Reading the Romancero: A journey from the score to the sound with a non-professional choir

This case study focuses on the processes involved in co-constructing an interpretation of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Romancero Gitano with a non-professional choir. Rehearsals began in April 2018 and culminated with a performance in June 2018. In order to develop an understanding of the individual and collective processes involved, data were generated through autoethnography and journaling. These texts tracked our regular weekly rehearsals, any extra individual practice, and the performance experience. Seven journals were subsequently compiled and analyzed together with my autoethnography. The findings show that the bulk of the writings focused on technical questions like correctly executing the information contained in the score, with significantly fewer references to other aspects of musical interpretation, such as timbre, or personal reflections regarding our perception of the music and our journey in learning and performing the work. Furthermore, the texts reveal a hierarchical structure within the choir, especially related to perceived levels of musical literacy and/or institutionalized knowledge. In this article, I discuss the various experiences relating to the process of co-constructing a musical interpretation, together with the potential of journaling to develop reflexive, conscious, and inclusive processes of collective musical development within the context of a non-professional choir.

An Analysis of the Path of Music Education Reform in Colleges and Universities from the Perspective of National Cultural Heritage

Music education is one of the most important contents in the process of quality education in colleges and universities. With the deepening of the education system, how to make students have high musical literacy is particularly important. As a music teacher in colleges and universities in the new era, we should pay attention to the irreplaceable role of national culture in the reform of music teaching. From the perspective of national culture, this paper discusses the reform of music teaching, hoping to promote the development of music education in colleges and universities.

SPECIFICITIES OF STIMULATING MUSICAL TALENT WITHIN FORMAL MUSICAL EDUCATION

The authors studying gifted and talented persons agree that adequate boosting of their development requires either specialized curricula or adaptation of the existing ones by acceleration and/or differentiation. The paper focuses on the specificities of boosting talent for music, taking into account the organized system of formal music education in Serbia. A special attention is paid to solfege teaching, as it constitutes the basis of musical literacy of future professional musicians. It is presumed that the implementation of the procedures highlighted in the paper, coupled with a special attention paid to the problems of organizing the work with talented pupils and students can lead to a degree of development enabling them to participate in various musical activities with a high level of motivation and no fear of lacking skills. The paper also points to the need to stimulate musical talent according to the pupils' and students' individual abilities, and in line with the specificities of the chosen field of specialization.

The Yin and Yang of 24 Season Drums for Physical and Musical Literacy among Medical Students: A Narrative Review

Physical literacy can be defined as having an individual’s mind and body in a state of harmony. Previous studies introduced circus arts and actor training as a way to encourage physical literacy. Musical literacy is the “perception of music as a whole”, where it requires the interpretation of its meaning, the aesthetic values and the ideas that the musician wanted to convey. Correspondingly, the yin-yang was a representation of two polar forces coming together and harmonising together as one in Eastern tradition. This study aimed to introduce new ways and possibilities in endorsing physical and musical literacy, through the extensive use of 24 Season Drums. This study would further explore how 24 Season Drums, a musical performance originated from Malaysia, can enhance one’s development in terms of their musical (the yin) and physical (the yang) embodiment. This is followed by a comprehensive explanation of why drumming training is relevant in developing a holistic and well-rounded medical student. The literature search was performed using databases from PubMed, ResearchGate, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar and Google search engine using specific keywords, ranging from May 2000 to September 2020. We hope that this article could pave the way for more future studies on the effects of 24 Season Drums training in terms of an individual’s physical and musical literacy.

Formation of Musical Literacy of Primary School Students in Extracurricular Activities

This article discusses the formation of musical literacy of primary school students in extracurricular activities. This article is an excerpt from the textbook “Music Literacy for Primary School Students” about the minutes of music literacy in primary school classes “Music Culture” and the purposeful use of interactive, interactive methods, the formation of musical impressions and the necessary knowledge, skills, abilities in music, taking into account the psychological and physiological aspects of teachers and students in the organization of music clubs, competency building, 34-hour music literacy or lessons are taught step-by-step, from simple to complex, and ways and means of achieving musical literacy through the efficient use of time are shown.

Interactive Methods in Shaping Music Literacy in Primary School Students

This article is more effective than interactive methods, taking into account the psychological literacy of teachers and students in the organization of music clubs, as well as the minutes of music literacy in the primary school “Music Culture” lessons in general secondary schools and targeted use, to compose musical impressions and develop the necessary musical knowledge and skills, to teach music literacy or lessons in an orderly, step-by-step manner, from simple to complex, to use time efficiently. As a result, ways to achieve musical literacy are shown.

The Musical Ludo Mix of Taiko no Tatsujin

This paper analyzes the Taiko no Tatsujin (Bandai Namco 2001/ 2018) franchise and the musical literacy it conveys. While previous accounts of game musical literacy have focused on the competence necessary to interpret references across media (van Elferen 2016), this paper expands on the concept, and includes the discussion of live performances and oral traditions.The musical compositions included in Taiko no Tatsujin pertain to the Japanese phenomenon of media convergence known as media mix (Steinberg 2012), as they have been previously popularized by anime and geemu ongaku (or game music) (Yamakami and Barbosa 2015). However, the musical participation initiated extends its references to the practice of Japanese taiko drumming, a largely oral, non-notated musical form, which cannot be reduced to a musical repertoire. The resulting, emerging ludo mix, a form of media mix centered around digital games (Blom 2019; Bjarnason 2019; Picard and Pelletier-Gagnon 2015; Steinberg 2015), presents original musical characteristics, representing and synthesizing a dynamic musical culture.The conclusions show that game musical literacy is based, not only on competence with previous media forms, but also with various different forms of participation in musical performances, or musicking (Small 1998), which concur in constructing game musical literacy. The musical side of the ludo mix can therefore be expressed through a large variety of musical practices.

Conclusion

This chapter provides a summary and conclusion for the book and explores some potential areas for future research. Through the education of clergy and laity, the bishops strove to create a Visigothic kingdom unified in the Nicene faith. The chant texts and melodies were carefully constructed to serve these ends. Liturgy and chant were a practical way of instilling doctrine and modeling biblical exegesis, as part of a cultural program that was at once theological and ideological. By the time of the surviving manuscripts with notation, the Iberian cantors had developed a distinctive culture of musical literacy, in which particular neumes and neume patterns signaled specific melodic functions. Through analysis of these neume shapes, I have posited a sophisticated melodic grammar that is closely tied to textual syntax and aural aspects of the text such as word accent and assonance. Strategic placement of melismas, cadences, and melodic repetition underlined words and images that were central to the text’s typological meaning or liturgical use. Finally, I have considered the relationship of the sacrificia to offertories in other liturgical traditions. Further reportorial, textual, and melodies parallels between Western chant repertories remain to be discovered and explored through similar methodologies.

The Melodic Language

This chapter posits a set of principles that underlie the melodic grammar of the Old Hispanic melodies though close analysis of its neumes. In the Old Hispanic notation, certain neumes and neume combinations were used to signal particular structural points in the melodies, pointing to a distinctive culture of musical literacy associated with the rite in the tenth and eleventh centuries. By examining the contexts in which these neumes occur, the author identifies melodic repetitions, and posits which neume patterns served as cadences and openings. Through this analysis, a sophisticated melodic grammar emerges. The melodies are closely tethered to aspects of the text, such as syntax, accent, and syllable division. While melodic variety and individuality are core traits of the repertory, the creators of the chants drew on a large vocabulary of standard melodic formulas, combining it in ever varying ways.