scholarly journals Zarlino’s Harpsichord: A Contribution to the (Pre)History of Equal Temperament

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Nejc Sukljan
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Equal Temperament ◽  
History Of

This paper deals with the tuning question as it is discussed in Gioseffo Zarlino’s principal musical-theoretical treatise, Istitutioni harmoniche (1558). First, Zarlino’s tuning system in vocal music (the syntonic diatonic) is presented; then, its shortcomings are discussed; and finally, its adjustment (temperament) for the use in instrumental music is explained.

scholarly journals Vinay Mishra and the Artistry of the Harmonium

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 39-46
Author(s):  
Lahiru Gimhana Komangoda
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Tuning Method ◽  
Equal Temperament ◽  
Hindustani Music ◽  
Tuning Methods ◽  
Music Faculty

Vinay Mishra is an accomplished Indian solo and accompanying harmonium player born and brought up in Benaras and currently residing in Delhi serving as a faculty member of the Department of Music, Faculty of Music and Fine Arts, University of Delhi. The rigorous training of both vocal and instrumental music under veteran Hindustani Music virtuosos, the academic and scholarly scope built up till the degree of PhD in Music, the realizations, and understandings on music must have conspicuously made an impact of his practice and artistry as a harmonium player. Harmonium was originated in the west and adopted by Indian musicians in the colonial era which was brought up to the present day through many artistic, cultural and political controversies, and obstacles. This work focuses on discovering the insights of the harmonium art of Vinay Mishra. Hence, his academic background, musical training, musical career, his playing style as a soloist, general techniques and techniques of accompaniment, sense of machinery, perspectives on raga Taal, and thoroughly the tuning methods were studied in-depth through personal conversations and literature resources where it was observed that modern Hindustani harmonium artists favor a typical natural tuning method over the 12 equal temperaments of the common keyboard instruments. According to him, the stable sound of the harmonium was the reason to be vocal music- friendly in classical and light vocal music accompaniment which was only interrupted by the equal temperament earlier and was later overcome by the artists and harmonium makers. The idea was also raised that apart from gaining the basic command of an instrument, a Hindustani instrumentalist may learn and practice all other aspects of Hindustani music from the teachers of other forms too. Vinay Mishra’s thoughts of machinery, musical forms, compositions, applying Hindustani vocal, and plucking string instrumental ornamentations on the Harmonium were also reviewed.

South Sumatra

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Kartomi
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
River Basins ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
Historical Distribution ◽  
Social Dances ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines the historical distribution of two musico-lingual groups living in South Sumatra: the Besemah in Tanjungsakti and Kayuagung, and the Ogan-Komering Ilir (OKI) people in Burai. South Sumatra's network of rivers and tributaries—known as the Batang Hari Sembilan—has governed its peoples' travels, worldviews, adat, legends, and musical arts for well over 2,000 years. This chapter explores how South Sumatra's environment and associated cosmology, adat customs, and the history of religion and foreign contact have shaped its musico-lingual groups and music, dance, and theater more generally. It first considers the Besemah's bardic legends and their classical and social dances and ensemble music, vocal music, and solo instrumental music before turning to the Anak Dalem people. It also describes the Ogan-Komering Ilir (OKI) river basins, the dance called tari tanggai, Palembang, and musical arts with a Muslim theme or flavor in the uplands and lowlands.

Queering Musical Biography in the Writings of Edward Prime-Stevenson and Rosa Newmarch

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-118
Author(s):  
Kristin M. Franseen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Benjamin Britten ◽  
Twentieth Century Music ◽  
History Of ◽  
Music Research ◽  
Symphonic Music ◽  
Biographical Knowledge

Beginning with the “open secret” of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears's relationship and continuing through debates over Handel's and Schubert's sexuality and analyses of Ethel Smyth's memoirs, biography has played a central role in the development of queer musicology. At the same time, life-writing's focus on extramusical details and engagement with difficult-to-substantiate anecdotes and rumors often seem suspect to scholars. In the case of early-twentieth-century music research, however, these very gaps and ambiguities paradoxically offered some authors and readers at the time rare spaces for approaching questions of sexuality in music. Issues of subjectivity in instrumental music aligned well with rumors about autobiographical confession within Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique) for those who knew how to listen and read between the lines. This article considers the different ways in which the framing of biographical anecdotes and gossip in scholarship by music critic-turned-amateur sexologist Edward Prime-Stevenson and Tchaikovsky scholar Rosa Newmarch allowed for queer readings of symphonic music. It evaluates Prime-Stevenson's discussions of musical biography and interpretation in The Intersexes (1908/9) and Newmarch's Tchaikovsky: His Life and Works (1900), translation of Modest Tchaikovsky's biography, and article on the composer in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians to explore how they addressed potentially taboo topics, engaged with formal and informal sources of biographical knowledge (including one another's work), and found their scholarly voices in the absence of academic frameworks for addressing gender and sexuality. While their overt goals were quite different—Newmarch sought to dismiss “sensationalist” rumors about Tchaikovsky's death for a broad readership, while Prime-Stevenson used queer musical gossip as a primary source in his self-published history of homosexuality—both grappled with questions of what can and cannot be read into a composer's life and works and how to relate to possible queer meanings in symphonic music. The very aspects of biography that place it in a precarious position as scholarship ultimately reveal a great deal about the history of musicology and those who write it.

Vasyl Bezkorovayny’s vocal works in Ukrainian music of the first half of the XX century

2019 ◽  
pp. 500-515
Author(s):  
Nataliia Kosaniak
Keyword(s):  
Choral Music ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Symphony Orchestra ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
The United States ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
Western European ◽  
Vocal Works ◽  
Post War ◽  
Talented Artist

Vasyl Bezkorovayny (1880–1966) was a talented artist, an active figure in the musical life of Galicia and a representative of post-war Ukrainian emigrants in the United States of America. He wrote more than 350 works of various genres. Among them are compositions for symphony orchestra; vocal works — for chorus, ensembles or solo singing; chamber and instrumental music — for piano, violin, zither, cello; music for dramatic performances. The article deals with the archival and musicological analysis of expressive and stylistic features of V. Bezkorovayny’s vocal works, based on the materials of Stefanyk Lviv National Library of Ukraine. Attention is paid to the place of the composer’s vocal masterpieces in the context of Ukrainian vocal music of the first half of the XX century. The most important achievements of the composer related to the genres of choral and chamber vocal music. In style, the composer’s works combine the influences of M. Lysenko, composers of the «Peremyshl school» and Western European romantic and post-romantic models. The original secular choral music of V. Bezkorovayny covers genres of songs, plays, and large-form choirs. In his solo songs the influences of romantic western European music and Ukrainian folk songs affected the formation and approval of the composer’s style. Keywords: vocal music, chorus, solos, melodic-intonation means, harmony, rhythm.

Musical training improves memory for instrumental music, but not vocal music or words

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-159
Author(s):  
Jonathan M. P. Wilbiks ◽  
Sean Hutchins
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Verbal Material ◽  
The Other ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Facilitative Effect ◽  
Musical Excerpts ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Brain

In previous research, there exists some debate about the effects of musical training on memory for verbal material. The current research examines this relationship, while also considering musical training effects on memory for musical excerpts. Twenty individuals with musical training were tested and their results were compared to 20 age-matched individuals with no musical experience. Musically trained individuals demonstrated a higher level of memory for classical musical excerpts, with no significant differences for popular musical excerpts or for words. These findings are in support of previous research showing that while music and words overlap in terms of their processing in the brain, there is not necessarily a facilitative effect between training in one domain and performance in the other.

scholarly journals A Historical Perspective of Mangalavattiyam

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Suganya Aravinthon
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Solo Music ◽  
Musical Genres ◽  
Over Time

From the earliest days of the Tamil music tradition, music was considered to be a combination of vocal music, instrumental music and dance. Each of these musical genres is closely intertwined. Knowledge of one helps to know about the other. Instrumental music has been interpreted as accompaniment to solo music and dance and as a solo specialty. In Bharata's book 'Natyashasthram', musical instruments are generally divided into four categories as nerve (tata) hole (kasira) ¸ skin (avanatta) ¸ kana (kanja). In this context, it is a research paper on the history and use of the Nagaswaram and thavil instruments, which are referred to today as the Mangala Vaathyam, which the Tamils ​​have merged with their culture.  This article also examines in detail the ideological changes that have taken place over time in the use of these two musical instruments. At the same time, the use of these instruments in the sociological context is taken into account. Finally, this article is a historical study of the lineage of musicians who have mastered these instruments.

Effects of Background Music on Phonological Short-Term Memory

1989 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Salamé ◽  
Alan Baddeley
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Exclusion Process ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Background Music ◽  
Theoretical Interpretation ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Noise Condition ◽  
Trained Subjects ◽  
Immediate Memory

Immediate memory for visually presented verbal material is disrupted by concurrent speech, even when the speech is unattended and in a foreign language. Unattended noise does not produce a reliable decrement. These results have been interpreted in terms of a phonological short-term store that excludes non-speechlike sounds. The characteristics of this exclusion process were explored by studying the effects of music on the serial recall of sequences of nine digits presented visually. Experiment 1 compared the effects of unattended vocal or instrumental music with quiet and showed that both types of music disrupted STM performance, with vocal music being more disruptive than instrumental music. Experiment 2 attempted to replicate this result using more highly trained subjects. Vocal music caused significantly more disruption than instrumental music, which was not significantly worse than the silent control condition. Experiment 3 compared instrumental music with unattended speech and with noise modulated in amplitude, the degree of modulation being the same as in speech. The results showed that the noise condition did not differ from silence; both of these proved less disruptive than instrumental music, which was in turn less disruptive than the unattended speech condition. Theoretical interpretation of these results and their potential practical implications for the disruption of cognitive performance by background music are discussed.

Music Education at the New York Institution for the Blind, 1832–1863

2014 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 362-388
Author(s):  
Phillip M. Hash
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Music Curriculum ◽  
Music Program ◽  
History Of ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Teaching Music ◽  
The City

The purpose of this study was to document the history of music education at the New York Institution for the Blind (NYIB) from the opening of the school in 1832 through the tenure of the facility’s first music director, Anthony Reiff. Research questions pertained to the school’s origin and operation and to its music curriculum, pedagogy, faculty, ensembles, and resources. The NYIB provided a home and education for students ages eight to twenty-five. The music program served as recreation and vocational training and as a means of promoting the school. Reiff joined the faculty in 1835 and established a band and choir that performed throughout the city and surrounding states. In 1847, the board of managers hired George F. Root as head of vocal music and named Reiff director of the instrumental division. Sigismund Laser replaced Root in 1855 and remained at the NYIB until 1863, when both he and Reiff left the school. The faculty at the NYIB developed and promoted effective methods for teaching music to people with blindness and prepared graduates to serve as church musicians, piano tuners, and music educators. Findings from this study might serve to remind music educators of past pedagogical methods and principles applicable in teaching students who are blind today.

Drumming, Language, and the Voice in South Asia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard K. Wolf
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Indian Subcontinent ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Concert Music ◽  
The Public ◽  
South Indian ◽  
History Of ◽  
Indian Classical Music

This book explores drumming and other instrumental traditions that are interconnected over vast regions of South and West Asia. The traditions considered here qualify broadly as functional music rather than concert music and include the public instrumental music of weddings, funerals, and religious holidays. The book examines patterns that pervade functional music of South Asia and to some extent North and South Indian classical music and how performed texts are related to their verbal or vocal models. It also considers what it means in particular contexts for musical instruments to be voicelike and carry textual messages. This chapter discusses the broad historical context in which voices and instruments have been co-constructed in the history of the Indian subcontinent and regions west. Many examples from South India are included to help create a picture that transcends the bounds of Muharram Ali's travels.

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