale organizing principles; and second, as a heuristic capable of engaging listeners in an empathetic web between themselves and the subject through the mimetic connection of their bodies.