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How can music history help us understand the establishment of national character? This article discusses a prosaic text by Johann Friedrich Rochlitz as a medium for implementing stereotypical ideas of "the Italian" in German music historiography and, thereby, in public consciousness. It shows how particular musical qualities of the story's fictional protagonists are blurred with ideas of national character. Against this background, the predominant reception of the author Rochlitz in the realm of German music historiography can be reevaluated from a more transnational scholarly perspective. Key to this reassessment is investigation into the categories of fictional and musical characters with regard to notions of both "the German" and "the Italian."
Throughout history, songs have been considered effective instruments to strengthen the formation of collective identities. Eighteenth-century Dutch songwriters engaged with this idea in their striving for national unity. Political songs from that period employ several tropes, and the music often reinforces such images through musical imagery and intertextual references. Moreover, the imagined identities voiced in the songs might have become embodied identities through the performative act of singing. Therefore, for an investigation of the construction of collective identities in songs, the imagological approach can be expanded to musical imagery and take into account cognitive theories explaining the effects of singing.
David Rothenberg, a philosophy professor and Jazz musician, has been improvising with nonhuman animals for years, among his playing partners are birds and whales, known to be territorial animals. As Deleuze and Guattari propose that the origin of art is precisely the territorialising animal and more a function of nature than a specifically human cultural achievement, their concept of territory and rhythm offers a non-anthropocentric way of looking at these encounters. Rothenberg’s sonic experiments in resonance and interspecies interaction do not rely on language, thus I argue that the human and the nonhuman animals form a temporary joint territory via sonic rhythms and engage in a mutual becoming by forming a rhizome. His sound thinking practice thus also helps in decentralising further anthropocentric models of music and art.
Music, like language, is characterized by hierarchically organized structure that unfolds over time. Music listening therefore requires not only the tracking of notes and beats but also internally constructing high-level musical structures or phrases and anticipating incoming contents. Unlike for language, mechanistic evidence for online musical segmentation and prediction at a structural level is sparse. We recorded neurophysiological data from participants listening to music in its original forms as well as in manipulated versions with locally or globally reversed harmonic structures. We discovered a low-frequency neural component that modulated the neural rhythms of beat tracking and reliably parsed musical phrases. We next identified phrasal phase precession, suggesting that listeners established structural predictions from ongoing listening experience to track phrasal boundaries. The data point to brain mechanisms that listeners use to segment continuous music at the phrasal level and to predict abstract structural features of music.
In the age of pervasive computing the way our body interacts with reality needs to be reconceptualized. The reduction of embodiment is a problem for computer music since this music relies heavily on different layers of (digital) technology and mediation in order to be produced and performed. The article shows that such a mediation should not be conceived of as an obstacle but rather as a constitutive element of a permanent, complex negotiation between the artist, the machinery, and the audience, aimed at shaping a different temporality for musical language (as the Italian artist Caterina Barbieri develops).
"Prompt, Immediate, Now / Very Restrained and Cautious" (2013), "Defending Territory in a Networked World" (2013) and "Afgang 04.00" (2017) are three sound pieces that lean on events of historical proportions. They involve addressing the artistic challenge of letting difficult historical narratives resonate in the present. The artistic process for all three works involved finding fitting modes of reenactment and providing a present-day position on why and how these materials may be incorporated in artworks today, as well as contributing to historical revision and political resistance.
The emergence of imaginative children’s music in the second half of the nineteenth century reframed the relationship between children and music in revolutionary ways. The dominant paradigm had been for children to repetitiously practice mechanistic exercises, a time-consuming occupation that the German composer Robert Schumann considered particularly wasteful and tasteless. In response he composed Album für die Jugend in 1848, a collection of children’s pieces that utilised a combination of text, picture and music to appeal to the interests of children, and to inspire their enthusiasm for musical play. Schumann envisioned his music as an extension of familial nurturance, which played a powerful role in directing children towards a musically and spiritually rich adulthood. As the tradition of imaginative children’s music developed during the nineteenth century, the dual themes of entertainment and education remained central to its generic identity, and continued to speak to the significance of piano music as a tool for the socialisation of children. The work of Jacqueline Rose offers a lens through which to explore this music’s manipulative influence upon children. The multimodal and performative characteristics of these musical pieces demonstrate the hidden influence of the adult’s guiding hand and the dire consequences that come to those who transgress musical and social boundaries.
In this article I explore the construction of singing child characters in Isaac Watts’ Divine and Moral Songs for Children (1715) and Christopher Smart’s Hymns for the Amusement of Children (1771). The first part focusses on the nature of the lyrical persona within the lexical fields »voice and vocal sound« and »religion« and also looks at the possible addressees. The second part examines stylistic, phonetic, and formal elements, and explores their role in constructing the ›singing I.‹ To show the potential of Watts’ »Against Quarrelling and Fighting« to function as an invitation to playfully adopt behaviour opposed to Christian norms, the article examines a performance of Let Dogs Delight to Bark and Bite, a chorale by Matthew J. Zimnoch, whose text is taken from Watts’ hymn. Combining approaches from research on children’s poetry with ones from the interface of children’s literature and hymnody, the article also integrates a digitally supported close reading. The hymn texts were inputted into f4analyse, a software used in text linguistics and the social sciences, which allows for the assignment of categories, such as positive self-connotation of the ›singing I‹ or rhyme patterns. In conclusion, the article evaluates the potential of such a digitally supported research methodology for future research at the intersection of children’s literature and digital humanities.
The role of music in second-language (L2) learning has long been the object of various empirical and theoretical inquiries. However, research on whether the effect of background music (BM) on language-related task performance is facilitative or inhibitory has produced inconsistent findings. Hence, we investigated the effect of happy and sad BM on complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) of L2 speaking among intermediate learners of English. A between-groups design was used, in which 60 participants were randomly assigned to three groups with two experimental groups performing an oral L2 English retelling task while listening to either happy or sad BM, and a control group performing the task with no background music. The results demonstrated the happy BM group’s significant outperformance in fluency over the control group. In accuracy, the happy BM group also outdid the controls (error-free clauses, correct verb forms). Moreover, the sad BM group performed better in accuracy than the controls but in only one of its measures (correct verb forms). Furthermore, no significant difference between the groups in syntactic complexity was observed. The study, in line with the current literature on BM effects, suggests that it might have specific impacts on L2 oral production, explained by factors such as mood, arousal, neural mechanism, and the target task’s properties.
Bheki Mseleku is widely considered one of the most accomplished jazz musicians to have emerged from South Africa. His music has a profound significance in recalling and giving emphasis to that aspect of the African American jazz tradition originating in the rhythms and melodies of Africa. The influences of Zulu traditional music, South African township, classical music and American jazz are clearly evident and combine to create an exquisite and particularly lyrical style, evoking a sense of purity and peace that embraces the spiritual healing quality central to his musical inspiration. The Musical Artistry of Bheki Mseleku is an in-depth study of his musical style and includes annotated transcriptions and analysis of a selection of compositions and improvisations from his most acclaimed albums including 'Celebration', 'Timelessness', 'Star Seeding', 'Beauty of Sunrise' and 'Home at Last'. Mseleku recorded with several American jazz greats including Ravi Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Pharoah Sanders, Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins and Abbey Lincoln. His music serves as a vital link to the African-American musical art form that inspired many of the South African jazz legends.
'Cape Towns public cultures can only be fully appreciated through recognition of its deep and diverse soundscape. We have to listen to what has made and makes a city. The ear is an integral part of the research tools one needs to get a sense of any city. We have to listen to the sounds that made and make the expansive mother city. Various of its constituent parts sound different from each other [T]here is the sound of the singing men and their choirs (teams they are called) in preparation for the longstanding annual Malay choral competitions. The lyrics from the various repertoires they perform are hardly ever written down. [] There are texts of the hallowed Dutch songs but these do not circulate easily and widely. Researchers dream of finding lyrics from decades ago, not to mention a few generations ago back to the early 19th century. This work by Denis Constant Martin and Armelle Gaulier provides us with a very useful selection of these songs. More than that, it is a critical sociological reflection of the place of these songs and their performers in the context that have given rise to them and sustains their relevance. It is a necessary work and is a very important scholarly intervention about a rather neglected aspect of the history and present production of music in the city.' Shamil Jeppie, Associate Professor, Department of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town
In Sounding the Cape, Denis-Constant Martin recomposes and examines through the theoretical prism of creolisation the history of music in Cape Town, deploying analytical tools borrowed from the most recent studies of identity configurations. He demonstrates that musical creation in the Mother City, and in South Africa, has always been nurtured by contacts, exchanges and innovations whatever the efforts made by racist powers to separate and divide people according to their origin.
Die in diesem Essay erarbeitete Fragestellung fusst auf einem musikontologischen Problem: Welche Art von Gegenstand ist ein Musikwerk? Eine wichtige Aufgabe der Ontologie der Musik ist es, die Konsequenzen der Einführung der Notation in eine musikalische Praxis zu bewerten. Zur Klärung muss unter anderem die Rolle verstanden werden, die der Partitur zugeschrieben wird. Mit diesem Essay möchte ich auf das, was ich als ernsthaftes Missverständnis der Rolle der Partitur betrachte, insbesondere in Bezug auf die klassische Musik, hinweisen. Das Verständnis der Partitur als Spielanleitung, wie es in den letzten Jahrzehnten sowohl in der musikwissenschaftlichen als auch in der musikontologischen Literatur zu finden war, gilt es zu hinterfragen. In diesem Beitrag werde ich nach einem einleitenden Abschnitt zunächst sechs Argumente gegen die Vorstellung der Partitur als Spielanweisung formulieren; es folgen Kommentare zu einigen Passagen von Robert Schumann, Hermann Hesse und Peter Shaffer, um im weiteren Verlauf einen aktuellen Diskussionsbeitrag über die Rolle der Partitur in der klassischen Musik zu liefern.
Contrairement à sa contrepartie visuelle, qui est ancienne, l’ekphrasis acoustique - la description littéraire d'un son - ne date que de la fin du XVIIIe siècle, moment où l'ekphrasis spécifiquement musicale commence à apparaître comme base pour l'analyse et le jugement esthétique. Son émergence est liée au développement du concept de média. De nombreux cas d'ekphrasis acoustiques dépendent de la possibilité de rendre perceptible le medium par lequel le son, et en particulier le son musical, parvient à l'auditeur. Ces mêmes descriptions ekphrastiques tendent fortement à répéter le processus qu'elles décrivent. Ce qui signifie qu'elles rendent également perceptible le medium par lequel la littérature parvient au lecteur. Ce médium littéraire, cependant, n'est pas l'écriture, du moins pas en premier lieu : il s'agit plutôt d'une condition de résonance que l'écriture partage avec le son qu'elle décrit - une condition à la fois matérielle et émotive. Le mouvement de perception conduisant des phénomènes auditifs et littéraires vers leurs médias permet d'attribuer une signification ontologique à l'esthétique du son et de sa représentation. Deux poèmes issus de mondes culturels différents, de même que leurs mises en musique, serviront à illustrer les dimensions formelles et affectives de ces relations : "Meeresstille", poème de Goethe (1787) et sa mise en musique par Schubert (1815), puis "Far--Far--Away", poème de Tennyson (1893) et sa mise en musique par Ned Rorem (1963).
Over three decades the works of Frankfurt School member Theodor W. Adorno played an important role in the didactic conceptualization of popular music in Germany. This resulted in a predominantly analytical, ethic-centred and, in the end, pejorative agenda. Educationalists who advocated an affirmative approach to popular music needed to formulate “new” objectives that would serve as a true alternative to the highly elaborated Adornian framework. Though affirmative approaches finally became prevalent, the didactic situation remained delicate, since the teaching of popular music was also subject to general debates on how school education shall be constituted. Subsequently, the subject “popular music” became more and more tied to overall educational goals, whereas the objective dimension was increasingly ignored. The paper aims to reconstruct the complex path from critical to post-critical didactic efforts, finally addressing current issues, especially the notion of popular music as cultural practice. The “paradigm shift” towards affirmation is demonstrated on the basis of both theoretical works and curricular sources.
Attractiveness ratings for musicians and non-musicians: An evolutionary-psychology perspective
(2019)
From an evolutionary perspective, musical behavior such as playing an instrument can be considered as part of an individual’s courting behavior. Playing a musical instrument or singing might fulfill a function similar to that of a bird’s colored feathers: attracting attention. Therefore, musicians may be rated as more attractive than non-musicians. In an online survey, 137 volunteers (95 female) with ages ranging from 16 to 39 years rated the attractiveness of fictitious persons of the opposite sex described in short verbal profiles. These profiles differed with respect to whether the described person made music or not. Additionally, the musicians’ profiles varied with regard to whether the described person played music or sang in public or in private only. Results show that musicians’ profiles were not generally rated as more attractive than non-musicians’, but attractiveness did vary according to setting: private musicians were rated as most attractive, followed by non-musicians and public musicians. Furthermore, results indicate that participants who played a musical instrument or sang themselves gave higher ratings to profiles of musicians. But for participants who do not make music themselves, higher attractiveness ratings for musicians playing instruments or sing in private settings were found. These results indicate that the impression of sharing a common interest (making music) and furthermore making music in private instrumental settings seems to make people attractive to other people. No additional support for the sexual selection hypotheses for the evolution of music was provided by the current results. The musical status of the rater affected his or her judgements, with musicians rating other people as more attractive if they share the common interest in making music. Not the display of being a musician seems to be critical for attractiveness ratings but the perceived or imagined similarity by the rater created by information on musicality, fostering the theoretical significance of the communication aspect of music.
Families are central to the social and emotional development of youth, and most families engage in musical activities together, such as listening to music or talking about their favorite songs. However, empirical evidence of the positive effects of musical family rituals on social cohesion and emotional well-being is scarce. Furthermore, the role of culture in the shaping of musical family rituals and their psychological benefits has been neglected entirely. This paper investigates musical rituals in families and in peer groups (as an important secondary socialization context) in two traditional/collectivistic and two secular/individualistic cultures, and across two developmental stages (adolescence vs. young adulthood). Based on cross-sectional data from 760 young people in Kenya, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Germany, our study revealed that across cultures music listening in families and in peer groups contributes to family and peer cohesion, respectively. Furthermore, the direct contribution of music in peer groups on well-being appears across cultural contexts, whereas musical family rituals affect emotional well-being in more traditional/collectivistic contexts. Developmental analyses show that musical family rituals are consistently and strongly related to family cohesion across developmental stages, whereas musical rituals in peer groups appear more dependent on the developmental stage (in interaction with culture). Contributing to developmental as well as cross-cultural psychology, this research elucidated musical rituals and their positive effects on the emotional and social development of young people across cultures. The implications for future research and family interventions are discussed.
The article offers a philosophical reading of Mazen Kerbaj's sound piece "Starry Night". Recorded in 2006 during the bombing of Beirut by the Israeli Air Force, the piece stages an acoustic encounter between the improvised sounds of the trumpet and live bomb explosions. Arguing for a formal examination of the ways in which Kerbaj stages the problem of the genesis of musical order in the exchange between trumpet and bombs, the article draws parallels with explorations of the problems of the State and of political contradiction in the Marxist tradition. Three common points are identified: the contingency of the appearance of order, its inseparability from an excess of violence, and its spatializing function. The last part delineates parallels between Kerbaj's subversive aesthetic strategies and Badiou's elaboration of the concept of the subject as the interruption of a repetitive logic of placement.
Five decades of US, UK, German and Dutch music charts show that cultural processes are accelerating
(2019)
Analysing the timeline of US, UK, German and Dutch music charts, we find that the evolution of album lifetimes and of the size of weekly rank changes provide evidence for an acceleration of cultural processes. For most of the past five decades, number one albums needed more than a month to climb to the top, nowadays an album is in contrast top ranked either from the start, or not at all. Over the last three decades, the number of top-listed albums increased as a consequence from roughly a dozen per year, to about 40. The distribution of album lifetimes evolved during the last decades from a log-normal distribution to a power law, a profound change. Presenting an information–theoretical approach to human activities, we suggest that the fading relevance of personal time horizons may be causing this phenomenon. Furthermore, we find that sales and airplay- based charts differ statistically and that the inclusion of streaming affects chart diversity adversely. We point out in addition that opinion dynamics may accelerate not only in cultural domains, as found here, but also in other settings, in particular in politics, where it could have far reaching consequences.
Whereas many writers across all times and cultures have written about the potential aesthetic effects of music experiences which could be labeled as absorption, only limited empirical research has been done on the state aspects of this fascinating aspect of human involvement. What is more, there are still few tested models which explain how people can be absorbed by a piece of music as well as continue to be third-person observers monitoring and even reflecting on that same musical experience.
Adopting a dual process approach – in which human thinking, emotion, and routes to appraisal are defined in terms of an interplay between two distinct systems of psychological processing – this thesis aimed to examine a) the cognitive mechanisms underlying the paradox of losing oneself in the music on the one hand, and meta-awareness on the other, b) its corresponding psychophenomenological profile(s) when listening intentionally to self-chosen music, and c) the different potential of state and trait aspects of absorption and meta-awareness in predicting three indicators of the aesthetic response to music: enjoyment, lasting impression, and behavioral intention.
To this end, a quantitative empirical research method (state and trait questionnaires) was employed in a series of online surveys, using self-selected music as well as pre-determined music by the researcher as stimulus, together approaching a naturalistic listening setting.Aesthetic absorption was confirmed to be structured– in terms of dual process terminology – by intuitive type I and reflective type II processing. Two forms of music absorption were empirically
identified and labeled as zoning in and tuning in. These experience profiles distinguished themselves significantly in terms of the degree in which a music listener maintained his or her meta-awareness, assessed via volitional control, rationality, self-awareness, and memory of the previous event. The overall pattern of consciousness parameters of both types of absorbed listening are suggestive of a unique interchanging between brain networks for intuitive processing and areas related to self-reference, -awareness and -control. The distinction between zoning in and tuning in was further found to be strongly related to the quality of affective state.
These emotions modulate the experiential intensity of absorption, suggesting this experience to be an affect-biased type of attention. Based on the feelings-as-information theory, postulating that positive emotions are differently processed than negatively-tinted types of emotions, it was
concluded that music-induced rumination ‘competes’ with higher-order functions relevant to meta-awareness. From this perspective, the two found absorption types match conceptually with the positively-tinged self-reflection and negatively-tinged self-rumination as two different types of self-focused introspection. It was also shown that being absorbed by music is a continuous phenomenon; a matter of ‘more-or-less’ involvement rather than a ‘unique state of mind’. Consequently, determining ‘music absorbers’ is a matter of imprecise estimation rather than being marked by a clear observable onset. Finally, as expected, an absorbed state of mind - operationalized here as a multidimensional bifactor model – completely mediated the effect of trait absorption, and was a good predictor for enjoyment, lasting impression, and behavioral intention.
Whereas absorption and enjoyment were found to have a mutual positive effect on each other, absorption and meta-awareness were found to be unrelated to each other. Also, meta-awareness contributed little to aesthetic appreciation. The results confirm the need for a dynamic approach to the relationship between state absorption and enjoyment; the one-directional approach common in many research reports does not seem to fully capture the relationship between them. Taken together, this dissertation shows the potential of including the interplay between the trait and state constructs of absorption and meta-awareness in order to better understand the mechanisms underlying aesthetic experiences with music. The present work demonstrated that these two constructs should not be conflated. Moreover, this thesis underlined the power of absorption not only to evoke short-lived pleasurable experiences, but also to stimulate longlasting impressions. Knowing more about absorbed listening and its potential effects, learning to consciously recognize it as it happens, and perhaps regulate and maintain its positive consequences (i.e., savoring), could further improve the way we engage ourselves with music or other aesthetic objects. Only then could we engage in behavior that we’re sure would make us happy rather than seeking out experiences which we hope would make us happy.