Music Composition

No new technology appears in a society without causing changes to that society. Artists instinctively respond to these changes and the potential meanings of the technologies that bring them about. In this way, artists' interest in technology goes beyond the simple desire to possess new tools for artistic expression. Artists serve to prepare society for the invisible changes going on within it by producing artworks in response to the mechanisms of change. This paper discusses the authors' approaches to using concepts from artificial life in their musical works, which are basically of two kinds -artificial worlds producing music as an output, and interactive compositional tools using evolutionary algorithms to generate music and sound. It also provides a brief cultural context for these works.

Complete transcription and reconstruction of the canon a13 for Christ and his Twelve Disciples on the Apostles Creed. This piece is found in both the Eton Choirbook and the Baldwin Manuscript. This edition contained both the fully realized canon as well as a modern reconstruction of the original monophonic version of the canon, as found in the manuscripts.

For a recording with a score animation see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBu66rLAv7I

Performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt-7n6z9lQ8

The doctrine you desire,
absolute, perfect,
dogma that alone provides wisdom,
does not exist.

Nor should you long
for a perfect doctrine....

Rather, you should long
for the perfection
of yourself.

Truth reveals itself
in enigma;
let us approach it
with wonder and awe
as diviners of its mystery.

(text adapted in part from Hermann Hesse's "Glass Bead Game" and Gene Roddenberry)

Success in marketing classical music depends largely on three key factors: the size and status of the CD release label; the status and image of the performers and composers; and the repertoire. This paper reports from a project that involved a small, independent Australian label, performers little-known beyond their academic work, and newly written music by Australian composers. The researchers expected it to be difficult to get airplay, recognition and sales, and they responded by turning to the idea of the concept album. The project looked at the concept album as a way of offering classical composers and performers new ways of programming works, ordering CD tracks, and placing their music into the listening community. We begin with discussion of the concept album in popular music and similar shapes in classical music and then introduce four recent projects of newly composed classical music: Australia East and West – new music for viola and piano (forthcoming 2015); Childhood in Mu...

For Hermann Schroeder (1904 - 1984) – German composer, conductor, organist, and pedagogue – music was a "practical" commitment to the "mandatory inheritance" from Bach. When asked what composers he considered “modern leading figures”, his list would hardly be considered “modern” by contemporary standards, citing predominantly Paul Hindemith and Max Reger. Seeming unquestionably old-fashioned, his music is typically characterized as Neoclassical, especially when compared to his prominent avant-garde peers and modernist predecessors. However, rather than merely attempting to mimic or return to aesthetic precepts associated with Classicism, Schroeder saw himself in a continuing lineage, able to look both forward and backward while interacting with and reacting to his contemporaries to create an eclectic yet internally cohesive modern musical language. In what ways has Schroeder synthesized old and new styles in his music? What particularly in his music is “modern” in mid-20th century Germany and even today? Schroeder’s concert and chamber oeuvre composed during the 1950s and thereafter form a repertoire of music that demonstrates his commitment to recasting sounds, styles, and forms of the past. Through examination of some of the pieces from this artistically productive and mature period in Schroeder’s life, not only will it become apparent that he is worthy of the further scrutiny of American scholars, but also the label “modern”.

Synopsis

How should we understand children's creativity? This fascinating collection of international research offers fresh perspectives on children's creative processes and the expression of their creative imagination through dramatic play, stories, artwork, dance, music and conversation. Drawing on a range of research evidence from innovative educational initiatives in a wide variety of countries, Exploring Children's Creative Narratives develops new theoretical and practical insights that challenge traditional thinking about children's creativity. The chapters, written by well-respected international contributors: offer new conceptual and interpretive frameworks for understanding children's creativity contest conventional discourses about the origins and nature of creativity challenge the view that young children's creativity can only be judged in terms of their creative output explore the significance children themselves attribute to their creative activity argue the need for a radical reappraisal of the influence of the sociocultural context on children's creative expression discuss the implications of this research in relation to teacher education and curriculum design. This broad yet coherent compilation of research on creativity in childhood is essential reading for students, researchers and policy makers in early childhood as well as for Early Years professionals with a particular interest in creativity.

Klama, for mixed choir, live electronics & prerecorded sounds, has its origins in the ritual lament of Southern Peloponnese (Greece); a "polyphony" composed of improvised monodies (moirolóya), epodes, crying, screams and monologues, accompanied by ritual gestures. By its acoustic violence the lament can be considered an alteration of vocality which affects simultaneously tonality, timbre and language. Klama has been developed in three levels, a nexus where vocal writing interacts with electroacoustics and live electronics, the latter seen as a metaphore of the inherent vocal alterations on the lament. In this paper we will show : 1) how the compositional material derived from the voice in oral and byzantine church tradition is explored for the choir and electronic writing; 2) how the three levels of Klama, acoustic, electroacoustic & live electronics interact through the act of composition and by means of the technological tools (Open Music, Max/Msp, Audio Sculpt).

With more than a dozen number one singles, multiple Grammy wins and nominations, and Songwriter of the Year Award from BMI, the 26-year-old producer and songwriter Benny Blanco has ensured his place in the history of popular music. Some of his hits include Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream,” and “California Gurls”, Maroon 5’s "Moves Like Jagger,” and “Payphone," Britney Spears’ “Circus,” Taio Cruz’s "Dynamite," Ke$ha’s “TiK ToK,” and Gym Class Heroes’ "Stereo Hearts." Blanco’s remarkable success at such a young age is matched only by his humility and the maturity of his understanding of the post millennial songwriting and production process in the contemporary popular music milieu in which he occupies a central position.

The following is an edited transcription of a presentation given by Blanco in which he delved into his songwriting and production techniques using examples from stems of his hit recordings and by answering audience questions. The presentation was given at the Sheffield Institute for the Recording Arts, Phoenix, MD., USA, November 10, 2012. It was arranged and (very lightly) moderated by Richard James Burgess for the Washington DC chapter of the Recording Academy’s Producer and Engineer Wing for which he was, contemporaneously, its co-chair.

Music is a powerful cultural medium. The volume explores the varied roles that music plays in human culture and society, and its unique symbolic and communicative properties. Contributors discuss Richard Wagner, Bob Dylan, John Cage, Eric Burdon, and Igor Stravinsky. From electronic and inner-city DIY to world music and rock concerts, the book looks at music’s part in creating the human sense of place, space, transcendence and identity. Philosophers, cultural thinkers, and sociologists collaborate to explain the exhilaration and fascination that human beings experience when they listen to music.

Table of Contents

Volume Foreword vii
Chapter One Introduction: Philosophical and Cultural Theories
of Music
Eduardo De La Fuente and Peter Murphy

Chapter Two Modern Hermeneutics and the Presentation
of Opera
Agnes Heller

Chapter Three Algo-Rhythm and Mello-dy: A Consideration of
the Relationship Between Technology and the Embodied
Performance of Music
Daniel Black

Chapter Four Bob Dylan Ain’t Talking: One Man’s Vast Comic
Adventure in American Music, Dramaturgy, and Mysticism
Peter Murphy

Chapter Five Music and Religion: Reflections on Cultural
Secularization
David Roberts

Chapter Six Prophet and Priest, Ascetic and Mystic: Towards
a Cultural Sociology of the Twentieth Century Composer
Eduardo De La Fuente

Chapter Seven Collective Effervescence, Numinous Experience or
Proto-Religious Phenomena? Moshing with Durkheim,
Schleiermacher and Otto
Mark Jennings

Chapter Eight Music as a Space of Possibilities 129
John Rundell

Chapter Nine Some Suggestions for a Phenomenology
of Rhythm
Stuart Grant

Chapter Ten The Paradox of “Do-it-Yourself” in
Unpopular Music
Joseph Borlagdan

Chapter Eleven Musical Culturespeak and Cosmopolitan
Identities in Australian Multiculturalism
Graeme Smith

Chapter Twelve The Piano and Cultural Modernity in
East Asia
Alison Tokita

Chapter Thirteen Popular Music, Cultural Memory and
Everyday Aesthetics
Andy Bennett

Chapter Fourteen Everything is Dirt: Reevaluating the Place
of Cultural Status in Producing Aesthetic Attachment
Claudio E. Benzecry

Chapter Fifteen Musical Listening and Boundary-Work
Michael Walsh

A transcription of Leonin's "Viderunt Omnes" (c. mid to late 12th century), showing excerpts of the original two sources with comparative variations and a modern transcription.

For a recording and score-video see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p9WQlyVPrA

A Prolation Canon for three voices by Johannes Ciconia (c. 1370 – 1412). this piece is a unique example of irregular prolation from the French Ars Subtilior. Utilizing a 4:3:1 proportion, this piece creates an interesting rhythmic phasing effect between the triplum and the cantus (top two voices) nearly 600  years before the 20th century composer Steve Reich popularized such musical textures. Check out the score in motion at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrOEOuwYy3M

This article offers a look into how technological advances have changed music in the industry, in society, and in education and seeks to find a solution to the misaligned between the two. People experience music in a dramatically different way than previous generations and the education must evolve alongside this to avoid becoming irrelevant. Barriers to composition are being broken down with new technologies and the development of a participatory culture has changed the way people interact with music and musicians. This article discusses ways that technology is being brought into the classroom and offers solutions to assist music educators and classroom teachers with integrating technology into the music classroom in a way that reflects students out-of-school experiences in order to make music education at primary school more engaging and relevant to the students’ lives.

A transcription of Machaut's Rondeau 14, "Ma fin est ma commencement" ("my end is my beginning"). The score is rendered to be read both forwards and backwards as necessitated by the music. For an animated video of the score with a performance visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcfPr4IN2MM

A critical and performance edition of Alexander Agricola's chanson "De tous biens plaine" for three voices. The cantus firmus of the tenor is extracted from Hayne Van Ghizeghem's (c. 1445 – 1476 to 1497) eponymous chanson.

The text of the first verse is underlaid in this edition, though only the first few words actually appear in the manuscript. The complete text as found in a number of Ghizeghem's sources with a complete translation is given at the end.

It seems unlikely that the outer voices should be sung, given their continual motion, frequent awkward leaps, and extreme ambitus.  However, the inner voice certainly could be sung.

There is a small but growing body of research addressing compositional process. The majority of this research is qualitative in nature and requires intrusive data collection methods. What quantitative research does exist is limited in scope due to a lack of effective data collection tools. Whether qualitative or quantitative, the analysis of compositional process data with current methods is labor-intensive and scales poorly.
To address these concerns a custom piece of notation software, Thema, was created. Thema automatically tracks composers’ actions within the software environment and stores the date in a MySQL database; the database is integrated into the program and plays an active role in its operations. Entities in the score, such as notes, measures, and dynamics, are tracked across time using permanent identifiers. Thema also records the state of the notation environment as the composer works including viewable area, selections in the score, playback, and continuous MIDI keyboard input. Additionally, Thema records a screen capture for every action performed in the program.
This document describes the architecture and implementation of Thema as well as its usage in a study of ten graduate-level composers. To examine the study’s data, a custom suite of visualizations, Omaggio, was created. Using these visualizations, the development of musical structure over time is investigated in detail; a case study of local problem-solving behavior in the context of improvisational and score data is also presented.
This work has significant implications for compositional process research, composition pedagogy and musicology, and illustrates the power of combining automatic data collection with a rich data model. This new method of data collection is non-intrusive, anonymous, and practical for regular use by composers. The analytic tools presented herein integrate keyboard and score data and could be helpful to composers during the process of composition. Additionally, these tools could serve a role in future qualitative studies by reducing organizational overhead and providing search capabilities. To facilitate further research, the musical works from the study are released under a Creative Commons license and the compositional process data set will be accessible to researchers.

A non-barred critical transcription of Alexander Agricola's motet-chanson "Belles sur toutes - Tota pulchra es" from Florence, Bibliotea del Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini,  MS 2439 ff. 63v-64r.

For a recording of the music with a score-video see link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2N_Ru9xjuA

This paper examines the aesthetic impetus for Milton Babbitt’s rhythmic systems of composition and his use of complex rhythmic strata. The author examines the history of two of Babbitt’s early works including synthesizer with live performer, Vision and Prayer and Philomel, addressing issues in the composer’s rhythmic notation, particularly in Philomel. The first section of Philomel is rhythmically analyzed and re-notated in an effort to challenge Babbitt’s use of 3/4 time signatures as an arbitrary delineator for his system of time-point serialization., providing a more accurate rhythmic demarcation for the phrases of the section according to event onsets. Rhythmic notational errors in Babbitt’s score are also addressed, with possible solutions given.

Öz Çağdaş Türk Müziği bestecisi Muammer Sun'un Solfej kitabı, ses ve notaların öğretilmesinden aralık öğretimine, tek sesli okuma parçalarından çok sesli okuma parçalarına kadar geniş bir yelpazeyi barındırır. Bu kitaptaki çoksesli parça ve alıştırmaların müzikal analizlerinin yapılması, çoksesli müzik eğitiminin temellerini oluşturan öğelerin daha kapsamlı tanınması açısından önemli olduğu düşünülmektedir. Bu çalışma, Sun'un Solfej kitabındaki çok sesli alıştırma ve okuma parçalarında kullandığı çok seslendirme tekniklerinin belirlenmesini ve çok sesli müzik eğitimi konusunda müzik eğitimcilerine katkı sağlanmasını amaçlamaktadır. Çalışmada ilk olarak, Muammer Sun'un Solfej Kitabındaki çoksesli alıştırma ve okuma parçalarının genel özelliklerine yer verilmiştir. Daha sonra Motif-Ezgi, Dizi-Ton-Mod/Makam ve Çokseslilik boyutları olmak üzere üç ana başlıkta müzikal analizler yapılmıştır. Çoksesli alıştırma ve okuma parçalarında yapılan analizler sonucunda; motif yapılarında, esas motifin başka sesten tekrarlanması, yatay ters çevrilmesi, ses sürelerinin küçültülmesi gibi değişikliklere gidilerek, ezgiler meydana getirildiği, dizi, ton ve mod/makam yönlerinden çeşitlilik gösterdiği, temel bir iki seslilik yaratarak yatay ve dikey çokseslilik yöntemleri kullanıldığı değerlendirilmiştir. Abstract 'Solfej'(solfège), a book by Muammer Sun, a contemporary Turkish composer, contains a wide range of items, from the teaching of sounds, notes and intervals to monophonic and polyphonic pieces. The musical analysis of the polyphonic exercises and pieces found in this book may be considered to be important in terms of more comprehensive recognition of the elements that constitute the foundations of polyphonic music education.The present study aims to determine the polyphony techniques used in the polyphonic exercises and pieces in Sun's book, and to contribute to polyphonic educational music. In the study, firstly the general characteristics of the polyphonic exercises and pieces in the book in the question are presented, followed by musical analyses carried out under three main headings: motif-melody, sequence-tone-mode and the dimensions of polyphony. As a result of analyses performed on the polyphonic exercises and pieces, it is understood that melodies which vary in scale, tone and mode are composed with changes such as sequence on another sound of the main motif, horizontal inversion, reduction of sound durations in motif structures, and horizantal and vertical polyphonic methods are employed by creating a basic biphony.

Performance score of Francesco Landini's madrigal, " Musica Son - Già Furon - Ciascun Vuol" transcribed from the Squarcialupi Codex (121v-122r). For a video of the score with a performance see the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNcfZSBF9ow

Vinko Globokar is one of my longtime heroes of both the performative art of trombone playing and its equally performative-and-more art of musical composition. Right up there with Roswell, JJ, Kai, Kid Ory, Trummy Young, JACK TEAGARDEN!...Ray A, Grachan, Julian, Frank Rosolino (God help me) and GEORGE E. LEWIS!...Paul Rutherford, Johannes Bauer, Connie Bauer, and Bob Brookmeyer (God bless him)...ALBERT MANGELSDORFF!! ...trombone; what a concept.

This is a threefold transcription of Baude Cordier's "circle canon," two versions in rondeau form and one in perpetual canon. Included with the music transcriptions are full translations from Medieval French to English of all the accompanying texts as well as an English text underlay for the music.

Also included is a full explanation of the various mensurations and colorations that appear in the piece.

The design of the scores attempts to illustrate the rondeau form overlaying the canonic conceit.

For a score animation with the transcription and original manuscript, see this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaeOWdXM4Pg

For a complete performance recording and video see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZQWsroyKj0

This is a work for organ based on the open motiv of the medieval chant "Tantum Ergo." The work is in four sections, which may be played as independent pieces or subsets for liturgical use or as the complete set. The first performance was given by organist Matt Gender.

Reviews the book, The Emotional Power of Music: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Musical Arousal, Expression and Social Control, edited by Tom Cochrane, Bernardino Fantini, and Klaus R. Scherer (2013). This book is an anthology that draws together an impressive range of perspectives to explore the deep connection between music and emotion. The volume includes interviews with composers and performers, historical accounts of the social and therapeutic uses of music, various philosophical approaches, as well as research and theory in psychology and neuroscience. The book is organized in three sections, entitled “Musical expressiveness,” “Emotion elicitation,” and “The powers of music.” Each section receives an introduction by one of the editors where constituent chapters are outlined and placed in context. These introductions offer useful background information for readers who may be new to this area of research. Likewise, they allow more experienced readers to better orient the research offered by each author within the field at large. The writing is generally clear and well referenced; key terms and concepts receive adequate explanation. As a result, the book should be accessible to anyone interested in the topic while remaining a valuable reference for scholars in the field of musicology and psychomusicology.

La musique occidentale a développé pendant la deuxième moitié du XXème s. une approche entièrement nouvelle au regard de sa tradition : le statisme. Le temps s’est soudainement étiré, une concentration nouvelle sur le son est apparue en même temps que le nombre d’éléments mis en jeu s’est drastiquement réduit. Un nouveau langage, à l’écart de la mélodie et du rythme, s’est développé. Comment le discours musical peut-il continuer à exister dans ces conditions ? Quelles sont les techniques et stratégies musicales pour animer de l’intérieur ces masses statiques de l’extérieur ? Quelles conceptions du temps et de la narrativité sous-tendent ces stratégies ? Et comment de telles musiques sont-elles reçues, perceptivement et cognitivement, par un auditeur ? L’analyse de trois pièces, de Giacinto Scelsi, Steve Reich et Morton Feldman, servira de base à notre réflexion.

Mots clés : Musique, temps, temps musical, narrativité, narrativité musicale, Scelsi, Reich, Feldman, composition, mémoire, perception, cognition auditive, audition, écoute

This is a comparative manuscript edition of Gherardello da Firenze's (c. 1350) caccia "Tosto che l'alba". Herein you can see the difference between the piece's three available sources listed below. For a performable realization of this piece taken from these three sources, see the related title under "performance edition".

Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana [I-Fl], MS Mediceo Palatino 87 “Codex Squarcialupi”, no. 40 fol 25v-26r
Bibliothèque Nationale [F-PN], MS fonds italien 568 “Pit”, no. 40 fol. 25v-26r
British Library [GB-Lbl], Add. MS 29987, no 31 fol. 25r

For a recording and video of the score see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok4VOFvLE2Y

A pedagogical transcription of Richard Sampson's (attr.) motet in double canon, "Salve radix," written to celebrate the union of Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon and the birth of their daughter, Mary.

For a video with recording accompanying the modern transcription with side-by-side animated original notated music see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9wl1XqV6Nk

For a video presentation of the conclusions of the work see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN4fU4laue4

Three times in the history of Western Music - at the end of the 14th century, the end of the 16th century, and the beginning of the 20th century – has there been a flowering in the development of non-dyadic rational rhythmic hierarchies. Only in the last of these occurrences has this development persisted continuously to the present; each time before, rhythmic complexity collapsed into a system dominated by dyadic- and/or triadic-rational rhythmic hierarchies. By the 17th century, even triadic-rational rhythmic hierarchies had totally disappeared from musical discourse to be supplanted by our modern system of dyadic-rational time signatures. Even into the 21st century, dyadic-rational time signatures remain predominant, despite work by composers like Henry Cowell and Conlon Nancarrow, which suggested the possibility of a rhythmic paradigm shift during the early- and mid-20th century.

Despite the persistent hold of dyadic-rational time signatures, developments in prescriptive rhythmic complexity during the 20th century have continued to the present, persisting over multiple generations of composers and forming distinct schools of musical discourse popular in contemporary classical music today. Among these composers are not only Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, and Conlon Nancarrow, but also Thomas Ades, Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Gordon, Karen Khachaturian, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and Jonathan Dawe among others. Within their oeuvre, each of these composers have encountered the need for a broader exploration, development, and notation of rhythmic structure beyond our current dyadic-rational system, allowing in their music pan-rational time signatures, irrational time-signatures, and/or dense and/or indivisible rhythmic hierarchies – all of these levels of rhythmic prescription either not seen since the 16th century or altogether never before seen in Western music.

Given the present state of our system of music notation and rhythmic prescription within it, what are we doing and what can we do now in the 21st century with the rhythmic tools developed in the past one hundred years? By thoroughly understanding the history of prescriptive rhythmic experimentation in Western Music, we can possibly better understand why certain systems of rhythmic notation have persisted while others have been forgotten; through such better understanding of the history of rhythmic notation we might fashion a notational system today that overcomes our present limitations in rhythmic prescription better than previous failed models. To this end, I will trace the historical development of systems of rhythmic hierarchy from Medieval to Modern music, focusing on music with exceptional prescriptive, precise, mathematically defined rhythmic structures, excluding aleatoric and spatially based rhythmic notation. In doing this, we will gain a historical contextualization of the rise of pan-rational systems of rhythmic notation. Following this, we will survey a variety of modern compositional methods that expand standard prescriptive rhythmic notation, beginning with Charles Ives and Henry Cowell and ending with living composers like Thomas Ades and Michael Gordon. Last, this dissertation will address my own compositional work in the context of pan-rational systems of rhythmic hierarchies and propose a new addition to the lexicon of rhythmic notation that will emancipate the composer from traditional dyadically-rational rhythmic notation.

This is a performance edition of Gherardello da Firenze's (c. 1350) caccia, "Tosto che l'alba." This edition is a combination of the three available sources for this piece, selecting those options which are optimal when differences arise between the manuscripts. If one desires to see the other available options in each source, please refer to the related title under "comparative manuscript edition". The complete text of the piece is provided with a translation at the end of the score.

For a recording and video of the score see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok4VOFvLE2Y

Berangkat dari sebuah ajaran tentang lima perkara yang harus dihindari dalam kehidupan manusia akibat terjadinya penyimpangan-penyimpangan sosial yang disebabkan oleh manusia itu sendiri, sehingga menyebabkan terjadinya kesenjangan sosial dalam kehidupan masyarakat yang tidak sesuai dengan norma dan hukum yang berlaku didalam masyarakat. Pada masyarakat Jawa, penyimpangan tersebut dikenal dengan istilah Molimo atau 5M, yaitu madat, minum, main, madon, dan maling. Molimo pada saat ini, seakan menjadi sebuah potret kehidupan manusia yang tidak akan pernah mati bahkan terus berkembang dari dulu sampai sekarang, walaupun perbuatan ini dilarang tetapi masih banyak orang yang tetap menikmati atau melanggarnya. Karya komposisi musik berjudul “Molimo” adalah karya cipta musik yang mengangkat sebuah falsafah Jawa tentang ajaran Molimo, pengkarya mengungkapkan tafsir musikal atas lima ajaran tersebut dalam lima karya komposisi musik.

« La décennie comprise entre 1910 et 1920 fut l'âge des ténèbres de la musique moderne américaine. Les rares lueurs d'activité étaient aussitôt éclipsées par une obsession quasi absolue envers le répertoire historique européen. » 7 C'est dans ce climat peu propice à la créativité que le pianiste Leo Ornstein (1893-2002) se démarque de la scène musicale new-yorkaise. Il interprète, lors d'une série de récitals, parmi des oeuvres de compositeurs européens tels que Schoenberg, Scriabine et Ravel, ses propres compositions. Les oeuvres de Ornstein, comme Wild Men's Dance, Impression of Notre-Dame, Dwarf Suite et A la Chinoise, partagent certains traits : titres à programme, clusters, 8 approche percussive du piano, langage harmonique postimpressionniste et structures fluides. Par son charisme, Ornstein donne un coup d'envoi à la musique moderne américaine : « Avec un don pour la flamboyance et la self-promotion, Ornstein apportait un premier modèle de la façon dont un compositeur de la modernité pouvait faire une carrière aux États-Unis. » 9 Le compositeur californien Henry Cowell (1897-1965), qui rencontre Ornstein à New York, compose Dynamic Motion (1916) et The tides of Manaunaun (1917), dans lesquels il demande à un pianiste de jouer des clusters en frappant les touches du clavier avec le poing, la paume de la main ou l'avant bras. Dans Aeolian Harp (1923), il demande de frapper, de balayer et de pincer les cordes à l'intérieur du piano. À partir des années 1920, une conscience musicale différente de celle de l'Europe commence à émerger, notamment à New York qui va devenir progressivement un centre majeur de création artistique. New York est une ville cosmopolite qui accueille, par vagues successives, de nombreux réfugiés et apatrides. La ville devient un véritable vivier intellectuel et artistique recevant sans a priori les idées nouvelles venues de l'Europe. Des organisations collectives pour la nouvelle musique américaine commencent à apparaître, telles que l'International Composers' Guild (1921-1927), le 7 Trad. : « The decade between 1910 and 1920 was the mysterious Paleolithic period of American modernist music. Occasional glints of activity were overshadowed by a near singleminded focus on historic European repertories.

This article deals with Azulejos, Albéniz's posthumous and unfinished composition that was completed by Granados. I firstly analyse musical parameters and form. As well there is a profound study of the contextual facts that surround the creation of this work during the years 1909 and 1910. Finally this paper throws light on the continuation point by Granados. Although it could be initially thought that this point was simply at the beginning of Granados's manuscript my research leads to a new hypothesis which I fully explain in this essay. Nevertheless the most significant fact about Azulejos is that it hints at a new aesthetic orientation extremely different from Albéniz's prior works. Albéniz seeks a more intimate and limpid expression, distant from the sonorous ostentation of Iberia, he now searches for a new musical paradigm emancipated from the protocol of the extended sonata form. In his posthumous work we can now find an accentuated modality , a complex texture where the melody acts as the thread of the musical discourse.

For an audio-video animation of the manuscript with the modern transcription see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO56v7qltNo

An edition of the anonymous labyrinthine ballade on three canons, "En la maison Dedalus" (In the House of Dedalus) from the Berkeley Manuscript.

This edition includes a modern transcription of the music, the original manuscript excerpted, poetic and literal translations of the text, reconstruction of the 11-tier labyrinth upon which the music is overlain, and pedagogical materials/explanations of the musical and poetic medieval Ballade forme-fixe.

For the purposes of this paper I have selected 1 composition from Rosenwinkel's album "The Enemies of Energy" to analyze under the lens of a post-bop observer, in that I will be examining those selections for techniques of postbop composition, including but not limited to:

-expanded forms
-enhanced options for harmonic progression
-phrase groupings that depart from conventional 4-and 8-bar frameworks
-axis progressions
-harmonies that progress in locally functional ways, but within compositions in which a single tonic is uncertain
-the absence or suppression of functional harmonic progressions and/or use of alternative cadential progressions
-common structure progressions, sometimes using stepwise motion in the bass
-bass pedal points beneath shifting harmonies
-characteristic harmonies, such as sus chords and slash chords, along with harmonies characteristic of earlier styles
-harmonic rhythm with chord changes every half-measure, measure, or every two measures
-transformative aspects of harmonic progressions and harmonic/melodic interplay

I will also add that within the post-bop era we see unique freedoms enacted in respect to form and improvisation. We often find ambiguity and circularity in regard to form, usually created by any of the aforementioned elements and/or their combinations. We also find the improvisational component to diverge from the written material, whether it be alternate changes, alternate meter/hyper-meter, alternate form, absence of form, or other manipulations in regard to the improvisational sections’ divergence from the written material. This Rosenwinkel composition exhibits all of these characteristics.

A transcription of a lesser known masterpiece from the early 16th century. The only known work by composer Johannes Mittner, this Mass, and particularly its Sanctus movement, demonstrates one of the largest mensuration canons from the Renaissance - five voices from one.

For a audio-visual animation with recording see the link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCe7WGoJVLI

Johannes Mittner: Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarae, Sanctus
Sanctus a4,
Pleni sunt coeli a2,
Osanna I a5 mensuration canon,
Benedictus a4
Osanna II a3

A critical transcription of the three-voice Caça (“chace” or canon) known as “O Virgo Splendens” (“O splendorous virgin”), the first in the small collection of music from the Llibre Vermell. It is perhaps the oddest of the set, being the most stylistically remote. It is the only piece not notated or composed in the contemporary style of the Ars Nova. Rather, its notation and style harken to previous centuries, possibly as recent as the discant style of the Parisian school of Notre Dame or of Santiago de Compostela from the 12th and 13th century, or as old as the free organum style of the 10th and 11th centuries such as that found in the Ad organum faciendum. Given its apparent lack of rhythmic mode of any kind, its relation to the 10th and 11th centuries seem more likely.

For a video of the score with a recorded performance visit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BkzBK5-oDw

Resumo
O foco do presente trabalho é a composição Nascemorre, para Vozes, Percussão e Fita Magnetofônica de Gilberto Mendes, com base na poesia homônima de Haroldo de Campos, composta em 1963. Nosso objetivo é realizar uma leitura analítica da obra mirando uma interpretação integral, já que a versão consagrada pelo Madrigal Ars Viva omite a parte gravada, facultativa conforme a partitura. Partimos de uma contextualização histórica, passando pela descrição da obra e a discussão dos desafios técnicos.
Palavras-chave: Gilberto Mendes, Composição Musical, Música Contemporânea Brasileira, Composição Eletroacústica Mista.

An Overview of Gilberto Mendes` Nascemorre
Abstract
The focus of this work is Gilberto Mendes's Nascemorre, a 1963 composition for voices, percussion and magnetic tape, based on the homonymous poem by Haroldo Campos. Our goal is to present the work in order to provide for a full interpretation, since the renowned version, by Madrigal Ars Viva, omits the magnetic tape part — optional according to the score. We start with the historical context, describe the work and then discuss its technical challenges.
Keywords: Gilberto Mendes, Musical Composition, Brazilian Contemporary Music, Electroacoustic Composition.

Many treatises on the history and arts of Venice lament the loss resulting from the capitulation of the last doge to Napoleon’s forces in May 1797, when many records and manuscripts from its institutions were lost. Yet, fortunate discoveries have since filled in much detail and have allowed re-evaluation of the Republic of Venice’s role in history and culture by historians working since the mid-1800s. Antonio Vivaldi, now one of the most famous and well-regarded composers of the Baroque as well as of Venice, was for some time remembered mainly as a composer who was famous in his own time, and as an important influence on J.S. Bach’s keyboard style. A prolific and innovative composer, Vivaldi in fact made major and lasting contributions to instrumental music that helped shape the orchestra itself. This paper will examine how the unique environment of his native Venice shaped Vivaldi's work and thus his impact.

This is my PhD dissertation. The third chapter might be interesting since it shows that the natural scale was the primary scale used in European antiquity (the so-called Folk Music Scale). It combined with the early diatonic scale (stacking thirds on the diatonic scale that those instruments couldn’t play) to create our modern scale. The Highland bagpipe is an ossified hybrid between the two.

The fourth chapter might be of interest to composers because it explains the rhythm of languages (especially English) and also the pitch-patterning of the spoken word which is used as the basis of melody.

The link brings you to the University of Otago library which is open and non-private. So you have to force your web browser to continue to the site.

ABSTRACT:
The purpose of this study was to investigate through archival and musicological analysis the audio recordings of Fenian lays made in the middle of the last century. These recordings were made from informants who learned the material orally; they contain cultural elements that assist in comprehending the musical mechanics of Fenian lays at a time when their performance practices were being extirpated by foreign musical influences. These elements include Indo-European (IE) thematic material, poetics, language register, pitch structuring, rhythm, and vocal techniques. Audio recordings of Fenian lays from Ireland, Scotland, and Nova Scotia, Canada were analysed in terms of their linguistic-musical material. Results show that the rhythm of the lays did not display a repetitive musical metre but the more complex structure of speech. However, rhythmic patterns did alter with volume. Also, resonance tuning was apparent. Many characteristics associated with volume in lay recordings exist in declaimed speech as well; both may be seen to act as a bridge between speech and metered song. Lay poetry appeared to be syllabic, which is unusual for a stress-timed language; this reflects an Indo-European genesis that is supported by the presence of oral formulaic language. Both stress and accent shifted pitch by poetic line to match spoken characteristics. A high language register was present, which does not indicate composition by the intelligentsia for use at court, but rather a fear-induced protective linguistic device apparent in all social classes. Moreover, the addition of delineated pitch to spoken declamation may be seen as an attempt to further increase the communicative register. The pitch structure was seen to be anachronistic, matching the linear scales played by pastoral instruments, particularly that of wooden shepherd trumpets used since at least the beginning in the Early Neolithic Age.

A non-barred critical transcription of Alexander Agricola's contrafacta motet, "Virgo sub ethereis" (Source: Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, MS 40021 ff. 131v-132r) as derived from his "Comme femme desconfortée".

For a video of the score with a performance recording see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_nnTzNXeUY

Edition of Lorenzo da Firenze's caccia, "A poste messe" with english lyrical text underlay. For a video-score of this edition with a recording see the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN1dFq0jK-U

Transcribed from the Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana [I-Fl], MS Mediceo Palatino 87, “Codex Squarcialupi”, fol 25v-26r and the
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence (Firenze), Italy [I-Fn], MS Panciatichiano 26, "Panciatichi", fol. 76v-77r.

The form of this piece is canonic with monophonic (?) ritornello. As indicated in the codices, the first part of the piece is clearly a canon for ether two or three voices. The second part, however, gives no sign that it should be performed canonically. Furthermore, there seems to be no reasonable way to render the second half of this piece as a canon without numerous and egregious counterpoint errors. Thus, it is generally accepted that the Ritornello is not a canon like the first part.

The second part can be performed monophonically or by many voices in octaves. However, many recordings have taken the liberty to arrange polyphonic parts to fit with the given monophonic line. Most such arrangements borrow material from the monophonic line, parts of which work contrapuntally well together when isolated and extracted arbitrarily.