New Musical Resources

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Nickleson
Keyword(s):  
Music History ◽  
Harmonic Series ◽  
Basic Unit ◽  
Upward Movement ◽  
American Composers ◽  
Henry Cowell ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Musical Resources ◽  
Charles Seeger ◽  
Overtone Series

New Musical Resources is a book written by Henry Cowell in 1919, unpublished until 1930. In it, Cowell proposes a theory of musical relativity in which pitch, rhythm, and the progress of music history are grounded through reference to the structure of the overtone series: the "living essence from which musicality springs." Ethnomusicologist Charles Seeger encouraged a young Cowell to rationalize the compositional tools he had been developing, which ultimately led to the creation of this book. In the book’s first section, Cowell presents the development of Western harmony as progressive upward movement through the overtone series. He suggests the continuation of this same logic into chords based on the ratios beyond the minor seconds that he was using to create "cluster chords." His rhythm chapter proposes the whole-note as the basic unit of time, encouraging division beyond the standard multiples of two into the next numbers in the harmonic series—creating third-notes, fifth notes, etc. This method enables the composition of rhythmic patterns that rely on the same ratios as are present between various melodic and harmonic intervals. Many American composers—notably Conlon Nancarrow—have utilized Cowell’s concepts, which predate the development of similar ideas in integral serialism by several decades.

Manuel de Falla, L'acoustique nouvelle and Natural Resonance: A Myth Exposed

2003 ◽  
Vol 128 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-97
Author(s):  
Chris Collins
Keyword(s):  
Harmonic Series ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Natural Resonance ◽  
The Creation

This article challenges two tenets of Falla scholarship: that the composer made use of a system of chord generation based on the harmonic series, and that he learnt this technique from Louis Lucas's L'acoustique nouvelle (Paris, 1854). The author demonstrates that Lucas's theories are largely unconcerned with the harmonic series and that Falla's use of ‘natural resonance’ has been misunderstood. Study of Falla's work, including manuscripts and writings (published and unpublished), reveals the true nature of Lucas's influence. Consideration is also given to Falla's role in the creation of this false orthodoxy.

scholarly journals A Novel Solution for the Aggregation Problem in Natural Language Interface to Databases (NLIDB)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Ferreira Novello ◽  
Marco Antonio Casanova
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Basic Unit ◽  
Aggregation Functions ◽  
Natural Language Interface ◽  
Aggregation Problem ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Multiple Attributes ◽  
Generic Module

Natural Language Interface to Databases (NLIDB) systems usually do not deal with aggregations, which can be of two types: aggregation functions (such as count, sum, average, minimum, and maximum) and grouping functions (GROUP BY). This paper addresses the creation of a generic module, to be used in NLIDB systems, that allows such systems to perform queries with aggregations, on the condition that the query results the NLIDB returns are or can be transformed into tables. The paper covers aggregations with specificities, such as ambiguities, timescale differences, aggregations in multiple attributes, the use of superlative adjectives, basic unit measure recognition, and aggregations in attributes with compound names.

Beat and Square Cold War Encounters

2019 ◽  
pp. 317-371
Author(s):  
W. Anthony Sheppard
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
American Composers ◽  
Henry Cowell ◽  
Duke Ellington ◽  
Japanese Music ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Lou Harrison ◽  
Toru Takemitsu

This chapter is focused on the transnational influences of Japanese music during the Cold War and on music’s role in U.S. cultural diplomacy efforts aimed at Japan. This includes examples of numerous American jazz musicians (David Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Herbie Mann) who were sent to Japan and who created musical “impressions” of their experience. A primary focus in on the 1961 Tokyo East-West Music Encounter organized by Nicolas Nabokov and attended by multiple American composers (Lou Harrison, Henry Cowell, Colin McPhee) and scholars (Robert Garfias). The chapter then details the broad influence of gagaku on European (Messiaen, Stockhausen, Xenakis) and American composers, focusing particularly on Alan Hovhaness. Experimental composers, such as Richard Teitelbaum, inspired by John Cage’s engagement with Zen also turned toward Japan. The chapter concludes with an extended discussion of the role of Japanese music and Japanese composers (particularly Toru Takemitsu) in the career of Roger Reynolds.

Johanna Beyer

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy C. Beal
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Early Death ◽  
American Music ◽  
Active Member ◽  
Henry Cowell ◽  
Music Community ◽  
Charles Seeger ◽  
New Generation

Composer Johanna Beyer's fascinating body of music and enigmatic life story constitute an important chapter in American music history. As a hard-working German émigré piano teacher and accompanist living in and around New York City during the New Deal era, she composed plentiful music for piano, percussion ensemble, chamber groups, choir, band, and orchestra. A one-time student of Ruth Crawford, Charles Seeger, and Henry Cowell, Beyer was an ultramodernist, and an active member of a community that included now-better-known composers and musicians. Only one of her works was published and only one recorded during her lifetime. But contemporary musicians who play Beyer's compositions are intrigued by her originality. This book chronicles Beyer's life from her early participation in New York's contemporary music scene through her performances at the Federal Music Project's Composers' Forum-Laboratory concerts to her unfortunate early death in 1944. This book is a portrait of a passionate and creative woman underestimated by her music community even as she tirelessly applied her gifts with compositional rigor. The first book-length study of the composer's life and music, it reclaims a uniquely innovative artist and body of work for a new generation.

An Unlikely Synergy: Lou Harrison and Arnold Schoenberg

2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
SEVERINE NEFF
Keyword(s):  
String Quartet ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Arnold Schoenberg ◽  
Musical Composition ◽  
Just Intonation ◽  
Square Root ◽  
Twelve Tone ◽  
Henry Cowell ◽  
Musical Resources ◽  
Lou Harrison

AbstractThis essay addresses the unlikely but profound synergy between Arnold Schoenberg and Lou Harrison. Despite their personal rapport and mutual interests in visual art, they held antithetical beliefs about the nature of musical composition. Schoenberg maintained that a composition was the presentation of a metaphysical “Idea.” Harrison saw composition as the process of systematically gathering and assembling resources and techniques.After studying with Henry Cowell and Schoenberg, Harrison displayed a fascination with musical resources that led him to compose twelve-tone works using disparate compositional tools. A 1937 piano piece combines Schoenberg's methods of variation with Cowell's and Seeger's techniques of “dissonation.” The “Conductus” from the 1942 Suite for Piano, a work inspired by Schoenberg's Suite für Klavier, op. 25, explores all twelve prime forms of the row in light of Cage's square-root form. A nontonal 1944 string quartet ends on a triad like Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon, op. 41.In the 1950s Harrison rejected the aims of the total-serialist movement and found his own voice in just intonation instead. By the 1980s all vestiges of twelve-tone technique disappeared from his pieces; however, analogous serial techniques resurfaced in his paintings. Thus Harrison retained deep respect for Schoenberg as a composer, teacher, and friend.

HETEROPHONIC TUNINGS IN THE MUSIC OF LARRY POLANSKY

Tempo ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 68 (267) ◽  
pp. 29-41
Author(s):  
Giacomo Fiore
Keyword(s):  
Harmonic Series ◽  
American Composers ◽  
American Composer

AbstractThis paper explores the use of heterophonic tunings, the gradual substitution of pitches from one harmonic series to another resulting in the simultaneous sounding of different and sometimes contrasting intonations, in the music of the American composer Larry Polansky. The discussion is contextualised by an exploration of the innovations in tuning practice in the work of an earlier generation of American composers. The ramifications of Polansky's compositional ideas in terms of notation and performability are examined with reference to several key works, notably for jim, ben and lou; freeHorn; and ii-v-i.

In the Tradition of Dissent

2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Bick
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
American Music ◽  
New School ◽  
Guiding Principle ◽  
Henry Cowell ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Charles Seeger

Abstract As an institution of higher learning, the New School for Social Research was widely regarded as unorthodox. From its inception in 1919, its guiding principle was freedom: freedom of opinion, of teaching, of research, of publication. Initially focusing on the social sciences, by 1927 it introduced music as a significant part of that program. The School's social science perspective, its educational unorthodoxies, and its liberal philosophical ideals set a distinctive tone, nurturing an unfettered and accepting haven for a progressive community of musical personalities. Most prominent among them stood Henry Cowell, but Paul Rosenfeld, Aaron Copland, Charles Seeger, and others also contributed to the vitality of the School. From 1927 until 1933, Cowell presided over a program of lectures, concerts, symposia, and workshops dedicated to the cause of contemporary American music. In view of the School's adult population, music was treated primarily as an intellectual and cultural pursuit that stimulated new spheres of musical inquiry. At the same time, the influence of the social sciences encouraged the study of music through the political and social lens of culture. The diversity and singularity of these approaches created a new context for music and a significant contribution to the history of US musical culture.

The role of affect in feelings of obligation

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefen Beeler-Duden ◽  
Meltem Yucel ◽  
Amrisha Vaish
Keyword(s):  
Positive Emotions ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Sense Of Obligation

Abstract Tomasello offers a compelling account of the emergence of humans’ sense of obligation. We suggest that more needs to be said about the role of affect in the creation of obligations. We also argue that positive emotions such as gratitude evolved to encourage individuals to fulfill cooperative obligations without the negative quality that Tomasello proposes is inherent in obligations.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document