scholarly journals “The Ensemble of Performers” in the Textures of Clavier Compositions by J.S. Bach

ICONI ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 24-29
Author(s):  
Elena V. Gordeyeva ◽  

The musical text of any of Johann Sebastian Bach’s works for clavier contains numerous artistic signs, semantic fi gures and expressive elements. Some of them bear within themselves signifi cations of diverse nuances of meaning and feelings through recreation of the scenes of music-making. Upon the defi nition of the semantic equivalent they align themselves into concrete plotline situations. The intonational formulas, the vertical and horizontal structures-dialogues, the acoustic images of musical instruments (including the human voice) imprinted in the musical texts of a composition — all of these semantic “characters” and “protagonists” designed to express the spirit of time, omnipresent, old and eternally new. The acoustic images in the structure of the musical texts may be extremely different: in the guises of duos, trios, baroque models with the participation of solo, basso continuo and tutti parts in their various alternations and combinations. The musical materials of suites and partitas are used in the article to trace the intertextual migration of typifi ed models of “migrating” images with the unfolding of the plotlines of “music within music.” Typifi ed dialogic structures are disclosed in the texture of the musical composition, and upon deciphering they become conducive towards a competent expressive articulation.

ICONI ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 27-37
Author(s):  
Yana Yu. Danilova ◽  

Music for clavier from the 18th century graphically recreates the acoustic images of the musical instruments and models of quasi-ensemble music making of that period. This tradition of “reflected musical texts” was typical for the Baroque period, when piano music presented a quasi-ensemble score condensed into two-staff notation. The acoustic features of the European practice of music-making in ensembles have also been universally reflected in the musical graphics of the piano sonatas of the Viennese Classicists – Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. On the basis of the observations of this migration within the musical text of the slow movement of Mozart’s Sonata in B-flat minor K. 570, the article demonstrates the modifications of the structural dialogic models of Baroque practice and the process of their transformation into unfolded narrative-contextual signs, the peculiar features of the musical scores, and the acoustic images of the 18th century music-making practice.


ICONI ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 112-128
Author(s):  
Irina B. Gorbunova ◽  

At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries there appeared a new trend in musical composition and musical pedagogy conditioned by the fast development of electronic musical instruments: from the simplest synthesizers to powerful musical computers. In the wide range contemporary electronic musical instrument the accumulated informational technologies in music and the art of music making have manifested themselves in the fullest and most perfect manner. The current and the subsequent issues of the journal shall provide a consecutive presentation of four lectures, compiling the basis of the discipline “Informational Technologies in Music” and a set of programs of advanced training, which include “Informational Technologies in Music,” “Informational Technologies in Musical Education,” “Computer Musical Composition,” etc. The first lecture, “The Architectonics of Musical Sound” shall disclose themes connected with the study of the physical characteristics of musical sounds, the means of their recording and reproduction; explanation is given to the aural perception of sound by the human being, and the basic principles of computer generation of musical sound are examined. The material elucidated in the lection possesses a theoretical and practical directedness and contains information in which the technological aspects of contemporary perceptions of music, about the musical instrument range (including computer musical instruments); without knowledge of these aspects a competent interpretation of musical instruments is impossible.


Tempo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (295) ◽  
pp. 31-44
Author(s):  
Maayan Tsadka

AbstractSonic botany is an ongoing project that I have been developing over the past few years. It incorporates natural artefacts: dry leaves, pods, flowers, branches, rocks, bones and other organic findings. These are used as musical instruments that are played on with a scientific/musical tool: tuning forks in various frequencies. The vibration from the tuning forks resonates through the natural artefacts which amplify the vibration and – via sound – reveal the texture, size, material and condition of the organic matter. This process generates new sonic material, new context and new forms of musical composition. The practice developed into several compositions and projects, a performance practice, a notation system and a way of listening. Here I share some of the insights I gained through this process, the tools and the compositional framework.


Author(s):  
V. J Manzo

In this chapter, we will look at some innovative ways to control music making as we develop musical instruments. We will look at using your computer keyboard and mouse as performance instruments as well as discuss the use of videogame controllers in your patches. Designing your own custom musical instruments is a great way to tailor the controls to the specific physical abilities of users while allowing them to focus on certain specific musical concepts like pitches, scales, and harmony/chords. 1. Click on Extras>EAMIR from the top menu to view the main menu of the EAMIR SDK 2. In the umenu labeled Examples, click the third item 3.EAMIR _ASCII_Keyboard_Control.maxpat Unlock the patch that opens and look at its basic structure. As you can see, the patch is really just 4 bpatcher objects, 3 of which refer to patches we’ve already looked at. The newest bpatcher, at the top of the patch, is basically just a patch with a key object, a select object, and some fancy graphics—all things you learned to use in Chapter 3. Lock the patch and 3. Type your full name using your computer keyboard. Note that uppercase letters and lowercase letters trigger different buttons 4. Press the number keys 1–8 as these are mapped to message boxes containing numbers used as diatonic chord functions Without the top bpatcher, your patch generates chords in any key simply by clicking the message boxes. The top bpatcher is just a control interface that maps something (keys) to something else (message boxes). 5. Ctrl+click (Mac) or right click (Windows) the top bpatcher and select Object>Open Original “EAMIR_keyboard.maxpat” from the contextual menu This patch is set to open in Presentation mode. Unlock the patch and put it in Patching view. The contents of the patch are as I described: a key object, as well as a keyup object, are connected to two gigantic sel (select) objects containing the ASCII numbers for all the available characters on the computer keyboard nothing you couldn’t already do. In fact, the most impressive part of this patch, in my opinion, is the graphical part of it.


Popular Music ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-120
Author(s):  
Philipp Kohl

AbstractThis article explores the relationship between the human time of music making and the temporal layers that pervade the natural resources of musical instruments. It therefore offers case studies on two of popular music's most common instruments, the electric guitar and the synthesiser, and their symbolic and material temporalities: guitar players’ quest for ‘infinite sustain’ from Santana to today's effects manufacturers and the ‘psychogeophysical’ approach by artist and theorist Martin Howse, who developed a synthesiser module using radioactive material in order to determine musical events by nuclear decay. While language uses metaphors of sustain and decay as figurative ways to express both musical and planetary dimensions, practices of music offer alternative ecologies of relating the seemingly unrelatable scales of deep time and musical time. If in the Anthropocene humankind becomes aware of its role as a geophysical force, thinking about making music in the Anthropocene requires an awareness for the temporalities involved in the materials at hand. Besides an ecological perspective, the article looks at various media (magazines, ads, and manuals) and thus positions economical mechanisms of the musical instrument manufacturing market as a small-scale experimental setting for larger-scale industrial processes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gina Emerson ◽  
Hauke Egermann

Over the past four decades, the number, diversity and complexity of digital musical instruments (DMIs) has increased rapidly. There are very few constraints on DMI design as such systems can be easily reconfigured, offering near limitless flexibility for music-making. Given that new acoustic musical instruments have in many cases been created in response to the limitations of available technologies, what motivates the development of new DMIs? We conducted an interview study with ten designers of new DMIs, in order to explore (a) the motivations electronic musicians may have for wanting to build their own instruments; and (b) the extent to which these motivations relate to the context in which the artist works and performs (academic vs club settings). We found that four categories of motivation were mentioned most often: M1 – wanting to bring greater embodiment to the activity of performing and producing electronic music; M2 – wanting to improve audience experiences of DMI performances; M3 – wanting to develop new sounds, and M4 – wanting to build responsive systems for improvisation. There were also some detectable trends in motivation according to the context in which the artists work and perform. Our results offer the first systematically gathered insights into the motivations for new DMI design. It appears that the challenges of controlling digital sound synthesis drive the development of new DMIs, rather than the shortcomings of any one particular design or existing technology.


Author(s):  
Vadym Rakochi

The interaction between the evolution of the orchestra and the concerto at the end of the late 16th — first half of the 17th centuries has been considered. Three levels of interaction are revealed. The first one is the basso continuo. There is little attention paid to the importance of this technique for the formation of the orchestra: the impact on the formation of instrumentalists’ collectives through the appearance of a homophonic way of presentation; combining different forces of sound of instruments; strengthening the bass line as a solid foundation for the entire vertical structure. The second level is the concerto principle. It is emphasized that during the 16th century the concerto meant ―ensemble‖ of any configuration. The strengthening of the instrumental component in the works of M. Uccellini, I. Baccusi, A. and J. Gabrieli, A. Banchieri had an impact on the transformation of the concerto principle. Initially, the principle appeared through the opposition of pitches and density of texture, eventually extends to the comparison of instrumental, mixed vocal-instrumental and vocal groups, thus stimulating contrast in the middle of an instrumental groups such as ensemble and orchestra. The third level of the interaction is embodied in the genre of madrigal (C. Monteverdi). It seems that the release of instruments, the diversification of their functions, the rejection of the permanent exact duplications and the increased role of the timbre obviously require an instrumental body as a stable structure for the implementation of all above mentioned. The development of musical instruments, the diversification of their functions, the use of sinfonia and ritornellos in the choral composition became a driven force for the modification of the concerto principle resulted in the intensification of the competitive origin in the orchestra with each decade. All the above encourages to revise the depth of interaction between the orchestra and concerto. The orchestra as an organized and multi-instrumental collective, designed to exhibit music beyond the church or theatrical genres, becomes the institutional basis for the embodiment of the concerto principle in a particular genre of the instrumental concerto.


ICONI ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 87-97
Author(s):  
Natalia N. Petrova ◽  

The article examines performance on contemporary digital musical instruments, such as the keyboard synthesizer, the digital piano, the digital button and keyboard accordion and others, as a direction of artistic creativity in the contemporary sociocultural space on demand by numerous music lovers and professional performers. Evaluation is given to the possibilities of functioning for electronic musical creativity in the culturalcreative, communicative and educational angles. A phenomenological analysis of performance on electronic musical instruments is carried out and data is provided about the peculiarities of the sociocultural perception among various target auditoriums. The heuristic potential of electronic music-making for the young generation is highlighted in the refl ection of the demands of generation Z on poly-timbre and multi-genres in the artistic process. Examples are brought of successful attempts of realizing of individual and ensemble digital performance which has made it possible to manifest the fundamental functions of artistic culture, to create a system of moral and aesthetic values which would be relevant for society, and to form an aesthetically organized, highly technological sociocultural milieu.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Komang Wira Adhi Mahardika

ABSTRAK“Bibi Anu”//Lamun payu luas manjus/Antenge tekekang//Yatnain ngabe masui//Tiyuk puntul//Bawang anggen sasikepan. Lagu rakyat dengan makna mendalam dan penuh pesan tersebut selalu terngiang di hati anak-anak Bali. Lebih dari itu, belaian kasih sang ibu terhadap anak tercinta dalam lirik dan nada-nada sederhana “Bibi Anu” menunjukkan bahwa siapa pun yang pernah menjadi anak-anak seharusnya senantiasa waspada, selalu mempersiapkan diri, untuk setiap keadaan. Hanya, seiring perjalanan waktu, sang lagu semakin tenggelam, dianggap usang, dan tercampakkan. Ada kesan bahwa menyanyikan lagu-lagu tradisional seperti “Bibi Anu” sudah ketinggalan zaman sehingga jarang diminati lagi. Selain itu dalam perkembangan media sosial yang sangat pesat ini, lagu tradisional seperti “Bibi Anu” sangat jarang ditemukan. Karenanya, penata ingin mengangkatnya secara baru, ke dalam karya “Lullabybianu”, yaitu dari kata lullaby dan “Bibi Anu”. Lullaby adalah nyanyian yang sudah mendunia yang dilantunkan untuk anak-anak. Garapan ini merupakan bentuk penyajian komposisi musik yang terlahir dari keinginan penata yang ingin mengangkat lagu pengantar tidur anak tradisional di Bali khususnya pupuh pucung untuk dijadikan sebuah karya musik baru yang dibawakan dengan kombinasi instrumen musik Barat dan Bali. Dalam hal ini, penata mengkombinasikan musik Barat dan Bali melalui media ungkap ansamble cello, piano, saxophone, perkusi dipadukan dengan instrumen gender rambat, suling, dan vokal. “Lullabybianu” digarap menggunakan ilmu harmoni dan teori musik lainnya yang di dalamnya terdapat aturan-aturan khusus yang mengikat sehingga penotasian karya ini menjadi baik dan benar.Kata kunci: komposisi musik, barat-Bali, “Bibi Anu”, lagu tidur, anak-anak. ABSTRACT“Bibi Anu”//Lamun payu luas manjus/Antenge tekekang//Yatnain ngabe masui//Tiyuk puntul//Bawang anggen sasikepan. The folk song which has deep meaning and full of messages is always ringing in the hearts of Balinese children. Moreover, mother's love for her beloved child in simple lyrics and tones in the "Bibi Anu” indicates that every child should always be alert, preparing for every circumstances. However, today, the song is getting drowned, considered obsolete and is marginalized. There is an impression that singing traditional songs such as "Bibi Anu" is regarded out of date so that such kind of song is not favoured anymore. In social media which develop rapidly, traditional songs such as "Bibi Anu" are rarely seen. Therefore, the composer wants to compose it newly, into a project named "Lullabybianu", i.e. from the words lullaby and "Bibi Anu". Lullaby is a universal song sung for children. This project is a form of presentation of the musical composition that comes from the desire of the composer to pick a traditional childhood's song in Bali, especially pupuh pucung into a new musical work performed with a combination of Western and Balinese musical instruments. In this case, the composer combines Western and Balinese music through an ansamble of cello, piano, saxophone, percussion combined with gender rambat traditional instrument, flute, and vocals. "Lullabybianu" is composed basing on the musical science of harmony and other musical theories in which there are special rules that bind so that the notation of this work will be good and true.Keywords: musical composition, western-Bali, "Bibi Anu", sleeping songs, children. 


Author(s):  
Elena Nikolaevna Piryazeva

The subject of this research is the electronic musical instrument trautonium and characteristic features of compositions written for this instrument. The advancement of electronic music and its instruments is substantiated by innovative transformation, constant emergence of new devices, their improvement and phasing out or transitions into a new generation of devices. One of such electronic musical instruments is trautonium, invented in the first half of the XX century. It did not gain much popularity, but gather its own repertoire and library of video and audio recordings. In the course of this research, the author applied the following methods: historical and systemic approaches; methods of integral, structural, stylistic, and comparative analysis. The novelty is defined consists in the subject of research, range of compositions attracted for musicological analysis, and the angle of their view. The author determines the common to compositions for trautonium concert character of performance reflected in the set of aesthetic and technological principles on various levels of musical composition.


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