Bridging the gap: Harp teachers on teaching orchestral playing

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-225
Author(s):  
Lia Lonnert
Keyword(s):  
Classical Music ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Young Age ◽  
One To One ◽  
Complex Knowledge ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Western Classical Music ◽  
Shed Light

Although orchestral playing is a dominant practice within Western classical music, and one that many students participate in from a young age, some students do not have adequate opportunities to participate. Since harp students often come to orchestral playing later than other instrumentalists, harp teachers are concerned with enabling their students to learn orchestral playing in a relatively short time. For this study, six orchestral harpists who are also teachers were interviewed. The findings show that harp teachers intentionally taught orchestral playing during one-to-one lessons, aiming to prepare their students to continue learning within the orchestral context. They aimed to bridge the gap between lessons and practice, methodically preparing them musically, technically, practically and emotionally for the complex orchestral environment. While students of other instruments might acquire this complex knowledge from extended orchestral experience, student harpists must learn it in a relatively short time. These harp teachers’ descriptions of their teaching practice shed light on how orchestral playing is learned by all instrumentalists.

scholarly journals Teaching Aesthetics – A Case Study of One-To-One Tuition in Popular Electronic Music in Higher Education

2020 ◽  
pp. 257-278
Author(s):  
Eirik Sørbø ◽  
Andreas Waaler Røshol
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Electronic Music ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Educational Framework ◽  
One To One ◽  
The University

Research regarding informal learning over the last few decades has shown how popular musicians acquire skills and knowledge through informal learning, suggesting new methods for formal music education compared to the structures of western classical music. Today, the realm of popular electronic music education faces some similar challenges that popular music education initially did; new ways of informal learning, and a different and diverse knowledge base for the students entering popular music programs. Related to these challenges is the question of how to teach one-to-one tuition in higher electronic music education, and this article seeks to address this challenge. We present a case-study of the practice of a teacher at the University of Agder in Norway that teaches electronics in one-to-one tuition, where the research data is based on interviewing this teacher and his students. An important aspect of the practice in question is the process of listening to and discussing the student’s original recorded music. We discuss some of the challenges of one-to-one teaching in electronic music education, and argue that this particular teaching approach accommodates some of these challenges. Bringing in the educational framework of Biesta, we argue that this form of teaching practice also facilitates subjectification by addressing both uniqueness and expression. Further, we argue that this practice, which focuses on the teaching of aesthetics instead of technicalities, combined with the development of the students’ unique artistic expression can open some interesting possibilities related to addressing subjectivity in higher music education. One of these is how the students need to articulate both the objectives and aims within their music, and the objectives and aims of their music, which in turn develops a terminology to talk about and beyond aesthetics.

scholarly journals Conductors’ tempo choices shed light over Beethoven’s metronome

PLoS ONE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. e0243616
Author(s):  
Almudena Martin-Castro ◽  
Iñaki Ucar
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Music History ◽  
Systematic Deviation ◽  
Scale Reading ◽  
Musical Context ◽  
Western Classical Music ◽  
Shed Light

During most part of Western classical music history, tempo, the speed of music, was not specified, for it was considered obvious from musical context. Only in 1815, Maelzel patented the metronome. Beethoven immediately embraced it, so much as to add tempo marks to his already published eight symphonies. However, these marks are still under dispute, as many musicians consider them too quick to be played and even unmusical, whereas others claim them as Bethoven’s supposedly written will. In this work, we develop a methodology to extract and analyze the performed tempi from 36 complete symphonic recordings by different conductors. Our results show that conductor tempo choices reveal a systematic deviation from Beethoven’s marks, which highlights the salience of “correct tempo” as a perceptive phenomenon shaped by cultural context. The hasty nature of these marks could be explained by the metronome’s ambiguous scale reading point, which Beethoven probably misinterpreted.

scholarly journals The conditions for learning musical interpretation in one-to-one piano tuition in higher music education

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-131
Author(s):  
Carl Holmgren
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Piano Students ◽  
Conditions For Learning ◽  
Musical Interpretation ◽  
One To One ◽  
High Level ◽  
Western Classical Music

Research has indicated that one-to-one teaching in higher music education in Western classical music typically favours technical over interpretive aspects of musicianship, and imitation of the teacher’s rather than the student’s explorative interpretation. The aim of the present study is to investigate students’ and teachers’ understandings of how musical interpretation of Western classical music is learned in this context. Semi-structured qualitative interviews with six piano students and four teachers in Sweden were conducted and hermeneutically analysed using haiku poems and poetical condensations. The analysis found that the conditions for learning musical interpretation centred upon students achieving a high level of autonomy, as affected by three key aspects of teaching and learning: (1) the student’s and the teacher’s understandings of what musical interpretation is, (2) the student’s experience of freedom of interpretation as acknowledged by the teacher, and (3) (expectations of) the student’s explorative approach. As none of these aspects were reported as being explicitly addressed during lessons, there might be a need for both teachers and students to verbalise them more clearly to support piano students’ development.

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.

The missing fundamentals of harmonic theory: Chord roots and their ambiguity in arrangements of jazz standards

2021 ◽  
pp. 102986492110629
Author(s):  
Richard Parncutt ◽  
Lazar Radovanovic
Keyword(s):  
Classical Music ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Digital Interface ◽  
Psychological Reality ◽  
Jazz Pedagogy ◽  
Virtual Pitch ◽  
Musical Chords ◽  
Original Songs ◽  
Western Classical Music ◽  
Psychological Experiments

Since Lippius and Rameau, chords have roots that are often voiced in the bass, doubled, and used as labels. Psychological experiments and analyses of databases of Western classical music have not produced clear evidence for the psychological reality of chord roots. We analyzed a symbolic database of 100 arrangements of jazz standards (musical instrument digital interface [MIDI] files from midkar.com and thejazzpage.de ). Selection criteria were representativeness and quality.The original songs had been composed in the 1930s and 1950s, and each file had a beat track. Files were converted to chord progressions by identifying tone onsets near beat locations (±10% of beat duration). Chords were classified as triads (major, minor, diminished, suspended) or seventh chords (major–minor, minor, major, half-diminished, diminished, and suspended) plus extra tones. Roots that were theoretically less ambiguous were more often in the bass or (to a lesser extent) doubled. The root of the minor triad was ambiguous, as predicted (conventional root or third). Of the sevenths, the major–minor had the clearest root. The diminished triad was often part of a major–minor seventh chord; the half-diminished seventh, of a dominant ninth. Added notes (“tensions”) tended to minimize dissonance (roughness or inharmonicity). In arrangements of songs from the 1950s, diminished triads and sevenths were less common, and suspended triads more common, relative to the 1930s. Results confirm the psychological reality of chord roots and their specific ambiguities. Results are consistent with Terhardt’s virtual pitch theory and the idea that musical chords emerge gradually from cultural and historic processes. The approach can enrich music theory (including pitch-class set analysis) and jazz pedagogy.

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