scholarly journals Statistical Evolutionary Laws in Music Styles

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eita Nakamura ◽  
Kunihiko Kaneko
Keyword(s):  
Classical Music ◽  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Steady Increase ◽  
Data Generation ◽  
Past Data ◽  
Cultural Feature ◽  
Evolution Of Music ◽  
Stochastic Selection ◽  
Western Classical Music ◽  
Statistical Laws

Abstract If a cultural feature is transmitted over generations and exposed to stochastic selection when spreading in a population, its evolution may be governed by statistical laws and be partly predictable, as in the case of genetic evolution. Music exhibits steady changes of styles over time, with new characteristics developing from traditions. Recent studies have found trends in the evolution of music styles, but little is known about their relations to the evolution theory. Here we analyze Western classical music data and find statistical evolutionary laws. For example, distributions of the frequencies of some rare musical events (e.g. dissonant intervals) exhibit steady increase in the mean and standard deviation as well as constancy of their ratio. We then study an evolutionary model where creators learn their data-generation models from past data and generate new data that will be socially selected by evaluators according to the content dissimilarity (novelty) and style conformity (typicality) with respect to the past data. The model reproduces the observed statistical laws and can make non-trivial predictions for the evolution of independent musical features. In addition, the same model with different parameterization can predict the evolution of Japanese enka music, which is developed in a different society and has a qualitatively different tendency of evolution. Our results suggest that the evolution of musical styles can partly be explained and predicted by the evolutionary model incorporating statistical learning, which can be important for other cultures and future music technologies.

Being True to Works of Music

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Dodd
Keyword(s):  
Work Performance ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Christine Korsgaard ◽  
Historical Authenticity ◽  
Constitutive Norm ◽  
Western Classical Music

This book argues that the so-called ‘authenticity debate’ about the performance of works of Western classical music has tended to focus on a side issue. While much has been written about the desirability (or otherwise) of historical authenticity—roughly, performing works as they would have been performed, under ideal conditions, in the era in which they were composed—the most fundamental norm governing our practice of work performance is, in fact, another kind of kind of authenticity altogether. This is interpretive authenticity: being faithful to the performed work by virtue of evincing a profound, far-reaching, or sophisticated understanding of it. While, in contrast to other performance values, both score compliance authenticity (being true to the work by obeying its score) and interpretive authenticity are valued for their own sake in performance, only the latter is a constitutive norm of the practice in the sense introduced by Christine Korsgaard. This has implications for cases in which the demands of these two kinds of authenticity conflict with each other. In cases of genuine such conflict, performers should sacrifice a little score compliance for the sake of making their performance more interpretively authentic.

scholarly journals Associations Between Music Training and the Dynamics of Writing Music by Hand

2020 ◽  
pp. 102986492097214
Author(s):  
Aurélien Bertiaux ◽  
François Gabrielli ◽  
Mathieu Giraud ◽  
Florence Levé
Keyword(s):  
Classical Music ◽  
Music Notation ◽  
Musical Score ◽  
Music Training ◽  
Video Recordings ◽  
Musical Structures ◽  
Music Recognition ◽  
High Level ◽  
Bottom To Top ◽  
Western Classical Music

Learning to write music in the staff notation used in Western classical music is part of a musician’s training. However, writing music by hand is rarely taught formally, and many musicians are not aware of the characteristics of their musical handwriting. As with any symbolic expression, musical handwriting is related to the underlying cognition of the musical structures being depicted. Trained musicians read, think, and play music with high-level structures in mind. It seems natural that they would also write music by hand with these structures in mind. Moreover, improving our understanding of handwriting may help to improve both optical music recognition and music notation and composition interfaces. We investigated associations between music training and experience, and the way people write music by hand. We made video recordings of participants’ hands while they were copying or freely writing music, and analysed the sequence in which they wrote the elements contained in the musical score. The results confirmed experienced musicians wrote faster than beginners, were more likely to write chords from bottom to top, and they tended to write the note heads first, in a flowing fashion, and only afterwards use stems and beams to emphasize grouping, and add expressive markings.

scholarly journals Linking musical metaphors and emotions evoked by the sound of classical music

2021 ◽  
pp. 030573562199123
Author(s):  
Simon Schaerlaeken ◽  
Donald Glowinski ◽  
Didier Grandjean
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Empirical Method ◽  
Mixed Effects Models ◽  
Musical Meaning ◽  
Linear Mixed Effects ◽  
Generalized Linear Mixed Effects ◽  
Perceptual Characteristics ◽  
Valence And Arousal ◽  
Western Classical Music

Musical meaning is often described in terms of emotions and metaphors. While many theories encapsulate one or the other, very little empirical data is available to test a possible link between the two. In this article, we examined the metaphorical and emotional contents of Western classical music using the answers of 162 participants. We calculated generalized linear mixed-effects models, correlations, and multidimensional scaling to connect emotions and metaphors. It resulted in each metaphor being associated with different specific emotions, subjective levels of entrainment, and acoustic and perceptual characteristics. How these constructs relate to one another could be based on the embodied knowledge and the perception of movement in space. For instance, metaphors that rely on movement are related to emotions associated with movement. In addition, measures in this study could also be represented by underlying dimensions such as valence and arousal. Musical writing and music education could benefit greatly from these results. Finally, we suggest that music researchers consider musical metaphors in their work as we provide an empirical method for it.

The missing fundamentals of harmonic theory: Chord roots and their ambiguity in arrangements of jazz standards

2021 ◽  
pp. 102986492110629
Author(s):  
Richard Parncutt ◽  
Lazar Radovanovic
Keyword(s):  
Classical Music ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Digital Interface ◽  
Psychological Reality ◽  
Jazz Pedagogy ◽  
Virtual Pitch ◽  
Musical Chords ◽  
Original Songs ◽  
Western Classical Music ◽  
Psychological Experiments

Since Lippius and Rameau, chords have roots that are often voiced in the bass, doubled, and used as labels. Psychological experiments and analyses of databases of Western classical music have not produced clear evidence for the psychological reality of chord roots. We analyzed a symbolic database of 100 arrangements of jazz standards (musical instrument digital interface [MIDI] files from midkar.com and thejazzpage.de ). Selection criteria were representativeness and quality.The original songs had been composed in the 1930s and 1950s, and each file had a beat track. Files were converted to chord progressions by identifying tone onsets near beat locations (±10% of beat duration). Chords were classified as triads (major, minor, diminished, suspended) or seventh chords (major–minor, minor, major, half-diminished, diminished, and suspended) plus extra tones. Roots that were theoretically less ambiguous were more often in the bass or (to a lesser extent) doubled. The root of the minor triad was ambiguous, as predicted (conventional root or third). Of the sevenths, the major–minor had the clearest root. The diminished triad was often part of a major–minor seventh chord; the half-diminished seventh, of a dominant ninth. Added notes (“tensions”) tended to minimize dissonance (roughness or inharmonicity). In arrangements of songs from the 1950s, diminished triads and sevenths were less common, and suspended triads more common, relative to the 1930s. Results confirm the psychological reality of chord roots and their specific ambiguities. Results are consistent with Terhardt’s virtual pitch theory and the idea that musical chords emerge gradually from cultural and historic processes. The approach can enrich music theory (including pitch-class set analysis) and jazz pedagogy.

scholarly journals SOM E FÉ: DA PRÁTICA COMUNITÁRIA RELIGIOSA PARA A COMPLEXIDADE DO PENSAMENTO MUSICAL ERUDITO DO ÚLTIMO QUARTEL DO SÉC. XX

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
José Luís Postiga
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
The West ◽  
Communicative Practice ◽  
Musical Concepts ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Western Classical Music

When faced with the artistic-musical concepts developed in the second half of the twentieth century, it is common to observe them from the perspective of the scientific advances they have promoted or resulted from, the abstract organizations in which they are based, the aesthetic principles they create or and almost always fall within the individuality of the interpretation present in the creative act and its representativeness, regardless of the support in which it presents itself. Paradoxically, some of the main classical musical works written in the last quarter of the twentieth century resulted from the musicological study and/or musical representation of concepts, rites, religious practices representative of different cultures of the West and especially the East. In this sense, throughout the present article will be addressed works by composers of Western classical music, such as the case of Jonathan Harvey and Tristan Murail, characteristics of the musical currents that fit, from serialism to spectralism, as well as acoustic and electronic casts, which result. reinterpretations of religious practices of Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as sound behaviors of the communicative practice of peoples, such as the songs and instruments of Tibet and Mongolia.

scholarly journals Performance Anxiety in Western Classical Music: A Malaysian Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-230
Author(s):  
Rita Mardhatillah Binti Umar Rauf ◽  
Faezah Hamdan
Keyword(s):  
Classical Music ◽  
Performance Anxiety ◽  
The Body ◽  
Stage Fright ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
The University ◽  
Western Classical Music ◽  
University Setting ◽  
Symptoms And Signs

Although performance anxiety is a common problem in life, there are only a few studies on this subject in Malaysia. This article presents the expansion to the body of literature on this important relationship between performance anxiety in Western Classical Music. Millions of people suffer and may experience from performance anxiety, which commonly called as ‘stage fright’. Worst of all, it may prevent a musician from doing what they enjoy or quit from performing which can effect the career. The knowledge affecting to symptoms and signs anxiety during adolescence among students could help if possible areas can be highlighted for the mediating and prevention on the subjects which may assist Malaysian youths in the university setting so they can control the emotions and reduce the anxiety

scholarly journals Interdisciplinary Interaction between Music Education and History: Shaping the Musical Preferences in Classical Music of the 20th Century

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerneja Žnidaršič
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Control Group ◽  
History Teachers ◽  
Contemporary Classical Music ◽  
Interdisciplinary Interaction ◽  
Western Classical Music ◽  
Experimental Group

The purpose of the current study was to investigate whether an experimental programme, based on interdisciplinary interactions between music education and history and the implementation of arts and cultural education objectives, could influence pupils’ interest in Western classical music of the 20th century. The programme was designed on the basis of collaborating with music education and history teachers at two Slovenian primary schools and a Slovenian composer. Classes of pupils, aged fourteen and fifteen, were divided into an experimental and a control group. According to the outcome, the pupils in the experimental group showed a higher level of interest in contemporary classical music after the experiment than their peers in the control group. Furthermore, the pupils in the experimental group reported having listened on their initiative, to more classical compositions after the experiment than the pupils in the control group had.

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