scholarly journals The Semantic Explicitization of the Musical Text in Work with Beginner Guitarists

ICONI ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 107-120
Author(s):  
Okhotnikov Vladimir E. ◽  

The procedure of interpreting the content of the musical composition studied in a performance class is often reduced to reconstituting the version created by the instructor. The foundation of the joint interpretation with the pupil of the compositions may be served by the process of functioning of semantic fi gures in the context of the musical theme. Its semantic organization is impossible without turning to the foundational concept of semantic analysis — the intonational lexis, which summate the perceptions of the intonational vocabulary of the composer and the musical work he created. Thereby, the semantic explicitization must be the basis for objective analysis of the musical composition’s fi gurative-content aspect. The article examines the performers’ interpretations of musical compositions in beginners’ guitar classes on the basis of analyzing the musical text’s semantic structures in classical and contemporary music. For the beginner musician application of technique of semantic analysis will become a reliable source for a joint search for performance solution together with the instructor.

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (14) ◽  
pp. 207-228
Author(s):  
Ya.A. Serdiuk

Background. In recent decades, musicology has demonstrated a steady interest not only in the grammar of the musical language, in the structural-logical side of the musical form, but also in the associative-figurative plan of music. The latter is increasingly becoming the subject of not only spontaneously-intuitive cognition, but also of decoding and systematization. The works on musical semantics, disclosing the meanings of musical lexemes in the context of that culture, that epoch-making style, in which they originated, belong, in particular, to L. Shaimuhametova, A. Asfandiarova, I. Alekseeva, H. Baikieva, A. Hordeeva, N. Kuznetsova N. Drach, I. Stohniy, H. Taraeva, L. Kazantseva. We also need to note the numerous studies of rhetoric and symbolism in Baroque music, especially, in J. S. Bach’s works. H. Poltavtseva describes the connection of types of musical language and their perception, as well as the process of comprehension on this basis of musical imagery. The study of musical content as a new direction of scientific thought was carried out by V. Kholopova and A. Kudriashov and found its application in creating of same name training courses. The purpose of the proposed study is an attempt to describe the process of forming a figurative subtext of a musical work using the concept of “virtual”, which, despite the wide spreading in modern musicological works of various directions, still does not have an established semantic structure. At the same time, it can be fruitfully used to study many musical phenomena, including the figurative subtext of a musical work. Research methodоlogy. In this study, we rely on the previously developed by us the conceptual system of the virtual in music, in particular, on one of its components – the virtual cognitive applied to the sphere of musical semantics. We used the modeling method to reproduce the algorithm of the formation of the figurative plan of a musical work, the method of semantic analysis to reveal the meanings of musical lexemes, the analytical methods of musical theoretical disciplines for considering the musical material. The results of the research. Virtual cognitive is connected with the hidden possibilities of the musical text and the hidden semantic plans of the musical work. We define hidden musical text plans as “virtual structures”. The latter, in combination with other components of the musical composition and specific features of the perception of music, shape the complex structure of the virtual, which we consider as one of the factors in the formation of the associativefigurative plan of the musical work. In our study, we rely on the idea of both a virtual cognitive and a musical work as a sign-oriented structure that can be studied from the standpoint of the general theory of language, as well as on the statement about the dependence of the perception of the musical text on a thesaurus of a performer or a listener. In this connection, using such terminological pairs as “language-speech”, “text-context”, “denotation-connotation”, we add one more: “text-subtext”. The relation of the last two pairs, in our opinion, is a correlation: “denotation / text”, “connotation / subtext”. Connotations arise thanks to the context, in which this or that text appears and functions. Both denotations (direct meanings) and connotations (accompanying meanings constituting the area of a subtext) belong to the realm of the virtual, because: 1) the meanings of the linguistic sign are products of individual and collective consciousness; 2) contextualized meanings can be revealed to the recipient only if the latter knows the context, in which this or that sign unit originated. However, if there is not enough auditory experience, both the denotation and the hidden connotations of the text (subtext) exist only as an unrealized opportunity, that is, as virtual. We will consider as musical-speech denotations: pitch characteristics, in particular, mode and tonal, harmonic, various “types of musical language” (after H. Poltavtseva), intonational turns with fixed meanings, the virtual structures of the facture-sound level – individual coloring of sound, hidden polyphony. As connotations – the virtual structures of the composition of the dramaturgic level: numerical symbolism, hidden form-building principles, which are the expression of a certain philosophical idea. Thus, the figurative subtext of a musical work is a compound structure formed by a number of elements and processes. The substrates of this complex are: 1) the musical notation, in which the basic parameters of the sounding are fixed; 2) sounding. On this basis, the other virtual formations arise: 1) performer’s mental, audial and motor ideas about a musical work; 2) listener’s perceptions – the modes of psychosomatic activity and figurative associations that arise on their basis; 3) denotations – semantics, fixed to one or another tonalities, to intonation formulas, to rhetorical figures etc.; 4) connotations, the area of subtext, often generating by contexts, in which the text is appeared, functioned and apperceived, taking into account the recipient’s thesaurus. In the context of perception, we include not only the properties of the recipient’s thesaurus, but also the communicative situation, in which this or that work is performed / perceived. Conclusions. Consequently, another else part of the sphere of virtual cognitive is the complex structures of the virtual, which act as a factor of the formation of an associative-figurative plan of a musical work. The components of these complexes are the components of the musical language (which include the virtual structures of the musical text, especially the factural and syntactic levels) in conjunction with the individual characteristics of perception due to the context of the communicative situation, the capacity and the nature of recipient’s thesaurus – a kind of filter, through which the meaning goes filling those or other musical constructions. The prospects for further research on virtual cognitive in the field of musical semantics provide for a more detailed and multidimensional consideration of the complex structures of the virtual in musical texts of different historical eras and styles.


Author(s):  
Tim Rutherford-Johnson

By the start of the 21st century many of the foundations of postwar culture had disappeared: Europe had been rebuilt and, as the EU, had become one of the world’s largest economies; the United States’ claim to global dominance was threatened; and the postwar social democratic consensus was being replaced by market-led neoliberalism. Most importantly of all, the Cold War was over, and the World Wide Web had been born. Music After The Fall considers contemporary musical composition against this changed backdrop, placing it in the context of globalization, digitization, and new media. Drawing on theories from the other arts, in particular art and architecture, it expands the definition of Western art music to include forms of composition, experimental music, sound art, and crossover work from across the spectrum, inside and beyond the concert hall. Each chapter considers a wide range of composers, performers, works, and institutions are considered critically to build up a broad and rich picture of the new music ecosystem, from North American string quartets to Lebanese improvisers, from South American electroacoustic studios to pianos in the Australian outback. A new approach to the study of contemporary music is developed that relies less on taxonomies of style and technique, and more on the comparison of different responses to common themes, among them permission, fluidity, excess, and loss.


2020 ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Р.Х. Лаул

Настоящий материал продолжает серию публикаций лекций Рейна Лаула по анализу музыки в Санкт-Петербургской (Ленинградской) консерватории. Шестая лекция завершает обзор приемов разработочного развития музыкального материала. В нее вошли шесть из двадцати пяти приемов в авторской классификации (эпизодическая тема, производная тема, варьирование, полифонические варианты, приемы подвижного контрапункта, полифонические структуры), способствующей систематизации разработочных процессов. В поле зрения автора включены неспецифически сонатные способы преобразования музыкального материала, благодаря чему сонатность предстает в гибком и взаимодополняющем взаимодействии с иными принципами формообразования. Особое внимание уделено специфике применения полифонических средств развития музыкального материала в контексте сонатного формообразования. В ходе детального рассмотрения финала симфонии В. А. Моцарта Юпитер оказываются тесно связанными технологический, композиционно-драматургический и стилевой аспекты становления музыкальной формы. Заключительный раздел, обобщающий содержание лекции в целом, содержит пример практического применения предлагаемой автором методологии. Тем самым доказывается ее целесообразность и высокая эффективность как в аспекте анализа интонационной драматургии музыкального произведения, так и в достижении главной аналитической цели в формировании объективного представления о содержательной сути каждого этапа в развёртывании музыкальной композиции. This material continues the series of publications of R. H. Lauls lectures on music analysis at the Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory. The sixth lecture concludes the review of techniques for developing musical material. It discusses six of the twenty-five techniques in the authors classification (episodic theme, derived theme, variation, polyphonic variants, mobile counterpoint techniques, polyphonic structures), which contributes to systematization of the development processes. The authors field of view includes non-specific Sonata methods of transforming the musical material, so that sonateness appears in a flexible and complementary interaction with other principles of formation. Special attention is paid to the specifics of using polyphonic means of developing musical material in the context of Sonata formation. The detailed examination of the finale of Mozarts Symphony Jupiter, shows that technological, compositional, dramatic, and stylistic aspects of the formation of a musical form appear to be closely related. The final section summarizing the content of the lecture as a whole contains an example of practical application of the methodology proposed by the author, proving its expediency and high efficiency not only in the aspect of analyzing the intonation drama of a musical work, but also of achieving the main analytical goal to form a reasoned judgment about the content of each stage in the deployment of a musical composition.


2021 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-213
Author(s):  
Christoph Von Blumröder

The term "Neue Musik" was coined for a special concept of fundamental musical innovation within Austro-German music theory of the early 20th century, and it found no terminological equivalent beyond the German language. Established by Paul Bekker with his lecture “Neue Musik” in 1919, composers such as Stockhausen or Ligeti embraced the term with its emphatic claim to innovation and new departures. However, one hundred years on the term "Neue Musik" is often used mainly as a synonym for any type of contemporary music. This article questions whether the term "Neue Musik" is still an appropriate framework for a current theory of musical composition. Not only have the specific musical circumstances changed within the course of the 20th century, but also the political and social conditions have altered drastically after two world wars which had given special impulses to those composers who strove for a new foundation of music after 1918 and 1945 respectively. This article argues that the age of "Neue Musik" has come to an end in the late 20th century, and thus it is now necessary to introduce alternative terminological concepts and methodical directions for music historiography.


2021 ◽  
pp. 22-31
Author(s):  
ZARINA DENISOVA

The object of the research in this article is associativity as a characteristic feature of 20th century art. The nature, the role of the association in the work of artistic thinking, the principles of its functioning are considered. The subject of the research is the editing form of a musical work of the second half of the 20th century. Particular attention in the article is paid to the consideration of such an important factor influencing the formation of a stable associative connection as repetition. At the same time, it is specified that repetition is caused by a specific life situation. This repetition forms a chain of associations that create an integral content space of a musical work. The work uses general scientific research methods in the framework of comparative and logical analysis, including generalizations and comparisons. The work is based on the analytical method and has a systemic interdisciplinary nature as well. In revealing the specifics of the installation form, the author of the article turns to the theory of compositional ellipsis V. Bobrovsky. The main conclusion of the study is that the importance of associativity in the work of Russian composers in the second half of the 20th century is increasing, reaching the status of a characteristic feature of artistic thinking. The process of expanding associativity manifested itself, in particular, in the emergence in musical creativity of a new type of form creation - editing. The analysis revealed the features inherent in the montage type of construction of a work of art. This is the dismemberment of thematic material, the syntactic isolation of thematic structures, the organization of the form «from the end», the internal unity of the mosaic structure, and others. The novelty of this research lies in the fact that for the first time associativity is considered as a source of montage shaping, in the choice of research methodology, as well as in the identification of special features of the composition, manifested in the conditions of montage drama.


Author(s):  
Tobias Boes

A leitmotif (from the German Leitmotiv: ‘guiding motif’) in its original sense is a musical theme that appears multiple times over the course of a dramatic composition and thereby gives a person, object, place or concept both a symbolic form and coherence over time. It is primarily associated with the mature works of Richard Wagner, who disliked the term, however. A leitmotif differs from earlier examples of recurring musical themes by virtue of the fact that it can change over time and develop additional significance through its relationship to other musical themes. Thus, the ascending ‘nature motif’ that opens Wagner’s operatic cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) finds a descending counterpart in the later ‘contract motif’. Taken together, the two themes thus spell out a fundamental contrast between the natural and the social world that runs throughout the cycle. Because of the huge influence of Wagner’s art on all aspects of Modernism, leitmotifs can be found not only in musical compositions, but also in literature, particularly in the novels of Thomas Mann and James Joyce.


Tempo ◽  
1954 ◽  
pp. 8-13
Author(s):  
Jürgen Balzer

In the year 1601 there appeared in Florence a musical work entitled Le Nuove Musiche (The New Music). The composer was Giulio Caccini, one of the leading members of the circle associated with the noble dilettanti who in attempting to revive the Greek drama laid the foundations of a new branch of music—opera. Le Nuove Musiche contains a collection of songs for solo voice to harp or lute accompaniment, of the kind that Caccini, who was singer to the Tuscan Court, had been singing for many years. The work—called not New Music, but The New Music—was a contribution to a current controversy in which the opposing side supported the “old” manner of musical composition, the one in which two or more melodies are woven together to form an elaborate pattern. (This manner of composition is known as polyphony, and in modern times the style has been called after one of its greatest masters, Palestrina). Consequently, Le Nuove Musiche has a long preface in which Caccini expounds the meaning of his songs, declaring, among other things, that the new style considers its principal task to be to interpret the poetry, to give rightful scope to the words by careful enunciation, and to let the tune bring out the phrasing of the poem, an aspect which, in the modernists' view, had been singularly neglected in polyphonic compositions.


Author(s):  
Paula Pérez-Sobrino

This chapter provides a preliminary account of different figurative operations in twelve examples of program classical and contemporary music involving music and text. The main goals are to explore the directionality and scope of the mappings between language and music and to investigate the communicative effects of each operation in a musical work. Metonymy, metaphor, hyperbole, paradox, and irony are compared and contrasted to highlight the dynamism and flexibility of conceptual mechanisms to account for meaning construction in multimodal contexts. Although all these conceptual tools consist of putting in correspondence two entities, there are differences that allow us to draw boundaries among them. The main advantage of adopting a view based on figurative operations is that they overcome the two-domain layout of metaphors while counting on a limited inferential capacity that allows the prediction of possible communicative effects.


2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob C. Wegman

ABSTRACT The notion of the signature could serve as an appropriate metaphor by which to explore Heinrich Isaac as a man of his time and world. It may be mere coincidence that he has left more documents signed in his own hand than contemporary composers, but some of the documents he authenticated in this way really do attest to a new idea of professional musicianship that Isaac was the earliest and most successful in implementing: that of the professional composer who undertakes to produce new works under contractual obligation. Isaac is the first-known musician who signed a document specifically in this capacity. Yet his signature, or at least the assurance that he personally composed and signed a musical work, is also found in the context of practical musical sources, where they would appear to have no legal significance. Martin Just has shown, however, that the particular folios containing these compositions, in the manuscript Berlin 40021, were originally sent as letters. The implication is that Isaac's signature, in this case, is not an attribution so much as a mark of authentication—something that would have been required only if the musical works in question were sent, and changed hands, as part of a commercial transaction. Taking the metaphor of the signature in a broader figurative sense, one could suggest that Isaac's work also bears his musical signature—namely in the personal style that his contemporaries tried to recognize and in some cases to characterize in words. Two authors who tried to capture the peculiar quality of Isaac's music are Paolo Cortesi and Heinrich Glarean. The latter's attempt is especially significant, since Glarean seems to attest to a new way of hearing and conceptualizing polyphony. Although it is hard to identify specifically which passages in Isaac's music he would have had in mind, the key to his appraisal seems to lie in a different way of conceptualizing the interplay of contrapuntal voices in contemporary music. To the extent that we can associate this with Isaac's musical signature, it would appear, once again, that this composer, more than any other, was at the forefront of some of the most significant developments in the music history of his time.


2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTA BRÜSTLE

AbstractWhat are the consequences of understanding a musical score as an ‘action plan’ – a composed set of performance instructions – rather than as a document, a transcript, or a concretization of a composer's idea and, ultimately, of a fixed musical work? This question is discussed through a consideration of four examples of contemporary percussion music – solo pieces by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Morton Feldman, David Lang, and Helmut Lachenmann. Considering the musical text in relation to the dynamics of a work's execution and performance can give us not only a ‘sound picture’ but also a kinaesthetic picture of the performer on stage. Through this shift of perspective the score comes to be viewed as a script or an agent, which then acts as both a foundation and a catalyst for the actions of the performer and his or her production of sound.


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