Drawing listener attention in popular music: Testing five musical features arising from the theory of attention economy

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hubert Léveillé Gauvin
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Information Age ◽  
Technological Changes ◽  
Popular Songs ◽  
Attention Economy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Voice ◽  
The Way

Technological changes in the last 30 years have influenced the way we consume music, not only granting immediate access to a much larger collection of songs than ever before, but also allowing us to instantly skip songs. This new reality can be explained in terms of attention economy, which posits that attention is the currency of the information age, since it is both scarce and valuable. The purpose of these two studies is to examine whether popular music compositional practices have changed in the last 30 years in a way that is consistent with attention economy principles. In the first study, 303 U.S. top-10 singles from 1986 to 2015 were analyzed according to five parameters: number of words in title, main tempo, time before the voice enters, time before the title is mentioned, and self-focus in lyrical content. The results revealed that popular music has been changing in a way that favors attention grabbing, consistent with attention economy principles. In the second study, 60 popular songs from 2015 were paired with 60 less popular songs from the same artists. The same parameters were evaluated. The data were not consistent with any of the hypotheses regarding the relationship between attention economy principles within a comparison of popular and less popular music.

Standing Out While Fitting In

2020 ◽  
pp. 204-224
Author(s):  
Sean Bellaviti
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Cutting Edge ◽  
The Common ◽  
Fitting In ◽  
International Success ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Individual Style ◽  
The Way

Chapter 6 extends the discussion of the previous two chapters by examining the musical choices música típica musicians make to forge an identifiable individual style that is the key to establishing a career, distinguishing the sound of individual conjunto musicians, and achieving a coveted region-based following. This focus on specific musical strategies through which musicians draw creative inspiration—whether from renown música típica performers and/or genres that have achieved broad international success—allows the author to explore música típica’s development as a form of cutting edge popular music that is, at the same time, firmly tethered to sentiments of tradition, regionalism, and populist nationalism. The technical approaches for developing the all-important original sound described by the musicians who are featured in this chapter opens the way for the author to theorize the relationship between style and genre as well as to discuss issues involving the common usages of these terms and concepts in ethnomusicological discourse.

Adolescent singers and perceptions of vocal identity

2003 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Monks
Keyword(s):  
Technical Development ◽  
Musical Expression ◽  
Choral Directors ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Rich Diversity ◽  
Rehearsal Strategies ◽  
Human Psyche ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Voice ◽  
The Way

The link between voice and self-image is so fundamental it is often overlooked or taken for granted. Yet the knowledge of this relationship has much to teach singing teachers and choral directors in making communication with singers more effective, in choice of repertoire, technical development and rehearsal strategies. This study set out to explore the way adolescent singers think about their voices and express themselves through singing. The results produced a rich diversity of evidence which suggests that vocal change is a fruitful area for exploring in greater depth the relationship between the voice, musical expression and the human psyche.

Music as Product

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr Daragh O’Reilly ◽  
Dr Gretchen Larsen ◽  
Dr Krzysztof Kubacki
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Music Production ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
The Us ◽  
Sales Success ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

n order to develop a more holistic and integrated understanding of the relationship between music and the market, and consequently of music production and consumption, it is necessary to examine the notion of music as a product. The very act of exploring the relationship between music, markets and consumption immediately frames music as a ‘product’. In the marketplace, music is ‘produced’ and ‘consumed’ rather than made and heard. But the language and practices of the market and of marketing go far beyond the labelling of music making and listening in this way. They are pervasive and, as such, mediate our everyday engagement with music, regardless of the role we play in the market. The way the quality of music is evaluated is dominated by measures of sales success: songs ‘top the charts’, artists ‘sell out’ stadiums and tours, and recording companies sign ‘the next big thing’ to contracts in the expectation of future sales. Even a particular market can be held up as measure of success: in popular music, many bands, such as the Beatles, have been deemed to be successful only after they have ‘broken America’ by reaching high positions on the US music charts.

Popular Music and the Modernist Dystopia: Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four

2021 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-41
Author(s):  
Alex MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
New World ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Popular Songs ◽  
Post Modernism ◽  
Brave New World ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This essay explores musical references in Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four, including music imagery and allusions to popular songs of the 1920s and 1940s. Huxley used the popular music of the Brave New World as an indicator of its emotional shallowness, represented by such immortal songs as “Hug Me Till You Drug Me, Honey.” Brave New World’s scorn for popular music, and for popular culture in general, situates Huxley’s famous dystopia as a high Modernist work. In Orwell’s case, implicit references to World War II hits such as “We’ll Meet Again” and “I’ll Be Seeing You” reflect ironically upon the relationship of Winston and Julia and their terrible situation at the end of the novel. His treatment of the musical thrush and the singing Prole laundrywoman plays a more hopeful note, and a positive attitude to popular songs and popular culture situates Nineteen Eighty-Four on the cusp of Post-Modernism. With respect to the critical discourse about hope and despair in these dystopian texts, the essay suggests that signs of hopefulness in Brave New World are very slight, although they do exist. The music of Nineteen Eighty-Four, and some other factors, lend support to the view that Orwell’s novel is not so despairing as it is sometimes made out to be.

Music as Advertisement

2021 ◽  
pp. 793-815
Author(s):  
Hubert Léveillé Gauvin
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Information Age ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
The Self ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Dual Function ◽  
Attention Economy ◽  
Economic Reality ◽  
Extended Review

It is well known that music plays an important role in advertising. The notion of music as advertisement, however, is less recognized. The new economic reality of the information age—sometimes referred to as the “attention economy”—has amplified the self-advertising character of popular music by encouraging music makers to pursue compositional practices that enhance the attention-grabbing quality of the music. Using the analytical framework proposed by Huron (1989), this chapter examines the dual function of popular music as both product and self-advertisement through an extended review of the empirical literature on popular music.

Popping the question: the function and effect of popular music in cinema

Popular Music ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilary Lapedis
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Music Video ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
Conventional Practice ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

Claudia Gorbman, in her afterword to Unheard Melodies, looks forward to the ‘new’ phenomenon of the increased use of recorded popular music in the movies. She questions whether the contemporary use of popular music is essentially different from its use in the traditional Hollywood musical, wherein conventional practice permits a musical number to disrupt the narrative flow, and answers that ‘a hybrid is emerging, unlike diegetic music which is normally not listened to, and also not as focused as musical numbers issuing from the magic world of the musical’ (Gorbman 1987, p.162). Certainly, the music video, as Gorbman admits, in its ‘kaleidoscope of forms’ (ibid.) is changing the relationship between visuals and music, so that there is no longer a habitual hierarchy of sound supporting image, or vice versa. It is this shifting relationship and the way in which pop music specifically operates upon the narrative structure of cinema that I wish to explore here.

The Ghostly Prelude to Deutero-Isaiah

2006 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 332-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Landy
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Beginning ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Voice ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe article is a close reading of Isa. 40:1-11, which focuses on its function as a prologue to Deutero-Isaiah, and hence distinguished by its promise of a new beginning, and on its dependence on, and reversal of, the past, the spectral voices it seeks to repatriate. It is concerned with the secondariness of Deutero-Isaiah, and the consequent ambiguity of its messages. The voice of the poet/prophet is refracted through disembodied voices, which themselves cite other voices, before finally adopting that of the female herald, through whom the advent of God becomes manifest, only to be indefinitely deferred through metaphor and simile. In the background there is the frequently asserted relationship with Isaiah 6 as a metapoetic key to the book. Does its purview extend to Isaiah 40, and is the message of comfort conveyed by Deutero-Isaiah subverted by the incomprehensibility mandated by it? The complexities of the passage, and hence of the book as a whole, require attention to the detail of each its parts, but also to its fragmentariness, as it seeks to reconstruct a fractured reality. This is achieved in part through the emphasis on the materiality of the voice, as flesh (basar) and sonority, and as the matrix (mebasseret) of the future. The analysis proceeds from the voice of maternal comfort in vv. 1-2, to the announcement of the way and the universal theophany in vv. 3-5, to the pathos of transience in vv. 6-8, and finally to the deferred resolution in vv. 9-11. In the conclusion I discuss the relation of the text to the Freudian uncanny, the correspondence and non-correspondence with chapter 6, and the question of the relationship between historical and literary approaches.

Voice and Space

2010 ◽  
pp. 102-112
Author(s):  
Richard Coyne
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Mobile Telephony ◽  
Spatial Design ◽  
Spatial Understanding ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Voice ◽  
The Way

The widespread use of mobile telephony prompts a reevaluation of the role of the aural sense in spatial understanding. There are clear correlations between voice and space. The attributes of the voice constitute important variables in the way people position themselves in public spaces: to speak, to hear, or to get away from the voice. The voice can connote intimacy, communality, and welcome, but also has the potential for disquiet and disruption, particularly as an unseen acousmêtre, (a term developed in film studies). Spatial design can benefit from an exaggerated consideration of voice, to counteract the primacy already given to the visual field. This chapter examines the relationship between the voice and space in public spaces, and the technologies and practices involved.

Narratives of popular music heritage and cultural identity: The affordances and constraints of popular music memories

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arno van der Hoeven
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Narrative Approaches ◽  
The Past ◽  
Local Diversity ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
The Way

This article examines the relationship between popular music, memory and cultural identity. It draws upon narrative approaches to memory and identity in order to explore how engagement with music from the past can both afford and constrain identity construction. On the basis of in-depth interviews with, among others, heritage practitioners and audience members, I discuss how practices in the cultural and heritage industries affect the way in which popular music’s past is narrated. Although those narratives offer a sense of belonging and identity through their connection to experiences of time and place, there are also factors that compromise this potential. The article discusses limits to the accuracy of memories and impediments to representations of local diversity. Furthermore, I argue that copyright regulation affects which stories about popular music’s past can be told.

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.

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