Shaping popular music

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alinka E. Greasley ◽  
Helen M. Prior
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Survey Research ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Recent Survey ◽  
Live Performance ◽  
Recording Studio ◽  
Music Recordings ◽  
Western Classical Music

Much of the research on musical shaping in performance focuses on western classical music. This chapter explores musical shaping from the perspectives of popular musicians. First, we examine the performer’s role in shaping music in live performance, drawing on recent survey research and existing work. Second, the roles of performer, producer and technology in shaping music in the recording studio are examined, including an investigation of how popular music recordings are shaped by technological practices. Third, we discuss ways in which popular music recordings may be used in performance, with a focus on DJs using the idea of musical shaping in their work. A final section summarizes the varied notions of musical shaping that arise from these perspectives and explores their implications, as well as the limitations of studying a flexible and widely applicable metaphor such as shape in a genre as diverse as popular music.

scholarly journals Against Nature? or, Confessions of a Darwinian Modernist

2014 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 151-182
Author(s):  
Murray Smith
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
The Other ◽  
Musical Form ◽  
Musical Expression ◽  
Musical Sound ◽  
Musical Sounds ◽  
Western Classical Music ◽  
The Way

A few years ago I gave a paper on the aesthetics of ‘noise,’ that is, on the ways in which non-musical sounds can be given aesthetic shape and structure, and thereby form the basis of significant aesthetic experience. Along the way I made reference to Arnold Schoenberg's musical theory, in particular his notion ofKlangfarbenmelodie, literally ‘sound colour melody,’ or musical form based on timbre or tonal colour rather than on melody, harmony or rhythm. Schoenberg articulated his ideas aboutKlangfarbenmelodiein the final section of hisHarmonielehre(1911). ‘Pitch is nothing else but tone colour measured in one direction,’ wrote Schoenberg. ‘Now, if it is possible to create patterns out of tone colours that are differentiated according to pitch, patterns we call ‘melodies’…then it must also be possible to make such progressions out of the tone colours of the other dimension, out of that which we simply call “tone colour.”’ In other words, traditional melodies work by abstracting and structuring the dominant pitch characterizing a musical sound, while ‘sound colour melodies’ work, Schoenberg argues, by structuring the combined set of pitches contained in a given musical sound (the overtones as well as the dominant pitch). Schoenberg is emphatic that, although a neglected and underdeveloped possibility within Western classical music, ‘sound colour melody’ is a perfectly legitimate and viable form of musical expression; indeed for Schoenberg it is a musical form with enormous potential.

scholarly journals Aspek Olah Vokal Musik Klasik Barat pada Musik Populer

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-56
Author(s):  
A. Gathut Bintarto
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Popular Songs ◽  
Rhythm And Blues ◽  
Classical Singing ◽  
Western Classical Music ◽  
The Way

Setiap medium musik mempunyai keistimewaan yang bisa dikaji seperti halnyapada musik klasik Barat dan musik populer. Norma daya tarik musik populeryang ringan dan mudah dinikmati tidak seperti pada musik klasik Barat atauyang sering disebut sebagai musik seni, namun demikian bukan berarti bahwamemainkannya tidak ada syarat artistik. Bervariasinya musik dan banyaknya pelakumusik mengakibatkan standar yang tinggi dan menuntut pemahaman terhadapdetail musik. Musik populer bertolak dari kebiasaan orang dan musisinya inginmemenuhi kebutuhan tersebut. Gambaran emosional yang muncul pada teksmenyebabkan kecenderungan naturalistik dalam bernyanyi. Melalui penelusuranasal-usul musik populer dan penelitian studi kasus di lapangan ditemukan bahwamusik populer beraliran soul serta R&B (rhythm and blues) mempunyai kesamaanunsur dengan teknik dan gaya bernyanyi klasik pada penerapan suara yang ratadalam rentang ambitus (even scale technique), penggunaan imajinasi dengan iramabebas, nada-nada hiasan, teknik vibrato, dan bahkan gaya bernyanyi Gregorianmurni dengan iringan ritmis yang dianggap sebagai suatu kebaruan dalam musikpopuler. The Overview on the Aspect of Western Classical Singing on Popular Music.Every music medium such as Western classical and popular music has its own practicalspecification due to the observation of each characteristic and uniqueness. The potentialattractiveness of popular music is different from the Western classical music in its easylistening characteristics, but it does not mean that the music does not have the artisticcharacter at all. More performers and more variations in the popular music mayaffect the higher standard and require the demand in every aspect of the details. Thepopular music is derived from the daily habit and that is the way the musician shoulddo to make this kind of music. The emotional characteristics in their lyrics cause thenaturalistic singing tendency. Through the observation of the popular music origin andthe field research study, it is founded that soul and R&B music have the similarities. Interms of the classical music, both use the typical scale technique, imagination with thefree rhythm, ornamentation, vibrato technique and even pure Gregorian singing styleused in some popular songs accompanied by rhythmical music served as a new idea inpopular music.

The Visual Listening Guide

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Chan-Hartley
Keyword(s):  
Classical Music ◽  
Active Listening ◽  
Listening Guide ◽  
Live Performance ◽  
Audience Engagement ◽  
Systematic Examination ◽  
Orchestral Works ◽  
New Type ◽  
Symphonic Work ◽  
Western Classical Music

This chapter is a systematic examination of the Visual Listening Guide, a new type of printed graphic guide to facilitate active listening and understanding of orchestral works. Created by musicologist Hannah Chan-Hartley, the Visual Listening Guide is the first of its kind to appear in a concert program book, for use during a live performance. This chapter describes the development and creation of the Guide’s distinctive design. An analysis of its elements reveals how the Guide aims to show the structure of a symphonic work, acting like a map to it, indicating important sonic landmarks and other features. It also reviews the reception of the Visual Listening Guide following its first phase of use by concert-goers from 2015 to 2020, and considers the efficacy and potential of graphic guides to communicate about Western classical music to the broad public, helping organizations foster audience engagement and appreciation.

Being True to Works of Music

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Dodd
Keyword(s):  
Work Performance ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Christine Korsgaard ◽  
Historical Authenticity ◽  
Constitutive Norm ◽  
Western Classical Music

This book argues that the so-called ‘authenticity debate’ about the performance of works of Western classical music has tended to focus on a side issue. While much has been written about the desirability (or otherwise) of historical authenticity—roughly, performing works as they would have been performed, under ideal conditions, in the era in which they were composed—the most fundamental norm governing our practice of work performance is, in fact, another kind of kind of authenticity altogether. This is interpretive authenticity: being faithful to the performed work by virtue of evincing a profound, far-reaching, or sophisticated understanding of it. While, in contrast to other performance values, both score compliance authenticity (being true to the work by obeying its score) and interpretive authenticity are valued for their own sake in performance, only the latter is a constitutive norm of the practice in the sense introduced by Christine Korsgaard. This has implications for cases in which the demands of these two kinds of authenticity conflict with each other. In cases of genuine such conflict, performers should sacrifice a little score compliance for the sake of making their performance more interpretively authentic.

scholarly journals Associations Between Music Training and the Dynamics of Writing Music by Hand

2020 ◽  
pp. 102986492097214
Author(s):  
Aurélien Bertiaux ◽  
François Gabrielli ◽  
Mathieu Giraud ◽  
Florence Levé
Keyword(s):  
Classical Music ◽  
Music Notation ◽  
Musical Score ◽  
Music Training ◽  
Video Recordings ◽  
Musical Structures ◽  
Music Recognition ◽  
High Level ◽  
Bottom To Top ◽  
Western Classical Music

Learning to write music in the staff notation used in Western classical music is part of a musician’s training. However, writing music by hand is rarely taught formally, and many musicians are not aware of the characteristics of their musical handwriting. As with any symbolic expression, musical handwriting is related to the underlying cognition of the musical structures being depicted. Trained musicians read, think, and play music with high-level structures in mind. It seems natural that they would also write music by hand with these structures in mind. Moreover, improving our understanding of handwriting may help to improve both optical music recognition and music notation and composition interfaces. We investigated associations between music training and experience, and the way people write music by hand. We made video recordings of participants’ hands while they were copying or freely writing music, and analysed the sequence in which they wrote the elements contained in the musical score. The results confirmed experienced musicians wrote faster than beginners, were more likely to write chords from bottom to top, and they tended to write the note heads first, in a flowing fashion, and only afterwards use stems and beams to emphasize grouping, and add expressive markings.

scholarly journals Linking musical metaphors and emotions evoked by the sound of classical music

2021 ◽  
pp. 030573562199123
Author(s):  
Simon Schaerlaeken ◽  
Donald Glowinski ◽  
Didier Grandjean
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Empirical Method ◽  
Mixed Effects Models ◽  
Musical Meaning ◽  
Linear Mixed Effects ◽  
Generalized Linear Mixed Effects ◽  
Perceptual Characteristics ◽  
Valence And Arousal ◽  
Western Classical Music

Musical meaning is often described in terms of emotions and metaphors. While many theories encapsulate one or the other, very little empirical data is available to test a possible link between the two. In this article, we examined the metaphorical and emotional contents of Western classical music using the answers of 162 participants. We calculated generalized linear mixed-effects models, correlations, and multidimensional scaling to connect emotions and metaphors. It resulted in each metaphor being associated with different specific emotions, subjective levels of entrainment, and acoustic and perceptual characteristics. How these constructs relate to one another could be based on the embodied knowledge and the perception of movement in space. For instance, metaphors that rely on movement are related to emotions associated with movement. In addition, measures in this study could also be represented by underlying dimensions such as valence and arousal. Musical writing and music education could benefit greatly from these results. Finally, we suggest that music researchers consider musical metaphors in their work as we provide an empirical method for it.

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