scholarly journals The Body as Musical Instrument

Author(s):  
Atau Tanaka ◽  
Marco Donnarumma

This chapter explores the possibility of thinking of the human body as musical instrument. It builds on the philosophy of phenomenology to discuss body schemata that might be considered “instrumental” and discusses the diversity of bodies proposed by body theory to consider the incorporation of digital technology. Concepts of embodied interaction from the scientific field of human–computer interaction are discussed with an eye toward musical application. The history of gestural musical instruments is presented, from the Theremin to instruments from the STEIM studio. The text then focuses on the use of physiological signals to create music, from historical works of Lucier and Rosenboom to recent performances by the authors. The body as musical instrument is discussed in a dynamic of coadaptation between performer and instrument in different configurations of body and technology.

Manuskripta ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 95
Author(s):  
Ilham Nurwansah

Abstract: Until the early 20th century, the Sundanese region was considered to have no musical history, even though such information contained, among others, the Old Sundanese script. Not many researches on the history of Sundanese music have used Old Sundanese textual sources. This paper discusses aspects of instrumental music found in Old Sundanese texts including terms used to refer to music and the types of musical instruments used. The sources used are Old Sundanese texts from the pre-Islamic period between the 15th and 17th centuries AD. Several Old Sundanese musical instruments are still known and used today with or without changes. Others are no longer known. Old Sundanese musical instruments are played alone or in groups, either on a stage or a parade. Its function is to accompany entertainment and also to accompany the ritual process. The basic material for the body of the musical instrument used is generally bronze metal and wood, including bamboo. --- Abstrak: Hingga awal abad ke-20 wilayah Sunda dianggap tidak memiliki sejarah musik, padahal informasi demikian antara lain terdapat dalam naskah Sunda Kuna. Penelitian sejarah musik Sunda pun tampaknya belum banyak yang menggunakan sumber tekstual Sunda Kuna. Tulisan ini membahas aspek-aspek musik instrumental yang terdapat pada teks-teks Sunda Kuna mencakup istilah yang digunakan untuk menyebut musik dan jenis-jenis alat musik yang digunakan. Sumber-sumber yang digunakan yaitu teks Sunda Kuna dari masa pra-Islam antara abad ke-15 sampai abad ke-17 M. Beberapa instrumen musik Sunda Kuna masih dikenal dan digunakan hingga sekarang dengan atau tanpa perubahan. Sebagian lainnya sudah tidak dikenal. Instrumen musik Sunda kuna ada yang dimainkan sendiri maupun berkelompok, baik pada sebuah panggung maupun parade. Fungsinya untuk mengiringi hiburan dan juga mengiringi proses ritual. Bahan dasar badan alat musik yang digunakan umumnya berupa logam perunggu dan kayu-kayuan, termasuk bambu. Keywords: Old Sundanese, music, instrumental. Kata Kunci: Sunda Kuna, musik, instrumental.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (9) ◽  
pp. 1511-1523 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antreas Kantaros ◽  
Olaf Diegel

Purpose This paper aims to discuss additive manufacturing (AM) in the context of applications for musical instruments. It examines the main AM technologies used in musical instruments, goes through a history of musical applications of AM and raises the questions about the application of AM to create completely new wind instruments that would be impossible to produce with conventional manufacturing. Design/methodology/approach A literature research is presented which covers a historical application of AM to musical instruments and hypothesizes on some potential new applications. Findings AM has found extensive application to create conventional musical instruments with unique aesthetics designs. It’s true potential to create entirely new sounds, however, remains largely untapped. Research limitations/implications More research is needed to truly assess the potential of additive manufacturing to create entirely new sounds for musical instrument. Practical implications The application of AM in music could herald an entirely new class of musical instruments with unique sounds. Originality/value This study highlights musical instruments as an unusual application of AM. It highlights the potential of AM to create entirely new sounds, which could create a whole new class of musical instruments.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-11
Author(s):  
Rully Aprilia Zandra ◽  
Rustopo Rustopo

Keroncong merupakan musik, instrumen musik, dan genre yang diklaim sebagai warisan budaya indonesia. Keroncong sebagai warisan budaya tentunya memiliki sejarah yang panjang.sejarah yang panjang juga tidak akan luput dari pasang surut dan perkembangan. Pasang surut dan perkembangan umumnya dipengaruhi politik dan situasi sosial. Untuk memetakan sejarah keroncong di Indonesia yang diwarnai politik dan situasi sosial, data dikumpulkan melalui dokumentasi, telaah pustaka, dan wawancara. Data valid dikonfirmasi dan dipaparkan secara kronologis berdasar periodesasinya. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa keroncong bermula dari diseminasi instrumen musik bangsa Portugis yang menjalin hubungan dengan Majapahit. Diseminasi instrumen fado di nusantara mengalami perubahan morfologi dan teknik perlakuan alatnya. Perubahan morfologi dan perlakuan alat ini melahirkan instrumen keroncong atau cukulele. Gaya lirik dibangun oleh kearifan lokal nusantara sesuai demografi dan situasi sosial di masing-masing lokasi penciptaannya. Gaya lirik dan pasang surut popularitas keroncong sebagai kelompok musik didorong dan dihentikan oleh naik turunnya kekuatan politik Portugis, Majapahit, Belanda, Jepang, dan Orde Lama dan Orde Baru. Political and Social Situations in the History of Keroncong in IndonesiaAbstract:Keroncong is music, musical instrument, and the genre that is claimed to be Indonesia's cultural heritage. Keroncong, as a cultural heritage, certainly has a long history. A long history will not escape its ups and downs and developments. Political and social situations generally influence the ups and downs and developments. In order to map the history of keroncong in Indonesia, which is colored by politics and social situations, data is collected through documentation, literature review, and interviews. Valid data are confirmed and presented chronologically based on the periodization. The results of this study indicate that keroncong originated from the dissemination of Portuguese musical instruments, which had a relationship with Majapahit. The dissemination of fado instruments in the archipelago has changed the morphology and treatment techniques of the tools. Changes in the morphology and treatment of this tool gave birth to the keroncong or Cukulele instrument. The local wisdom of the archipelago builds the lyric style according to the demographics and social situations in each location of its creation. The lyric style and the ebb and flow of keroncong's popularity as a musical group was driven and stopped by the ups and downs of the political power of the Portuguese, Majapahit, Dutch, Japanese, and the Old and New Order.


2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-180
Author(s):  
Rebecca Cypess ◽  
Steven Kemper

Since the late twentieth century, the development of cybernetics, physical computing and robotics has led artists and researchers to create musical systems that explore the relationship between human bodies and mechanical systems. Anthropomorphic musical robots and bodily integrated ‘cyborg’ sensor interfaces explore complementary manifestations of what we call the ‘anthropomorphic analogy’, which probes the boundary between human artificer and artificial machine, encouraging listeners and viewers to humanise non-musical machines and understand the human body itself as a mechanical instrument.These new approaches to the anthropomorphic analogy benefit from historical contextualisation. At numerous points in the history of Western art music, philosophers, critics, composers, performers and instrument designers have considered the relationship between human musician and musical instrument, often blurring the line between the two. Consideration of historical examples enriches understandings of anthropomorphism in contemporary music technology.This article juxtaposes the anthropomorphic analogy in contemporary musical culture with manifestations of anthropomorphism in early seventeenth-century Europe. The first half of the seventeenth century witnessed a flourishing of instrumentality of all sorts. Musical instruments were linked with the telescope, the clock, the barometer, the paintbrush, and many other instruments and machines, and these came to be understood as vehicles for the creation of knowledge. This flourishing of instrumental culture created new opportunities for contemplation and aesthetic wonder, as theorists considered the line between human being and machine – between nature and artifice. Manifestations of the anthropomorphic analogy in seventeenth-century conceptions of musical instruments help to contextualise and explain similar articulations of the anthropomorphic analogy in the present day.


Killing Times ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 87-118
Author(s):  
David Wills

What is called the “temporal technology” of the human can be analyzed as a relation between time and blood. The death penalty reveals that relation not as a natural one but as a “prosthetic” one, whereby time gets attached to the human body in such a way that it mimics the flow of blood but at the same time shows that flow to be mechanically produced. That conclusion is reached by tracing a history of mortal time that links Socrates to Heidegger and by examining in detail Hegel’s promotion of blood as a figure for dialectical sublation in general, a blood that is simultaneously inside and outside the body. As a result, blood is “shed” by means of an execution whether it involves the guillotine or lethal injection.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Huang Yu [黄羽]

The Huashan Rock Arts represent the rock pictographs in the Zuojiang River Basin. They record the unique sacrificial scenes by Luoyue people from the 5th century BC to the 2nd century AD. Historical materials, unearthed cultural relics and existing folk customs all prove that the distinguishable musical instrument pictographs on the rock arts include bronze drums, sheep-horn knob bells, ling (small bells with a clapper), etc. All of these also explains why these musical instruments appear on those pictographs, further emphasizing the importance attributed to them on dividing the history of the rock arts into certain periods. This study has found out that after the Western Han Dynasty, the sheep-horn knob bells gradually lost the function of ceremonial and musical instruments due to the destruction of the rite system, thus withdrawing from the historical arena. On the other hand, the artisanship of bronze drums has become more and more exquisite, highlighting its three-fold use for rites, rituals and musical instruments. The drums also continue to occupy a significant part of the music history of the Luoyue ethnic group. Through an in-depth study of the musical instrument pictographs, the music history of the Luoyue is further, clarified and understood.


2021 ◽  
pp. 7-46
Author(s):  
Nathan Denton

Like the vast numbers of other organisms that roam, or have roamed, the earth, the modern human represents a finely honed tool—one forged through millennia as it struggled to survive and thrive in more or less unaccommodating environments. Displaying the battle scars and winning strategies of its brutal, but ultimately triumphant battle against the elements, our bodies hold vast amounts of encrypted information that describe our biological lineage. In addition to the countless mechanisms that have evolved to support our existence, however, the human body is somewhat unique in that it exhibits striking permanent physiological differences that identify and define the sexes. The biology that arises from, and the social meanings attributed to, these physical features penetrate deep into the heart of what it means to be human, as well as a man or a woman. Before delving into the biology of fat, we must first therefore consider the history of body shape. This chapter begins by discussing several explanations for why the modern human body might have evolved the shape it has, and why the body differs between the sexes. Building from this foundation, it examines how societal attitudes toward body shape are ascribed and their shift over time.


2016 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 79-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew McCormack

ABSTRACTHeight is rarely taken seriously by historians. Demographic and archaeological studies tend to explore height as a symptom of health and nutrition, rather than in its own right, and cultural studies of the human body barely study it at all. Its absence from the history of gender is surprising, given that it has historically been discussed within a highly gendered moral language. This paper therefore explores height through the lens of masculinity and focuses on the eighteenth century, when height took on a peculiar cultural significance in Britain. On the one hand, height could be associated with social status, political power and ‘polite’ refinement. On the other, it could connote ambition, militarism, despotism, foreignness and even castration. The article explores these themes through a case-study of John Montagu, earl of Sandwich, who was famously tall and was frequently caricatured as such. As well as exploring representations of the body, the paper also considers corporeal experiences and biometric realities of male height. It argues that histories of masculinity should study both representations of gender and their physical manifestations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-389
Author(s):  
Ainil Maqsurah ◽  
Kasman Bakry ◽  
Sa’adal Jannah

Legal discussion about music in Islam is a forbidden matter. Although there are opinions that allow, but this opinion is weak with the arguments of the Qur'an, the traditions and ijmak of the scholars of the Salaf in their forbidden. The beatbox in Islamic nasheed is in the form of rhythmic sounds such as drum beats, musical instruments, or imitations of other sounds, especially turntables, through human speech instruments such as the mouth, tongue and lips that accompany Islamic nashid as the sounds musical instrument replacement. The purpose of this study was to determine the beatbox law in Islamic nasyid. The research method applies qualitative studies with library research methods and descriptive analysis and uses a normative approach. The results showed that the legal consequences of beatbox art were indeed discussed by the scholars, but the strongest opinion was that it was not allowed. The sounds that come from the human body and the sound resembles the sound of a musical instrument, so the law is haram, both playing it and hearing it. As for Islamic nasheed which does not contain forbidden cases, then the law may.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie O'Rourke

Can we really trust the things our bodies tell us about the world? This work reveals how deeply intertwined cultural practices of art and science questioned the authority of the human body in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Focusing on Henry Fuseli, Anne-Louis Girodet and Philippe de Loutherbourg, it argues that romantic artworks participated in a widespread crisis concerning the body as a source of reliable scientific knowledge. Rarely discussed sources and new archival material illuminate how artists drew upon contemporary sciences and inverted them, undermining their founding empiricist principles. The result is an alternative history of romantic visual culture that is deeply embroiled in controversies around electricity, mesmerism, physiognomy and other popular sciences. This volume reorients conventional accounts of romanticism and some of its most important artworks, while also putting forward a new model for the kinds of questions that we can ask about them.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document