Musical Composition - Science topic

Technology interacts with life, in so far musical notation evolves from one époque to the other one. The so-called western musical notation has changed abruptly in the XXth century, and certainly it will continue to develop, following the general tendency of evolution. What is important for me, and I guess perhaps for other composers, is to consider notation totally dependent from a music reality, and not separate both as the traditional Harmonic theory did. No matter the technological source, music should remain a human expression!

Sincerely, I haven't seen or heard of such thing before.

Excellent question

The Grove Dictioary and Wiki are likely to provide you with further links to experts. And try this file:///C:/Users/Stella%20Dell%20XPS/AppData/Local/Temp/THESIS_MASTER_OF_MUSIC_SHIELDS_Philip_William_2019.pdf

Good luck.

Diana Ambache

A good question, it would be interesting to know more about what you find out.

It's almost certain that memory will play a role in whether or not someone feels or perceives an emotion in music and the lyrics are also likely to be contributory factors.

It's probably worth reading The Handbook of Music and Emotion by Patrik Juslin and John Sloboda (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/handbook-of-music-and-emotion-9780199604968?cc=gb&lang=en&), if you've not already!

Compose at low frequencies, so one could litterally feel the musical notes resonate through the body. ,  This would be as low as 20 to 200 Hz, also: focus on the sub bass level (80Hz) Infrasound (<20hz) might aswell be useful, if the given sound system provides that range.

I would like to add that the composers of "Música Viva" Mouvement associated 12 tone technique with Brazilian elements in many works composed around 1950  like "Negrinho do Pastoreio" (by Catunda) and "Quartet n. 1" (by Guerra Peixe) and Música para Cordas (Claudio Santoro). .

It looks like a fascinating subject. I play the guitar (though not as much as I would like to) and occasionally compose. On reading your research subject I dived into the Internet and discovered a wealth of women composers I had never heard of - with a few exceptions such as Clara Schumann and Hildegard von Bingen. After that, there is a huge jump to pop music and some wonderful compositions by Carole King.

Are there any composers you would like to recommend to me?

The acoustics and the paralinguistic roles of breathy/whispery voice qualities are analyzed in spontaneous dialogue speech of several speakers. Analyses show that breathy/whispery voices carry a variety of emotion- or attitude-related paralinguistic information. Breathiness often appeared in emphasized words/phrases, having the effect of calling/catching the listener’s attention. It also rhythmically appeared in utterances expressing the speaker’s excitement. In backchannels, breathiness has the effect of expressing politeness or interest to the listener’s talk. When accompanied by a softer voice quality, breathiness is used to call/catch the listener’s attention, while expressing gentleness or tenderness. A more whispered and low-powered voice quality appears in confidential talking, embarrassment, or when the speaker is talking to oneself.

> There is a wonderful discussion about the seven Pressing scales in Tymoczko`s book "A Geometry of Music".

Thanks, I’ll put it in my Amazon Wish List. I read his article on orbifolds in Science (I am a subscriber; my main vocation is astrophysics) and have his article on “Scale Networks and Debussy” that is available on the web. His interests have considerable overlap with mine, clearly in the use of computer software for musical analysis and implementation, but he is much more enthusiastic than I about detailed analysis of specific historical compositions. I agree that much can be learned from a study of the masters that will be useful in one’s own work, but other than a few broad ideas and suggestions, I prefer to wander in the vast forest of mostly unexplored musical possibilities, improvising my way through it and following the path of greatest reward. I feel the same as Debussy when he was asked about his guiding principle, “mon plaisir”.

I gather that you are interested in improvisation. I spent many years performing flamenco guitar and used improvisation almost exclusively for composing original material, mostly during private practice sessions. It became clear that this is exactly what was done by Beethoven, Mozart, and probably all composers who were also instrumental virtuosos. Some of my favorite ideas came from mistakes. I heard that Miles Davis once answered the question “How do you improvise?” by saying “Think of a note, and don’t play it.”

My preferred method for musical analysis is to get the piece I want to analyze in MIDI-file form, then run it through a program I wrote that identifies Synopticon scales as they evolve through the piece, listing them chronologically and summarizing them at the end by fraction of use. Of course, interesting things happen during scale modulations! I’m pretty sure that Chopin didn’t realize that for several seconds early in the Ballade in G minor, he was playing Navaneetnam mela from the Melakarta, and I’m not sure what J.S. Bach thought about his own use of the suspended-9th-sharp-5 chord he used in Prelude No. 1 to the Well Tempered Clavier.

So many appealing projects, so little time!

Shepherd? Ask the Scottish Music Centre first. They're at City Halls, Glasgow.  Or try the Performing Rights Society, but I'd check with local connections first.

Arne? UK music libraries have the Encore website, for orchestral and choral sets in libraries.  Sometimes you can arrange a direct loan with the library holding a particular set, but other times you need to go to your local public library (or the university where you study), request an inter library loan, and let them handle the transaction for you.  http://www.iaml.info/iaml-uk-irl/projects/encore.html

Hi Paolo

I am in Bologna and just finished archival research in Vienna and Venice.  It is starting to come together harmonically. My hope is to compare the tonality plans and pertinent harmonic progressions within those of the early works, to make interesting discoveries and interpretations.  Thank you so much for your kind and encouraging reply.  Love to keep in conact with your group.

Philip

Perth, Australia

Yes, of course I can help you. Doctoral dissertation:

- Naomi Joy Barker, "Analytical Issues in the Toccatas of Girolamo Frescobaldi", Ph.D. in Musicology, Royal Holloway College, University of London, 1995;

- Elena Burundukovskaya, "Organno-klavirnye sotchineniya Jirolamo Frescobaldi i voprosy ich ispolneniya na organe" [Girolamo Frescobaldi's Keyboard Works and the Questions of Their Performance on the Organ], Ph.D. in Music, Moscow Academy of Music, 1993;

- Étienne Darbellay, "Primo et secondo libro di toccate de Girolamo Frescobaldi, édition critique. En marge des deux livres de toccate de Girolamo Frescobaldi, étude de style", Ph.D. in Musicology, Fribourg, 1971;

- Michael J. Eisenberg, "Keyboard Secunda Pratica in Transmission: The Copper-Engraved Toccata Publications of Girolamo Frescobaldi", Ph.D. in Musicology, City University of New York, in progress.

That is very true. I find it very hard to convince my kids that just sharing their music is wrong. It has become such an accepted part of their social life particularly 'online'. They are confused that I insist on buying tracks from the artists I admire. And yes I totally agree that many of the problems of the industry are self made. And yes encryption will not be a viable option for quite some time, if ever! However if we want new music it has to be funded on a professional basis somehow. Will we have to return to a form of patronage?

Yes, for now only european music, but very interesting is mathematical model for tonal harmony and jazz, i have this somewhere on my computer. If someone likes mathematic very big equation it is very nice:)

Carol, all of what you say reflects the sad situation in many institutions today, particularly in my experience across UK and Ireland (I'm originally from the US and the US system, and noticed that there (in most cases I was acquainted with) progression for tenure track was indeed measured by evidence of succesful performance). It seems that with the artifact-centered culture of much of current academia the only things (yes, quite specifically, things) are "hard evidence" according to the terms of other disciplines: i.e. books, articles, symposium papers, and the like. Becuase of this, many well-meaning performers are "playing the game" (I count myself as guilty!) by transforming much of the real scholarship and study we put into our practice (i.e. historical, contextual, programming, kinaesthetic, somatic, you name it) inbto written form. But this is not the most satisfactory response, I think. It fully disadvantages those our discipline, in particular those who perform, and favors those who are in the -ologies and similar writing-based humanistic pursuits. (All of whom, by the way, I feel are nonetheless partners in music and the arts, but the system still has a way of favoring the writers.) Some of those who 'get' performers in the University include laboratory-based scientists, by the way. They recognize that performance is essential to certain pursuits, although of course, their research likewise gets favored in journals, which in turn are favored by the academic world by ratings and association with the ISI (ISI journals are the ones most favored at my institution, for example, when applying for progression).

I think your comment about "getting the call" is right on the money. We are, essentially, invited to give our performance--just like an invited speaker at a conference, or a soloist as a keynote lecturer, for example. We may well bear this in mind when explaining to tenure/progression committees the value of what we do. However, there's the rub: it's then up to us to put extra energy and time into explaining, whereas our many colleagues in the humanities don't have to do explaining, since the committees already "get" what they do...

(Sigh...)

All the best,

Vlad

Did no one answer this? It may be too late, but the section at 1:26-2:08 is called "the drop" in the lingo of the "hard dusbtep" style, of which Skrillex is a practitioner. (He's much resented among dance music aficionados because he got famous for doing stuff which British producers and Americans, too, had been doing in clubs for years.) The "drop" is the section of a dubstep track which "drops" the bass in. Dropping the bass has been a standard live DJ trick since the 1990s, and is associated with moments of dance floor excitement: usually the DJ takes away the bass line, making the music seem to slow down or stop, and everyone in the crowd to wait motionless for the moment when the bass drops, when they all start dancing even more frantically.

Dubstep takes this bass drop to electronic extremes: the bass is layered, electronically distorted, and cut with complex automated filters until it "buzzes" and "wobbles" with energy. Many hard dubstep producers revel in the "brutality" of their drops, which are imagined as attacking or terrifying the listener. Thus the video is a great, literal visualization of how DJs view the drop: the sound waves literally pummel the listener into submission. There are a number of parody videos in which the effect of the drop on unsuspecting listeners is to toss them around the room like rag dolls.

Putting all that power into a little girl's hands is very Japanese anime/horror movie; the set-up of this video is like the movie _Audition_, in which the woman turns the table on sexual aggressors and tortures them...

Heavy.