Trans composers, like other people marginalized by race, gender, or sexuality, are often caught in the trap of identity constructs, which both envoice minorities and also pigeonhole their possible range of musical expression. In this essay on US-based transgender Indigenous Mexican choral composer Mari Esabel Valverde, I let my consideration of “trans music theory” be guided by her view that writers have sensationalized trans identity, and that while she celebrates trans lives in her choral work Our Phoenix (2016), she is not attempting to create music that “sounds” transgender. With Valverde in mind, I construct an intersectional interpretive framework that calls for various kind of limits (the limits of queering, of authorial subjectivity, and of the notion of “unconscious” expression of identity) and proposes essential conditions (the centrality of the voices, bodies, and musical structures of trans composers) that create an ethical environment for a compassionate trans music theory to emerge.
{"title":"Hermeneutic Limits; or, When Not to Theorize: Notes for Interpreting Our Phoenix by Trans Indigenous Mexican-American Composer Mari Esabel Valverde","authors":"Gavin S K Lee","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtae004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtae004","url":null,"abstract":"Trans composers, like other people marginalized by race, gender, or sexuality, are often caught in the trap of identity constructs, which both envoice minorities and also pigeonhole their possible range of musical expression. In this essay on US-based transgender Indigenous Mexican choral composer Mari Esabel Valverde, I let my consideration of “trans music theory” be guided by her view that writers have sensationalized trans identity, and that while she celebrates trans lives in her choral work Our Phoenix (2016), she is not attempting to create music that “sounds” transgender. With Valverde in mind, I construct an intersectional interpretive framework that calls for various kind of limits (the limits of queering, of authorial subjectivity, and of the notion of “unconscious” expression of identity) and proposes essential conditions (the centrality of the voices, bodies, and musical structures of trans composers) that create an ethical environment for a compassionate trans music theory to emerge.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141608602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The connections between musical improvisation and society are a topic of frequent scholarly interest. These investigations take a range of analytical approaches, often adapted to the specifics of the improvised musicking being examined. This paper synthesizes existing concepts and theories to produce a framework for improvisation that is applicable to the social analysis of a wide range of improvisatory musical practices. The three foundational tenets of this framework are: (1) improvisation is one musical property among many that occurs to varying degrees and in different ways that fluctuate across space, time, and relevant actors; (2) the interactions between musical improvisation and the other properties of a given musical event are crucial for understanding its social implications; and (3) understanding these properties and their interactions requires examining the specific actions taken by improvisers in context. After outlining these tenets, the paper explores the role of various social, material, and individual factors in shaping improvisation and why examining these is crucial to social analysis. Finally, the paper demonstrates this model with a brief analysis of musical improvisation’s political impacts during the cacerolazos of the 2001–2002 Argentine Financial Crisis. The result of this paper is a theorization of improvisatory musicking especially suited to social analysis.
{"title":"Theorizing Musical Improvisation for Social Analysis","authors":"Ryan Martin","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtae005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtae005","url":null,"abstract":"The connections between musical improvisation and society are a topic of frequent scholarly interest. These investigations take a range of analytical approaches, often adapted to the specifics of the improvised musicking being examined. This paper synthesizes existing concepts and theories to produce a framework for improvisation that is applicable to the social analysis of a wide range of improvisatory musical practices. The three foundational tenets of this framework are: (1) improvisation is one musical property among many that occurs to varying degrees and in different ways that fluctuate across space, time, and relevant actors; (2) the interactions between musical improvisation and the other properties of a given musical event are crucial for understanding its social implications; and (3) understanding these properties and their interactions requires examining the specific actions taken by improvisers in context. After outlining these tenets, the paper explores the role of various social, material, and individual factors in shaping improvisation and why examining these is crucial to social analysis. Finally, the paper demonstrates this model with a brief analysis of musical improvisation’s political impacts during the cacerolazos of the 2001–2002 Argentine Financial Crisis. The result of this paper is a theorization of improvisatory musicking especially suited to social analysis.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141614465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines the relationship between tonal and narrative structures in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo. I argue that this relationship is reciprocal and that Bernard Herrmann’s score for the film affects the perception of the plot despite the generally accepted conventions of understanding film music as subordinate to overall cinematic structure. Using methodologies ranging from Schenkerian theory to analytical approaches to popular music, I suggest that the tonal structure unfolds in two broad episodes that segment the film and help us interpret it from the protagonist’s psychological perspective through the alignment of strong cadential points with important kernel events in the plot.
{"title":"Narrative and Tonal Structure in Herrmann’s Score for Vertigo","authors":"Oğuz Şehİraltı","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtae003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtae003","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the relationship between tonal and narrative structures in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo. I argue that this relationship is reciprocal and that Bernard Herrmann’s score for the film affects the perception of the plot despite the generally accepted conventions of understanding film music as subordinate to overall cinematic structure. Using methodologies ranging from Schenkerian theory to analytical approaches to popular music, I suggest that the tonal structure unfolds in two broad episodes that segment the film and help us interpret it from the protagonist’s psychological perspective through the alignment of strong cadential points with important kernel events in the plot.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"78 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141608603","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article deconstructs the intersections of form, counterpoint, and narrative that contribute to parody in the third movement Rondo-Burleske of Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. Motivic counterpoint problematizes the movement’s main rondo theme, placing initial cracks in the movement’s rondo façade. Through thematic and formal counterpoint, the rondo genre itself destabilizes as signifiers of sonata-form rhetoric intrude. To interpret how counterpoint and generic mixture contribute to the burlesque character of the movement, I consider theoretical accounts of parody and the burlesque, and I adapt, as a generative metaphor, Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of the carnivalesque. In the context of the Ninth Symphony’s transsymphonic narrative, the Rondo-Burleske performs a carnival parody of the symphonic finale genre, functioning as a brazen, iconoclastic, but in the end, failed counterpart to the first movement.
{"title":"Contrapuntal Parody and Transsymphonic Narrative in Mahler’s Rondo-Burleske","authors":"Sam Reenan","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtae006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtae006","url":null,"abstract":"This article deconstructs the intersections of form, counterpoint, and narrative that contribute to parody in the third movement Rondo-Burleske of Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. Motivic counterpoint problematizes the movement’s main rondo theme, placing initial cracks in the movement’s rondo façade. Through thematic and formal counterpoint, the rondo genre itself destabilizes as signifiers of sonata-form rhetoric intrude. To interpret how counterpoint and generic mixture contribute to the burlesque character of the movement, I consider theoretical accounts of parody and the burlesque, and I adapt, as a generative metaphor, Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of the carnivalesque. In the context of the Ninth Symphony’s transsymphonic narrative, the Rondo-Burleske performs a carnival parody of the symphonic finale genre, functioning as a brazen, iconoclastic, but in the end, failed counterpart to the first movement.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141516508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Music in the Data: Corpus Analysis, Music Analysis, and Tonal Traditions","authors":"Matt Chiu","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtad025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad025","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"30 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139445827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Although most songwriting teams in the Great American Songbook wrote music first and lyrics second, most studies of music-text interaction in this repertoire still evince a lyrics-first mindset, in which the music is viewed as text-setting. In this article, I propose the opposite approach: considering lyrics as a form of music-setting, in which the lyricist’s superimposition of a verbal form (the rhyme scheme) upon the composer’s pre-existing musical form counts as an act of analysis. I examine in turn: (1) the most common phrase structures and their associated rhyme schemes in songs from 1919 to 1943; (2) Lorenz Hart’s negotiation of the unusual XYYZ phrase structure that Richard Rodgers frequently employed; and (3) special cases where the lyricist contests the composer’s form and the effect that this can have on performers’ choices.
{"title":"Lyricist as Analyst: Rhyme Scheme as Music-Setting in the Great American Songbook","authors":"John Y Lawrence","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtad015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad015","url":null,"abstract":"Although most songwriting teams in the Great American Songbook wrote music first and lyrics second, most studies of music-text interaction in this repertoire still evince a lyrics-first mindset, in which the music is viewed as text-setting. In this article, I propose the opposite approach: considering lyrics as a form of music-setting, in which the lyricist’s superimposition of a verbal form (the rhyme scheme) upon the composer’s pre-existing musical form counts as an act of analysis. I examine in turn: (1) the most common phrase structures and their associated rhyme schemes in songs from 1919 to 1943; (2) Lorenz Hart’s negotiation of the unusual XYYZ phrase structure that Richard Rodgers frequently employed; and (3) special cases where the lyricist contests the composer’s form and the effect that this can have on performers’ choices.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"87 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139053318","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article draws on the mathematical approaches of Tymoczko (2011) and Hook (2008) to construct a transformational space of closed-position diatonic triads. The group acts on a set of twenty-one objects: the seven diatonic triads differentiated by the three closed-position inversions. After constructing the transformation group as an abstract voice-leading space, I interpret the system as an instrumental space (De Souza 2017) that captures the chord shapes required to play triadic progressions on a keyboard. This emphasis on the space’s ability to capture such chord shapes leads to generalizations of the system that explore interactions between voice leading and chord spacing using geometric and diatonic theory.
{"title":"Diatonic Voice-Leading Transformations","authors":"Leah Frederick","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtad017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad017","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article draws on the mathematical approaches of Tymoczko (2011) and Hook (2008) to construct a transformational space of closed-position diatonic triads. The group acts on a set of twenty-one objects: the seven diatonic triads differentiated by the three closed-position inversions. After constructing the transformation group as an abstract voice-leading space, I interpret the system as an instrumental space (De Souza 2017) that captures the chord shapes required to play triadic progressions on a keyboard. This emphasis on the space’s ability to capture such chord shapes leads to generalizations of the system that explore interactions between voice leading and chord spacing using geometric and diatonic theory.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"144 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135723563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction to: Naamyam, Creative Music, and Immigrant Act: Meditations on Jon Jang’s Musical Setting of Genny Lim’s “Burial Mound”","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtad024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad024","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"54 6","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135775853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract George Russell conceptualized his Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization as a theory of tonality. He includes an analysis of the opening of Maurice Ravel’s “Forlane” from Le Tombeau de Couperin in the fourth and final edition of his text to demonstrate what his theory—“The Concept”—offers for the analysis of Western art music. This article takes Russell’s claim seriously, discusses The Concept as a theory of tonality, and extends Russell’s analysis to the entirety of “Forlane.” I also connect Russell’s work to broader Black cultural practices and their socio-political resonances.
摘要乔治·罗素将他的吕底亚音阶组织概念概念化为一种调性理论。在他的第四版也是最后一版中，他分析了莫里斯·拉威尔(Maurice Ravel)的《坟墓》(Le Tombeau de Couperin)的《弗兰》(Forlane)的开头部分，以证明他的理论——“概念”——为分析西方艺术音乐提供了什么。本文认真对待罗素的主张，将《概念》作为调性理论进行讨论，并将罗素的分析扩展到《弗兰》的整体。我还将罗素的作品与更广泛的黑人文化实践及其社会政治共鸣联系起来。
{"title":"Adventures in Tonal Gravity: George Russell’s Analysis of Maurice Ravel’s “Forlane”","authors":"Marc E Hannaford","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtad021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad021","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract George Russell conceptualized his Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization as a theory of tonality. He includes an analysis of the opening of Maurice Ravel’s “Forlane” from Le Tombeau de Couperin in the fourth and final edition of his text to demonstrate what his theory—“The Concept”—offers for the analysis of Western art music. This article takes Russell’s claim seriously, discusses The Concept as a theory of tonality, and extends Russell’s analysis to the entirety of “Forlane.” I also connect Russell’s work to broader Black cultural practices and their socio-political resonances.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135509646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Extended just intonation confronts us with musical problems arising from the sheer array and variety of pitch relationships that can be written, played, and heard. Through an analysis of Ben Johnston’s Seventh String Quartet as a case study, this essay addresses the diversity of these pitch relationships by suggesting a three-way categorization of just intonation ratios: primary intervals (simple integer ratios), ectopic intervals (ratios with no primary interval analogue), and intermediary intervals (ratios with a close primary interval analogue). I suggest a listening strategy based on the categorization resulting in two analytical models. A voltaic analysis recognizes changes in the pitch domain indicated by the differences between primary and intermediary intervals. A pitch pun analysis emphasizes the small magnitude of the differences between primary and intermediary intervals and the slow drift away from a secure sense of pitch place. Finally, I combine these views to compare the two analytical strategies as applied to the last measures of Johnston’s Seventh String Quartet and speculate on the implications of these strategies for hearing and conceiving of pitch intervals.
{"title":"The Limited and The Limitless: Harmonic Voltas and Puns in the Third Movement of Ben Johnston’s Seventh String Quartet","authors":"Laurence Sinclair Willis","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtad022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad022","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Extended just intonation confronts us with musical problems arising from the sheer array and variety of pitch relationships that can be written, played, and heard. Through an analysis of Ben Johnston’s Seventh String Quartet as a case study, this essay addresses the diversity of these pitch relationships by suggesting a three-way categorization of just intonation ratios: primary intervals (simple integer ratios), ectopic intervals (ratios with no primary interval analogue), and intermediary intervals (ratios with a close primary interval analogue). I suggest a listening strategy based on the categorization resulting in two analytical models. A voltaic analysis recognizes changes in the pitch domain indicated by the differences between primary and intermediary intervals. A pitch pun analysis emphasizes the small magnitude of the differences between primary and intermediary intervals and the slow drift away from a secure sense of pitch place. Finally, I combine these views to compare the two analytical strategies as applied to the last measures of Johnston’s Seventh String Quartet and speculate on the implications of these strategies for hearing and conceiving of pitch intervals.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"203 6","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136318177","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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