Changing roles of women in the gospel music performance space in Ghana

Responding to performers

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199346677.003.0023 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Sinéad O’Neill ◽

John Sloboda

Keyword(s):

Music Performance ◽

Musical Performance ◽

Multiple Relationships ◽

Social Phenomenon ◽

Structural Elements ◽

Creative Performance ◽

Peak Experiences ◽

Creative Practice ◽

Performance Space ◽

Different Levels

Musical performance is an irreducibly social phenomenon, manifested through the multiple relationships between performers and audience. In live contexts, the nature and meaning of performance encompass the two-way interplay between performers and audience. This chapter surveys a range of research, from the philosophical to the empirical, into the parameters of this interplay, both during and after performances, focusing most specifically on those aspects that have implications for the creative practice of the musician. These aspects go beyond sound parameters to features of the performance often seen as ‘extra-musical’, such as the visual and gestural aspects of performance, the architecture of the performance space and perceived norms of behaviour within the concert context. Consideration is given to how these elements contribute to different levels of experience, from the ‘basic’ appreciation of structural elements through to the ‘peak’ experiences which music performance sometimes engenders. Also considered is audience feedback, both formal and informal, and how it may have an impact on creative performance.

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Beyond the Aural: Towards an Intermodal Framework for the Creation and Analysis of Performed Music

10.26686/wgtn.17143922 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Elliot Vaughan

Keyword(s):

Music Performance ◽

Creative Project ◽

Performance Space ◽

The Creation ◽

Performed Music

A music performance is an environment inhabited by an ecology of modalities, and music composed for performance should be discussed in terms of the various modalities and their interdependencies. Composition and analysis have traditionally prioritised the aural and the formal and tended to ignore performance space politics, corporeality, architecture, the objecthood of instruments and the subjecthood of instrumentalists, and other non-aural elements which contribute to the concert experience. This exegesis outlines a framework for the intermodal discussion of multimodal music for performance: Post-Aural Music. In Post-Aural Music the hierarchy of elements becomes fluid, the ‘aural’ no longer being the assumed authority. The framework is modelled after Hans-Thies Lehmann’s Postdramatic Theatre, an examination of modern theatre tendencies resulting from the dethroning of ‘drama’. It looks to Matthias Rebstock and David Roesner’s book Composed Theatre, an observation on how ‘compositional thinking’ is being applied to these other disciplines; and is illustrated by an analysis of Helmut Lachenmann’s Pression from the Post-Aural perspective. I reflect on the process and presentation of my own performance event Fish in Pink Gelatine, a ‘performed installation and staged concert’, as the creative project this exegesis supports.

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Songs of Healing and Regeneration: Pentecostal Gospel Music in Zimbabwe

Religion and Theology ◽

10.1163/102308012x13397496507667 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 72-89

Author(s):

TapiwaEzra MapurangaChitando

Keyword(s):

Social Context ◽

Music Performance ◽

Gospel Music ◽

New Era ◽

Religious Music ◽

Economic Context ◽

The Social

AbstractThis study examines the texts of Zimbabwean gospel music to illustrate images of hope, healing, and regeneration. By analysing songs that were recorded between the late 1990s and 2005, the study highlights the importance of the social context to religious music performance. The study provides a description of the socio-economic context in which gospel music in Zimbabwe has been performed. The message of hope found in selected gospel songs is outlined, the theme of healing in gospel music is examined and the theme of Africa's renewal in Zimbabwean gospel music is highlighted. The study also describes how artists look forward to a new era of Africa's prosperity and progress. Throughout, reference is made to specific biblical passages that have inspired the different songs.

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Shoe Box: An Analysis of the Concert Hall and its Adaption to Small-Scale Music Performance Space

10.26686/wgtn.16997242 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

John Mauvan

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Music Performance ◽

Small Scale ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

Concert Hall ◽

Existing Building ◽

Acoustic Performance ◽

Design Project ◽

Performance Space ◽

Concert Halls

In the first 150 years after 1600, western music was traditionally performed in palace ballrooms which were mostly rectangular in shape. In the following two centuries a change in social conditions led to the first halls especially built for public concerts. Although the audience capacity of these halls had increased exponentially, those that derived from the rectangular plans and dimensions of the ballrooms in the century before proved to have particularly favourable acoustics. The proportions of which are roughly that of a double cube, 1:1:2. Today this rectangular form is widely ascribed throughout acoustic literature as the shoebox. Although the shoebox has proven a popular paradigm in all time periods, until the late nineteenth century little was known of the scientific reasoning for its acoustic success. Therefore much of the contemporary literature regarding the model has focused on the large-scale designs of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Comparatively, less is written about the adaption of these design concepts to smaller-scaled concert facilities with audience capacities up to 400 persons. This thesis analyses a number of highly celebrated large-scale concert halls, with audience capacities between 1,500-3,000, and tests the application of their design principles to small-scale concert spaces with capacities ranging between 100-350 persons. The aims of this thesis are applied to a design project, which seeks to adapt the traditional shoebox archetype to a series of small-scale concert spaces, initiated by a design brief for the New Zealand School of Music (NZSM). The design project relocates the NZSM to an existing building on a disused site in central Wellington. Acknowledging the programmatic need for acoustic performance in conjunction with the social component inherent to the occupation of an urban territory, this thesis investigates two strands of design logic: technical and contextual. One strand investigates the acoustic performance of the concert hall; the other investigates its response to site context. The findings from this thesis are substantiated through a method of proportionate variation whereby the acoustic principles of large-scale concert halls are adopted to small-scale music halls. In addition, the findings established from a site analysis of contemporary large-scale concert halls are then downscaled to inform the integration of the NZSM programme with the proposed inner city site.

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Shoe Box: An Analysis of the Concert Hall and its Adaption to Small-Scale Music Performance Space

10.26686/wgtn.16997242.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

John Mauvan

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Music Performance ◽

Small Scale ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

Concert Hall ◽

Existing Building ◽

Acoustic Performance ◽

Design Project ◽

Performance Space ◽

Concert Halls

In the first 150 years after 1600, western music was traditionally performed in palace ballrooms which were mostly rectangular in shape. In the following two centuries a change in social conditions led to the first halls especially built for public concerts. Although the audience capacity of these halls had increased exponentially, those that derived from the rectangular plans and dimensions of the ballrooms in the century before proved to have particularly favourable acoustics. The proportions of which are roughly that of a double cube, 1:1:2. Today this rectangular form is widely ascribed throughout acoustic literature as the shoebox. Although the shoebox has proven a popular paradigm in all time periods, until the late nineteenth century little was known of the scientific reasoning for its acoustic success. Therefore much of the contemporary literature regarding the model has focused on the large-scale designs of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Comparatively, less is written about the adaption of these design concepts to smaller-scaled concert facilities with audience capacities up to 400 persons. This thesis analyses a number of highly celebrated large-scale concert halls, with audience capacities between 1,500-3,000, and tests the application of their design principles to small-scale concert spaces with capacities ranging between 100-350 persons. The aims of this thesis are applied to a design project, which seeks to adapt the traditional shoebox archetype to a series of small-scale concert spaces, initiated by a design brief for the New Zealand School of Music (NZSM). The design project relocates the NZSM to an existing building on a disused site in central Wellington. Acknowledging the programmatic need for acoustic performance in conjunction with the social component inherent to the occupation of an urban territory, this thesis investigates two strands of design logic: technical and contextual. One strand investigates the acoustic performance of the concert hall; the other investigates its response to site context. The findings from this thesis are substantiated through a method of proportionate variation whereby the acoustic principles of large-scale concert halls are adopted to small-scale music halls. In addition, the findings established from a site analysis of contemporary large-scale concert halls are then downscaled to inform the integration of the NZSM programme with the proposed inner city site.

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Effects of multiple scattering by trees in a forest as a music‐performance space

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America ◽

10.1121/1.416708 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 100 (4) ◽

pp. 2838-2838

Author(s):

Hiroyuki Sakai ◽

Shin‐ichi Sato ◽

Yoichi Ando

Keyword(s):

Multiple Scattering ◽

Music Performance ◽

Performance Space

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“Yes, [Gospel] Is Real”: Half a Century with Chicago's Martin and Morris Company

Journal of the Society for American Music ◽

10.1017/s1752196317000360 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 420-451

Author(s):

KAY NORTON

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Los Angeles ◽

Business Models ◽

Gospel Music ◽

Deep South ◽

Small Churches ◽

Music Publishing ◽

Changing Roles ◽

The Creation ◽

Black Gospel Music

AbstractThe Martin and Morris Music Studio (MMMS) imprint permeated the first fifty years of black gospel music. Jointly owned by singer/impresaria Sallie Martin (1895/6–1988) and composer/arranger/pianist/organist Kenneth Morris (1917–88), the MMMS delivered gospel songs to an eager public and offered ordinary Americans the chance to see their names in print as author or composer on the cover of a gospel octavo, copies of which could then be sold to benefit that same ordinary American. Their influence extended far beyond that service, however. Martin and her Singers performed and popularized music bearing the MMMS imprint in venues ranging from small churches in the Deep South to national conventions in Washington, D.C., and widened circulation of MMMS music via Los Angeles recording studios. The unprecedented accomplishments of the MMMS, active from 1940 to 1993, have not been fully explored. Relying on transcribed interviews of the owners by Bernice Johnson Reagon, James Standifer, and others, accounts in historical newspapers, and company archives, this article addresses that void. The centrality of the MMMS in twentieth-century gospel of all types is clarified through examination of contexts for black-owned music publishing in the last century, the owners’ early business models, and their changing roles in the creation, publication, popularization, and dissemination of gospel music for more than fifty years.

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Beyond the Aural: Towards an Intermodal Framework for the Creation and Analysis of Performed Music

10.26686/wgtn.17143922.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Elliot Vaughan

Keyword(s):

Music Performance ◽

Creative Project ◽

Performance Space ◽

The Creation ◽

Performed Music

A music performance is an environment inhabited by an ecology of modalities, and music composed for performance should be discussed in terms of the various modalities and their interdependencies. Composition and analysis have traditionally prioritised the aural and the formal and tended to ignore performance space politics, corporeality, architecture, the objecthood of instruments and the subjecthood of instrumentalists, and other non-aural elements which contribute to the concert experience. This exegesis outlines a framework for the intermodal discussion of multimodal music for performance: Post-Aural Music. In Post-Aural Music the hierarchy of elements becomes fluid, the ‘aural’ no longer being the assumed authority. The framework is modelled after Hans-Thies Lehmann’s Postdramatic Theatre, an examination of modern theatre tendencies resulting from the dethroning of ‘drama’. It looks to Matthias Rebstock and David Roesner’s book Composed Theatre, an observation on how ‘compositional thinking’ is being applied to these other disciplines; and is illustrated by an analysis of Helmut Lachenmann’s Pression from the Post-Aural perspective. I reflect on the process and presentation of my own performance event Fish in Pink Gelatine, a ‘performed installation and staged concert’, as the creative project this exegesis supports.

Download Full-text