[1] If one were to construct a map of the field of music theory, three of its most prominent regions would represent the subdisciplines of rhythm and meter, tonal structure, and form. One could imagine a number of winding trails on this map, each representing the trajectory of an individual piece of scholarship. Though each path would represent a unique journey, many would explore the local highlights of only a single region, reflecting the tendency for theorists to focus on the way a single musical parameter functions within the works of a particular composer, style, or genre. If drawn on such a map, the trek representing Jason Yust’s Organized Time: Rhythm, Tonality, and Form (2018) would trace out a fundamentally different shape: not only would it visit all three regions, but it would also wind through the stretches of land between them, allowing its travelers to appreciate how the views evolve along the journey.
{"title":"Review of Jason Yust, Organized Time: Rhythm, Tonality, and Form (Oxford University Press, 2018)","authors":"L. Frederick","doi":"10.30535/MTO.26.4.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30535/MTO.26.4.11","url":null,"abstract":"[1] If one were to construct a map of the field of music theory, three of its most prominent regions would represent the subdisciplines of rhythm and meter, tonal structure, and form. One could imagine a number of winding trails on this map, each representing the trajectory of an individual piece of scholarship. Though each path would represent a unique journey, many would explore the local highlights of only a single region, reflecting the tendency for theorists to focus on the way a single musical parameter functions within the works of a particular composer, style, or genre. If drawn on such a map, the trek representing Jason Yust’s Organized Time: Rhythm, Tonality, and Form (2018) would trace out a fundamentally different shape: not only would it visit all three regions, but it would also wind through the stretches of land between them, allowing its travelers to appreciate how the views evolve along the journey.","PeriodicalId":44918,"journal":{"name":"Music Theory Online","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42921463","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article analyzes the distribution of three- and four-voice vertical sonorities in a repertoire of French ars antiqua and ars nova motets. Rather than selecting the subjectively important sonorities within a piece—an effort that would rely on the analyst’s judgment of the overarching contrapuntal goals—this study uses computational musicological methods to analyze and categorize the distribution of sonorities across individual motets and groups of motets that occur at regular time intervals across the course of the compositions. This study offers some preliminary observations and conclusions about sonority usage in the late medieval French motet repertoire.
{"title":"Computer-aided Analysis of Sonority in the French Motet Repertory, ca. 1300–1350","authors":"Karen Desmond, E. Hopkins, S. Howes, J. Cumming","doi":"10.30535/MTO.26.4.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30535/MTO.26.4.2","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes the distribution of three- and four-voice vertical sonorities in a repertoire of French ars antiqua and ars nova motets. Rather than selecting the subjectively important sonorities within a piece—an effort that would rely on the analyst’s judgment of the overarching contrapuntal goals—this study uses computational musicological methods to analyze and categorize the distribution of sonorities across individual motets and groups of motets that occur at regular time intervals across the course of the compositions. This study offers some preliminary observations and conclusions about sonority usage in the late medieval French motet repertoire.","PeriodicalId":44918,"journal":{"name":"Music Theory Online","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46234128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
[1] Improvisation is a ubiquitous component of music the world over. Scholars have detailed some of its multifarious forms and meanings, demonstrating that the practice of improvisation extends far beyond its hypervisibility in jazz.(1) Tilley’s Making It Up Together offers new and compelling perspectives in this expanding field of improvisation studies, as well as in ethnomusicology (Tilley’s home discipline) and music theory. It excavates improvisatory processes in a musical genre thought to be largely composed and offers a unique examination of intraensemble interaction. The book also proposes a new theory of improvisation applicable to practices beyond the book’s specific case studies, and its discussion of “local theory” suggests that we critically expand the theoretical underpinnings of our disciplines.
{"title":"Review of Leslie A. Tilley, Making It Up Together: The Art of Collective Improvisation in Balinese Music and Beyond (The University of Chicago Press, 2019)","authors":"Marc E. Hannaford","doi":"10.30535/MTO.26.4.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30535/MTO.26.4.12","url":null,"abstract":"[1] Improvisation is a ubiquitous component of music the world over. Scholars have detailed some of its multifarious forms and meanings, demonstrating that the practice of improvisation extends far beyond its hypervisibility in jazz.(1) Tilley’s Making It Up Together offers new and compelling perspectives in this expanding field of improvisation studies, as well as in ethnomusicology (Tilley’s home discipline) and music theory. It excavates improvisatory processes in a musical genre thought to be largely composed and offers a unique examination of intraensemble interaction. The book also proposes a new theory of improvisation applicable to practices beyond the book’s specific case studies, and its discussion of “local theory” suggests that we critically expand the theoretical underpinnings of our disciplines.","PeriodicalId":44918,"journal":{"name":"Music Theory Online","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43381237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article makes a case for constructing a map of Maurice Ravel’s “La vallée des cloches” (The valley of the bells) by showing how the process of mapping the piece can provide valuable insights from a variety of perspectives, such as: 1) offering insights into how the piece’s many bell sounds are individuated from each other and interact with one another in creating intricate formal and temporal frameworks; 2) emphasizing prominent aspects of Ravel’s aesthetics such as mechanistic impulses, spatial and metaphorical thinking, literary influences, and nostalgic fascination with the past; 3) situating the piece within the context of significant changes in France at the turn of the twentieth century marked by the declining prominence of bells in defining the auditory landscape, the symbolism bells carried with them, and the role bells played in marking temporal rhythms for French society; and 4) showing how many aspects of the piece highlighted throughout the mapping process align in suggestive ways with significant performance considerations.
本文通过展示绘制作品的过程如何从各种角度提供有价值的见解,为绘制莫里斯·拉威尔的《钟声谷》(La vallée des cloches)地图提供了一个案例,例如:1)深入了解作品中的许多铃声是如何相互独立并在创建复杂的形式和时间框架时相互作用的;2) 强调拉威尔美学的突出方面,如机械冲动、空间和隐喻思维、文学影响和对过去的怀旧迷恋;3) 将这首作品置于二十世纪之交法国发生重大变化的背景下,这些变化的标志是钟声在定义听觉景观方面的重要性下降,钟声所携带的象征意义,以及钟声在标记法国社会时间节奏方面所起的作用;以及4)显示在整个映射过程中突出显示的作品的多少方面以暗示的方式与重要的性能考虑相一致。
{"title":"Mapping Ravel’s “La vallée des cloches”","authors":"Kyle Fyr","doi":"10.30535/MTO.26.4.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30535/MTO.26.4.3","url":null,"abstract":"This article makes a case for constructing a map of Maurice Ravel’s “La vallée des cloches” (The valley of the bells) by showing how the process of mapping the piece can provide valuable insights from a variety of perspectives, such as: 1) offering insights into how the piece’s many bell sounds are individuated from each other and interact with one another in creating intricate formal and temporal frameworks; 2) emphasizing prominent aspects of Ravel’s aesthetics such as mechanistic impulses, spatial and metaphorical thinking, literary influences, and nostalgic fascination with the past; 3) situating the piece within the context of significant changes in France at the turn of the twentieth century marked by the declining prominence of bells in defining the auditory landscape, the symbolism bells carried with them, and the role bells played in marking temporal rhythms for French society; and 4) showing how many aspects of the piece highlighted throughout the mapping process align in suggestive ways with significant performance considerations.","PeriodicalId":44918,"journal":{"name":"Music Theory Online","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47662211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of Dylan Robinson, Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies (University of Minnesota Press, 2020)","authors":"Robin Attas","doi":"10.30535/MTO.26.4.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30535/MTO.26.4.10","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":44918,"journal":{"name":"Music Theory Online","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48511187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}