Chilean Guitar Music: Modern Reconstructions of Genre Traditions

The relevance of the article is to deepen the analytical aspect of knowledge about Chilean guitar music of the second half of the 20th — early 21st centuries in the context of the reconstruction of genre traditions on the example of works by Juan Antonio Sanchez, Gustavo Becerra-Schmidt, Javier Contreras. Main objective of the study is to identify the leading genre traditions of Chilean guitar music and reveal their modern reconstructions in the works of famous authors. The methodology includes methods of historical, cultural, comparative, phenomenological, as well as structural and functional analysis (for a contextual consideration of the creative activities of composers, the study of genre and stylistic elements of the Chilean traditions of folk music, professional-academic and non-academic origin in their influence on European genre models). Results and conclusions. The cultural and historical environment of the formation and development of the Chilean academic guitar repertoire of the second half of the 20th — early 21st centuries is characterized, the links with the performing achievements of domestic virtuosos are determined. The work of composers Juan Antonio Sanchez, Gustavo Becerra-Schmidt, Javier Contreras is considered in the discourse of modern processes of reconstruction of traditions, approbation of innovative methods and techniques of writing of the European avant-garde, use of the resources of American non-academic art. The national genre roots of thematic phenomena have been identified in the process of studying music scores and audio recordings of works, which go back to the primary authentic layers and influence musical vocabulary, creating the foundation of its national identity: Creole cueca, tonada with Iberian origins and hemiole rhythmic archetypes, in particular, in the Sonata for guitar by H. Sanchez; elements of the Araucanian ritual chants of the indigenous Mapuche population in the Fourth Sonata by G. Becerra-Schmidt, as well as the rhythmic formula of the Afro-Brazilian batukada in the finale of the Third Sonata by G. Becerra-Schmidt. It was found that secondary genre and style layers are formed in line with European concert genres: sonatas, concerts, cycles, the compositional and dramatic profile of which changes under the influence of the organic nature of the musical material, its transcultural ethnic ties. Jazz and fusion music-making with elements of the Chilean musical is defined as an equally important genre-style resource. The interferential nature of the inheritance of the authentic cueca tradition through its modern versions created by the legendary Violeta Parra leads to targeted citations, allusions in modern guitar works. Analytically substantiated are the conclusions that thanks to the numerous mosaic carnival contrasts, the abundance of colorful ethno-genre mixtures of Iberian, Indian, African American folklore, to which it is possible to connect the poetics of fusion or experimental percussion techniques of sound production, the originality of the modern Chilean reconstruction of ancient traditions is formed. Such syntheses are due to the internal cultural and historical situation and artistic processes that take place on both sides of the Atlantic.

Suit of Nikita Koshkin "Toys of the Prince" in the context of the dynamics of renewal of guitar art of the XX century

Purpose of the article is to study the nature of the embodiment of the peculiarities of the creative method of M. Koshkin in the «Prince's Toys» suite. Methodology. To solve the set tasks, genre-style analysis and executive analysis were used. Scientific novelty: this work is an illumination of the results of one's own experience in interpreting M. Koshkin's suite «The Prince's Toys» based on a combination of performing and research activities. Nikita Koshkin's guitar music is viewed in conjunction with the general dynamics of the 20th century's art renewal. Conclusions. When creating music for the guitar, the composer skillfully used the potential of this instrument. The work on the composition took into account the historical possibilities of the guitar in the performance of classical music, including the entire experience of the existence of a six-string guitar. The language of Koshkin's works always comes from the specifics of the guitar. The composer-guitarist uses all the resources of the instrument in order to create the effect of its versatility, to demonstrate the boundlessness of its possibilities.

Hierarchical clustering optimizes the tradeoff between compositionality and expressivity of task structures in reinforcement learning

A hallmark of human intelligence is our ability to compositionally generalise: that is, to recompose familiar knowledge components in novel ways to solve new problems. For instance, a talented musician can conceivably transfer her knowledge of flute fingerings and guitar songs to play guitar music on a piccolo for the first time. Yet there are also instances where it can be helpful to learn and transfer not just individual task components, but entire structures or substructures, particularly whenever these recur in natural tasks (e.g., in bluegrass music one might transfer the joint structure of finger movements and musical scales from one stringed instrument to another). Prior theoretical work has explored how agents can learn and generalize task components or entire latent structures, but a satisfactory account for how a single agent can simultaneously satisfy the two competing demands is still lacking. Here, we propose a hierarchical model-based agent that learns and transfers individual task components as well as entire structures by inferring both through a non-parametric Bayesian model of the task. It maintains a factorised representation of task components through a hierarchical Dirichlet process, but it also represents different possible covariances between these components through a standard Dirichlet process. We validate our approach on a variety of navigation tasks covering a wide range of statistical correlations between task components and show that this hierarchical framework can also be applied to improve generalisation and transfer in hierarchical tasks with goal/subgoal structures.

Academic Performing Traditions of Chilean Guitar Art

The relevance of the article lies in the systematization of the phenomena of the Chilean academic guitar art, the study of the national origins of the performing school, its principles, achievements, transcultural processes and their mutual influences, which led to the popularization of the instrument on the Latin American continent. The purpose of the article is to create an overview panorama of the development of the academic traditions of Chilean guitar performance, to identify trends in the formation and genealogy of successive ties between generations of soloists. The methodology includes methods of historical, systemic, as well as comparative analysis (for contextual consideration of the creative activities of famous performers, the formation of a national guitar school, the detection of successive ties between different generations of musicians, the study of the influence of the Spanish academic tradition, Latin American everyday practice of playing and the specifics of playing music on ancient guitar-like instruments of the Baroque era). Results and conclusions. The cultural and historical panorama of the formation and development of the Chilean academic guitar school of the 20th— early 21st centuries is investigated. The principles and main vectors of the pedagogical activity of its key representatives — Liliana Perez Corey, Luis Lopez, Oscar Ohlsen are characterized. A “genealogical tree” of creative contacts and successive ties between guitarists of different generations has been built. It is concluded that the academic traditions of the Chilean guitar music of the 20th century were formed in the general direction of the development of transcultural phenomena. The performing discourse developed in a complementary way: under the influence of the most famous Spanish classical guitar school that dominates the world (F. Tarrega, A. Segovia, E. Pujol); in the conditions of indirect interaction with the Latin American everyday practice of playing (Argentinean, Uruguayan, Chilean) and the experience of playing music on ancient authentic European instruments (lute, vihuela, baroque guitar). It is noted that as a result of the intensification of creative exchange in the institutional, concert, and festival spheres, at the end of the twentieth century, a representative generation of virtuosos and teachers of classical guitar arose in Chilean culture. Chilean guitarists, no matter in which of the spheres their personal interests were fixed — European old, classical-romantic, modern music or Latin American popular, folklore tradition — put forward the creativity of their compatriots and contemporaries to the leading positions. The appearance of a large number of albums of Chilean guitar music performed by J. A. Escobar, J. Contreras, M. Valdebenito, J. A. Sanchez, L. Orlandini, E. Espinoza, E. Salazar, D. Castro is evidence of close and effective cooperation between virtuosos and domestic composers.

Analysis of Hungarian Classical GuitarMethods: The Complexity of Content

Nowadays teaching materials, pieces of music and methods of teaching guitar are widely available, yet experience has shown that most Hungarian teachers still use only national learning content. Their choosing from the slowly but gradually broading materials depends on their professional experience or previous studies. This study examines the most widely known multi-volume guitar teaching materials from an objective point of view. This analysis classifies musical pieces on the basis of their content. The purpose is not to pass judgment but rather to help in assessing the materials through a comprehensive methodological system. Keywords: Classical guitar, music material analysis, Szendrey-Karper, Nagy–Mosóczi, Sándor Suba