Music

Performing Schengen: myths, rituals and the making of European territoriality beyond Europe

by Ruben Zaiotti

Review of International Studies April 2011 Vol. 37 No.2 : pp 537-556

Myth-making has historically been an essential component of the modern state's quest for territorial control and... more Myth-making has historically been an essential component of the modern state's quest for territorial control and legitimacy. As a sui generis post-national political entity in search for identity and recognition, the European Union (EU) seems to mimicking its more established national counterpart. By formulating and reproducing a narrative that hails Europe's border control regime (‘Schengen’) as a success story of European integration and by deploying evocative imagery at Europe's common borders, the EU is in fact trying to establish itself as an integral part of the European political landscape. This article argues that what we are witnessing today in Europe is indeed the emergence of the ‘myth of Schengen’; however, the regime's mythopoiesis goes beyond the EU's official narrative and symbolic representations. To capture the full range of actors, locations and activities involved in the establishment and reproduction of this post-national myth, it is necessary to shift the attention to the performative dimension of this process. To support this argument, the article relies on the insights of anthropological and sociological works that have emphasised the role of rituality and performativity in constituting social structures and identities. These insights are then applied to examine the rituals and performances characterising four cases of ‘unofficial’ Schengen myth-making beyond Europe: a hotel in Beijing, street kids in Kinshasa, a British music band, and a group of Eastern European artists.

Book Review: Simon Reynolds, Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past

by Christopher Doll

Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association 68/4, 2012, pp.763-765

Ways of Reading. Visual Music Course Development at OCADU

by Robert Appleton

Ways of Reading. A course at OCAD University conceived and taught by Robert Appleton using sound, text and image.

Stylistic Cohabitation in the First Movement of Bartók’s Fourth String Quartet

by Sergio Cote

ELEMENTARY SOURCES: LATENT COMPONENT ANALYSIS FOR MUSIC COMPOSITION

by Spencer Topel

An Auditory Twist on Visual Search Using Head Movement Controlled Ambisonics

by Spencer Topel

Co-authored with Kat Agres, Michael Spivey, and Stephen Moseson

In this paper, we propose an auditory search task using a virtual ambisonic environment presented through static... more In this paper, we propose an auditory search task using a virtual ambisonic environment presented through static Head-Related Transfer Functions (HRTF’s). Head-tracking using a magnetometer captures the listener’s orientation and presents an interactive auditory scene. Reaction times from 15 participants are compared for Simple and Complex auditory search tasks. The results lend support to the hypothesis that similar attentional mechanisms may constrain processing during visual and auditory search tasks.

The Architecture of Arcadia: Quinault, Lully, and the Complicit Spectator of the Tragedie en Musique

by Alison CALHOUN

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH STUDIES; DEC, 2011, 33 2, p114-p126, 13p.

Most analyses of the Arcadia of the Ancien regime interpret pastoral politically as a place built in contrast to... more Most analyses of the Arcadia of the Ancien regime interpret pastoral politically as a place built in contrast to court life, a contrast that manifested itself iconographically as pastoral scenes built in the foreground of palatial backdrops, or Arcadian, garden-like courtyards. But, in the context of theatre, the scenography of pastoral was also constructed as a peaceful, verdant setting that opposed the dangers and marvels of mythological places and characters put into motion by machines. Even though Arcadia was a rather artificial version of a simple garden or forest, it was nevertheless part of a visual tradition that was understood as a possible world. For Philippe Quinault and Jean-Baptiste Lully, the pastoral space was key to harmonizing not only the singing, but also the ever-increasing use of machines and spectacular scene changes of early musical tragedy. Thanks to its familiar topoi, the pastoral setting (evident in didascalies, iconography, and within the verses of Quinault's libretti) created visual cues that helped forge a complicit spectator for this new form of tragedy, promoting credibility, and inciting specific emotions. Most importantly to the history of theatrical reception, the balance between the familiarity of pastoral and the strangeness of mythology encouraged the spectator to redefine the limits of aesthetic distance to include greater degrees of artificiality and fiction.

Amália Rodrigues e Alberto Janes: Um encontro singular na musica popular portuguesa

by jorge carrega

  Alberto Janes, um farmacêutico e músico amador natural de Reguengos de Monsaraz, escreveu alguns dos maiores... more   Alberto Janes, um farmacêutico e músico amador natural de Reguengos de Monsaraz, escreveu alguns dos maiores êxitos da carreira de Amália Rodrigues. Dotado de um talento invulgar, o compositor alentejano foi responsável por letras e melodias inesquecíveis que continuam a ser gravadas e interpretadas pelas novas gerações de fadistas. Este artigo pretende analisar a obra de Alberto Janes e o seu contributo para a carreira artística de Amália Rodrigues.

Weird Britain in Exile: Ghost Box, Hauntology, and Alternative Heritage

by Jamie Sexton

Popular Music and Society (Vol. 35, Issue 2, 2012)

This article interrogates some of the themes that have been noted in the critical reception of the musical movement... more This article interrogates some of the themes that have been noted in the critical reception of the musical movement that has been dubbed “hauntology.” In particular, it focuses on a specifically British strain of hauntology—largely concentrating on the record label Ghost Box—and explores the network of associations referenced by the artists involved. The author argues that Ghost Box and related artists reflect on issues such as collecting and heritage, claiming that they are engaged in a form of alternative heritage. Further, he argues that they engage with the uncanny nature of media technologies, particularly the sense in which current digital technologies can be considered as haunted by their analogue counterparts. Finally, he suggests that critics have tended to steer away from exploring issues such as nostalgia and pastiche within the work of such artists due to their rather negative connotations; yet these concepts are crucial to the strategies of many hauntological artists.

Generi della comunicazione buffonesca nelle" commedie armoniche" di Orazio Vecchi e Adriano Banchieri

by Gianmario Merizzi

Roger Waters: Complete Lyrics List (1967-2007)

by Andreas Andreou

Chronological list of all Roger Waters lyrics. Pink Floyd, solo and contributions/collaborations. Chronological list of all Roger Waters lyrics. Pink Floyd, solo and contributions/collaborations.

Preschool children as a user group: Design considerations for musical toys

by Sedef Süner

Msc Thesis, METU Department of Industrial Design, February 2012

Early musical experiences are very important for social, cognitive and physical development of children, as well as... more Early musical experiences are very important for social, cognitive and physical development of children, as well as their future musical competences. Preschools present this environment with various musical materials. However, suitability of these materials in terms of developmental needs of children and educational goals is questionable. The purpose of this study is to transfer knowledge from relevant literature to design considerations of musical toys for preschool children.

Literature review was conducted to determine various aspects to be considered while designing musical toys by compiling knowledge from developmental psychology and pedagogy literature; governments‟ educational policies and programs for early childhood in Turkey and in the world in general were reviewed in order to determine the expected outcomes of preschool education, and the research and development studies done in the field of musical toy design were explored. Furthermore, ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with preschool educators in order to gather their experiences and opinions on the usage of musical materials. As a result, suggestions are provided for designers to be used in designing musical toys for preschool children concerning children‟s needs, teachers and learning context, and product attributes.

Keywords: preschool children, preschool education, musical development, musical toy design

As distant and close as can be Lo-fi recording: site-specificity and (in) authenticity

by Melle Kromhout

Paper presented at The Fifth Annual Art of Record Production Conference, Cardiff, 2009

In the paper I elaborate on lo-fi recording and its relation towards its hi-fi counterpart, using literature on (the... more In the paper I elaborate on lo-fi recording and its relation towards its hi-fi counterpart, using literature on (the history of) audio recording, the concept of noise – one of lo-fi’s most distinctive features in opposition to hi-fi – and the conceptualization of spatiality and physicality in and of music. Since, as Stan Link points out (in “The Work of Reproduction in the Mechanical Aging of an Art: Listening to Noise.” Computer Music Journal, 25:1, 2001: 34–47), there now exist ‘some very high-tech means to achieve “lo-fi” ends,’ I focus on whether lo-fi is or isn’t moving away from the hi-fi aesthetics of the music studio, what meanings are actually performed through lo-fi aesthetics as a strategy for authenticity, relying on site specificity and physicality, and what this might mean for the construction of the music studio as a conceptual framework in the study of popular music.

The Mechanics of Destruction. An analysis of authorship and political engagement in the work of Matthew Herbert

by Melle Kromhout

MA-thesis Cultural Analyis, University of Amsterdam; 2008

An analysis of the politically engaged music of electronic musician Matthew Herbert, through tracing different... more An analysis of the politically engaged music of electronic musician Matthew Herbert, through tracing different contradictive aspects of his author position and the way this translates in his work.

Application of Pulsed Melodic Affective Processing to Stock Market Algorithmic Trading and Analysis

by Alexis Kirke

Alexis Kirke, Eduardo Miranda

The application of Pulsed Melodic Affective Processing (PMAP) to stock market analysis and algorithmic trading is... more The application of Pulsed Melodic Affective Processing (PMAP) to stock market analysis and algorithmic trading is examined. PMAP utilizes musically-based pulse sets (“melodies”) for processing – capable of representing affective states. Affective processing and affective input/output is now considered to be a key tool in artificial intelligence and computing. However in the designing of processing elements (e.g. bits, bytes, floats, etc), engineers have primarily focused on the processing efficiency and power. Having defined these elements, they then go on to investigate ways of making them perceivable by the user/engineer. But the extremely active and productive area of Human-Computer Interaction - and the increasing complexity and pervasiveness of computation in our daily lives – supports the idea of a complementary approach in which computational efficiency and power are more balanced with understandability to the user/engineer. PMAP provides the potential for a person to tap into the affective processing path to hear a sample of what is going on in that computation, as well as providing a simpler way to interface with affective input/output systems. In this paper PMAP will be applied to a simple algorithmic trading system based on an affective model of a simulated stock market.
Keywords: Human-Computer Interaction, Music, Affective, Boolean Logic, Neural Networks, Behavioural Finance, Algorithmic Trading, Stock Market 

How political is music? An approach through Adorno and Rancière

by João Pedro Cachopo

Paper presented at International Conference on “Sociology of music. Tendencies, Issues, Perspectives” (org. CESEM), Culturgest, Lisbon, 23-25 July 2009.

Brass on the Move: Economic Crisis and Professional Mobility among Romani Musicians in Vranje

by Alexander Markovic

Published 2012 in Labour Migrations in the Balkans, ed. by Biljana Sikimic, Petko Hristov, and Biljana Golubovic. Part of the series "Studies on Language and Culture in Central and Eastern Europe", Verlag Otto Sagner Press in Berlin.

Médiation et énigme dans la pensée musicale d'Adorno

by João Pedro Cachopo

Published in in Présents musicaux, ed. Jean-Paul Olive (Paris, L’Harmattan – Collection Arts 8, 2009), pp. 171-192 [in French].

Song of the Bass Clarinet

by Jeff Klooger

Purity and Change: The Social Context of Bernstein's MASS

by Paul Sullins