Music Theory and Mainstream Digital Journalism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alyssa Barna
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Popular Press ◽  
Music Theory And Analysis ◽  
Digital Journalism

The tools of music theory and analysis have appeared in articles published in popular press venues for the last decade. Many of these articles, however, are written by non-experts and often stir controversy among academic writers due to assumptions or inaccuracies. Instead of passively arguing about this form of public music theory, this chapter encourages academic theorists to write stories for digital journalism outlets by explaining the role and context of this type of journalism, then outlining the process of pitching, writing, and editing a story. This chapter closes with a discussion of the specific responsibilities of music theorists who write for these venues, and the role of the academic in digital journalism.

A History of Motives—Theory and Analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 55-102
Author(s):  
Brent Auerbach
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Arnold Schoenberg ◽  
Musical Structure ◽  
The Third ◽  
Single Character ◽  
Music Theory And Analysis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

Chapter 3 provides a history of the role of motives in Western music theory and analysis. The first section covers 1600–1750 C.E., the last period in which motive remained in its conceptual prehistory. At that time, the preeminent musical structure was the “figure,” a passage of music that conveyed a single character. The second section covers 1750–1890, a period in which the influence of figures waned as authors began theorizing about the smaller musical cells that make melodies logical, pleasant, and memorable. The third section of the survey concentrates on the work of Arnold Schoenberg, the composer-theorist who did the most during that time to popularize motive-based views of music. The fourth section covers 1950 to 2010, a period marked by stark changes in how motive was conceived and handled in analysis. Specifically, motives in the late twentieth century underwent intense fragmentation, a “boiling away” of their elements, often leaving behind only pitch intervals and/or rhythms. The chapter closes with a rumination on past and present conventions of motive and motivic analysis, laying groundwork for the rules and conventions to follow in chapters 4–7, the methodology portion of Musical Motives.

scholarly journals Ways of Knowing the Body, Bodily Ways of Knowing

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Martens
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Music Theory ◽  
Music Cognition ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Music Analysis ◽  
The Body ◽  
Musical Score ◽  
Research Methodologies

The central role of the body in producing music is hardly debatable. Likewise, the body has always played at least an implicit role in music theory, but has only been raised as a factor in music analysis relatively recently. In this essay I present a brief update of the body in music analysis via case studies, situated in the disciplines of music theory and music cognition, broadly construed. This current trajectory is part of a broader shift away from the musical score as the sole focus for analysis, which admittedly—though, in my view, delightfully—raises a host of challenging epistemological questions surrounding the interaction of performer (production) and listener (perception). While the concomitant research methodologies and technologies may be unfamiliar to scholars trained in humanities disciplines, I advocate for a full embrace of these approaches, either by individual researchers or in the form of cross-disciplinary collaboration.

scholarly journals Renaissance Music Between Science and Art

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-206
Author(s):  
Nejc Sukljan
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Music Theory ◽  
Musical Practice ◽  
Science And Art ◽  
Renaissance Music ◽  
Ancient Music

This paper deals with the role of ancient music theory in Gioseffo Zarlino’s Istitutioni harmoniche and, within its framework, in particular with mathematical and physical considerations and their relevance to audible music. An outline of the treatise is followed by a presentation of Zarlino’s justification of music as scienza and arte. Finally, two case studies are presented on joining ancient theory with contemporary musical practice: the division of the interval and the system of the senario.

Nones

2019 ◽  
pp. 140-162
Author(s):  
Tim Clydesdale ◽  
Kathleen Garces-Foley
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
National Study ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Popular Press ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Growing Population

Relying on in-depth interviews and the National Study of American Twentysomethings, this chapter describes the heterogeneous young adults who are religious unaffiliated. Known in the popular press as the Nones, most of these young adults were raised in a Christian religious tradition, which they now reject, but that does not mean they have no interest in religion. Some are anti-religious and many are disinterested, but others hold traditional beliefs in a personal God and in an afterlife while rejecting religious institutions. Still others create an eclectic spirituality that draws from many religious traditions. The chapter provides estimated proportions of Nones who are philosophical secularists, indifferent secularists, spiritual eclectics, and unaffiliated believers. This chapter examines the role of context in the fluid religious, spiritual, and secular identities of twentysomething Nones and reports on the values, behaviors, and confidence in social institutions of this growing population.

scholarly journals England’s proxy warriors? Women, war and sport

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Bowes ◽  
Alan Bairner
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Female Athletes ◽  
Rugby Union ◽  
Interview Data ◽  
Popular Press ◽  
Gendered Identity ◽  
Association Football ◽  
English National Identity ◽  
The One

It has been claimed that the one place Englishness exists is on the sports field, and usually it is men’s sport that appears central to creating a sense of English national identity. However, in light of England’s sporting success across multiple women’s sports (namely cricket, netball, association football and rugby union), there warrants a need to begin to question the place of these female athletes in discussions of the nation. Drawing on extensive interview data with women who have represented England at sport, this paper seeks to ‘give a voice’ to these women whose experiences have often been ignored by both the popular press and academics alike. This research discusses the way in which English women represent their nation, both on the field of play and more broadly, and sheds light on the complexity of the intersections of gender and national identity. Attention is also paid to the role of women as warriors in the conventional sense. It is argued that, through playing international, representative sport, the women actively embody the nation, with national identity often overriding gendered identity in these instances. In this sense, they become proxy warriors for the nation.

A Treatise on Musicians from ?c. 1400: The Tractatulus de differentiis et gradibus cantorum by Arnulf de St Ghislain

1992 ◽  
Vol 117 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Page
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Medieval Music ◽  
Medieval Chronicles ◽  
The Face ◽  
Medieval Music Theory ◽  
A Charge ◽  
Polyphonic Music

The historian John Keegan was one of the first to ask the simple yet searching question: what actually happens in combat? It is well known that English footsoldiers received a charge by French knights at the battle of Agincourt in 1415, but what took place when men and horses collided? Keegan gives his answers in The Face of Battle, and it may be time for musicologists to modulate the sonorous questions that he poses there for their own purposes. What actually happened, for example, when a motet by Johannes Ciconia was performed in northern Italy c 1400? When friends and associates gathered together to hear such music, what was the nature of their various musical aptitudes and interests? Did women participate in the performances? What was the role of instrumentalists? Some of these questions, no doubt, will never find an answer; there are no medieval chronicles devoted to musical gatherings as there are chronicles – and many other writings – devoted to battles like Agincourt. None the less, literary and iconographical sources are among those which may still have something to reveal about ‘the face of performance’ (to coin a phrase after Keegan's own), and the purpose of this article is to examine the contents of one that has been unjustly neglected: the Tractatulus de differentiis et gradibus cantorum by Arnulf de St Ghislain. This brief treatise classifies the kinds of musicians who performed or admired polyphonic music and is therefore quite exceptional among the works loosely classified as medieval music theory.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document