Historical and cultural conditionality of the development of musical memory of pianists

The purpose of the article is related to the search for new means and methods of developing the musical memory of the pianist-performer. So far, this problem has not been thoroughly covered and developed. The methodology is to apply the method of information analysis. This methodological approach allows you to better understand the importance of professional musical memory in the life of a musician in order to find ways to overcome the fear of forgetting the lyrics before going on stage. The scientific novelty of the work is to expand the understanding of the work of musical memory, especially the work of the brain with new information. Analysis and understanding of this problem allow the performer to feel freer on stage and choose the most effective ways to work on musical works in preparation for the concert. Conclusions. Understanding the principles of professional musical memory provides new opportunities for the realization of a musician in professional activities, increases self-esteem, self-confidence. Key words: musical memory, general musical memory, professional musical memory, figurative musical memory, emotional musical memory, concert activity, pianist-performer.

Complex auditory musical hallucinations with ambivalent feelings

A 78-year-old woman with hypertension, diabetes mellitus type 2 and bilateral sensorineural hearing loss was referenced to geriatric psychiatry consultation. She presented cognitive dysfunction, erotomanic delusion and complex musical hallucinations (MH), described as hearing her neighbour singing a familiar church song along with bells in the background, making comments and talking to her. A computed tomography (CT) of the brain detected small right nucleocapsular and bilateral external capsules hypodensities of presumed vascular aetiology during hospitalisation. MH are a rare phenomenon with heterogeneous aetiology. Most frequently, the cause is hearing impairment; other causes include social isolation, cognitive dysfunction, vascular risk factors and medication. Studies suggest that some brain areas related to musical memory circuitry might be related and not fully mapped. Auditory verbal hallucinations with a voice that either comments, talks or sings to the patient have never been described in the literature, making this clinical case attractive.

CREATIVE ETHNICITY: MUSIC AS AN ELEMENT OF ETHNICITY AMONG POLISH TATARS

The aim of this article is to analyse the role of ethnic music in the life of the Tatar minority in Poland as an example of creative ethnicity. On the one hand, modern Tatar musical practices construct an interesting example of “invented tradition” because the studied group does not have “musical memory”, while on the other hand, these activities are aimed at the group’s future. Music can fulfill different social functions. In the case of ethnic groups, three of these functions seem to be particularly relevant: integrational, political (ideological) and identity. Desk research reveals the formal and informal musical practices undertaken by Polish Tatars. The values and musical assets associated with Tatar culture reflect the minority’s identity. The main statement of the article is that music is an important element that contributes to constructing the contemporary group’s identity. Tatar music is becoming an essential element of Tatar culture, enhancing a sense of the group’s distinctiveness. The contemporary Tatar music groups construct a significant Tatar showcase to the audience outside of the Tatar ethnic group, as well as form an important identity element of the Tatar community and a manifestation of creative ethnicity. It is also possible to find correlations between their repertoire and contemporary group transformations, including those related to its identity.

Music and Memory in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds

In Greek mythology, the Muses are Memory's daughters. Their genealogy suggests a deep connection between music and memory in Graeco-Roman culture, but how was this connection understood and experienced by ancient authors, artists, performers, and audiences? How is music remembered and how does it memorialize in a world before recording technology, where sound accumulated differently than it does today? This volume explores music's role in the discourses of cultural memory, communication, and commemoration in ancient Greek and Roman societies. It reveals the many and varied ways in which musical memory formed a fundamental part of social, cultural, ritual, and political life in ancient Greek- and Latin-speaking communities, from classical Athens to Ptolemaic Alexandria and ancient Rome. Drawing on the contributors' interdisciplinary expertise in art history, philology, performance studies, history, and ethnomusicology, eleven original chapters and the editors' Introduction offer new approaches for the study of Graeco-Roman music and musical culture.

Chunking in tonal contexts: Information compression during serial recall of visually presented musical notes

Chunking is defined as information compression by means of encoding meaningful units. To advance the understanding of chunking in musical memory, the present study tested characteristics of melodic sequences that might enable a parsimonious memory representation, namely, the presence of a clear tonal context and of melodic cells with clear labels. Musical note symbols, which formed either triads (Experiment 1) or cadences (Experiment 2), were presented visually and sequentially to musically experienced participants for immediate serial recall. The melodic sequences were varied on the within-participant factors list length (long vs. short list) and tonal structure (chunking-supportive vs. chunking-obstructive). Chunking-supportive sequences contained tones from a single diatonic key that formed melodic cells with a clear label, such as “C major triad”. Transitional errors showed that participants grouped notes into melodic cells. Mixed logistic regression modeling revealed that recall was more accurate in chunking-supportive sequences and that this advantage was more pronounced for more experienced participants in the long list length condition of Experiment 2. The findings suggest that a clear tonal context and melodic cells with clear labels benefit chunking in melodic processing, but that the subtleties of the process are additionally influenced by type, size, and number of melodic cells.

Toward an anthropological approach to musical empathy

This chapter proposes an anthropological approach to musical empathy, relying on Alfred Gell’s notion of agency. It is claimed that: (1) musical emotions are best approached as empathetic phenomena, as opposed to cognitive acts involving the decoding of a message; (2) it is possible to distinguish between different types of musical empathy, depending on the type of agency relationship: “empathy with the musical being,” “empathy with the artist,” “empathy with musical memory-images,” and “intersubjective musical empathy”; (3) the representation of a network of agency can reveal the role played by the performance context in the emotions attributed to music; (4) The notion of agency makes it possible to consider “personal” tunes as “distributed persons,” as opposed to signs of persons; (5) the highly ornamented de jale (“sorrowful”) tunes can be seen as “sonic agents,” or “sonic beings” arousing in the listeners feelings of attachment, rapture, and loss.