The Musical Crematorium
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keywords: description: The Musical CrematoriumThis is the class blog for DePauw University's First Year Seminar on Understanding Music: Critical Reading and Writing. Feel free to comment.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004 Tritone Paradox Hello my name is Joshua Perez, and today I will be presenting a report from a scientific music journalThe name of the journal entry is Speech Patterns Heard Early in Life Influence Later Perception of the Tritone Paradox. It was written by Mark Dolson, Diana Deutsch, and Trevor Henthorn. They did experiments to test the theory that perception of the tritone paradox is influenced by speech heard early in life.
The journal explains of experiments conducted to test the theory of the tritone paradox. The tritone paradox occurs when two tones that are a 4+ or 5° apart are heard in secession. But the pitches are heard in such a way that pitch classes are clearly heard but the placement of the octave is vague. This paradox is an auditory illusion because the listener could perceive the notes to be descending or ascending.
There were many experiments that tested this tritone paradox. Dolson personally worked on the aspect of pitch ranges in speech. Throughout his studies he discovered that each language, dialect, and sub-dialect had its own pitch class. Meaning that each had specific note ranges where in which voices inflections fell. There was also the discovery that the physical being did not affect the pitch ranges in speech. This study showed that the pitch template, range of pitches during speech, is acquired through early interaction with the parental units.
To further study this phenomenon, Deutsch studied the perception in two groups. The two groups tested were from California and England. The study found that while the Californian’s perceived the tritones to be ascending, the English found it to be descending. This strengthened the hypothesis that pitch class template is acquired through the culture. Most of the testing done for their later experiments was on younger children and their parents. Further studies have been discussed one in particular belongs to the authors of the article. The following experiments were conceived to test if the childhood template survived into adulthood.
In experiment 1 there were three different groups tested the Vietnamese Late Arrival which contained 6 men and 10 women from South or Central Vietnam who moved to the United States when they were adults, and spoke only Vietnamese.
Another group tested was the Vietnamese Early Arrival which consisted of 3 men and 13 women from South or Central Vietnam. This group moved to the United States when they were infants or young children they primarily spoke English but had exposure to Vietnamese.
The final group tested was the Californian English. This group had University students, 6 men and 4 women, who were born and raised in California, spoke only English and had little or no exposure to Vietnamese.
The purpose of the experiment was to test whether or not each group tested perceived the tritone paradox to be ascending or descending. The results from this experiment showed that the perception of ascending/descending was influenced by each groups, own pitch template. They also observed that the perception of the tritone paradox varied significantly based on the first language to which the experiment participants were exposed.
Experiment two focused more on the fluent Vietnamese speakers. The participants included 2 men and 5 women, 6 of which had participated in the previous experiment.
This experiment tested the tritone paradox and how the pitch template range affected the perception of this. The findings showed that the pitch range of speaking, in which a person was exposed to first, is strongly influences the perception of the tritone paradox.
In conclusion; the findings from both experiments showed that there was a direct and strong link between speech and music perception. The findings also showed that the perception of the tritone effect is heavily influenced by the speech heard early in life.
Music Perception Spring 2004, Vol. 21, No.3, 357-372
Tuesday, December 07, 2004 Script... Is Recognition of Emotion in Music Performance an
Aspect of Emotional Intelligence?
When musicians perform, they are expected to play a piece in different ways, to show happiness, sadness, anger or fear, and the listeners should be able to identify these emotions and recognize them throughout the performance. Through studies of Juslin we can see that emotions can be brought out or communicated very effectively through music performance. Also in Juslin’s studies, it was found that people even with little musical training still has the ability to recognize emotions in music. Mayer and Salovey describe this ability as emotional intelligence. Recently Mayer and Salovey have found a way to test emotional intelligence. This test measures four different aspects of emotional intelligence: perceiving emotions, using emotions to show thought, understanding emotions, and managing emotions. The actual purpose of this study or test, was to show whether or not the recognition of emotions in music performance is related to emotional intelligence.
In this experiment there were twenty-four undergraduate students and their musical training ranged from 0 to 15 years of music lessons. They were asked to listen to three different short piano pieces composed by Bach, Bartok, and Persichetti. Each piece was recorded by a classically trained pianist five times, first with the expression that was appropriate for the music (or the “normal” way), and then with four different emotional intentions: happiness, sadness, anger, and fearfulness. The happy and sad performances seemed to have a faster tempo than sad and fearful performances, and angry performances were louder than happy performances. After each performance, all of the participants were told to rate it on how happy, sad, angry or fearful it was. Also realize that none of the participants said that they were familiar with any of the pieces.
The results showed that the normal performance of the Bach piece was rated as sad, which is consistent with it being slow in tempo and in a minor key. The Bach performance that was intended as happy (the 2nd time it was played differently) was rated only slightly more happy, but rated much less sad and more angry than the normal performance. The performance that was intended sad had basically the same ratings as the normal performance, which showed that there was a limit to how sad this piece could actually sound. Finally, the performance intended to be angry was rated only a little less sad but not as fearful. Overall, the Bach performances were not very successful in showing the intended emotions. The Bartok piece performances overall, were more successful in showing the intended emotions. The Persichetti piece performances were the most successful in showing the intended emotions, as each emotion was rated exactly what was supposed to be intended by the performer. The Bach performances really only successfully showed two of the four emotions, the Bartok performances showed three of the four emotions, and the Persichetti showed all four of the emotions.
This study or test, showed that individual differences in sensitivity to emotion showed by the music performance are related to individual differences in emotional intelligence. Although recognizing or noticing emotion in music performance is less important in everyday life, it probably requires a lot of the same processes and sensitivities as recognizing emotion in speech. This would be entirely consistent with evidence the the emotional cues in music performance are very similar to those in speech.
There are many things such as mode, pitch register, range, consonance and dissonance, rhythm, tempo and dynamics that help people recognize the emotion in music performance. This shows that the Bach piece used in this study is a somewhat sad piece because of its minor key and slow tempo, whereas the major-key and moderate tempo Bartok piece makes a quietly happy impression, and the Persichetti piece is kind of neutral, not having a strong tonality. These characteristics were shown in the participants’s ratings of the “normal” performances, which also showed the performer’s certain responses to the respective musical structures. In the end, a performance is only able to show happiness, sadness, or any other emotion only if the music is actually being played happy or sad or any other emotion.
Sited Work:
Music Perception, Joel E. Resnicow Peter Salovey.
Music in Everyday Life Music surrounds us wherever we go. In the past two centuries the times, places, and ways in which people listen to music has incredibly changed. Before mass media and the technology of today, people heard music only in concert halls, social gatherings, and occasionally at home, and when they heard music it was usually because they were purposely setting out to hear it. Today, music sets up the background of our lives. So arguably, it is less prized than before. Before music was a treat, a treasure, a profound method of communication. Now music is packed up and shipped just like any other household item. Music is so widely available today in so many different formats and of so many different styles. People of today now use music much more often than before and in everyday situations. They can control it in their homes, and their cars while doing everyday tasks. Music is now a resource not just a commodity.
Because of these changes, the role of music in everyday life has also changed. There have been several different approaches to way this role has been studied. One way is the how music affects an individual's identity. Studies have also been done on how music was used in various contexts including shopping malls, and karaoke bars. In this study music was regarded more as a process and not just an object, helping the various activities along. Another study focused upon self-proclaimed music lovers and how they developed individual personality traits based upon this. Studies have also been done on the music industry's effect on personal musical tastes. Although these studies are all interesting they lack defining the reasons for everyday musical listening.
Research has been done on these reasons however. Social psychologists have adopted the approach known as "uses and gratifications." Participates are placed in a laboratory setting and asked to choose from a preset list the functions music serves for them. Most of these style studies have produced extremely inconsistent results. The most important thing these studies proved was that music fulfills completely different functions for each individual person and each individual situation. Similar studies have shown that the choice of the function of music is determined by social and interpersonal context.
The problem with the aforementioned studies is that they lack a focus upon the participants. The experiments have often chosen the music, the situations and the possible responses.
A participant centered approach conducted in 2001 involved giving each of the participants' electronic pagers and paging them once every two hours. When they received a page they were asked to document the last time they had heard music and the way in which they experienced it. They were also asked to describe who they were with, what emotions they felt, and the type of music. This type of experiment has potential for error in the participants' reports. Also this study was only done with 8 participants so it limits the amount of different responses.
The study that we will be focusing upon today asks five main questions; Who are people with when they listen to music? What do they listen to? When do they listen? Where do they listen? and Why do they listen?
The predictions of the study believe that people previously listened to music primarily on their own but due to technological changes that people are more likely to listen with others. Also that when listening alone people are more involved in actively listening while with others music serves as a background. Also that music listened to alone is probably more liked since the listener has stronger control of the musical choice.
In the regards of what music is heard the study predicted that because of technology the responses will be more widespread. The study predicted that the choice of type of music will also depend upon their motives for listening.
The when question was predicted as having fairly predictable patterns, such as that during the day music serves as background for other work while at night and on weekends it fulfills other functions. At different times of the day and on different days of the week, music fulfills different functions as well.
The predictions in regard to where people hear music is that responses will be largely widespread, including the home, cars, and commercial situations.
All of the above questions will effect why people listen to music.
The study had 346 volunteer participants who were recruited from universities and business throughout Britain. The participants were of ages between 13 and 78 and of various cultural backgrounds. Everyday for 14 days the participants were sent text messages on their mobile phones. When they received this message they were asked to fill out a short questionnaire about the music they could hear when they received the text message. The questionnaire consisted of five sections. The first section asked demographic information of the participants, the time they received their message and whether or not they could hear any music at the time. If they couldn't hear any music they were asked to fill out the questionnaire based upon the last time they had heard music. The second section consisted of questions concerning who they were with when they heard music. The third section asked the type of music they heard by choosing from a list of styles, whether they had any choice in listening to the music, the volume of the music and their liking of it. The fourth section asked where the music was heard. The fifth section consisted of two separate parts. The first part was for participants who had chosen to hear the music. It asked the function of the music. The second part was for people who had not chosen to hear the music. It asked the effect the music had on them.
The results of the study produced many interesting findings. That data collected regarding the "who" shows that most of the listening episodes occurred when the participant was with other people. These findings go along with the notion that technology has made it easier to access music thus making it easier to hear music with others. The data also proves that people had the most liking for music they could hear when they were on their own, while the lowest amount of liking was experienced with strangers. The function of music changed with who the person was listening with. Contrary to the predictions music did not serve as a background while with others and move to the foreground while alone. The greatest amount of attention was paid to the music when participants were with a boy pr girlfriend. Music was liked more when it was heard alone, but it was not necessarily more important at the moment.
Data collected regarding the "what" shows that pop music was the type of music most heard and that classical was the least. When people chose to hear music they used different types for different reasons. When people did not choose to hear music it still had some effect upon them, but they were less likely to enjoy the music.
Music was most often heard in the evening, which is consistent with the hypothesis. The lack of daytime music listening can be accounted for through work and non-leisure opportunities. However there is no link between being able to choose to listen to music and the time of day. Increased leisure time only increased the chances that a person would hear music and not their ability to choose to listen to music. The same applies to the link between the ability to choose and the day of the week. Data collected about the "when" shows that listening during leisure time is for pleasure and that listening during the workday is to help some other function.
Just as predicted, music was heard in many different places, the most popular being the home with half of reported incidents, others include restaurants, shops, gyms, nightclubs, and places of religious worship. Music was usually not the central focus and participants listened to music in different places for different reasons.
The reasons people listened to music has been mentioned in most of the aforementioned questions. Music generally served as a background both when people chose to listen to it and when then didn't choose to listen to it. The number one answer as to why people listened to music was that it was for enjoyment and that it helped pass the time. Other responses as to why people were listening to music is that it was habit, it help create the right atmosphere, it helped concentration and that it helped create an emotion. When people did not choose to listen to music, they had a generally unengaged attitude towards it.
In conclusion, the findings of this study actively prove that people use music as a resource in everyday life. This has happened recently due to the increase in access to music because of technology. People tend to view music passively and it seems that because it is so accessible that they take it for granted. People use music in different places, for different reasons, and experience it in different ways. But people use music. Music is in peoples lives now more than ever and much more research is to be done concerning the way in which it affects us all.
North, Adrian C., David J. Hargreaves, and Jon J. Hargreaves "Uses of Music in Everyday Life" Music Perception Volume 22, Number 1, Fall 2004 Vowel Modification "Vowel Modification Revisited"- John Nix
The idea of vowel modification is actually a relatively new one. Singers used to train without “cover” or modification, but this changed with the career of a famous tenor named Tito Schipa. Tito Schipa modified his vowels where no other singer had before. The results were enough to revolutionize the vocal world. Today, teachers all have different philosophies about vowel modification and when and where it is appropriate. However, it is universally accepted that cover is an integral part of singing classically.
There are many bad facts floating about cover among singers. Sometimes, cover or vowel modification is associated with singing to darkly. Other times it is used to describe voices that are darker naturally, or those that aren’t placed correctly. The idea of cover comes from the Italian concept of Chiaroscuro. Chiaroscuro literally means light and shadow. Classical singers must find a careful balance between these two elements to sing freely. The scuro or shadow is achieved by vowel modification or cover. For those who have listened to brighter singers, it is easy to imagine the problems with a voice that is all light to sing the classical repertoire. High notes would simply sound pinched. Coloratura would be next to impossible to negotiate. Cover is an integral part of healthy and beautiful singing. It should not be thought of as necessarily a bad thing.
The idea behind vowel modification is to not only unify the voice, but also to maximize the formants, which are what give the voice carrying power. Acoustically, singers need these formants to carry over an orchestra. The formants occur in sound ranges where few other instruments vibrate. The result is the “big” operatic voice that can fill an opera house. Vowel modification also helps unify the voice because it makes it easier to negotiate the various breaks and shifts in register. In classical singing a unified voice is a necessity. Perhaps most importantly, modification allows singers greater flexibility and dynamic contrast.
The article “Vowel Modification Revisited” talked of six important concepts key to understanding vowel modification and when and why it is used by singers. First, the formants are different in each singer because of anatomical differences. Second, different voices require different amounts of modification and this depends on size and the actual song being sung. For example, a tenor singing an art song that lies mainly below an E probably would not need as much modification as would a baritone. Some singers even say that the amount of vowel modification they use depends on the time of day and how much they have warmed up. Third, vowel formants have to do with a band of frequencies rather than a specific pitch. Fourth, it is impossible to tune each note absolutely when singing. Fast songs with lots of moving notes simply do not allow a singer enough time to tune absolutely. In these cases the movement among the notes becomes more important than the actual individual notes. Five, men and women tune differently. Men generally try to match the formants while women usually tune to the fundamental. Six, there are six guidelines for vowel modification: as the vocal tract lengthens the frequency of the formants decreases. The same phenomenon is seen when the lips are rounded while the frequencies are raised by lip spreading. Singers can lower the frequencies of first formant and raise the second one by fronting and arching the tongue. By backing and lowering the tongue, the opposite occurs. Also, lowering the jaw raises the frequencies of the first formant and lowers those of the second.
In the discussion of vowel modification it is also important to touch on the sub glottal formants. These formants unlike those in the vocal tract are not changed by altering the position of the tongue, lips, jaw, etc. Also, they do not change from vowel to vowel. Rather, only the laryngeal position has an effect on these formants. Scientists studying these formants noticed that their intensity decreased in certain pitch areas. Part of the process of unifying the voice is learning to compensate for these different pitch areas. The change in intensity accounts for the changes in pitch intensity in different areas of the voice.
Another important use of vowel modification is to negotiate the passagio. By adding cover, tenors for example are able to shift from tuning mainly to the first formant to the second which produces the brighter, freer color seen in singers such as Alfredo Kraus and Luciano Pavarotti. Other singers choose instead to continue tuning to the first formant. An example of this style of singing is the tenor Placido Domingo.
Tuning directly to a formant, however, can be detrimental to a singer. It is better to tune slightly below the formant. This allows the vibrato to be freer and allows its cycles to follow the formant itself which prevents the classic out of sync vibrato that sounds too fast or too wide. To do this a singer must sing a slightly more open vowel. Examples of singing this more open vowel are when a soprano is required to sing an [i] vowel on a high note, such as a Bb5. The frequency of the vowel and the note do not match, so the singer picks a more open vowel with a higher frequency to match the higher frequency of the note. In this case, the vowel sung will not be a pure [i] but a more generic sound.
The idea of covering the vowels actually aids in the ease of production and helps the vocal tract to work as little as possible in producing notes. In classical singing it is always more important for a note to sound beautiful than for the words attached to it to be understood. In other styles such as the Musical Theater belt, singers tend to focus more on the words than the beauty of the vowels; however, by focusing simply on the vowels and the acoustics of singing the diction of a singer will improve.
After all is said and done, the amount of cover that a singer should use depends on both their sense of aesthetics and the tessitura of their instrument. Some singers prefer a more covered sound and they tend to focus on the heavier repertoire. It would not be pleasing to hear the Rossini repertoire, for example, with the same amount of cover as Verdi or Puccini operas. Tessitura has to do with where a singers breaks lie and where their voice sits comfortably. A tenor that easily negotiates Fs and Gs, for example, would not need as much cover as a baritone that struggles to obtain a G. The best advice to a singer is to consult your teacher about this issue.
In conclusion I would just like to talk about what teachers can do to better teach the idea of vocal cover. Some singers respond better to images. For example, giving a singer a color or an analogy to brighten or darken the sound can help a teacher find the proper amount of modification. Still, other singers respond better to physiological examples such as “raise your soft palette” or “elongate that vowel.” Whatever tactic is chosen by the teacher, it is important for the student to get to know their own voice and understand the idea of cover.
Singing is about producing the most natural and beautiful sound that the body is capable. Singers will find that an understanding of cover will actually help their natural voice come out more and that the pitfalls of breaks and difficult vowels will be neatly avoided.
Source: Journal of Singing, November/December 2004 "Is Recognition of Emotion in Music Performance an Aspect of Emotional Intelligence?" This experiment measured the relationship between the ability to recognize emotion in music and an individual’s emotional intelligence, or their ability to understand, “read”, and manage emotions. I want to start out with some psychology background and definitions that aren’t in the article so you can understand the article better.
There are many theories about emotions, the two main being that there are fundamental emotions (this is the dominant approach) and the other is that there are no basic emotions, there are just dimensions (a continuum). Focusing on the theory of fundamental emotions, experts have suggested a variety of basic emotions from happiness to contempt. These theories overlap on six basic emotions: happiness (joy), fear, surprise, sadness, anger and disgust. This study focused on four of these: happiness, sadness, anger and fear.
Two other terms used throughout the article, are the “significance” and the “correlation” of results. When results are significant, it simply means that they could not have been caused by chance alone. The correlation of two factors determines their significance. There are three types of correlation. A positive correlation occurs as the number gets closer to +1, this means that as one variable goes up, the other goes up. A zero correlation occurs when the number gets closer to -1 (as one goes up, the other goes down). Positive and negative correlations are equally strong. A negative correlation means that the two variables aren’t related at all. If the correlation is above +.50 or below -.50, the results are significant. This will make more sense as I get more into the experiment. Keep in mind however, that if two variables are correlated, this does not mean that one caused the other.
As stated before, this study focused on the relationship between emotional intelligence and the ability to recognize emotion in music performance. Twenty four undergraduate students participated in this study. They took an emotional intelligence test called the MSCEIT (Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test). This test measures four things: “perceiving emotions, using emotions to facilitate thought, understanding emotions, and managing emotions.” These factors are measured using pictures, generating emotion and then matching sensations to it, being able to identify combinations of emotions, etc. The researchers compared these results to the results of the musical test.
The musical test was made of three piano pieces that were played with the four different emotions. The pieces were Prelude No. 6 in D minor by Bach, Bartók’s “Children’s Song” in C major, and Persichetti’s “Dialogue” No. 3, Andante. These pieces were selected because of their length, they are all contrasting styles, and the natural emotions contained within each piece is relatively neutral. Author and amateur pianist, B.R performed the pieces.
The participants took the MSCEIT test at least twenty four hours before they came to the lab to hear the recordings. The performances stayed in the same order- Bach first, Persichetti second, and Bartók third. The “normal” performance was always first and the four emotions were played randomly afterwards. The participants rated on a scale of 1-10 the emotional content. This table, shows the difference between the emotions played and the normal performance in the duration of intervals, and loudness (show figure 1).
The results of the MSCEIT test scores ranged from 78-142. A man held the highest score, but there was a tendency for women to score higher. The difference between men’s and women’s scores was only .14- not significant. The results of the music test were similar, women tended to score higher on this as well, with a correlation of .21- also not significant. Each piece had different results. This figure shows the differences between each piece (show figure 2).
The Bach piece had the least success in conveying the emotion. The normal performance was rated as sounding sadder, which makes sense because it is in a minor key at a somewhat slower tempo. The Bach was only successful in showing two of the four emotions- happiness and anger.
When played normally, the Bartók piece was rated as being relatively happy which also makes sense because it is in a major key and has a quicker tempo. This performance was slightly more effective than the Bach, conveying three of the intended emotions- everything but happiness. This could be because the normal performance was rated as happy.
The Persichetti was the most successful, conveying all four emotions. The normal performance was rated as a little sad but this didn’t effect any other emotions as it did in the other two.
The level of musical training varied greatly in participants as well, ranging anywhere between zero to fifteen but the correlation between years of musical training and scores on the musical tests was a mere .08. Also, the correlation between the total scores of the two tests (MSCEIT and music test) was significantly and positively related (.54) As I said before, this means that as one score rose, the other did as well. The MSCEIT test was split into a few different categories, two of which were the experimental score and the strategic score. The experimental score was significantly and positively related to the score on the music test.
The results tell researchers that an individual’s ability to read emotion in real life and in music performance is related. There is a difference between recognizing emotion in music performance and recognizing the emotion of the way the music is built, its structure. This includes “mode, pitch register, range, and contour, dissonance, harmonic progression, and rhythm…”
As any performer would know, playing a piece involves a lot of emotional involvement. It wouldn’t seem right to play an inherently happy or even neutral piece, sadly. This experiment on one hand tests an individual’s emotional recognition. One the other hand, it is “somewhat like changing one’s tone of voice or facial expression in order to disguise one’s true feelings.” What the performer is playing and what is natural for the music are conflicting in this experiment. What this all means, is that in this experiment, the performer was trying to play the piece a certain way. In a real performance, it would take a lot more emotional intelligence to detect the emotion the performer is using.
Much more research needs to be done on this topic for a couple reasons. The sample of participants was so small, the experiment needs to be done with more people. Also, the music was played by an individual author. There might be a difference in the results if the performer was a professional.
This experiment provides a lot of insight to how musical performance and emotional intelligence are positively and significantly correlated. The results encourage us to pay more attention to auditory events as we can interpret the emotions involved.
Music and Language: A Developmental Comparison Music and Language: A Developmental Comparison
Erin McMullen adults that were taught labels for musical intervals, like “Here Comes the Bride” for a perfect fourth, recognize those intervals categorically. The article then goes on to describe how infants from other countries hear things differently. An example of this would be Japanese babies treating “r” and “l” as the same thing. Also, they say that infants prefer certain sounds over others like consonant sounds over dissonant sounds. They held an experiment with monkeys and the monkeys too preferred consonant sounds over dissonant sounds. The article then goes into great detail dealing with statistics on infants and at what age they begin to learn the language in their environment. They learn the sounds and get used to them before they can even talk. Basically this portion of the article focused on how babies heard letters and sounds and at what age they started to remember a melody that was played.
The next section of the article gets into the particular structure of language and music. Patterns of rhythm, stress, intonation, phrasing, and contour most likely drive the early learning in both language and music. It talks about how newborn infants prefer their mother’s voice and recognize it because of when they were in the womb. Fetal learning happens because the fetus hears the mother’s native language and the rhythm of it , allowing the infants to detect the differences between languages. It is likely that infants learn about musical rhythm if the mother sings to the baby while in the womb. Even after birth, infants continue to learn about rhythms both musically and spoken, due to learning in the womb. When mom’s and dad’s play lullaby’s for the babies or sing them nursery rhymes it helps them learn and the infants prefer the child like nature of the songs. The article then goes on to describe more experiments that deal with how infants react to songs played in different pitches, or musical passages that pause at the ends of phrases rather than in the middle of phrases. It remains an open question whether infants are using the same mechanism to detect these parallel cues across domains, or whether instead they have learned about these properties independently.
The third section of the article explains the grammatical structure of language and music. The major theoretical position in human speech has been that infants come prewired with a “universal grammar,” a dedicated speech system containing a combination of standard knowledge and toggle switches for certain aspects of native languages. Marcus and colleagues showed that infants exposed to a collection of short sentences following a simple pattern, such as AAB, will prefer it over a sentence that fails to conform to a pattern, such as ABA, indicating that by age 7 months, humans are capable of pattern recognition. The article describes more experiments done with infants showing that infants prefer grammatical sentences over ungrammatical sentences. They also mention that Western listeners preferentially end pieces on the tonic, less frequently on other notes in the tonic chord, still less frequently on other notes within the scale, and rarely on notes outside of the diatonic context. Through many more experiments dealing with brain reaction, they lead into emotions that music has on someone.
Meaning in language and music is the next section of this long article. It talks about how music can and does often bring about strong, predictable emotional responses from people who may vary by culture. In the case of music, the “meaning” that adult listeners give to phrases is most strongly related to the emotional responses they generate. One of the basic building blocks for this is present from early infancy; several studies have found that infants as young as 2 months old, like adults, prefer consonance to dissonance. In addition, research has demonstrated that infants prefer higher-pitched music, which often brings about positive thoughts. However, adult responses to specific pieces of music are complex and most likely influenced by a variety of other factors as well. For instance, many adults report having strong reactions to certain musical pieces and to particular sections within them, including tears, heart acceleration, and “chills” or “shivers down the spine”. In the case of the “chills” reaction, the emotion is linked to increased blood-flow in brain regions associated with emotion, motivation, and arousal. Adult western listeners often associate the major mode with being happy and the minor mode with being sad. While conducting an experiment, Nawrot found that infants looked longer at happy faces while listening to “happy” music, but did not look longer at sad faces while “sad” music was played. In a nut shell, infants and adults prefer “happy” music to “sad” music because it makes them feel better.
The next section talks about memory for language and music. For successful learning to occur, the article says young learners must be able to represent musical experiences in memory. An experiment is described in this section of the article that describes how infants were exposed at home to CD recordings of Mozart piano sonata movements, played daily for 2 weeks. Following a 2-week retention interval, during which the infants did not hear these musical selections. It demonstrated that the infants were not merely remembering snippets of the music, but instead had represented aspects of the overall structure of the piece. In yet another experiment, six-month-old infants remember the specific tempo and timbre of music with which they are familiarized, failing to recognize pieces when they are played at new tempos or with new timbres, although recognition is maintained when pieces are transposed to a new key.
As you can see, learning begins at a very young age. We’re learning even though we may not know it. This article has described many experiments and examples that this is true. It also mentioned how metaphors play a powerful role in directing our thinking and suggesting new insights. Whether or not music and language share common ancestry, thinking about them as related functions may still be quite helpful in generating hypotheses that can help us to better understand them as separate domains.
Music and Language: A Developmental Comparison, Erin McMullen he found that giving the listener to hear the speaker as it rotated really aided them in identifying the facing angle of the loudspeaker. This was especially true when the loudspeaker passed directly in front of the listener. This experiment was successful at measuring the auditory system's ability to identify the projection angle of a particular noise in the absence of a visual system.
Saturday, December 04, 2004 Origins of Absolute Pitch
Absolute pitch, the ability to name or produce a note of an isolated pitch, is very rare in our culture. Less than 1 in 10,000 people of the general population have this rare ability. Characteristics of absolute pitch are a mystery, and its origin is unknown. Today, I will discuss the features of absolute pitch, experiments to explain absolute pitch, and discuss the framework proposed for the origin of absolute pitch based on the experiments.
Evidence shows that people who are unable to name isolated pitches still have a partial form of absolute pitch. An experiment conducted by Terhardt and Ward in 1982, found that musicians who did not have absolute pitch were able to judge whether a song they knew was played in the correct key. Likewise, in 1989, Halpern asked subjects with no musical background to hum the first few notes of familiar songs on different occasions. Their pitches were surprisingly consistent each time. Another experiment in 1994 was conducted by Levitin, in which subjects choose two songs, which had only been performed by one musical group, and were asked to hum, whistle, or sing the melody. Levitin found that 44% of the subjects came within two semitones of the accurate pitch for both songs.
Although absolute pitch is most common among highly accomplished musicians, they usually lack the ability to perform other musical tasks. For example, judgments of musical intervals and registers are not always accurate. Studies have shown that pitch is related to the languages or dialects individuals have been exposed to. The pitch range of a person’s speaking voice is related to that person’s dialect rather than to physiological characteristics, such as height and weight. In 1995, Schlaug, Jancke, Huang, and Steinmetz were the first to document that musicians with absolute pitch tend to exhibit a different brain structure, most commonly leftward asymmetry, than those without absolute pitch.
Lennenberg pointed out that adults and young children acquire absolute pitch in different ways, like learning a second language. If a second language is acquired after puberty, it is frequently spoken with a “foreign accent” and contains grammatical errors. Lennenberg included that there is a critical period, which extends to puberty, and is a crucial time for acquiring speech and language. Studies of second language acquisition have proven Lennenberg’s theory to be true. Individuals who were first exposed to a second language in early childhood were found to be more proficient in that language than children ages
There is also evidence that absolute pitch is related to the age of musical training. In 1998, a survey of musicians and music students was conducted by Baharloo, Johnston, Service, Gitschier, and Freimer. Figure 1 shows the results of the survey.
Figure 1
Age training began
4 and under
4-6
6-9
9-12
12 and over
Percentage of those with absolute pitch
40%
27%
8%
4%
2.7%
Clearly, there is a decline of those with absolute pitch as the beginning training age increases.
The link between absolute pitch and speech becomes even clearer when evidence from tone languages, such as Mandarin, Thai, and Vietnamese are considered. In these languages, words’ meanings are different based on the tones in which they are pronounced. For example, in Mandarin, the word “ma” means “mother” when spoken in first tone, “hemp” in the second tone, and “horse” in the third tone. Likewise, when a person with absolute pitch hears the note G, and identifies it as “G”, the person is also associating a certain pitch with a verbal description.
Which features of pitch are critical to conveying meaning in tone language? One hypothesis is that absolute pitch is treated by tone language speakers as a critical feature of speech. Three experiments were conducted to test this hypothesis.
Seven native speakers of Vietnamese, who had been living in the
The purpose of the second experiment was to test the results from the Vietnamese subjects to speakers of a different tone language. It was also conducted to see the differences in pitch if the same words were in enunciated on different days. Fifteen native speakers of Mandarin were asked to speak a list of 12 Mandarin words, which consisted of three words in each of the four Mandarin tones, put together so that the same tone did not occur two times in a row. In contrast to the first experiment, each subject was asked to read out the word list twice in each session with readings separated by 20 seconds. Consistencies were once again achieved. For all comparisons, 1/3 of the subjects produced difference scores of less than 0.25 semitones. The results backed up the hypothesis that the subjects were referring to stable absolute pitch templates when enunciating the words. Although the pitch differences found in comparing the readings from different days were very small, they underestimated the accuracy of the subjects’ absolute pitch pattern.
The first two experiments examined the performance of tone language speakers only. However, the third experiment was designed to see if speakers of an intonation language, such as English, would display the same pitch consistency. The experiment was the same as the first two, except native speakers of English were the subjects, and a list of 12 English words were used. The Mandarin and English speakers showed the same degree of pitch consistency in enunciating their word lists twice in succession, but the English speakers showed less pitch consistency across days.
The results of the three experiments support the hypothesis that absolute pitch is treated by tone language speakers as a critical feature of speech. English speakers were very consistent in the pitches which they articulated on different days. This may be related to the previous studies which showed that those who do not possess absolute pitch can still have a partial form of it. From the studies, we can now expect that speakers of tone language would acquire absolute pitch for music best in early childhood, and this ability would decline with increasing age.
For the rare cases of absolute pitch among people who haven’t been exposed to tone language, Deutsch hypothesized that the critical period for acquiring absolute pitch is unusually long. This unusually long critical period could be genetically determined and could also be associated with an unusual form of brain organization.
The results from the three experiments suggest that parts of the brain underlying absolute pitch originally evolved to help speech, and that it is now involved in processing absolute pitch for both speech and music.Deutsch, Diana, Mark Dolson, and Trevor Henthorn. "Absolute Pitch, Speech, and Tone Language: Some Experiments and a Proposed Framework." Music Perception Vol. 21, No. 3 (2004): 339-356.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004 Abstracts Journal of Singing-"What not to sing"
The author compared choosing a repertoire to choosing a wardrobe. Some topics discussed were choosing songs from appropriate time periods and of proper length. Like the texture of a fabric, the texture of a song should fit a singers voice. Specific pitfalls mentioned included the fact that certain instruments might sound bad with a singers timbre. Secondly, some songs are too big for a particular singer's voice. Finally, it is important to choose songs from appropriate time periods.
Journal of Singing-"how to sing Recitative"
Recitative is difficult to sing; this is a commonly accepted fact. To make recitative easier, there are several things a singer can do. First, singers should treat recit like a monologue and make it as speech like as possible. Recitative is the musical expression of speech, so it also helps to understand the language being sung. To actually memorize the notes, a singer should study the underlying harmonies. Finally, it always helps to study good performers and learn from them. More stuff about being a singer "Pursuing the Wrong Dream" By: Heather Antonissen
Classical Singer, November 2004
A singer's life is filled with conflict and struggle. Most of this struggle comes from within the singer as they face challenges. These challenges include staying healthy, having a fulfilling career and enjoying loving relationships. Often these desires are tainted by the attachment of a deeper emotional need. When the desire is obtained the emotional need is still unsatisfied or when the desire is obtained the emotional need grows even stronger. To ultimately find happiness, a singer must look within and examine their motives.
"What Not to Sing" By: Sharon Mabry
Journal of Singing, Volume 61, No. 2, November/December 2004
Compares the popular TV show What Not to Wear and the selection of attire with the singers selection of vocal repertoire. Explores date consciousness, fit, length, texture of material, color, appropriateness, and style. Just as an individual body must be taken into consideration when choosing attire so must an individual voice by taken into consideration when choosing repertoire. Choosing appropriate repertoire leads to a better vocal self image, self-confidence, and a clearer career direction.
Abstracts... "The First Year of Lessons"
-Beverly Strathmann
("The Clavier"- September 2004 Issue)
In this article, the author talks about the great joys of teaching a person how to play the piano who has never had any experience at all. The teacher begins the first lesson with a parent-student interview, and how practicing at home and lessons will work.
Before the student plays a note he/she is shown different pianos and compares them while they study the piano inside and out. Soon the student can't wait to play the piano and the teacher will demonstrate how to play their first complete piece. At the end of their first lesson, which is normally about 45 minutes, the student and teacher will review the practicing assignment. The begginner will recieve a foam ball to help the hand shape while playing. The student will leave with a smile and a look of anticipation as they begin piano lessons.
The author enjoys teaching these children and feels that being a student's first piano teacher is a rewarding responsibility.
"Practice Can Be A Pleasure"
-Jan Mittelsteadt
("The Clavier"- September 2004)
In this article the author discusses many practice methods that can be fun, but at the same time very helpful!
It begins by explaining that certain "jumps" in pieces are sometimes hard for students. The way to fix this is having the student practice the jumps silently. This can become a game; if the student does the jump five times in a row perfectly, then he/she gets to play the notes out loud. Sometimes in a piece the melody will pass between the two hands. When this happens, the student should practice the accompaniment parts slightly touching the keys, while playing the melody loud and with arm weight. One of the many other ways to teach good technique and practicing methods, is through accompanying and ensemble playing. To help students feel rhythm, the teacher will sing while they play the tunes.
All of these practice techniques and more, are only effective if the student practices consistently. A simple reward system may motivate young students to set aside time to practice everyday. The auther believes that teachers who develope a practice plan will help students to develope coordination, muscle control and a feel for rhythm. In the end, they will be helping students to learn music independently, which should be the goal of good teaching.
The Horn Call and The Instrumentalist Playing! With Ease
Based on hornist Arthur Krehbiel’s theories on horn playing, tips are offered to students hoping to increase the ease with which they play the horn. His technique is mastered only when the embouchure is able to consistently buzz with little drain on the lips. Krehbiel advises his students to focus first on the music and the technique will effortlessly follow. In regards to minimizing embouchure movement, he suggested simply whistling through the horn instead of shaping each note with the embouchure. Not only will this technique create more ease in playing, but it will also increase the student’s endurance. In addition, this technique will reduce the amount of warm-up and practice time needed by the student. Krehbiel’s teachings encourage creating a musical line with relative ease in playing.
Coping with Stage Fright
Much of the stage fright experienced by performing musicians stems from early or mid-life negative feedback regarding their performances. This negative stress often originates from the disapproval of individuals close to the performer by constantly striving for the elusive “perfection” in playing. It is emphasized that the first and most important step in overcoming stage fright is uncovering the underlying cause for each individual. Before this is completed, little permanent progress can be made for the performer. Also, the visualization of tense performance situations or use of Inderal, a beta blocking drug, is suggested for some. All musicians who have mastered the art of performing are ale to enter a “Zen-like state” while on stage. The conclusions were based on the author’s performance anxiety and his consequent degree researching the physiological and psychological repercussions of stage fright for the individual.
Goode, Michael. “Coping with Stage Fright.” The Instrumentalist. June 2004: 25-27.
Stevens, Paul. “Playing! Wth Ease.” The Horn Call. Feb 2004: 94-95.
My two abstracts Listen to the Fans
By Peter deVries
In this article, “Listen to the Fans”, popular music can be a great teaching technique. In it, it tells stories of teachers’ experiences with children and how popular music such as, the Spice Girls, can help teach important lessons in the classroom. Letting kids listen to what they want gets them in the mood to learn more about music. This article also gives tips to teachers on how to help children appreciate music and learn more about the different varieties out there. One teacher used the song, “When I Get You Alone” by the performer Thicke and compared it to the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The children listened to both and began to notice the differences as well as the similarities. The article demonstrates the fact that you can effectively teach with popular music and work in some classical every once in a while. In a nut shell, if you are a “fan” of a certain type of music, you are more likely to be interested in learning more about it, as are many elementary children.
Teaching Problem Solving in Practice
By James L. Byo
This article, “Teaching Problem Solving in Practice”, examines problem solving in instrumental music practice and is based on the notion that too many students, too much of the time, look and feel inadequate when they attempt to problem solve. For example, when practicing, a student comes to a difficult point in the song and instead of stopping and fixing it, he goes right on and ignores the problem. In the article, the author says practicing the difficult part over and over again at a slower tempo will help. The author also gives more advice on how to overcome problems in practicing. Problem solving is a learned skill and this article looks at both the effective and ineffective ways of teaching it. It also includes a list of a few things to help students face challenges in practicing. A few examples would be: choose a section of the piece that is challenging and play it through a few times perfectly and then move on. The article also gives many ideas to teachers on grading a practice session and lesson plans. Students shouldn’t feel inadequate and get down on themselves when they come to difficult parts in music. By teaching them how to effectively work at it, the student will have more confidence and will get a lot more out of their own practice time.
Saxophone Journal and Keyboard Companion Saxophone Journal
"The Baritone Saxophone: Playing Techniques and Recommended Repertoire"
By: Jay C. Easton
The baritone saxophone is the larger relative of the tenor and alto saxophones. There are many important techniques and tips on learning how to play the baritone saxophone.
The differences between playing the baritone versus tenor and alto saxophones is addressed right away. On the baritone, low notes are more responsive and a softer reed is often needed. The issue of using sufficient air flow and support is a pertinent concern as well. These characteristics are critical to a good tone. Advice on how to improve a player’s support is suggested through exercises to stay relaxed among a variety of other tips. It is also important to be physically comfortable while playing and the article advises a player on the type of strap support that produces the best effect.
Finally, transposition and solo pieces for the baritone saxophone are introduced. How to transpose and which instruments work best as well as a list of over fifteen recommended solos is given. Each piece is graded on a scale of three to six with levels ranging from the advanced high school to first year college student material to very difficult pieces. There is also a one sentence summary of each of the pieces. In addition, a web address is provided to give the curious player even more suggestions in solo repertoire.
Keyboard Companion
"Let’s get Physical: Technique"
By: Stephen Cook, Christy Dolan, and Peter Mack
This article compiles the advice from three separate authors so that the reader can experience a variety of styles on how to teach technique in a fun way. The first author addresses the repetitiveness of practicing technique. This is related specially to scales and how changing the way they are practiced and performed makes it more interesting. Hanon exercises are also useful in developing quick fingers. These exercises can explore rhythmic variation, chromatic elements, key changes, etc. Finally, Schmitt exercises are suggested for developing “independence in the fingers.” It might make the exercises more interesting if the student must transpose the exercise to a different key or register.
The next author takes the reader through a chronological view of teaching technique. It begins with addressing technique at the very first lesson with how the piano works and the names of the keys. This teacher requires all technical exercises to be memorized so that the students can watch their own hands. Then, the teacher explores learning major keys and the circle of fifths. Finally, the issue of technique books and the pros and cons each possesses is addressed.
The final author covers how to use rewards or incentives, attitudes, and other devices to get the student excited about technique. Technical exercises must be performed at every lesson and the teacher’s attitude can determine how a student will respond. Another helpful tip is to relate the exercises to the repertoire being studied. Finally, a teacher must remember that it is ok to use “gifts” as incentives to improve. Oftentimes, metaphors about certain technique make it more fun to practice. Keep in mind, however, that what succeeds with one student doesn’t guarantee it will succeed with another.
Lip Care and Orff Teaching Music
Oct.2004;Vol.12:2
"Orff Techniques to Freshen Up Band Rehearsal"
By Dale Misenhelter
A traditional approach from the general music class room offers fresh possibilities for ensemble directors and provides a variety of methods for effectively teaching music concepts. The general music idea was created by Orff Schulwerk and is often associated with younger students and pitched percussive instruments. Orff-Schulwerk strategies can help band students understand advanced rhythm patterns, explore beat and meter, enlarge melodic and harmonic vocabulary and improvement of improvisation. One way to work on rhythm is to develop a layered, ostinato-based improvisation using only body percussion. Many other strategies are given about beat, meter, harmony, melody, composition, and improvisation. Focusing on these fundamental concepts will improve a students understanding and performance of music.
The Instrumentalist
Nov.2004;Vol.59:4
"Take Care of Your Lips"
By Heather Rentz
For brass and woodwind players chapped lips and colds sore can impede good tone quality and comfort while playing. Cold sores can be triggered by stress, a weak immune system, overexposure to sunlight and chapped lips. It can take up to three weeks for a cold sore to heal. This may be very troublesome if the wind player if they have an audition or recital while they have a cold sore. There are a variety of lip balms and ointments available for coping with chapped lips and cold sores. When choosing a lip ointment or balm one should ask this question: Is this product for chapped lips or cold sores? The reason for this question is because cold sores need to be dried out and chapped lips need to be moisturized. Using the wrong product can cause your specific problem to become worse; drying your chapped lips or moisturizing your cold sore. Suggested brands for cold sores include Carmex, Super Lysine Plus, and Campho-phenique. There is also a recipe for a lip balm that has proven very useful for moisturizing dry, chapped lips.
Monday, November 29, 2004 Abstracts!! Keyboard Companion
"Developing habits of good listening"
By Scott McBride
According to Robert Schumann, "The most important thing is to cultivate the sense of hearing. Take pains early to distinguish tones and keys by ear. The bell, the windowpane, the cuckoo-listen to the sounds they make." The first step to proper musicianship is to listen carefully as opposed to just hearing. An ear training exercise to encourage listening is to have students remain silent and make a list of all the sounds they hear during a four minute time span. Students are always shocked by how many sounds the silence contains. Another exercise is to play a middle C on the piano, and students will sing the pitch back every 15 minutes. Over time, students gradually develop a pitch memory of the note and are able to sing it voluntarily.
Tone is linked with legato and dynamics. Good posture, a rounded hand position, and free use of the upper arm are important for tonal smoothness which produces correct tonal matching. There are also three factors that influence the sound of every note: attack, duration, and release. A note attacked too slowly will result in no sound and likewise a note attacked too fast will sound too percussive. Rachmaninoff believes that natural motions, arm weight, and gravity are important in tone production. He believes that the hands should feel as if they are "growing into the keyboard." Most importantly, careful listening is important in maintaining proper tone.
Teaching Music
"Successful Sight-Reading at Your Next Festival"
By Cheryl K. Newton
Sight-reading does not have to be the most frightening or unmanageable aspect of festival performance. There are techniques that can be taught and rehearsed to prepare for an accurate sight-reading performance. The key to successful sight-reading is consistent practice throughout the year. Choose a selection that is one or two grade levels below the performance level of your band. Select music that includes changes in meter or challenging matter. Knowing all of the major scales is imperative for successful sight-reading. This helps one feel comfortable in all keys. Being prepared can help ease nervousness when sight-reading. Packing extra percussion instruments, stopwatches, and post-it notes for marking repeats or codas will make the day less stressful. New terms should not arise during the sight-reading at a festival; all material should be learned ahead of time in the class room.
Above all, a trustful relationship between the conductor and students is the most important factor of successful sight-reading. Sight-reading is a challenge but plenty can be learned, and it is possible to be fun and enjoyable.
Sunday, November 21, 2004 Stravinsky and Le Sacre du Printemps from Stravinsky; His Life and Works
History of Stravinsky and Le Sacre du Printemps
Le Sacre du Printemps was one of the most controversial ballet and orchestral pieces of the 20th century. Stravinsky's idea for this piece came in a dream: a scene showing a pagan ritual in which a chosen sacrificial virgin danced herself to death. He met with Nicolas Roerich to plan the story line of Le Sacre du Printemps. On his way to Princess Tenichev's estate, he missed his train and convinced a freight train to take him there. Once there he saw Russian ethnic art. The inspiration for the scenarios came from the Russian ethnic art owned by Princess Tenichev. The titles of the movement were thought of in only a few days. The original name for this ballet was Vesna Sviaschennania--Sacred Spring/Holy Spring.
After returning home Stravinsky wrote the entire piece utilizing a muted-upright piano in a room that was 8x8 feet. Stravinsky began writing the piece in the summer of 1911 and completed writing it in early 1912. By late spring, the instrumentation had been put in score form. Le Sacre du Printemps was choreographed by Nijinsky and was staged at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris on May 1913. Najinsky's choreography was able to match the music of Stravinsky with something equally original and startling.
Neither the music nor choreography was proved acceptable to the general public on the first performance. At the first public performance there was chaos, as members of the audience took sides for or against the piece. There were boo’s and hissing as the piece began and continued through out the entire piece. Through the deafening and violent objects from many of the audience members, the dancers and musicians continued playing to the end, although the music was impossible to hear. Stravinsky recalls the events of the evening;
“Mild protests against the music could be heard from the very beginning of the performance. Then, when the curtain opened on the group of knock-kneed and long braided Lolitas jumping up and down, the storm broke. Cries of ‘Ta guele’ came from behind me………I left the hall in a rage; I was sitting on the right near the orchestra, and I remember slamming the door. I have never been that angry. The music was so familiar to me; I loved it………people who had not yet heard it wanted to protest in advance. I arrived in a fury backstage…………the rest of the performance I stood in the wings……”
In 1914, one year after the incident, the score was played by itself and was accepted with good grace. At the end of this performance the entire audience jumped to their feet and cheered. Instead of jeers, they were celebrating the great piece Stravinsky had written. Audience members rushed back stage and placed Stravinsky on their shoulders. After Le Sacre du Printemps, composers were free to write more dissonant and complicated music.
Here are some images of Le Sacre du Printemps with current and original costume ideas.
Part I: Adoration of the Earth
Introduction
Auguries of Spring (Dances of the Young Girls)
Mock Abduction
Spring Khorovod (Round Dance)
Games of the Rival Clans
Procession of the Wise Elder
Adoration of the Earth (the Wise Elder)
Dance of the Earth
Part II: The Sacrifice
Introduction
Mystical Circles of Young Girls
Glorification of the Chosen Victim
The Summoning of the Ancients
Ritual of the Ancients
Sacrificial Dance (the Chosen Victim)
Listen to Le Sacre du Printemps
Hear Performance Today's host Lisa Simeone and commentator Thomas Kelly discuss the scandalous premiere of Stravinsky's great score and how it changed music forever.
References:
Expositions and developments
Conversations with Igor Stravinsky
The Music of Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky by Michael Oliver
Naxos Music Library
Life and Death United; An Intimate Portrait of a Man named Miles Davis
"The very first thing I remember in my early childhood is a flame, a blue flame jumping off a gas stove somebody lit.... I remember being shocked by the whoosh of the blue flame jumping off the burner, the suddenness of it....That stove flame is as clear as music is in my mind. I saw that flame and felt fear, real fear, for the first time in my life. But I remember it also like some kind of adventure, some kind of weird joy, too....The fear I had was almost like an invitation, a challenge to go forward into something I knew nothing about. That's where I think my personal philosophy of life and my commitment to everything I believe in started, with that moment....In my mind I have always believed and thought since then that my motion had to be forward, away from the heat of that flame." -Miles Davis.
Life.
Miles Dewey Davis III was born on May 26th, 1926 in Alton, Illinois. A year later his family moved to East St. Louis, a city full of racism, deep seeded and still smoldering from the race riots of 1917. Miles had an older sister named Dorothy born in 1924 and a younger brother named Vernon born in 1929. Miles father, Miles Dewey Davis II was a successful dentist and earned three college degrees. His mother, Cleota Henry Davis, was beautiful and dignified.
Miles grew up with relative ease. His family had plenty of money and they lived in a white neighborhood. One of the most painful memories of Miles childhood was when a white man had chased him and called him a nigger. His father went looking for the man with a loaded shotgun, but he never found him.
Miles received his first trumpet for his 13th birthday. He immediately took to the trumpet. His father spoke highly of Miles' talent by sighting his family's history. "By genetics and breeding Miles is always going to be ahead of his time. Historically way back into slavery days, the Davis's have been musicians and performed classic works in the homes of the plantation owners." Just as his ancestors, Miles continuously fought racial prejudices. His father speaks of this unfair treatment. "In school competitions he was always the best, but the blue-eyed boys always won first and second prizes. Miles had always to settle for third. The officials, Miles and everybody else knew he should have had first prize. You can't treat a kid like that and tell him to come out and say the water wasn't dirty."
The events in Miles childhood against his race left a deep impact on him and most likely fuelled his anger for years to come.
Death.
Miles Dewey Davis died on September 28, 1991 in Santa Monica, California. He entered St. John's Hospital and Health Care Center there in early September. He was suffering from bronchial pneumonia. Doctors noticed laborious breathing and wanted to insert a tube to deliver oxygen. Miles refused. However the doctors were insistent. Suddenly, Miles flew into a rage and turned purple with anger. Anger. Anger the emotion deep routed in his childhood. Anger led to Miles death. He suffered a massive stroke and entered into a coma from which he never would awake.
"The tragic irony consisted in the fact that Miles Davis was perhaps for the first time in his life, in the right psychological and physical condition to enjoy a relaxed, healthy, and carefree retirement, secure in the knowledge that he had given his utmost to music, and created what had been called 'one of the greatest musical legacies of the twentieth century.'" says Ian Carr in Miles Davis; a Definitive Biography.
Life and Death.
"The very first thing I remember in my early childhood is a flame, a blue flame jumping off a gas stove somebody lit....I remember being shocked by the whoosh of the blue fame jumping off the burner, the suddenness of it...."
Suddenly, Miles flew into a rage and turned purple with anger.
"That stove flame is as clear as music is in my mind."
Miles had always to settle for third. The officials, Miles and everybody else knew he should have had first prize.
"I saw that flame and felt that hotness of it close to my face. I felt fear, real fear, for the first time in my life."
One of the most painful memories of Miles childhood was when a white man had chased him and called him a nigger.
"But I remember it also like some kind of adventure, some kind of weird joy, too....The fear I had was almost like an invitation..."
Miles received his first trumpet for his 13th birthday. He immediately took to the trumpet.
"...a challenge to go forward into something I knew nothing about."
Miles Dewey Davis died on September 28, 1991 in Santa Monica, California.
"That's where I think my personal philosophy of life and my commitment to everything I believe in started, with that moment....In my mind I have always believed and thought since then that my motion had to be forward, away from the heat of that flame."
Bibliography
Miles the Autobiography
Milestones; The Music and Times of Miles Davis
Miles Davis; The Definitive Biography
-Arnold Schoenberg
It is not usually the lyrical melodies that we remember in Arnold Schoenberg’s music, but rather his contribution to the development of 20th century music through his work. It would almost seem as if his life were mirrored in his music; they were quite unconventional and often rubbed societal in slightly the wrong direction, often producing trial after trial for the musician that just wanted to live as he desired.
His Childhood
Arnold Franz Walter Schoenberg was born to Samuel Schoenberg and Pauline Nachod on September 13th, 1874 in Vienna, Austria. His mother was an orthodox Jew while his father, an anarchist at heart, did not have a strong religious preference. His lower- to middle-class family had difficulties at times providing a quality education for their children. Although both of his parents that were avid musicians, it was really his mother Pauline who encouraged music within their household and ensured they were taught music as well as their small budget would allow. At the age of eight, Schoenberg began taking violin lessons regularly. From this base and his extraordinary music application abilities, he taught himself how to play cello and yearned to play with the youth chamber ensembles. His brother, although his name is not as household today, was a fairly well-known bass singer with the German Opera in Prague.
His First Challenge
Schoenberg’s first real challenge came when he was just fifteen years old. His father suddenly died and he was forced pick up a job as an apprentice at a local bank to support his family. It was at this time that all activities even slightly resembling a formal education came to an end. The more meager their income became, the worse his chances looked for getting an opportunity to focus on his music.
Then, in 1895, Schoenberg, to his delight, looses his banking job after the bank was forced to declare bankruptcy. This opened the door for the first time to truly give him the opportunity to pursue his musical career seriously. By the next year, he composed six pieces for piano. Alexander von Zemlinsky, who acted as his only formal composition teacher, encouraged Schoenberg to become more educated about the field of music. Although Zemlinsky was only three years older than Schoenberg, he was far more advanced musically than Schoenberg. Six years after Zemlinsky and Schoenberg become very close friends, Schoenberg married Zemlinsky’s sister, Mathilde von Zemlinsky. The next year, they brought their first child, Trudi, in to the world. Little did he know how hard a world it would be for her to grow up at this time in Europe…
Anti-Semitism in Europe and His Music
When it rains, it pours…Within a span of two years, two major events happened that would change Schoenberg’s life forever. One was his father’s death in 1891 that changed his family economic situation and forced him to put his music aside for half a decade. The other was the birth of Adolf Hitler in Austria. Although he did not know at the age of thirteen what Hitler would do in the following years, Hitler’s birth would greatly affect everything and everybody around him from his country to his family to his music.
Despite the fact that he had converted to Lutheranism in 1898, he was still labeled as a Jew throughout Hitler’s reign. In disgust, he reconverted back to Judaism in seeing the atrocities committed for “Christian ideals.”
It was not until 1920 that Hitler directly affected Schoenberg’ life. In 1921, Schoenberg was forced to leave his home in Mattsee where Jews were no longer welcome. This was also the same year that Hitler revealed his plan to send all Jewish people to concentration camps. In 1923, his wife died and he remarried a year later to Gertrud Kolisch. In this same year that was marked by so many changes for Schoenberg, Hitler was writing Mein Kampf while incarcerated.
His Life in America
The same year that the United States entered the war and the first gassings and mass executions of Jews occurred in Europe, Schoenberg received his United States citizenship. In 1936, he had joined the faculty at the University of Southern California (USC). Most of his teaching in America was at UCLA starting that same year. There he turned out many exceptional musicians, not the least of which was John Cage. It was in Los Angeles, California – his home away from home – that he died on the thirteenth of July in 1951 from a heart attack.
Bibliography
Political and Religious Ideas in the Works of Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg by H.H. Stuckenschmidt
Arnold Schoenberg’s Journey
A Schoenberg Reader
Arnold Schoenberg The Composer as Jew
On Classical
Biography of Arnold Schoenberg
The Arnold Schoenberg Center
Arnold Schoenberg
Saturday, November 20, 2004 Jacques Offenbach Jacques Offenbach
Born the seventh child of Isaac Erbst, a Jewish cantor, Jakob Weiner entered this world on June 20, 1819. His family lived in Cologne, Germany. He was a child prodigy, learning the violin and composing small pieces at age 6. He was secretly studying the cello as well, and when this was discovered, his father was immensely pleased. The family formed a trio, including Jakob, his older brother and sister Julius and Isabella. The three played at a variety of restaurants around Cologne. Jakob learned so quickly on the cello that he had soon learned everything there was to learn around Cologne and his family realized they would have to send him elsewhere. In 1833 when he was just fourteen years old, his father, brother Julius and he traveled four days to the Paris Conservatoire. Their father remained three months with them in Paris and then returned home. The two soon changed their names, being in France to Jacques and Jules.
Offenbach left the Conservatoire after only a year of studies. He joined the Opera- Comique in 1834. He played there for three years in the orchestra and he wrote that the whole time, he was “discontent and unhappy.” He also wrote a few pieces while working for the Opera Comique. As his career started to pick up, there was also a large increase in the demand for dance music. He wrote a lot of dance music around this time, especially for the cancan.
In 1837, he quit the Opera and spent time developing his career as a cello soloist. He was hired as the conductor of the Theater Francais in 1850. During this period, he also began to write operettas. In 1855, he rented his own theater called Bouffes Parisiens and performed his own works there. Even though Offenbach’s plays were successful in theaters, his own theater didn’t make any money. He went so far into debt, that he had to hide, moving between friend’s houses and writing as he went. The only hope he had, was in the operetta he was in the process of writing: Orpheé aux Enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld). If this was a hit, he could return to his normal life style.
Orpheus in the Underworld was written as a satire on the gods of Olympus. In the months it took to put the work together, many, many things went wrong. Among others, the piccolo player was sick opening night, Eurydice (played by Mlle. Tautin) wouldn’t play her part unless she received a real tiger- skin, and the gas pipe in the street in front of the theater broke. The first performance of Orpheé aux Enfers, on October 21, 1858, wasn’t as successful as Offenbach had hoped. The audience was amused, but completely missed the overall point and it wasn’t the favorite of the critics. This went on for a few performances.
Over a month after opening night, a journalist named Jules Janin paid a visit to Bouffes. He hurled insults left and right about the theater and especially about Orpheus in the Underworld which he thought was a “holy and glorious antiquity.” Offenbach immediately responded to his column and got the last word. This was exactly what the operetta needed. By the eighteenth performance, crowds were streaming in to see it. This is what saved Offenbach. It was performed two hundred and twenty eight times after which Offenbach was forced to remove it because of the exhaustion of the performers. It was re-staged in 1860 and the whole house was sold out within hours after the announcement.
After his success with Orpheus in the Underworld, he proceeded to write more operettas, his more famous including La Belle Hélène (1864), La Vie Parisienne (1866), La Grande- duchesse de Gerolstein (1867), and La Oerichole (1868). Offenbach grew tired of being famous merely for his operettas and he wanted something more. It was at this time that he had the idea of producing The Tales of Hoffmann, which turned out to be his last work. The original play, Les Contes fantastiques d’Hoffmann, was produced in 1851 and Offenbach had spoken with the author before about turning it into an opera. This first theater version was written by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. The opera was in it’s final stages. The date for opening night was picked- it would be the first week of the winter season. Offenbach was getting older and his name hadn’t been heard for a decade or so. The only comment he would make of his new work was, “I would give everything only to be present at the first night.” This was the only thing keeping him alive. He lived as if in a dream and was so frail that he would lie motionless at all times. In the middle of July, he kept the shades drawn in fear of the drafts. He was failing fast. He traveled to Paris one last time to check on the progress. The musical arrangements were complete and as he looked over them, he had a “suffocation attack.” After this attack he said to his family, “I believe tonight it will be over.” He didn’t wake up. The date was October 5, 1880. Opening night occurred February 10, 1881. When the opera opened in Vienna in December 1881, a fire broke out in the second performance and for years after this, there was much superstition about the play.
Over one hundred years later, Offenbach’s works are still performed, and he is known as the father of our common operetta form.
Sources:
www.classicalarchives.com/bios/codm/offenbach.html
www.quadrant.net/LaVie/noframes/lup/offenbach.html.
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