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For four hundred years, the zikir ritual has been performed weekly in Kadirîhâne in Istanbul. Sufi rituals are believed to have been compiled by the founder (pîr) of the order. The ritual conductor (şeyh, postnişin) symbolizes the founder. The ritual form consists of chanting (dhikr) several divine names (esmâ). While participants perform the divine names with drone-like melodic repetitions or guttural rhythmic ostinatos, musicians perform songs, recitations, and improvisations. Through rhythmic enunciation, body sway, and breath control, these chants are embodied as ostinatos while music varies the mood. The ostinato polyphony between the derviş and zakir, as well as the succession of the divine names symbolizes unity (tevhid) in different ways. The manners and the formality of the ritual (ethics) and their musical expressions (aesthetics) implies harmony that leads to communal and/or individual unity. This article examines the form and content of the ritual, and shows their relation to Sufi concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Este trabalho apresenta parte da pesquisa de análise em torno dos estudos rítmicos de José Eduardo Gramani apresentados em Rítmica (1988) e Rítmica Viva (1996). Nossa hipótese é a de que o uso de ostinatos em seus Sambas se assemelha ao uso das timelines na música africana, explorando princípios da rítmica aditiva que geram motivos assimétricos e dialogam com os padrões polirrítmicos da Costa Oeste da África. Tal abordagem desses estudos dentro das perspectivas abertas pela musicologia africana nos permite traçar desdobramentos ligados à performance e à criação musical, estimulando a dissociação de movimentos, percepção e experimentação do fenômeno rítmico.

The presented research is devoted to the study of the rhythmic organization’s peculiarities in the songs of E. Sabitoglu. Emin Sabitoglu is an outstanding Azerbaijani composer, whose work leaves many generations of domestic listeners not indifferent. The work of Emin Sabitoglu, being famous and popular, often attracts the attention of Azerbaijani musicologists. At the same time, the stylistic features of the composer’s songs have never before become the object of special scientific research. The purpose of the research is to study one of the important elements of the musical language in the songs of the Azerbaijani composer E. Sabitoglu, namely rhythm, to determine the features of their rhythmic organization. The research methodology is determined by the purpose of the research, for the achievement of which, the author uses a comprehensive analysis. At the same time, theoretical analytical analysis has acquired a leading role in the research process. The scientific novelty of the research is that for the first time in musicology determining the features of rhythmic organization in the songs of the Azerbaijani composer Emin Sabitoglu is being solved. Conclusions. A detailed analysis of the rhythmic basis of E. Sabitoglu’s songs demonstrated the presence of certain stylistic features in this area. Firstly, it is a rhythmic ostinato, used in a variety of practically all-vocal miniatures of the composer. Secondly, the rhythmic variation, widespread in the songs of the composer, has many ways of implementation in the development of each specific song. Note that the presence of the principle of rhythmic variation in the songs of the composer is associated with the traditions of national vocal folklore since the variation is one of the leading principles of development in Azerbaijani folk songs. Thirdly, the method of sound visualization takes an essential place in E. Sabitoglu’s songs, the realization of which is directly conditioned by the use of expressive possibilities of rhythm. The use of expressive possibilities of rhythm in this area contributes to the creation of a vivid and almost visibly felt artistic image.

Repetition in the music of pianist/composer Craig Taborn engenders diverse temporal experiences at both local and global scales. At the local level, distinctive repetitions that I term flexible ostinati share significant features with the cyclic materials often observed in groove-based musics: they comprise a repetitive, omnipresent stream within the overall texture, provide a rapid isochronous pulse, and imply higher-level metric levels. However, they differ from strict ostinati or the repetitions that Anne Danielsen (2006) terms "basic groove units" in their flexibility at the rhythmic/metric level of temporal experience. This flexibility manifests in two ways: in the material domain, flexible ostinati are often varied significantly across repetitions, while in the interpretive domain, they simultaneously suggest multiple possibilities for pulse, meter, or cyclic beginning/ending. Following Danielsen, who describes groove as emerging from interactions between sounding rhythm and a reference structure, I examine the potential reference structures (meter and cycle) suggested by Taborn's flexible ostinati. These structures are never fixed, but instead must be constantly negotiated, resulting in engaging grooves that draw the listener into the music's temporal matrix. I analyze three pieces from Taborn's 2011 solo album, Avenging Angel, to demonstrate how, across longer stretches of time, diverse forms grow out of these ostinati: "The Broad Day King" layers a surface-level flexible ostinato against slower background cycles that gradually reveal themselves; "Avenging Angel" is structured by the juxtaposition of two contrasting ostinati; and a brief passage in "Neverland" features an elusive groove that dissolves almost as soon as it materializes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Th e article concerns the problem of implementation of genre features and forms of the piano concerto in the work Juvenis concert by Vladimir Cholak. Devoted to the son of the composer, it sounded in its second edition at the Festival Days of New Music (June 10, 2015, soloist - Natalia Botnariuc, Symphony Orchestra of Teleradio Moldova conducted by Denis Chausov, recording posted on the Internet July 31, 2015)

В статье рассматривается остинато в музыке как жанровое явление. Автор обращается к группе произведений с названием остинато и пытается выявить их характерные жанровые признаки. В ходе анализа обозначается генетическая структура остинато, а также рассматривается его эволюция на современном этапе развития музыкального искусства. Миграция остинато в жанр рассматривается как тенденция современного искусства. В статье выделяются две группы произведений реализующих остинато в таком качестве. Первая основана на преломлении жанров академической традиции, а вторая связана с композицией статического типа, развивавшейся в минимализме. На примере анализа произведений М. Брауна и С. Тен-Холта автор показывает возможности конкретного художественного преломления указанного явления в разных стилевых условиях. Сделанные аналитические наблюдения позволяют констатировать развитие остинато в современном музыкальном искусстве как определенной жанровой модели, обобщающей смысловые горизонты целостной музыкальной композиции.

Musical compositions are based on the definite intellective principles. They can be composed by activating one or several principles both in a homogenous and a diverse compositional environment. Among musical and intellective categories, which have established through centuries, there are principles of imitation and ostinato. Both have gone through historical development, intersecting with each other. Those principles have been used in various epochs and styles, on local and large scales. Two important forms and genres of professional European music - fugal and ostinato variation forms - are based on the abovementioned principles that serve as form building factors. Through integration of those principles on the level of polyphonic form a hybrid composition - a fugue-ostinato was formed. In the process of interaction of the basic parameters of those principles various variants are created by combination of texture and composition. Furthermore, there are so called mutual concessions: for example, imitation of interval in a fugue (fourths-fifths and prima-octaves) and the voice stability (migration) in ostinato variations. In the paper we consider the following interactions offugal forms and ostinato variations - fugue-ostinato, fugatoostinato, fugetta-ostinato, canon-fugetta-ostinato. The paper is concentrated on the examples of a compositional hybrid formed in the European art music - fugue-ostinato, and its analogues in works by Georgian composers. The contrapuntal appearance of imitation and ostinato principles in form of a polyphonic form is a less widespread phenomenon. At the same time, it is a result of the interaction between fugal and variation forms on the way of their evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Am Beispiel der eher unbekannten Filmmusik zu Sostiene Pereira (I/F/P 1995, Regie: Roberto Faenza) wird ein zentraler Aspekt des Filmmusikschaffens Ennio Morricones beleuchtet, der sich durch enge Korrespondenz zwischen der Musik und den narrativen Strukturen des Films auszeichnet. Rhythmische und melodische Elemente sowie einzelne Aspekte der Instrumentierung eines in der filmischen Narration verankerten Lied-Arrangements werden variiert, neu kombiniert und gezielt zwischen der ›internen‹ auditiven Darstellungsebene der Szene und der ›externen‹ auditiven Ebene transferiert. Dabei werden heterogene musiksprachliche Elemente integriert: portugiesischer Fado, klassisch geprägte Orchestermusik mit schlichter Polyphonie und vereinzelte Elemente der Neuen Konzertmusik. Dieses Verfahren ist nicht nur kompositorisch effizient, Morricone hat damit auch eine individuelle Lösung für das Erreichen eines Fabelzusammenhangs und das generelle Formproblem in der Filmmusik gefunden.

The last 20 years in South Africa and abroad have evidenced huge changes in the ways in which research is accessed and produced. These changes were facilitated by the rapid developments in technology. Collaborating with researchers across the globe and accessing articles and research can be done at the push of a button and response times are as instantaneous. Conducting and communicating one’s own research are also much easier. This led to a veritable explosion of publishers and journals, some of which are legitimate and others predatory. In this climate, the adage of ‘publish or perish’ has become a lived reality placing increasing pressure on scholars to publish. An unintended consequence of this is the increasing lack of methodological rigour in studies. This article advocates for increasing attention to methodological rigour in quantitative research. In so doing, guidelines and suggestions are provided in terms of elements to be considered within each of the broad aspects of a study, namely, sampling, instrumentation, methods, design, and data analysis. These are drawn from the literature as well as the author’s own experiences in teaching quantitative research methods, supervising postgraduate student research, reviewing articles for local and international journals, as well as experiences of reviewing articles located within the quantitative paradigm as Associate Editor for the South African Journal of Psychology. Ultimately, this article seeks to create awareness among researchers around the necessity for methodologically rigorous research to enhance the quality of outputs. This will have the effect of producing impactful research that can confidently inform policy, practice, and training within the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polyphony, often used to describe a type of composition in early European music, is also practiced in other parts of the world, not only for aesthetic enjoyment but also to strengthen a society’s cohesiveness. Examples of such musical traditions are found in sub-Saharan Africa and many mountainous regions of Europe, where group singing or music-making is part of the communal lifestyle. However, polyphony in Asian music, especially in East Asia, is rarely discussed. This article introduces two polyphonic singing traditions in East Asia: in the Wa people of southwest China and the Thao people of Taiwan. Members of these groups frequently use polyphonic techniques such as canonic imitation, antiphonal singing, melodic ostinato, or drone to accompany many sociocultural events. This article provides guidelines and teaching strategies for music educators to implement the interdisciplinary lessons in their classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Canonic techniques in the Trecento caccia reveal a wide spectrum of ostinato procedures ranging from brief cadence patterns to large-scale harmonic and/or melodic repetition schemes. The ostinato phenomenon is thus an important structural component of canonic technique in the caccia. This article examines these ostinato patterns in terms of a putative historical and structural transformation of the genre at the intersection of unwritten and written practices. Special emphasis is placed on the definition of the caccia from the anonymous Trecento treatise, Capitulum de vocibus applicatis verbis, and its correlation with the early layer of the caccia repertoire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Orff-Schulwerk pedagogical model has imposed as one of the most attractive and efficient method of musical education where the rhythm and percussion instruments play a fundamental role. Synchronic perspective, especially the diachronic perspective upon this phenomenon indicates a permanent update and enrichment both of the concept itself and modalities of practical concretization. The present study refers to personal results obtained by the vocal-instrumental children assembly Alpha Lirae that I conduct since 2007, a band that has promoted in Romania and outside the borders a modern musical repertoire based on the exploitation of rhythmic and melodic virtues of Romanian songs with oral tradition. I will highlight the playful dimension of interpreted works by revealing the polyphonic play, techniques of modern composition and coloring that derive from diversification of vocal-instrumental combinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to a hierarchy of harmony and fundamental pitch, large-scale modal or tonal music generally needs to generate considerable portions of its substance from a limited number of melodic ideas in order to be readily comprehended as musical form. In Western musical tradition this has typically been achieved by means of motivic development. A distinctive trait in the mainstream of popular music in the 1960s and 1970s, on the other hand, is the predominance of clearly demarcated phrase-bound structures, where either no smaller unit than the phrase could be perceived, or where the smaller units (as in the case of riffs and ostinato figures) have functions that are subservient or complementary to the phrase-structure. Some genuine exceptions from this otherwise highly dominant tendency can be identified in the music from the so-called progressive rock movement in the early 1970s. This article investigates the case of the British group Gentle Giant (active 1970–1980). A motivic analysis of three songs from the album Acquiring the Taste (1971) elucidates how a small set of motives could be used in concatenations to unify larger and more dynamic song structures than what is possible in non-reducible phrase-bound forms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Three pieces for clarinet solo by Cornel Țăranu carry the compositional impression of the '80s highlighting a perfect - micro and macrostructural ' balance between construction and freedom. The first piece, Toccata ostinato, builds arrhythmic ostinato on a repeated sound, in alternation with a melodic "pattern" of modal-chromatic essence. The second piece, Improvisazione, was written long time before the other two and represents a median contrast, where the sonorous discourse is delivered in a quasi-improvisational development. The third piece, Cadenza, is based on a nucleous made up of (major and minor) second and augmented fourth, transposed and built on various sounds, serving to an expressivity close to that of the lament, suggestively presented by the descending glissando. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leonard Meyer was the first musicologist that recognised the importance of expectation in the strong relationship between music and emotion. In his influential book Emotion and Meaning in Music (1956), he proposed that 'emotion or affect is aroused when a tendency to respond is arrested or inhibited'. The Imagination, Tension, Prediction, Reaction, Appraisal (ITPRA) theory, developed by David Huron, is a recent expansion and improvement of this theory. In this paper, I will examine the ITPRA theory and use it as a basis for an analysis of Simeon Ten Holt's Canto Ostinato (1976-1979). This composition combines classical with minimalist composition techniques and incorporates a performance practice in which the performers are free to make their own decisions as to which notes to play and how many times to repeat certain sections. Through my musical analysis of Canto Ostinato, I will connect melodic, rhythmic, harmonic and dynamic characteristics of the music to some issues in relation to the emotional listening experience, including memory, attention and surprise. The analysis involves a close examination of the musical score as well as an evaluation of the performance practice, based on a recording of the performance on two pianos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"A man of short stature, but with tremendous force of communicating by means of sounds; modest, but aware of his own value; secluded and slightly detached from the practical aspects of existence, but proving, in everything connected with the art of sounds, an inexhaustible energy and passion, an amazing capacity of observation and synthesis, unparalleled culture and memory as well as extraordinary precision and exigency. Apparently, Olah led an ordinary life, among us; in fact, music permeated his life as an uninterrupted ostinato, to the point of identification with it, in symbiotic communion. His personality takes prominent shape even from his first works: a strong lyrical nucleus, intense dramatism and contaminating kinetic energy " (Olguţa Lupu - March 2010). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information related to the history and production of film music. It features film composer John Williams as well as highlights the two-note ostinato in Steven Spielberg's horror film entitled "Jaws" 1975, which is noted as one of the most prominent small-scale compositional structures in film-music history. The semantic function of two-note ostinato is discussed.

Delightful musical pages, the Concerto no. 3 for string orchestra "in stile antico", Old engravings for string orchestra and the Sinfonietta "in antico stile" by Sigismund Toduţă are among the "classical" works due to the ingenuity of the modal, poly-metric themes, with a local, jovial or elegy-like air, imprinted on the most elaborate patterns of variational forms, imitative polyphonic or with refrain and rendered by extremely refined orchestration. The purpose of the present paper was to reveal the relation between these works and the universality of their language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first bar of the L'Ascension by Oliver Messiaen was taken by Terényi as "an ostinato bass", a modal and a harmonical support that has the variations of the Chaconne to develop onto them. The play has the mirror symmetries and palindrome structures as a background: from the palindrome modal scale to the palindrome of the meters and to the retrograde inversion of the design between the last three parts and the first three parts. Each variation describes a dramaturgical action that is graphically revealed and gives a space for many improvisatory variants. The score, together with other plays of E. Terényi were included in exhibitions and were received with a special interest by the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

B. A. C. H. missal for the organ op. 4 (1967) constitutes the prototype of the creation period of the 62s - 72s that is considered by the maestro Eduard Terényi to be "constructivist" or "the crystal music", that is characterized through symmetry (melodic lines, chords, mirrored rhythmic reports) and also, the closeness to the serialisation through the application of certain pre-established rhythmical-melodically patterns. "Not even a tone is free!" the author declares. The entire musical work has a constructive characteristic, which has the key in the anagram B.A.C.H. The generating motif is extrapolated to other levels of articulation: the rhythmical, the harmonically, the formal, the one of the central tones, the dimensions in bars and that of the macro-organisation of the work. Regarding the circularity idea that is suggested by the B.A.C.H. melodic movement, the formal technique is that of a melodic ostinato, either harmonically or polyphonically. The B. A. C. H. motif is treated as a micro-series as it can be found in all the four hypostases of the modus quaternion, into transpositions of these and also into permutations and transpositions of the permutations. We can remark the composer's preference for the symmetrical, palindromical structures: the exposing in a vertical mirror (the recurrence) or the horizontal one (the inversion) of two or more motifs of the B. A. C. H. type; the chords in the mirror. The rhythmic formulae are generated by a unique proportion of 4 - 3 - 2 - 3, that represents the translation in rhythmic duration of the idea of circularity that is contained inside the melodic line of the B. A. C. H. motif. The entire structure of the musical work symbolizes the circularity through the central tones of every part (pedal tone or the pylon) summing up the letters B. A. C. H., the dimension in bars of the sections of the work give the characteristic report to the fundamental rhythmic formulae: 3 - 2 - 3 - 4. The duration in minutes and seconds of the execution of the parts comes closer to the above - mentioned report. The connotations of the B. A. C. H motif as symbol of the cross (Kreutzmotiv) are extrapolated to the content of affections and ideas of the whole work. The title could have been Passio - maestro Terényi confesses. As it was composed after the author's meditations that took place on Golgotha, B.A.C.H. - Missal for Organ carries the connotative semantics of an ideated programme that was declared by the author to refer directly to the suffering, the death and the resurrection of the Saviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text discusses the latest work by Zoran Erić, Entr'acte (Između činova), farce-episode for symphony orchestra. Starting from perception of the work's morphological aspects - from the structure of the materials and their relationships, to the dramaturgical tissue, to the author's note to the work - we wanted to discover what is really hidden between the acts, and whether the composition which, in the author's words, should be 'performed between some more important things surrounding it', can and may outshine 'the main event'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an article on Orientalism and musical style, Derek B. Scott posits a near-exhaustive list of musical characteristics that act as Orientalist signifiers. Measures 85-88 in the development section of the first movement of Haydn's "Fifths" Quartet contain eight of them: augmented seconds, sliding or sinuous chromaticism, Phrygian mode, repetitive rhythms, a repetitive small-compass melody, arabesque, parallel movement in fifths, and ostinato. It is difficult to imagine that this passage could have contained any more Orientalist signifiers and still have made sense as Western art music at the twilight of the eighteenth century. If Haydn's string quartets are like four civilized persons holding a conversation, then at this point the interlocutors are speaking a foreign tongue, and that foreign tongue could be Ottoman Turkish. For centuries, the Turks had dwelled in the imaginary world of European exoticism as denizens of a mysterious East as close in geography as it was remote in custom. They were typically represented as either sensual, inviting, and voluptuous (their feminine manifestation), or inexplicably menacing or dangerous (the masculine manifestation). This article draws from musicology, cultural and literary theory, and psychoanalysis as well as my own analysis in order to help explain the impact of music that is overtly Orientalist, intended as a foil to the rest of the movement. I present this music as a hermeneutic window opening up to broader issues of meaning, and I discuss the implications of such signification in the construction of Westem identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the aria of the fourth act of the opera "Manon Lescaut," by Giacomo Puccini, with particular focus on its ostinato. It explores the historiographical implications of aria as the understudied aspect of the operatic style of Puccini, which took place in a desert on New Orleans, Louisiana borders. The author notes that the aria is too long and agonized but failed to call attention to itself, as well as an inappropriate representation of the exile and death of a woman.

The article offers information on ostinato. Topics discussed include professional ostinato inspire excellence in choral music education, performance, composition and advocacy; word ostinato mean same as that of word obstinate in Italy, and use of ostinato as professional theme in more and more meaningful ways.

The article reflects on the factors that need to be considered in teaching students for a good music performance. The factors include creating a story with the music, suggesting an ostinato and asking student to experiment with a melody and suggesting a stylistic approach which uses similar harmony. He emphasizes that the goal of a music performance is to come alive and to cause the music to jump off the page through the imagination of the performer and the listener.