Narrating Near-Death Experience

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-346
Author(s):  
Thomas B. Yee

Abstract Rarely do the worlds of classical music and video games collide explicitly; when they do, as in the 2007 JRPG Eternal Sonata, the result is of marked semiotic interest. The game’s complex metafictional plotline – involving multiple levels of narrative seeking to blend fantasy and reality – invites speculation and interpretation, particularly concerning its multivalent ending. This article uses recently developed analytical methods from the burgeoning field of musical semiotics to glean poignant interpretative meaning from the video game’s musical surface. By invoking music-theoretic work in intertextuality (Klein 2004), musical narrative (Almén 2008), and virtual agency (Hatten forthcoming), I argue that the video game’s musical score is a hermeneutic key for decoding artistic meaning in Eternal Sonata. Thus, ludomusicology contributes vitally to the semiosis of a video game’s meaning as a holistic, multimedia entity.

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-34
Author(s):  
Shawna Malvini Redden

Invoking the styling of classic spy stories, this essay provides an account of a commercial aviation emergency landing that blew the agent/author's “cover” as a full participant ethnographer. Using an experimental autoethnographic format, the piece offers an evocative portrayal of a perceived near-death experience and its aftermath, as well as critical commentary on writing autoethnography with a fictionalized framing. In the closing “debrief,” the author sheds her agent persona to describe the process of writing about traumatic events and to analyze how those events focus attention on methodological and ethical considerations for qualitative research.


2020 ◽  
pp. 102986492097214
Author(s):  
Aurélien Bertiaux ◽  
François Gabrielli ◽  
Mathieu Giraud ◽  
Florence Levé

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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Budi Widianto

Some people consider death events to be the ending part of life, so they regard death as a frightening event. This study aims to describe the near-death experience of the Javanese elderly in Rejosari Village, Gondangrejo District, Karanganyar Regency. The theoretical framework used is near-death experience according to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. The study was conducted using qualitative methods with a phenomenological approach. Data collecting techniques are carried out by in-depth interviews, observations, and library studies. The results showed that the five Javanese elderly studied underwent all stages of the theory of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross but the sequence was different. Four of the five research subjects already had an attitude of acceptance caused by a weak physical condition due to various decreases in the function of their organs.AbstrakSebagian orang menganggap peristiwa kematian merupakan bagian akhir dari kehidupan, sehingga mereka menganggap kematian sebagai peristiwa yang menakutkan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan pengalaman menjelang kematian lansia Jawa di Kalurahan Rejosari Kecamatan Gondangrejo Kabupaten Karanganyar. Kerangka teori yang dipakai adalah pengalaman menjelang kematian menurut Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. Penelitian dilakukan dengan menggunakan metode kualitatif dengan pendekatan fenomenologis. Teknik pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan wawancara mendalam, observasi, dan studi kepustakaan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa lima lansia Jawa yang diteliti mengalami semua tahapan dari teori Elisabeth Kübler-Ross tetapi urutannya berbeda. Empat dari lima subyek penelitian sudah memiliki sikap penerimaan yang disebabkan oleh kondisi fisik yang lemah karena berbagai penurunan fungsi organ tubuhnya.


Author(s):  
Arianna Palmieri ◽  
Vincenzo Calvo ◽  
Johann R. Kleinbub ◽  
Federica Meconi ◽  
Matteo Marangoni ◽  
...  

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