Music, Evolution, and the Experience of Time

This chapter explores the psychological structure and perception of time in music in light of recent theoretical discussion and proposals for specific features of the human faculty for music—qualities that are at once universally present and operational in music across cultures whilst also being unique to our species and to the domain of music. The author contends that music’s architectural foundations—configurations of musical pulse, musical tone, and musical motivation—provide a sustained attentional structure for managing personal experience and interpersonal interaction and offer a continually renewing phenomenological link between the immediate past, the perceptual present and future expectation. A crucial and distinguishing feature of our experience with music is thus the particular way in which we share intersubjective time and enact and create an extended moment by constantly merging from one perceptual present into the next.

Timbral perception is influenced by unconscious presentation of hands playing musical instruments

Timbre is an integral dimension of musical sound quality, and people accumulate knowledge about timbre of sounds generated by various musical instruments throughout their life. Recent studies have proposed the possibility that musical sound is crossmodally integrated with visual information related to the sound. However, little is known about the influence of visual information on musical timbre perception. The present study investigated the automaticity of crossmodal integration between musical timbre and visual image of hands playing musical instruments. In the experiment, an image of hands playing piano or violin, or a control scrambled image was presented to participants unconsciously. Simultaneously, participants heard intermediate sounds synthesised by morphing piano and violin sounds with the same note. The participants answered whether the musical tone sounded like piano or violin. The results revealed that participants were more likely to perceive violin sound when an image of a violin was presented unconsciously than when playing piano was presented. This finding indicates that timbral perception of musical sound is influenced by visual information of musical performance without conscious awareness, supporting the automaticity of crossmodal integration in musical timbre perception.

Musical Bows in the Rock Art of Southern Africa

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Please check back later for the full article. The musical bow is speculated to have been discovered as a result of hunting, after a musical tone was heard from the vibrating string seconds after releasing the arrow. Some consider it the first musical instrument of the Bushman. A musical bow is an instrument that is made of a wooden stave that has a string attached to both ends of the stave, as well as, typically, a resonator. The musical bow belongs to the chordophone family, which comprises musical instruments that produce sound through the vibration of strings. Musical bows occur in southern African rock art specifically from South Africa and Namibia. In South Africa they are found in the Maloti Drakensberg massif, in the KwaZulu-Natal region, and in Maclear District in the Eastern Cape Province, whereas in Namibia they are found around the Daureb region. The occurrence of musical bows in the rock art of southern Africa hints at some of the musical instruments that were used during the Holocene period in the region. Their use as musical instruments is well documented ethnographically, and they are still used even today.

ФУНКЦІЇ МУЗИКИ В ДРАМАТИЧНОМУ ТЕАТРІ (НА ПРИКЛАДІ ІНСЦЕНІЗАЦІЙ ЗА ТВОРАМИ М. МАТІОС)

Досліджуються функції музики в сучасному драматичному театрі. Актуалізовано новітні публікації провідних європейських науковців, серед яких роботи Леманна Г.-Т., Фішер-Ліхте Е., Геббельса Х. Здійснено огляд характерних ознак сучасної театральної тенденції – музикалізації драматичного театру. Розглянуто основні положення класифікації функцій сценічної музики та звукових ефектів театрознавця Паві П. Проаналізовано музику і її функції у виставах, інсценізованих за творами М. Матіос та окреслено різні прийоми музичного рішення вистав. Визначено важливу роль звукових ефектів і немузичних звуків як складових елементів музичної партитури.Ключові слова: функції музики, музична драматургія, музикалізація, звуковий ефект, звуковий простір, музичний тон, багаторівневість. The article explores the role of music in modern dramatic theater. The leading European scientists’ latest publications including the works of Lehmann G.-T., Fischer-Lichte E., Goebbels H are actualized. The research outlines the characteristic features of the modern theatrical tendency and the musicalization of dramatic theater. The paper explores the fundamental principles of the classification of the functions of stage music and sound effects made by thetheatrical expert Pavi P. The author analyses the music and its functions in the plays based on the works of M. Matios and focuses on the various methods of choosing the music for performances. The important role of sound effects and non-musical sounds as constituent elements of musical score is defined.Key words: music functions, musical dramaturgy, musicalization, sound effect, sound expanse, musical tone, multi-leveledness.

Music and Its Familiarity Affection on Audience Decision Making

<p class="Default"><em>This article discuss a problem regarding the lack of using familiar music and its effect on audience decision making to buy advertised products or services. This study is to help the experts to maintain young audience focus while selling their products or services more effective using the familiar music in the advertisement content. The utilization method used for this study was in-depth interview, involved with ten informants which covered experts from academicians, advertising practitioners and musicians. It based on snowball sampling, because not all these experts have the knowledge on this issue. The Elaboration Likelihood Model was applied to show the process of decision making. Thematic analysis used to analyze two themes emerged from this study; Repetition of Musical Tone as Remembrance. This study may provide contribution in terms of ideas for music and advertising industry producing familiar catchy musical sound for their purpose.</em></p><p class="Default"> </p>

The Stylistics of Al-qu’ran: The Symbolic Meaning and Function of the Art of Reading Al-qur’an on the Context of Communication

The study the stylistics of the Qur'an cannot be separated from the concept of i'jaz al-Quran as a form of uniqueness and privilege of the language of Qur'an. When Qur'an was delivered to the Arab society, they had used high language and literature. By the emergence of the art of reading the Quran (nagham al-Quran) around the world, and it is believed as one of the forms of appreciation of the Qoran, Muslims in Indonesia receive and appreciate it with pleasure. The Musabaqoh Tilawatil Quran (MTQ), whish is held by the governments and non-governmental institutions of all levels, has been carried out on a regular and continuous basis. As a religious text, the Qur'an has a very high literary dimension. The Quran also has some aesthetic and musical-messaging dimensions. This paper attempts to discuss the stylistic styles of language in the aspects of the art of reading the Qoran with a single voice, without the accompaniment of musical instruments, and unrelated to musical tone. This is specifically used for tazyin al-Saut bi tilawah al-Quran. The approach used in this study is Al-Uslub al-Adabi or Literary Stilistica, which focuses on the level of persistence or phonology, which includes phonetics and phonemics. Phonetics is divided into three parts, namely; articulatory phonetic, acoustic phonetics, and auditory phonetics. The discussion on literary stylistics is cannot be separated from emotional aspects, not logical aspects. The analysis of literary stylistics in the art of reading al-Quran (nagham al-Quran) produces the effect of the reader's feelings, sensational feelings and spiritual feeling. Spiritual feeling is divided into religious, ethical, aesthetic, intellectual, social, and personal feeling. Meanwhile, in the aspects of communication generate understanding and scientific knowledge about the principles of transcendent communication, the principle of spiritual communication, the principle of human communication, and finally lead to the Principle of Quranic Communication.

Gong

First imported to Europe in the 1780s, Chinese gongs (or tam-tams) are shown in this chapter to have migrated between commerce, science, theater, orchestra, technology, and stage prop. Their novel sound effect was adopted into opera in London and Paris for a range of music-dramatic situations that are discussed here as “gong topoi.” Yet the tam-tam’s unusually loud, non-pitched resonance challenged conceptions of musical tone, while its European dissemination required either costly imports or metallurgical experiments. By midcentury, Berlioz and Wagner were experimenting with more subtle playing techniques that might enhance their orchestration while masking the instrument’s metallic timbre. Less nuanced, the chapter proposes, were the theater practitioners who gratuitously struck the gong to enhance climaxes or cover stage noises, rendering it an all-purpose sound technology. Puccini’s Turandot consummated the tam-tam as audiovisual prop. Its loudness was subsequently reconciled with musical aesthetics in twentieth-century music, both popular and avant-garde.