The “sound of music” versus the “essence of music”: Dilemmas for music-emotion researchers (Commentary)

2001 ◽  
Vol 5 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 237-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Sloboda
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Response ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Commercial Exploitation ◽  
Economic Trends ◽  
Emotional Effects ◽  
Beliefs And Attitudes

Potential relationships are explored between contemporary music-emotion science and social and economic trends within dominant industrialised cultures. These trends are argued to have the effect of attempting to degrade those elements of the musical experience which are individual, personal, complex, subtle, unreplicable; whilst accentuating those elements which are communal, public, simple, plain, and replicable. A review of the findings reported in the papers in this special issue demonstrate that factors attributable to individual music events and individual listeners, along with the beliefs and attitudes which listeners bring to the experience, are crucially important in determining the nature and level of emotional response to the music. Any apparently firm statement regarding the emotional effects of music have to be hedged with so many caveats and qualifications as to significantly hinder the prospects for formulaic commercial exploitation of these findings.

Touchy-Feely History: The ‘Stuff’ of American Culture

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-18
Author(s):  
Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
Research Perspectives ◽  
Economic Trends ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
New Research

This state of the field essay examines recent trends in American Cultural History, focusing on music, race and ethnicity, material culture, and the body. Expanding on key themes in articles featured in the special issue of Cultural History, the essay draws linkages to other important literatures. The essay argues for more a more serious consideration of the products within popular culture, less as a reflection of social or economic trends, rather for their own historical significance. While the essay examines some classic texts, more emphasis is on work published within the last decade. Here, interdisciplinary methods are stressed, as are new research perspectives developing by non-western historians.

scholarly journals Valências na resposta emocional dos eleitores: design experimental com neurociência

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 483-500
Author(s):  
Carlos Magno Machado Dias ◽  
Carlos Alberto Gonçalves ◽  
Ângela Maria Ribeiro
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Response ◽  
White Background ◽  
Coding System ◽  
Facial Action Coding System ◽  
Facial Action ◽  
Political Propaganda ◽  
Emotional Effects ◽  
Facial Action Coding

This work aims to quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate the valence of voters’ emotional response to changes in the scenarios in videos of political propaganda. The experiment was conducted in a laboratory with a fictitious candidate and content. We used four different scenarios: one with a completely white background, one simulating a library, one with a popular house, and one with luxury houses. We use the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) as an instrument to measure emotions. We found statistical differences between the intensity of the valences throughout the video (n=108). The work empirically demonstrated that the scenarios can enhance the emotional effects of this type of advertising.

scholarly journals Zemlinsky's The Chalk Circle: Artifice, Fairy-tale and Humanity

1999 ◽  
Vol 9-10 ◽  
pp. 93
Author(s):  
Robert Blackburn
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Academic Study

This study is primarily concerned with the background to "DerKreidekreis", Zemlinsky's setting of a Chinese drama by Alfred Henschke (pen name 'Klabund', 1890-1928). This was the last of Zemlinsky's stage works to be performed during his lifetime. Indeed, it was the last to be performed anywhere (apart from a solitary production at Nuremberg in 1955) until the slow revival of interest in his music. In terms of scholarship, Horst Weber's monograph, published in 1974, was the first landmark in this process, as well as the first-ever biography and academic study of Zemlinsky in any language. Unlike Schreker, who benefitedfrom three biographies by the time he was 43, Zemlinsky was given only a special issue of the Prague music journal Auftakt for his fiftieth birthday in 1921. A year later the Universal Edition house journal Ausbruch published three short tributes to Zemlinsky as composer (by Franz Werfel) as conductor (by Heinrich Jalowetz) and as teacher (by Erich Korngold) - certainly a distinguished trio. But the general accounts of contemporary music of the time, such as those by Rudolf Louis, Oscar Bie, H. J. Moser and Adolf Weissmann either refer fleetingly to Zemlinsky or ignore him altogether.

Developments and Dangers: The Training of Young Composers

Tempo ◽  
1989 ◽  
pp. 4-11
Author(s):  
Jessica Duchen
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Music ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Formal Structure ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Good Teacher ◽  
General Sense ◽  
The Past ◽  
Younger Generation ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Voice

As the 1980s draw to their close, contemporary music is becoming more eclectic than ever before. In the tremendous range of idioms, from symphonies to synthesizers via many ‘isms’ and ‘neos’, composers of the younger generation have a baffling choice of directions for their preferred moves. Ideologies have altered considerably during the past two decades; the demands of technology have left some institutions unable to keep up with the progress of electronic music in others; now the early musical experience of children in schools is changing too, with the introduction of GCSE placing emphasis on creativity and composition. But amongst the changes some aspects of a composer's training remain unaltered. There is a general sense that composers are ‘born and not made’, although they can be helped – or hindered – by their teachers. As Professor Alexander Goehr remarked: ‘I can teach anybody to compose so long as they are not a composer’. The mechanics of composing, such as formal structure or writing counterpoint, can be taught; the source of inspiration is as inexplicable as ever. The young composer remains something of a rebel figure, with a need for a particular means of self-expression that can be shaped but not dictated to. The rudiments of harmony and counterpoint, form and orchestration, can all be explained and absorbed by the student. But for a gifted composer in training, the essential search remains for the individual voice which must be found through independent choices, under the careful guidance of a good teacher.

Raum-Musik als Kontaktzone. Stockhausens Hymnen bei der Weltausstellung in Osaka 1970

Paragrana ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-43
Author(s):  
Peter Moormann
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Karlheinz Stockhausen ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Musical Space ◽  
The World ◽  
World Exposition ◽  
Compositional Control

AbstractFor the World Exposition in Osaka (1970), architect Fritz Bornemann designed the German Pavilion, which focused the expo′s general theme “Peace and Progress” by means of avant-garde electronic and instrumental music, first and foremost by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The main auditorium was conceived as a globe to provide a completely new style of musical experience: the audience being surrounded by the music and able to follow the sound′s motion in a three-dimensional setting. Central part of Stockhausen′s daily concerts was his piece Hymnen for soloists and electronic tape in which he merged national anthems from all over the world with sounds from synthesizes and electronically modulated live-instruments. This union of opposites was intended to promote a changed consciousness of the listeners, culminating in Stockhausen′s so-called “Hymunion”, a utopian vision of world peace. This paper focuses on the different aspects of musical space in Stockhausen′s aesthetics and art – ranging from architectural conditions of contemporary music and compositional control of spatial moving music to spiritual settings of art. The question arises whether Bornemann′s architecture and Stockhausen′s music are able to facilitate the emergence of a contact zone.

Emotion in Motion: Investigating the Time-Course of Emotional Judgments of Musical Stimuli

2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 355-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Pierre Bachorik ◽  
Marc Bangert ◽  
Psyche Loui ◽  
Kevin Larke ◽  
Jeff Berger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Emotional Response ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Integration Time ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Musical Structure ◽  
Musical Preference ◽  
Musical Excerpts ◽  
Time Required

MUSIC ELICITS PROFOUND EMOTIONS; HOWEVER, THE time-course of these emotional responses during listening sessions is unclear. We investigated the length of time required for participants to initiate emotional responses ("integration time") to 138 musical samples from a variety of genres by monitoring their real-time continuous ratings of emotional content and arousal level of the musical excerpts (made using a joystick). On average, participants required 8.31 s (SEM = 0.10) of music before initiating emotional judgments. Additionally, we found that: 1) integration time depended on familiarity of songs; 2) soul/funk, jazz, and classical genres were more quickly assessed than other genres; and 3) musicians did not differ significantly in their responses from those with minimal instrumental musical experience. Results were partially explained by the tempo of musical stimuli and suggest that decisions regarding musical structure, as well as prior knowledge and musical preference, are involved in the emotional response to music.

scholarly journals Music for One World: Moroccan Musical Experience of Diversity, Fusion, Happiness, Healing, and Peace

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Mark Reimer
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
International Community ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Modern Music ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Islamic Religion ◽  
Electric Guitars

Although steeped in Islamic religion and culture, Morocco is a land of varying influences and histories, including those of the native Berbers, the Moors and Jews driven out of Spain, those who follow the pious Sufi culture of Islamic spiritualism, and the Gnawa slaves who were brought into southern Morocco by Arabs. The music, customs, values, and everyday lives of these disparate peoples continue to not only blend with each other’s but also to fuse Moroccan music and culture with those of Europe, Africa, and America. The influence of Moroccan music continues to play a vital role in shaping contemporary music, especially in the study of rhythm. Music that was once heard by voices, flutes, oboes, strings, bagpipes, auxiliary percussion, and drums—symbolic of Moroccan cultural identity--may now be heard on electric guitars, keyboards, and amplified voices in popular and modern music styles that reflect Morocco’s continuing efforts to be active players in the international community.

Creating and Performing Contemporary Music as a Way of Learning

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Sicherl Kafol ◽  
Olga Denac
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Community ◽  
Creative Process ◽  
Cultural Awareness ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Social Competences

The article analyses the results of a case study on a workshop for contemporary music which represents an excellent example of arts partnership in Slovenia. The aim of the workshop was to stimulate creative use of contemporary musical language in connection with the development of the lifelong cultural awareness and expression competence. The results of the interviews with 17 participants of the workshop pointed out the complex occurrence of various indicators, which, at the level of personal, social and intellectual competences, determined the nature of musical expression through contemporary music and indirectly influenced the development of the lifelong cultural awareness and expression competence. Through the creative process, participants expressed motivation and sensitivity for contemporary music and developed their musical abilities as well as their sense of community and self-identity. The identified challenges included students lack of musical experience with contemporary music, the low priority given to contemporary music in schools as well as teachers lack of professional knowledge in this field. Key words: contemporary musical language; educational and cultural institutions; lifelong culture awareness and expression competence; personal and social competences

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