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Parsimony is a broad concept with applications in music theory and composition. Two sets A and B of finite cardinality n (n-sets) are in parsimonious relation if there exists a (n–1)-set C that is included in both A and B. A sequence of n-sets is parsimonious if any two successive sets in the sequence are in parsimonious relation. This work demonstrates that for any set of finite cardinality p, there exist sequences of its n-subsets (n ≤ p) that are circular, non-redundant, exhaustive and parsimonious, and it describes the corresponding algorithm. The image of such a sequence by a bijection and the retrograde sequence keep the same four properties. The consequences of these results for the pitch class (pc) subsets of cardinality n (or n-chords) of a pc set of finite cardinality p (p-tonic scale) are derived and discussed in the context of music harmony, microtonality and composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a theoretical perspective of the optimum stimulation level (OSL), we investigate how the cross-media usage (multi-device and multi-app usage) of individual users influences their exploration of new music in a music-streaming platform. We also examine whether gender moderates the link between cross-media usage and new music exploration behavior. We analyze survey responses from 1116 college students in China, and our findings show a significant and positive effect of multi-device usage on new music exploration. By contrast, multi-app usage does not have any statistically significant effect. The results also indicate that being a woman positively moderates the relationship between multi-app usage and new music exploration behavior. Our study contributes to the understanding of exploratory user behavior in a new media context by linking the OSL theory to digital music consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Musical Language of Italian Opera, 1813-1859" by William Rothstein is a comprehensive analysis of nineteenth-century Italian opera, focusing on composers like Rossini, Verdi, Bellini, and Donizetti. It explores the theoretical and historical foundations of Italian opera, challenging traditional methods of analysis and comparing them to German-centric theories. The book fills a significant void in the study of Italian opera and provides valuable insights for musicians, scholars, and students. The review also praises "Music in the Life of Verdi: A Study of the Operas" by John R. Rothstein for its nuanced analyses of Verdi's operas and references to earlier studies of Italian opera. Additionally, "Easily Slip into Another World: A Life in Music" by Henry Threadgill and Brent Hayes Edwards is described as the first book devoted to Threadgill, highlighting his notable career in jazz and his emphasis on defying expectations and the importance of listening to music. Both books are recommended for students and scholars studying music theory and history. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the controversy surrounding the term "tonality" in music theory. The author argues against the proposal to remove the term from the theoretical lexicon, stating that while the concept of tonality has been tainted by racist ideologies in the past, it is not the sole factor responsible for perpetuating racism in music institutions. The author also addresses the historical origins of tonality and its evolution over time, highlighting the diverse meanings and interpretations associated with the term. Ultimately, the author suggests that instead of eliminating the term, music theorists should use it carefully and thoughtfully in their scholarship and teaching. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines the issue of racism and white indifference in the field of music theory. It discusses the lack of representation and inclusion of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in scholarly publications, which perpetuates white supremacy and limits the diversity of perspectives in the music academy. The concept of tonality is explored as a representation of whiteness and white supremacy, with the suggestion that it should be reevaluated due to its historical and racial implications. The article also introduces the Russian term "lād" as an alternative to tonality, which is used more inclusively in Russian music theory. The author argues for a reimagining of music theory that is inclusive and respectful of all musical peoples, and highlights the challenges faced by BIPOC scholars in the field. [Extracted from the article]

Tonality is one of the most important concepts in music theory, determining how music theorists organize music institutionally (in curricula, conferences, etc.) and conceptually. For François-Joseph Fétis, who first popularized the term in the nineteenth century, it was a central component of his biologically racist, white-supremacist music theory. This essay argues that the term as it is used today perpetuates this racism by associating a mix of musical features and human perceptual capacities with a Eurocentric historical classification, and by maintaining a teleological evolution narrative based on the European classical music tradition. It argues, furthermore, that scholarship can do away with the terms tonality and tonal music and would profit from instead using more specific terminology for musical features like tonics, major and minor keys, scale degrees, consonance, and functional harmony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship between music theory, musicology, and racism. It argues that musicology has been racist in its exclusion of American Black idioms and its failure to acknowledge the dominance of these genres in Western music history. The article also examines the racist ideologies embedded in the concepts of tonality and its development by figures like François-Joseph Fétis and Heinrich Schenker. It suggests that tonality's hierarchical orientation and demands for eradicating dissonant elements resonate with a racist agenda. The author advocates for a reevaluation of tonality and the adoption of approaches that consider other aspects of music, such as time, affect, and bodily experience. [Extracted from the article]

This article argues that the term "tonality" should be abandoned as a concept for musical phenomena due to its problematic nature. The author acknowledges its historical significance but believes that abandoning it would not mean losing the theoretical insights gained. Instead, it presents an opportunity to create a more inclusive and socially diverse musical space. The article discusses the Eurocentric biases associated with tonality and suggests that changing our theoretical language may help address these biases. It proposes six categories that contribute to a sense of tonalness and raises questions about the Eurocentric bias in the concept of key. The text also highlights the importance of considering parameters beyond pitch in analyzing tonal music and emphasizes the social aspect of tonality. [Extracted from the article]

In the article "Undisciplining Totality," Jason Yust argues for the removal of tonality as a central concept in music education and scholarship. Yust contends that tonality is closely tied to white supremacist structures and that its focus has resulted in a neglect of other important musical parameters. The article also highlights the lack of diversity in music theory curricula and the need for a more inclusive approach that encompasses different musical styles and repertoires. Yust's arguments are supported by a literature review and additional research by other scholars. The article encourages readers to question long-standing organizing principles in the field of music theory. [Extracted from the article]

This article is about J. R. R. Tolkien's adaptation of Pythagorean musical elements in the 'Song of the Ainur' of the Silmarillion. It details Tolkien's use of Pythagorean dissonance, along with what that amounts to in terms of musical theory, and explores the epistemological origins of the concept and how it found its way into this work of fiction. On the latter point, Platonism, Neoplatonism, and early Christian theology are considered. This includes the likes of Prudentius, pseudo-Dionysius, Augustine, and Aquinas, among others. The article observes that Tolkien has deliberately chosen a somewhat esoteric element of Pythagorean musical theory, albeit highly relevant to his own historical context, in order to explore concepts of morality along with the traditional, Christian conundrum of predestination vs. free will. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an attempt of curricula improvement, many seek to create new approaches that would help develop the necessary knowledge within a shorter period of time. The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of interactive piano teaching in distance learning. The paper suggests new learning approaches to interactive piano instruction. The training programme is based on interactive groups, the Flowkey application, technical and psychological aspects, improvisation, changing role positions, and the development of self-control. The programme results showed that 83% out of 120 students demonstrated a high level of knowledge, and only 2% showed a low level, which was explained by absenteeism. 28% out of 120 students learned to recognise melodies, 27% improved rhythm and tempo, 25% gained two-handed playing skills, and 20% out of 120 students developed improvisation skills. The results have scientific value for researchers engaged in studying various training programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, historians have discussed the relevance of the nineteenth-century mathematical discipline of projective geometry for early modern classical logic in relation to possible solutions to semantic problems facing it. In this paper, I consider Hegel's Science of Logic as an attempt to provide a projective geometrical alternative to the implicit Euclidean underpinnings of Aristotle's syllogistic logic. While this proceeds via Hegel's acceptance of the role of the three means of Pythagorean music theory in Plato's cosmology, the relevance of this can be separated from any fanciful "music of the spheres" approach by the fact that common mathematical structures underpin both music theory and projective geometry, as suggested in the name of projective geometry's principal invariant, the "harmonic cross-ratio". Here, I demonstrate this common structure in terms of the phenomenon of "inverse foreshortening". As with recent suggestions concerning the relevance of projective geometry for logic, Hegel's modifications of Aristotle respond to semantic problems of his logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review provides a summary and discussion of the 'Music Literacy' strand (day 1) of the Society for Music Analysis's OxMAC conference (University of Oxford, July 2023). The review highlights how the ever-expanding range of musics currently studied in higher education calls for an increasingly multifaceted understanding of the term 'music literacy'. This was explored at the conference through presentations focusing on diverse aspects of music literacy, including its relationship with music technology, popular music, music pedagogy, musical hermeneutics and musical traditions grounded in the concepts of vibration and timbre. The review contextualises these presentations by outlining how they relate to wider current debates within music education at a variety of levels as well as the agenda of the Society for Music Analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This multi-authored article offers accounts of how programmes for teaching music theory within the Western-notated tradition were created in two UK higher education institutions. These accounts are followed by two more discursive reflections on the nature and purpose of music education today, advocating the importance of listening skills and inclusive pedagogies. The article is framed by an introduction and conclusion contextualising the issues raised in relation to a selection of prior contributions to Music Education Research and comparing approaches to music literacy and theory teaching as represented in recent music theory conferences in the UK and the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article emphasizes the need to integrate music-making into music theory classes to enhance student engagement and relevance. It discusses challenges faced by a student teacher in a music theory class and proposes a constructivist pedagogy centered around active music-making, drawing on contemporary popular music and historical traditions.

The Freudian notion of repetition compulsion is marked, in its inaugural conception, by a negative connotation, that of a return of the same, which does not give the measure of the multiple facets of this register. Raising repetition to the rank of one of the four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis, Lacan uses Kierkegaard's text entitled "La reprise" to point out the renewal, of fecundity that the movement towards repetition can induce. This article aims at underlining how much the creative dimension of repetition finds a particularly vivid illustration in the field of music, a domain that makes regular and varied use of the term "reprise". This article takes up themes deployed in a series of conferences during the academic year 2021/2022 at the École Pratique des Hautes Études en Psychopathologie, associating musicians – Vincent Ségal – psychoanalysts -Marc Morali, Corinne Tyszler, Olivier Douville- and music lovers, Mario Choueiry, and leaving a large place to musical listening. This study, beyond a reading of the repetition as an expression of the death pulsion, studies the way in which we can hear and put to work this Freudian notion through its manifestation in the musical register. It is a question here of exploring the question of repetition in the sphere of popular music but also in jazz and classical music in order to apprehend its articulation with the very movement of creation. In so-called popular music, and mainly in rock music, the cover consists, not in imitating but in proposing a version, more or less faithful or distant, of an original piece. Listening to this cover causes a particular satisfaction in the listener who can identify it. Usually considered as a tribute to the pioneers or the mark of a debt towards the elders, the cover version is however above all an attempt, impregnated with hostility, to erase the origin. This is how covers come to not only supplant the original pieces but also to repress them, to make them totally forgotten. Jazz is also attached to covering standards, not only as a necessary learning exercise, but as a way for those who try to impose their own style and thus gain recognition. The cover of standards can be the occasion to make hear the blind spot of a piece of origin or to make resurface a trait of identity unknown to itself. Within the context of classical music, the progression of a work is also regularly done through the repetition of a theme that always knows how to renew itself through slight displacements. Finally, the contemporary repetitive music pushes, perhaps to its height, this creativity inherent to the effects of the repetition. Pleasure, repression, origin, hostility, imitation and identification: these terms are closely linked to psychoanalysis, which only uses the concept of "repetition". It is however usual to hear oneself on the divan taking up the story of a dream that of a memory, or even to take up a new slice of analysis. This opens up the opportunity to question the creative function of repetition within analytic practice. Introducing the musical dimension of repetition into the analytic treatment leads us to question the specific talent it implies in the practitioner. Repetition only becomes creative through a shift in interpretation that can be found in the poetry of language, where the practitioner gains by approaching musical interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the first part of the research project 'Musical interaction in preschool' will be presented and analysed. The purpose of the study was to examine which musical interactive activities are expressed in everyday preschool environments and how these types of interactions can be related to children's development and learning. Through observations of planned lessons and children's free play in different milieus, the interactions have been mapped. Using Merleau-Ponty's lifeworld phenomenology, various interactions reflect embodied education patterns as a part of preschool cultural canonisation. The result shows that the children in the study have a good ability to interact musically but that this resource is less utilised in the planned music teaching. The analyses were based on learning strategies in music with a child-first perspective which links back to lifeworld phenomenological perspectives of meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

George Russell conceptualized his Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization as a theory of tonality. He includes an analysis of the opening of Maurice Ravel's "Forlane" from Le Tombeau de Couperin in the fourth and final edition of his text to demonstrate what his theory—"The Concept"—offers for the analysis of Western art music. This article takes Russell's claim seriously, discusses The Concept as a theory of tonality, and extends Russell's analysis to the entirety of "Forlane." I also connect Russell's work to broader Black cultural practices and their socio-political resonances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the relationship between community music and scholarly research within the context of Italian community life, cultural politics, conditions and history. Community music theory and practice activities provide participants with opportunities for growth, development and collaboration, ranging from specific musical skills to social and cultural outreach and the positive challenge of increasing self-awareness and empowerment. After discussing the links between community music projects and social work, music therapy or arts education, the article locates community music in the landscape of Italian music research and, especially, musicology. It summarizes the current state of community music and the efforts to create an Italian network of community music scholars as well as establish a dialogue with similar international networks. The aim is to create the conditions for the establishment of an academic and theoretical framework for community music in Italy that can work as a pathway between music for social change, musicology and music education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the digitization of public musicology, particularly in response to online debates such as "Schenkergate" and the emergence of public music theory in digital spaces. Topics include the shift from academic discussions on social media to user-generated digital content platforms such as YouTube, Reddit, and Vox, as well as the challenges faced by public musicology in entering the digital content space despite the growth of public music theory discussions online.

The article discusses Philip Ewell's book, "On Music Theory," which has generated both positive and negative reactions. The author praises Ewell's ability to engage readers with his storytelling and provocative style. The article focuses on Ewell's claims about the racist views of Heinrich Schenker and their influence on his music theory. The author refrains from commenting on broader cultural and political contexts and instead examines the "infection thesis" proposed by Ewell. The article aims to provide a balanced assessment of Ewell's arguments and their implications for music theory. [Extracted from the article]

This study examines the learning processes that take place when upper secondary students apply and generate theories while drawing on their preferred music and writing songs of their own. One music theory teacher and two researchers collaborated to design an emergent sequence of lessons focusing on students' interests, questions and creative work. Interpretive and musical analysis of students' progress suggests that learning to theorise through modes and sounds from popular music was experienced as motivating, involved similar difficulties as traditional major/minor-based approaches, and resulted in original songs that the students enjoyed and were proud to perform for their peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The anhemitonic pentatonic scale is fundamental to Chinese music theory, and so is the concept of xuangong: transformations from one pentatonic scale to another. The vocabulary related to these transformations is as diverse as the musical contexts in which it appears; similar moves can be described using a multitude of perspectives, resulting in overlapping and, at times, confusing terminology. To describe xuangong transformations, I adopt the precise language of signature transformations to enrich, complement, and shed light on Chinese music theory. The four basic xuangong transformations are chromatic transposition (C, D, E, G, A → G, A, B, D, E), pentatonic transposition (C, D, E, G, A → G, A, C, D, E), bian-directed transformation (C, D, E, G, A → B, D, E, G, A), and qing-directed transformation (C, D, E, G, A → C, D, F, G, A). The last two are adapted from classical Chinese music theory, and they are analogous to key signature transformations in Western music. This paper discusses the structure of xuangong transformations, their application in Chinese music theory, and their analytical use in examples spanning Confucian court music, traditional instrumental music, Cantopop, and Chinese new music, both tonal and atonal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Huldrich Zwingli held a highly censorious view of music in private and public worship. It has often been noted that his stance was almost the polar opposite of that of Martin Luther. A more specific disagreement between Zwingli and Luther, however, seems to have gone largely unnoticed in the vast modern literature on music and theology in sixteenth-century reformation movements, namely that of the ontology of music as sounding, sensory object vis-à-vis music as a silently imagined and grasped (ideal) entity. A number of passages from Zwingli's writings suggest a rather peculiar version of the distinction between body and spirit as regards aural perception in general, and music in particular. The present study scrutinizes what seems to be Zwingli's arguments against sound and music as sensory elements in conflict with the ideal realm of the highest order of music theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present research is to determine the most effective technological approaches that positively affect the process of preschool music education. This study builds on an empirical approach through a survey. It involved a total number of 118 preschoolers and 20 teachers. This research also implied conducting data comparison using the Student's coefficient. This study implied determining the level of knowledge among preschoolers before and after the implementation of a modified training program. Hence, it showed that the average (43%) and low (38%) levels of knowledge prevail in conventional music preschool education. Consequently, the researchers developed a training program to improve the aforementioned indicators. The most significant elements of this program focused on the emotional and psychological component, technical skills, and knowledge assessment through applying modern technologies. This study presupposed determining the relationship between the obtained levels of knowledge among preschoolers upon the completion of the modified training program. Using the Student's coefficient provided the following results: it showed that a high level of knowledge has significant advantages over the rest of the acquired levels and does not correlate with others. The training program modified under the present study contributed to the development of communicative and logical skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Silesia in the early modern era is an area with a historically unprecedented role, not only in relation to the tradition of Protestant churches, but also Catholic one. A particularly important cultural player there was the Society of Jesus, which used a variety of cultural strategies in its mission. The present article is a systematic review of these forms of activity, organized according to the chronological units. These time categories correspond to the music–theoretical narratives, to the method of meditation codified in Spiritual Exercises, and also to Ludwik Bielawski's zonal theory of musical time. It seems that Silesian Jesuits consciously and consistently used the music performances in the religious culture they animated at all levels of these 'time zones'. Recurrence and periodicity supported the established social habitus and regulated rhythms of the community's cycles of various religious activities. A natural pretext for this regulation was the liturgical cycle, including new elements to the inherited tradition. Elements of this cyclicity may be found in all forms the of Jesuit repertoire and music genres. The community's sacred time was measured out with recurrent performances of music repertoire and stage performances, creating together the rhythm of human life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the unique experience of directing choirs at the Perkins School for the Blind, emphasizing the practical techniques developed over decades of working in this distinct environment. Topics covered include the school's supportive music program catering to a diverse student body, the audition process focusing onpitch accuracy, and innovative rehearsal techniques that incorporate music theory concepts through rote teaching and vocal warmups.

Student motivation is frequently an issue in general music classrooms, and many long-standing theories designed to increase motivation have the opposite effect. This article introduces Self-Determination Theory, first developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, as a theory of human motivation. A key element of Self-Determination Theory is the concept of three basic human psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. This article details each need and provides suggestions for direct applications to the general music classroom. Through the fulfillment of these needs, teachers can encourage and support a students' engagement in musical activities and personal growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Josef Kotek (1928–2009) was one of the founders of Czech musicological research into popular music. His professional career is mainly connected with the musicological workplace of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and later the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, where he worked from 1962 to 1998. Kotek’s career, as well as the thematic focus of his research, was significantly determined by the cultural and political situation in the Czech lands at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, when the appeal of Marxist musicology to research so-called mass/applied genres combined with the emergence of modern popular music and its wide social appeal. Kotek’s research was fundamentally influenced by the central project of the Institute for Musicology of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, which was assigned to the Institute by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in the early 1960s and which sought to provide comprehensive treatment of 20th century Czech musical culture, including so-called mass/applied genres. In this sense, from the beginning of his career, Kotek developed research activities in three main areas: (a) the historiography of Czech popular music, anchored in rigorous source research; (b) the sociology of popular music, focusing on questions of the development of popular music reception and taste, with an overlap with practical issues of musical life and music education; and (c) the general theory of popular music, including definitional, terminological, classification and other issues. Kotek’s lifelong work concentrating exclusively on issues of popular music in the 1990s resulted in the remarkable book synthesis Dějiny české populární hudby a zpěvu [The History of Czech Popular Music and Singing] (1994, 1998). The present study examines the above on the basis of an extensive analysis of available sources and takes into account the international situation, in which the institutionalization of popular music research occurred under different circumstances and with some delay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between performance and analysis has been a consistent point of discussion in music discourse for at least the past four decades. This article uses Johannesburg Etude No. 1 (2012) by South African composer Clare Loveday as a case study to explore ways in which searches for musical meaning may proceed from insights generated in and through a performer's body – how bodily knowledge may become an entry point into music analysis. I draw on musicologists Nicholas Cook and Suzanne Cusick to establish frameworks through which performance may be approached not as an 'end point' of structural music analysis, but rather as the primary point of entry into analytical endeavours. I offer a 'bodily analysis' of Johannesburg Etude No. 1, which I first performed in 2014 as part of the Cape Town public arts festival Infecting the City. This analysis is connected to notions of an 'urban imaginary', an affect which I suggest is characteristic of an African metropolis such as Johannesburg.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beethoven's lessons in Vienna with Haydn, Albrechtsberger, and Salieri are well known, but considerably less has been written about his earlier studies in Bonn. This article examines what Beethoven may have learned from two treatises that Gustav Nottebohm (1873) connected to Beethoven's Bonn manuscripts: Johann Philipp Kirnberger's Die wahren Grundsätze zum Gebrauch der Harmonie (1773) and Georg Joseph Vogler's Gründe der Kuhrpfälzischen Tonschule in Beyspielen (1776, revised in 1778). I corroborate the evidence that links these treatises to Beethoven, analyze and categorize their contents, and suggest some parallels between materials in these treatises and Beethoven's Bonn works including his "Elector" piano sonatas (WoO 47; 1783) and his two unusual preludes for piano or organ (op. 39; 1789, published in 1803). From what we know of Beethoven's studies in Vienna, several pillars of standard eighteenthcentury musical education are missing: the study of solfeggio, thoroughbass, and harmony. This article makes the case that Beethoven encountered this training in Bonn. From Kirnberger's Grundsätze, he would have learned about the fundamental bass, harmonic function and progression, and the principles of prolongation. In Vogler's book, he would have encountered solfeggio exercises, common thoroughbass patterns including the Rule of the Octave, invertible sequences, diminution patterns, modulations schemes to every key, the fundamental bass, and more. Although these two treatises were not the only books Beethoven likely studied in Bonn, they offer probable windows into his formative lessons in music theory, improvisation, and composition. There is hardly any treatise which could be too learned for me. I have not the slightest pretension to what is properly called erudition. Yet from my childhood I have striven to understand what the better and wiser people of every age were driving at in their works. Shame on an artist who does not consider it his duty to achieve at least as much. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modernist concepts of temporality ("non-linear time") are variously cross-related to conventional concepts and qualities of time ("linear time") (Kramer 1988, 20-65). This is exemplified by Salvatore Sciarrino's creative method, which reconciles more conventional elements of discursive organicist design (processes of accumulation, multiplication, and transformation) with strategies of rupture and formal deterioration ("little bang," "window form"). This unique mixing of "linear" and "non-linear" strategies is staged within a soundscape of mostly minimal dynamics and reduced activity at the edge of silence, sensitizing the listener toward micro-alterations. This article introduces key strategies in Sciarrino's temporal form based on analytical investigations of three works that differ substantially in duration, density, and genre: Quintettino no. 1 (1976, ca. 3 min.) for clarinet and string quartet, Efebo con radio (1981, ca. 11 min.) for voice and orchestra, and the music theater work Da gelo a gelo: 100 scene con 65 poesie (2006, ca. 110 min.). My analyses are framed by a discussion of the relationships between musical beginnings or endings and constellations of duration and density. Sciarrino's works prominently feature a semanticization of musical material by metaphorical, agential, or paratextual means that is also evident in his interpretation of Anton Webern's orchestral piece op. 6, no. 4 (1909). The analyses demonstrate how the composer's explicit and implicit semanticization of his material allows the listener to understand Sciarrino's works as reimaginations of conventional formal functions in which the familiar appears unfamiliar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does it make sense to refer to musical sounds as "animated beings"? What does it mean to treat music as an essential part of our sonic reality? How do Sciarrino's music and his general aesthetic, both of which he describes as organic or ecological, respond to theories of organicism, ecological approaches to musical perception, and ties between the human and nonhuman worlds? In this article, I attempt to weave together a framework that facilitates fruitful answers to these questions. The starting points for this theorization of Sciarrino's organicism are Holly Watkins's (2017, 2018) biotic aesthetics of music and Eric Clarke's (2005) ecological approach to the perception of musical meaning, which emphasize the role of the listener and question the stance that separates meaning from form, culture from nature, and the human from the non-human. Through analyses of examples from works including Lohengrin, Azione invisibile (1982-84), Il cerchio tagliato dei suoni (1997), and Studi per l'intonazione del mare (2000), I argue that Sciarrino's music and thinking venture into a holistic reinvention of organicism. A key aspect of this organicism is its formal affinity with behaviors characteristic of systems of chaos, including self-similarity, circularity, and turbulence. In addition, I illustrate how the wide-ranging analogies that Sciarrino's music draws to the world of animate and inanimate beings involve both formal issues and the bodily, performative, and societal dimensions of music-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neo-Taoists in third-century China believed that music should not be too emotive, as this resulted in an imbalance that disrupted the natural human state. This perspective is congruent with the older Taoist tenet that one should relinquish socially constructed desires in order to follow the Tao or "pathway." The epitome of Neo-Taoist music aesthetics can be found in philosopher and guqin player Ji Kang's thesis that Music Has in It Neither Sorrow Nor Joy. According to Ji, music itself is harmonious and qi-preserving, whereas listener emotions deplete one's vitality or qi. Despite many scholars drawing parallels between Ji's and Hanslick's aesthetics, these similarities are superficial in nature and obscure a fundamental divergence. In this paper, I argue that whereas Hanslick's theory reflects the "apolitical" positivism of mid-century Austria, Ji's thesis of "pure" music connotes his political retreat from a corrupt court he despised. Recent research in Wilfing 2018 shows how Austrian positivism was a clinical ideology intended to be the opposite of the fiery revolutionary ideals thought to be championed by Enlightenment philosophers. Seemingly in parallel, and as part of a larger move to renounce socially constructed desires (e.g., for wealth and fame) and mores, Ji Kang turned towards a musical metaphysics of cosmic harmony that connotes his resistance against assimilation to an unjust social order. The political connotations of Ji Kang's metaphysics suggest we pause in considering contemporary European and North American musicological discourses that are well-intentioned but are often inappropriately universalized within their own contexts, not to mention other geographies. Upon recognizing that even metaphysics can have a social dimension, we might perhaps begin to dismantle neo-Kantian ethical universality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heavy metal scholarship affirms the genre to be dominated by male performers and points to a preponderance of patriarchal values and hypermasculinity, with performances contributing to an aesthetic production of misogyny, power, and intensity. The notion of heavy metal as a hegernonic discourse has been queried, however, by recent scholars who reveal metal to support a range of gendered and sexualized subjectivities. This paper exa mines how a specific metal vocalist --Tatiana Shmayluk (of the Ukrainian band Jinjer) --navigates the discourse of progressive metal to challenge hegemoniq nouns and create space for alternative female subjectivities. Jinjer's defiance of genre bou daries and Shmayluk's metal vocal expression emerge through a multi-faceted dialogue with a array of cultural references. To illuminate the unique blend of referentiality and creative expression within Jinjer's work, this article offers analyses of three music videos: "I Speak Astronomy," "Perennial," and "Pit of Consciousness." With the aim of understanding how Shmayluk navigates the discursive space of metal music, the selected songs are situated in relation to the subgenres to which they refer, and specifically to male-fronted metal bands that mobilize similar thematic materials. The dose readings of these music videos are grounded in the existing analytic literature on metal music, with consideration of genre-based compositional, stylistic, and expressive elements to unveil Shmayluk's challenges to the constraints upon "femininity" in metal music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seeking to elucidate aspects of harmonic practice that originated in contrapuntal patterns, this article traces a specific set of voice-leading configurations in which the generative roles of dissonance, counterpoint, and harmonic progression are blurred. These configurations, originating in early eighteenth-century practice, feature upper-voice suspensions, which are notable for their interlocking qualities and for their compatibility with an extended range of thoroughbass patterns and bass motions (Harrison 2003). Segments of such patterns were partially assimilated into later compositional practice and appeared in treatises on fundamental-bass and scale-step systems of harmony, but these configurations revealed a degree of friction between counterpoint-based idioms and the emerging harmonic theories attempting to explain them according to singular principles. The continued appearance of these configurations in subsequent compositional practice raises the question of what aspects of dissonance and counterpoint have been both embedded in harmonic practice and increasingly subordinated to chord structure in the harmonic theories that stretch from Rameau to Schenker. This dialectical engagement between historical theory and compositional practice offers a critique of our inherited harmonic theories, exposing competing conceptions of dissonance and discrepancies over its autonomy relative to harmonic principles. Tracing this history also reveals that the essential connections among rhythm/meter, dissonance treatment, and harmonic progression that are clearly present in eighteenth-century practice--Kirnberger's "rhythmic harmony" (Aldrich 1970)--become increasingly subordinated to harmonic principles in nineteenth-century theory. The historical path of embedded dissonance appears to exemplify Adorno's notion of sedimentation, which offers several interesting disciplinary and aesthetic conclusions about harmonic theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sciarrino's writings describe a compositional philosophy that prizes multidimensionality and spatiotemporal discontinuity (1998, 2004). Yet his simultaneous allegiance to teleology, holism, and fractal hierarchies reveals an underlying unifying organicism with which these qualities may initially seem to conflict. I take Sciarrino's 1999 piano concerto Recitativo oscuro as a case study for examining the composer's gestural organicism and its various contradictions and double meanings. First, close analysis of the opening piano solo demonstrates how seemingly contradictory aesthetic priorities--organic unity and temporal multiplicity--co-exist within a single passage. Drawing from Kramer's (1988) concept of "gestural time," Hatten's (2004) theory of gesture, segmentation theories, and scholarship on intensity and temporal function, I show how temporal multiplicity in the piano solo arises through conflict between gestural energetics and contextual segmentation. I then expand my analysis to the full concerto, arguing that the orchestra's cyclic and naturalistic sonic ecosystem causes the piano gestures to take on representative functions in addition to their energetic syntax, creating what Sciarrino (2001) calls "dimensional intermittence" as they reference distant temporal realms both within and beyond the concerto. I conclude by arguing that while the intensity profile of the earliest gestures and phrases is eventually reproduced across the form of the entire work, the concerto's form nevertheless resists reductive understanding. Instead, listeners are invited to hear form through the complex mechanics and idiosyncrasies of "gestural behavior" (Sciarrino 1998). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of Domenico Scarlatti in nineteenth-century Spanish music has frequently been acknowledged. Likewise, comparisons between Isaac Albéniz's and Scarlatti's writing have been recurrent in Albéniz scholarship. Most of this literature, while referring to biographical circumstances, has mentioned their emulation of the guitar, their recourse to Spanish folklore, certain harmonic effects, and the use of the Phrygian mode and the so-called cadencia andaluza. However, phrase structural and formal procedures common to both composers have remained unnoticed, as, for instance, Albéniz's use of the 'type 2' sonata as a way of emulating Scarlatti. The aim of this article is to offer some much-needed justification for such comparisons between Albéniz's and Scarlatti's music, devoting particular attention to Albéniz's Iberia. The article also serves to put Albéniz at the centre of ongoing debates in the field of music theory, such as the application of 'galant' schemata to later music and in particular disputes about the interpretation of nineteenth-century sonata form from the perspective of eighteenth-century practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

William Byrd published his famous eight 'Reasons briefely set down by th'auctor, to perswade every one to learne to sing' in his 1588 Psalmes, sonets and songs. The most important reason to learn to sing, according to Byrd, is that 'it is a knowledge easely taught, and quickly learned, wher there is a good Master, and an apt Scoler'. The 'knowledge' of which Byrd speaks is not only the mechanics of singing but also, or perhaps chiefly, the musical knowledge necessary to sing: the rudiments of musical literacy. This article unpacks Byrd's claims about music education in Tudor England, placing them in the context of print culture and educational practices. It first considers the options for music education available to different social classes and genders, then turns to close study of music theory treatises and other music educational texts printed in 16th-century England. I examine how these printed materials discussed their own role in the process of educating readers, and interrogate their prevailing claims that gaining musical literacy is 'plain' and 'easie', and possible 'without any other help saving this booke'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For much of history, philosophers and theorists have considered the abstract, rational contemplation of music to be the true form of spiritual activity. This has often come at the cost of making the practical aspect of music (which consists of listening, performance, subjective experience, among others) subservient to theory. This paper examines the implications of separating abstract music theory from its practical side and explores where spirituality can be situated. It was not until the nineteenth century, under the influence of Schopenhauer, that a proper unification of music theory and practice truly took on metaphysical and spiritual dimensions. Schopenhauerian metaphysics allowed music to legitimately become a spiritual refuge in the age of positivism, paving the way for projects such as Scriabin's Mysterium. The described tension between theory and practice in Western music will be contrasted with Sufism as a point of comparison. The comparison will illustrate how a spiritual movement like Sufism poses a challenge for musicological research. Additionally, reflecting on the state of current music research, the paper explores how music and musicology of the twentieth century onward fall short of the spiritual aspirations of preceding generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to argue that complementation is an operation similarly fundamental to music theory as transposition and inversion. We focus on studying the chromatic complement mapping that translates diatonic seventh chords into 8-note scales which can also be interpreted as rhythmic beat patterns. Such complements of diatonic seventh chords are of particular importance since they correspond to the scales popularized by the Jazz theorist Barry Harris, as well as to rhythms used in African drum music and Steve Reich's Clapping Music. Our approach enables a systematic study of these scales and rhythms using established theories of efficient voice leading and generalized diatonic scales and chords, in particular the theory of second-order maximally even sets. The main contributions of this research are (1) to explicate the correspondence between voice leadings and rhythmic transformations, (2) to systematize the family of Barry Harris scales, and (3) to describe classes of voice leadings between chords of different cardinality that are invariant under complementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scott Wilson's book, "Scott Walker and the Song of the One-All-Alone," explores the work of musician Scott Walker through an existentialist lens. The author examines Walker's music in chronological order, focusing on themes of silence, emptiness, and isolation. While the book offers insightful interpretations, it lacks clear connections and can be challenging to understand for readers unfamiliar with existential thought. Overall, the book will appeal to fans of Scott Walker and those interested in existential literature. [Extracted from the article]

This research aims to determine the student's knowledge levels in the Department of music education after completing two semesters of Western music theory and practice courses. The study group consisted of 126 students studying in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades of Marmara University Atatürk Faculty of Education, Department of Fine Arts Education, Department of Music Education. The study was designed using a descriptive survey model, and the Western music theory and practice knowledge test and personal information form developed by the researchers were used as data collection tools. The data obtained were analyzed with the help of Kruskall-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests. According to the research results, the fact that the students studying in the Department of music education have taken only two semesters of Western music theory and practice courses shows that they are inadequate in musical hearing, reading and writing skills. In addition, variables such as the type of high school the students graduated from, their level of finding the duration of the course sufficient, and their musical hearing, reading and writing education before starting university revealed that there were significant differences between the total scores of the western music theory and practice course achievement test. This research is considered an important research that can contribute to the existing limited studies and develop a knowledge test to measure the knowledge of students studying in the Department of music education towards Western music theory and practice courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]