David Milsom, Romantic Violin Performance Practices: A Handbook (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2020). xv + 319 pp. £65.00.

Author(s):  
Geronimo Oyenard
Author(s):  
Kathryn Kalinak

This chapterexamines the diversity of international practices in film music outside Hollywood during the silent film era. It describes performance practices around the globe and offers a broader context in which to consider American practices during this period. It suggests that music functioned as a cultural interface throughout the silent era in a way quite different from the sound era and that music in the silent era had an impressive power to interact with moving images in ways not controlled by films or their producers.


2021 ◽  
pp. 025576142199081
Author(s):  
Rhythy Quin

In the West, the music practice of turntablism continues to gain traction and awareness both inside and outside of the music classroom, as DJing becomes more prevalent in mainstream music culture. This qualitative study investigates the extent and type of turntablism pedagogy in China, a country with different cultural and political values where traditional Chinese music remains the centre of Chinese music education. Twelve DJs from cities across China took part in a series of in-depth interviews. They were asked to recall their experiences learning how to DJ in China, as well as their opinions of turntablism’s inclusion in music education. Findings showed that participants preferred independent learning methods. In particular, participants significantly depended on Chinese social media applications to learn about turntablism and develop a national DJing culture. An absence of turntablism and popular music pedagogy in Chinese music education was the main reason for participants’ self-discovery and learning of turntablism. Findings also revealed a cultural disconnect between the younger generation engrossed in DJing versus the older generation’s fixation on traditional Chinese music to uphold nationalism and patriotism in society. This study examines an ongoing struggle regarding the extent to which popular music performance practices can be accommodated to work with the political aims of Chinese music education.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-126
Author(s):  
Joshua M. Hall ◽  

Compulsive smartphone users’ psyches, today, are increasingly directed away from their bodies and onto their devices. This phenomenon has now entered our global vocabulary as “smartphone zombies,” or what I will call “iZombies.” Given the importance of mind to virtually all conceptions of human identity, these compulsive users could thus be productively understood as a kind of human-machine hybrid entity, the cyborg. Assuming for the sake of argument that this hybridization is at worst axiologically neutral, I will construct a kind of phenomenological psychological profile of the type of cyborg which engages in these patterns of behavior. I follow Judith Butler in seeing this identity as the result of performance practices, which as such can be modified or replaced using other performances. Pursing one such alternative, I compose a dancing critique that “reverse engineers” the choreographies implied by these cyborgs’ survival practices. The upshot of this critique is that their movement patterns do indeed align closely to those of horror cinema’s zombies. I therefore conclude by suggesting a few possible choreographic imperatives to facilitate more enabling ways of being for iZombie cyborgs today.


Author(s):  
Kenneth S. Habib

The Lebanese singer Fairuz is one of the most popular and critically acclaimed performers in the history of Arab musical arts. Born Nuhad Haddad in 1935, Fairuz attained extraordinary success, in great part, through her cultivation of an exceptional command of the voice, her development of a deep individual artistry, and her solid rooting in the performance practices of Lebanese and Arab art and popular song. From early in her career, this achievement was in collaboration with the Rahbani family of composer-poets. Assi Rahbani (b. 1923–d. 1986) and Mansour Rahbani (b. 1925–d. 2009) were siblings who worked together as the duo known as the Rahbani Brothers. Fairuz and the Rahbani Brothers met at the Lebanese Radio Station, where she took her professional name, and they began a collaboration there that gave rise to their first international hit in 1952. Occasionally, younger brother Elias Rahbani (b. 1938–d. 2021) joined in the composing as well. Following the marriage of Fairuz and Assi in 1954, Fairuz gave birth to their first child, Ziad Rahbani (b. 1956), who was raised in the presence of some of the most accomplished artists from across Arab society and who similarly showed a remarkable aptitude for musical arts early in life. Following the death of Assi in 1986, Ziad became the primary composer for Fairuz, after which her lyrical and musical style to some extent began increasingly to reflect more of the sensibilities of a younger generation. Since their beginnings, the Fairuz-Rahbani team has changed with the times and given rise to a prodigious artistic output that has included the production of operettas, musical theater sketches, musical films, and over a hundred record albums. Thematically, the wide-ranging repertoire has sometimes addressed universalistic spiritual matters with references to God, eternity, prayer, and other mystical subjects. The artists also have presented material of more expressly religious character that mentions churches, mosques, and houses of worship; that covers esteemed geographical locales, such as Jerusalem and Mecca; and that presents traditional repertoire like Good Friday chanting and Christmas carols. While Fairuz and the Rahbani composers are Christians, their repertoire has appealed across society irrespective of religious and sectarian affiliation. In the process, Fairuz has become a multifaceted icon to listeners from diverse backgrounds in Lebanon, throughout the eastern Mediterranean, across Arab society, and in the diaspora. As for transliteration of the names from Arabic into Latin script, “Rahbani” is fairly consistent, but “Rahbany” also occurs. The plural (i.e., three or more) is “Rahabina” and also is found in the forms “Rahbaniyun” and “Rahbaniyin” while in English it appears as “Rahbanis” as well. While the duo of the Rahbani Brothers has been consistently translated into English in this way, the Arabic form is either “al-Akhawan Rahbani” or “al-Akhawayn Rahbani” (i.e., the two Rahbani Brothers). “Fairuz,” which means “turquoise” in Arabic, has numerous variants in transliteration stemming, in part, from the various possibilities for each syllable of the name (e.g., Fairouz, Fayruz, etc.), but some degree of standardization has come, in part, from the use of this spelling by Voix de l’Orient, the record label that has produced the bulk of her recordings.


Author(s):  
Joseph Church

Rock ’n’ roll music and its offshoots, including pop, hard rock, rap, r&b, funk, folk, and many others, have become the standard language of today’s musical theatre. Theatre singers, performers, and coaches need a source of information on these styles, their origins, and their performance practices. Rock in the Musical Theatre: A Guide for Singers fills this need. Today’s musical theatre training programs are now including rock music in their coursework and rock songs and musicals in their repertoires. This is a text for those trainees, mentors, courses, and productions. It will also be of great value to working professionals, teachers, music directors, and coaches less familiar with rock styles, or who want to improve their rock-related skills. The author, an experienced music director, vocal coach, and university professor, and an acknowledged expert on rock music in the theatre, examines the many aspects of performing rock music in the theatre and offers practical advice through a combination of aesthetic and theoretical study; extensive discussions of musical, vocal, and acting techniques; and chronicles of coaching sessions. The book also includes advice from working actors, casting directors, and music directors who specialize in rock music for the stage.


Author(s):  
Aleksandra Onishchenko

Background. The matters of performing and composing art of the XIXth century are considered in this article. The way of formation and changes that have been brought into the violin literature for 100 years ‒ extension of performing techniques, breaking stereotypes that had been built for centuries ‒ were taken as a standard in the repertoire of the violinists of that time. The development of the concert genre by famous performers – composers and division of these two functions by the end of the century encouraged musicians to talk about «violin» and «non violin», limiting performer’s opportunities, by giving them anti violin tasks. It was encouraged by the presence of certain templates that were formed in the period of Italian violinists-composers, who defined a specific format of sound performances, formed definite formulas of technical phrases, and developed a full range of performing tools that built the violin-performing machine. In their turn, composers of the late XIX century had an opportunity to look at the performing structure from another perspective, bringing new acoustic author’s expressions into the violin literature. E. Lalo, A. Dvořák, К. Saint-Saens, J. Brahms, P. Tchaikovsky laid the foundation for new trends and performances that created a discussion about violin and non-violin. During 5 years (from 1874 until 1879), the mentioned authors were divided into two camps – followers of traditions E. Lalo, A. Dvořák, К. Saint-Saens and innovators in the concert genre J. Brahms and P. Tchaikovsky. The latter ones managed to avoid violin clichés and despite much resentment in the musical world showed those sides of performer’s characteristics that could not be positioned with related to violin performance. Objectives. This article is aimed at defining the range of techniques that allow to talk about «violin» and «non-violin» following the analysis of musical edition of the Concert for violin with orchestra by P. Thaikovsky. Results. Every era of violin art has brought its elements of expressive means that extended the violinists’ capabilities, thereby enriching the performing palette with new techniques and at the same time a range of complicated figurativesemantic objectives are given to performers. During a long period (from the seventeenth until the mid-nineteenth centuries), performers-composers, creating compositions for violin, did some methodical work as well, using specific technical tools for specific artistic objectives. In other words, musical value was intrinsically connected with the comfort while performing. Types of fingerings, dashes, chord techniques, timbres – what makes a performer’s toolbox ‒ was determined in the study and performance practice as a certain template. Over time teaching materials in form of «schools of violin performance», used for mastering performer’s technique, focused the composers on certain sound technical models, that particular «violin» structure that could be easily «read» not only the time of the composition creation but its style belonging and even its authorship. However, in the history of musical art the cases when the author’s imagination goes beyond templates, setting difficult objectives, including technical ones, for the performer are not so rare. Premier failures, musicians’ refusal to participate in the performance of a new composition ‒ all of it was the consequence of inertial processes of concert practice, its «delay» towards the composer’s practice. A clear example of such a situation is the Concert for violin with orchestra by P. Tchaikovsky, the composition that generated a discussion about «violin» and «non-violin» in musical art. It is evident that the modern performing toolbox allows mastering and overcoming those difficulties, which created an opinion about the composition as inconvenient and «non-violin» in days of the composer. So, what is the meaning of «violin» and «non violin»? Can «non violin» be outdated or is it a phenomenon at different stages of the evolution of musical stylistics? Conclusions. The end of the XIXth century was marked not only by the renewal of violin material, but also by extension of performer’s techniques, withdrawal of stereotypes that had been built for centuries and were taken as a standard in the repertoire of the performers of that time. The richness of the Concert for violin by P. Tchikovsky with technical discoveries, going ahead of the time, caused L. Auer’s refusal to take part in the premiere. A young soloist A. Brodsky needed more than a year to learn the musical language, dramaturgy and all those difficulties that were mentioned above. Nowadays the Concert for violin by P. Tchaikovsky is a mandatory composition in all prestigious violin contests. It is evident that modern violinist’s toolbox allows them to master and overcome all those difficulties that earlier were told to be «inconvenient» and «non-violin» in the composition. These days «non violin» can be considered a thing of the past. A range of authors of remarquable methodical works of the XX‒XXI centuries (К. Flesch, K. Mostras, I. Yampolsky, Yu. Yankelevich, L. Gurevich, M. Berlianchik) relied on their own experience while answering the questions that worried all the performers without any exception during the development of the whole complex of techniques. However, none of them studies the notion «non violin» as a methodological problem because the practice proves: the technical inconveniences are overcomed in case the performer can hear and understand the innovations, offered by a composer, that raise the performer above any stereotypes.


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