scholarly journals Exploring the foundations of tonality: statistical cognitive modeling of modes in the history of Western classical music

Author(s):  
Daniel Harasim ◽  
Fabian C. Moss ◽  
Matthias Ramirez ◽  
Martin Rohrmeier

AbstractTonality is one of the most central theoretical concepts for the analysis of Western classical music. This study presents a novel approach for the study of its historical development, exploring in particular the concept of mode. Based on a large dataset of approximately 13,000 musical pieces in MIDI format, we present two models to infer both the number and characteristics of modes of different historical periods from first principles: a geometric model of modes as clusters of musical pieces in a non-Euclidean space, and a cognitively plausible Bayesian model of modes as Dirichlet distributions. We use the geometric model to determine the optimal number of modes for five historical epochs via unsupervised learning and apply the probabilistic model to infer the characteristics of the modes. Our results show that the inference of four modes is most plausible in the Renaissance, that two modes–corresponding to major and minor–are most appropriate in the Baroque and Classical eras, whereas no clear separation into distinct modes is found for the 19th century.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (12-3) ◽  
pp. 250-258
Author(s):  
Mahomed Gasanov ◽  
Abidat Gazieva

The article is devoted to the analysis of the historiography of the history of the city of Kizlyar. This issue is considered in the historical context of the Eastern Caucasus. The author analyzes the three main theoretical concepts of the problem concerning Russia’s policy in the region, using the example of the city of Kizlyar in the context of historiography.


2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 486-507 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christof Weiß ◽  
Matthias Mauch ◽  
Simon Dixon ◽  
Meinard Müller

In musicology, there has been a long debate about a meaningful partitioning and description of music history regarding composition styles. Particularly, concepts of historical periods have been criticized since they cannot account for the continuous and interwoven evolution of style. To systematically study this evolution, large corpora are necessary suggesting the use of computational strategies. This article presents such strategies and experiments relying on a dataset of 2000 audio recordings, which cover more than 300 years of music history. From the recordings, we extract different tonal features. We propose a method to visualize these features over the course of history using evolution curves. With the curves, we re-trace hypotheses concerning the evolution of chord transitions, intervals, and tonal complexity. Furthermore, we perform unsupervised clustering of recordings across composition years, individual pieces, and composers. In these studies, we found independent evidence of historical periods that broadly agrees with traditional views as well as recent data-driven experiments. This shows that computational experiments can provide novel insights into the evolution of styles.


REGIONOLOGY ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-302
Author(s):  
Evgeny V. Kremnyov ◽  
Vladimir V. Ananiev

Introduction. The variety of elements of the field of regional studies in Japan makes it possible to state that the sources of regional studies are heterogeneous not only in content, but also in their relation to different historical periods. The objective of the study is to analyze the processes of development of proto-regional knowledge in Japan from ancient times until the middle of the 19th century Materials and Methods. Japanese works on history and geography, as well as works by Russian researchers in the considered fields were used as the materials of the study. Particular attention was paid to historical and geographical texts; other sources (religious texts, poetic texts, etc.) were also considered. The basic methods employed were those of systemic, comparative, conceptual and terminological analysis. Results. The article discusses the stages of development of proto-regional knowledge in Japan in the framework of traditional science. Based on the analysis of works created before the middle of the 19th century, the authors conclude that the basic factor in the formation and development of knowledge about regions was the opposition “We vs. Others,” characteristic of Japanese ethnoculture, and this knowledge itself is largely Japanocentric. The article reveals the role of several schools of traditional science: kokugaku (school of national sciences), rangaku / yogaku (Dutch / European studies) and kangaku (school of Chinese sciences), as well as the role of their cultural and ideological confrontation in stimulating the development of proto-regional knowledge. Discussion and Conclusion. The article presents the results of the initial stage of a comprehensive study, which will examine the history of the development of Japanese regional knowledge and the methodology of regional research in Japan. The results of the work may be useful to researchers and specialists in the field of history of regional development of various countries and regions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-32
Author(s):  
Rafał Dobek

Abstract Ludwik Wołowski was a Polish November emigrant in France. There, he gained recognition as an outstanding economist, banker and republican politician. The article focuses on the issue of mortgage loan, which is extremely important for Wołowski. It presents both the theoretical concepts of the Pole from 1834, his political activity in the years 1848–1851 aimed at changing the provisions of the mortgage law in France, and finally the moment of co-creation by Wołowski Crédit Foncier, the first modern mortgage bank in France, and the further history of the bank managed by Wołowski, in the board of which he sat until his death in 1876. In the first part, the text presents not only the criticism of the French mortgage system by Wołowski (primarily the so-called secret mortgages), but also his draft changes and the loan and mortgage model proposed by him and the companies that may grant it. In the second, it shows the parliamentary activity of Wołowski, an attempt to force through appropriate changes in the banking law and the reasons for its defeat. In the third, the most extensive, the article describes not only the very moment of establishing Crédit Foncier and the two-year period of management by Wołowski, but also the further, controversial operation of the bank until the second half of the 1870s. All this against the backdrop of the changing French Monarchy of July, the Second Republic and the Second Empire.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-13
Author(s):  
Tine Germ

The triad of decline-metamorphosis-rebirth constantly reappears in the history of civilisation, it is current in all historical periods and cultural environments, in different areas and the most diverse contexts. Its manifestations are countless and the same is true of its interpretations. They are especially frequent in the area of art, because the evolutionary model, grounded in the idea of cyclic development comes very handy for explanations and illustrations which seek to present complicated things in a simple and clear way. The history of art, mainly in the 19th century, advocated a tripartite development of art which seeks greater perfection and maturity and reaches its peak just to be then inevitably followed by a decline in artistic originality and power. Already for some time now the evolutionary model has been shown too ineffective in addressing scholarly questions, especially due to oversimplification and a priori classification of subject matter which cannot possibly be classified. The perception that the art of the Early Renaissance was a preliminary period for more mature and accomplished achievements of High Renaissance which at some point began to lose its drive and went into decline either by repeating outmoded forms or their decomposition, is not only naive, but simply wrong and represents a misunderstanding of the essence of art. In much the same way it would be equally wrong to label in advance the early works of a certain artist as not-mature-yet or possessing less artistic authenticity.


Author(s):  
Levente Puskás

The saxophone is one of the most popular, almost ubiquitous instruments of our time. It is unimaginable that the saxophone would not appear in an orchestra or band in jazz, popular music, dance music, pop music, or even folk music. It is not widely known, however, that the story and history of the saxophone dates as far back as around 170(!) years ago. In 2014 the 200th birthday of Adolphe Sax the inventor, after whom the instrument got its name, was celebrated. Sax was the first saxophone professor at the Conservatoire de Paris. For most of the 19th century, mostly Classical and Romantic pieces were usually played by the saxophone, as the genre of jazz came into existence only around the 1910s–1920s. At that point classical and jazz (popular) saxophone music separated. Differences between the two styles can still be observed in both musical approach and technique. This study presents the similarities and differences between these two highly distinct approaches. Keywords: saxophone, Adolphe Sax, classical music, jazz


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-13
Author(s):  
Tine Germ

The triad of decline-metamorphosis-rebirth constantly reappears in the history of civilisation, it is current in all historical periods and cultural environments, in different areas and the most diverse contexts. Its manifestations are countless and the same is true of its interpretations. They are especially frequent in the area of art, because the evolutionary model, grounded in the idea of cyclic development comes very handy for explanations and illustrations which seek to present complicated things in a simple and clear way. The history of art, mainly in the 19th century, advocated a tripartite development of art which seeks greater perfection and maturity and reaches its peak just to be then inevitably followed by a decline in artistic originality and power. Already for some time now the evolutionary model has been shown too ineffective in addressing scholarly questions, especially due to oversimplification and a priori classification of subject matter which cannot possibly be classified. The perception that the art of the Early Renaissance was a preliminary period for more mature and accomplished achievements of High Renaissance which at some point began to lose its drive and went into decline either by repeating outmoded forms or their decomposition, is not only naive, but simply wrong and represents a misunderstanding of the essence of art. In much the same way it would be equally wrong to label in advance the early works of a certain artist as not-mature-yet or possessing less artistic authenticity.


Author(s):  
Margarita Y. Dvorkina

The article is devoted to the memory of Lyudmila Mikhailovna Koval (October 17, 1933 – February 15, 2020), historian, Head of the History sector of the Russian State Library (RSL) and the Museum of Library history. The author presents brief biographical information about L.M. Koval, the author of more than 350 scientific and popular scientific works in Russian and in 9 foreign languages. She published 29 books in Publishing houses “Nauka”, “Kniga”, “Letniy Sad”, ”Pashkov Dom”, most of the works are dedicated to the Library. Special place in the work of L.M. Koval is given to the Great Patriotic War theme. The article considers the works devoted to the activities of Library staff during the War period. L.M. Koval paid much attention to the study of activities of the Library’s Directors. She prepared books and articles about the Directors of the Moscow Public and Rumyantsev Museums and Library from the end of the 19th century and almost to the end of the 20th century: N.V. Isakov, D.S. Levshin, V.A. Dashkov, M.A. Venevitinov, I.V. Tsvetaev, V.D. Golitsyn, A.K. Vinogradov, V.I. Nevsky, N.M. Sikorsky. The author notes contribution of L.M. Koval to the study of the Library’s history. Specialists in the history of librarianship widely use bibliography of L.M. Koval in their research. The list of sources contains the main works of L.M. Koval, and the Appendix includes reviews of publications by L.M. Koval and the works about her.


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