Abstract Over the last decade, Janet Schmalfeldt’s concept of “becoming” has provided groundwork to evaluate how ambiguous formal moments gradually come into focus through the practice of retrospective reinterpretation. I supplement Schmalfeldt’s Hegelian perspective with concepts drawn from Goethe’s botanical studies to propose a type of becoming that is not limited to retrospective reinterpretation but instead embraces gradual thematic transformations that can function either progressively or retrogressively. Using Fanny Hensel’s piano sonatas as case studies, I explain how the two categories of progressive and retrogressive metamorphosis are fitting metaphors to describe gradual thematic transformations within Romantic-era composers’ works that resist formal prototypes.
{"title":"Becoming and Beyond: Applying Goethe’s Progressive and Retrogressive Metamorphosis to Fanny Hensel’s Piano Sonatas","authors":"Tyler Osborne","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtab015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtab015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Over the last decade, Janet Schmalfeldt’s concept of “becoming” has provided groundwork to evaluate how ambiguous formal moments gradually come into focus through the practice of retrospective reinterpretation. I supplement Schmalfeldt’s Hegelian perspective with concepts drawn from Goethe’s botanical studies to propose a type of becoming that is not limited to retrospective reinterpretation but instead embraces gradual thematic transformations that can function either progressively or retrogressively. Using Fanny Hensel’s piano sonatas as case studies, I explain how the two categories of progressive and retrogressive metamorphosis are fitting metaphors to describe gradual thematic transformations within Romantic-era composers’ works that resist formal prototypes.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"26 1","pages":"99-120"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138530607","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}
CHRISTOPHER BRODY is Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the University of Louisville. He holds a Ph.D. from Yale University as well as a DMA from the University of Minnesota, and has previously served on the faculties of Indiana University and the Eastman School of Music. In 2019, he was the winner of the Society for Music Theory’s Emerging Scholar Award for his article “Parametric Interaction in Tonal Repertoires” (Journal of Music Theory, 2016).
克里斯托弗·布罗迪(CHRISTOPHER BRODY)是路易斯维尔大学音乐理论助理教授。他拥有耶鲁大学博士学位和明尼苏达大学音乐硕士学位，此前曾在印第安纳大学和伊士曼音乐学院任职。2019年，他的文章《调性谱中的参数交互》(Journal of Music Theory, 2016)获得了美国音乐理论学会新兴学者奖。
{"title":"Contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtab010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtab010","url":null,"abstract":"<span>CHRISTOPHER BRODY is Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the University of Louisville. He holds a Ph.D. from Yale University as well as a DMA from the University of Minnesota, and has previously served on the faculties of Indiana University and the Eastman School of Music. In 2019, he was the winner of the Society for Music Theory’s Emerging Scholar Award for his article “Parametric Interaction in Tonal Repertoires” (<span style=\"font-style:italic;\">Journal of Music Theory</span>, 2016).</span>","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"184 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138530608","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}
In 1960s and 1970s singer-songwriter music, some artists used a malleable approach to meter in performance that resulted in songs with extremes of self-expressive timing flexibility that cannot be accounted for by using a single conception of meter. As a solution, this article draws together theories of metric hierarchy, metrical reinterpretation, and metric process to develop the theory of flexible meter. This approach recasts meter as able to encompass the variety of metric scenarios presented by these singer-songwriters, from metric regularity to metric ambiguity and vacillations between these two possibilities. Performances by Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Paul Simon, and Cat Stevens are discussed to investigate their levels of engagement with meter—the degree to which their performances are regular or ambiguous—and how the individual metric style of each artist contributes to the self-expressive singer-songwriter performance practice.
{"title":"The Times are A-Changin’: Metric Flexibility and Text Expression in 1960s and 1970s Singer-Songwriter Music","authors":"Nancy Murphy","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtab017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtab017","url":null,"abstract":"In 1960s and 1970s singer-songwriter music, some artists used a malleable approach to meter in performance that resulted in songs with extremes of self-expressive timing flexibility that cannot be accounted for by using a single conception of meter. As a solution, this article draws together theories of metric hierarchy, metrical reinterpretation, and metric process to develop the theory of flexible meter. This approach recasts meter as able to encompass the variety of metric scenarios presented by these singer-songwriters, from metric regularity to metric ambiguity and vacillations between these two possibilities. Performances by Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Paul Simon, and Cat Stevens are discussed to investigate their levels of engagement with meter—the degree to which their performances are regular or ambiguous—and how the individual metric style of each artist contributes to the self-expressive singer-songwriter performance practice.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138530609","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}
Ragnhild Brøvig-Hanssen, Bjørnar Sandvik, Jon Marius Aareskjold-Drecker, Anne Danielsen
Researchers have argued that temporal microdeviations from the metric grid, such as those produced by musicians in performance, are crucial to making a musical rhythm groovy and danceable. It is curious, then, that the music currently dominating the dance floor, “electronic dance music” or EDM, is typically characterized by grid-based rhythms. But is such a “mechanistic,” grid-based aesthetic necessarily devoid of microrhythmic nuance? In this article, we aim to show that the microrhythmic component of an engaging groove involves the manipulation of more than simply the onset locations of rhythmic events—the sonic features fundamentally contribute to shaping the groove as well. In particular, we seek to demonstrate that EDM producers, with their preference for a grid-based microtiming aesthetic, are very sensitive to and adept at manipulating such sonic features for expressive effect. Drawing on interviews with EDM producers, we show that producers are often concerned with both sonic and temporal features, as well as their interactions. We argue that sonic features are crucial to shaping groove and feel at the micro level of rhythm. Moreover, such features also tend to introduce an indirect microtiming aspect to the grid-based aesthetic of EDM through the ways in which they shape timing at the perceptual level.
{"title":"A Grid in Flux: Sound and Timing in Electronic Dance Music","authors":"Ragnhild Brøvig-Hanssen, Bjørnar Sandvik, Jon Marius Aareskjold-Drecker, Anne Danielsen","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtab013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtab013","url":null,"abstract":"Researchers have argued that temporal microdeviations from the metric grid, such as those produced by musicians in performance, are crucial to making a musical rhythm groovy and danceable. It is curious, then, that the music currently dominating the dance floor, “electronic dance music” or EDM, is typically characterized by grid-based rhythms. But is such a “mechanistic,” grid-based aesthetic necessarily devoid of microrhythmic nuance? In this article, we aim to show that the microrhythmic component of an engaging groove involves the manipulation of more than simply the onset locations of rhythmic events—the sonic features fundamentally contribute to shaping the groove as well. In particular, we seek to demonstrate that EDM producers, with their preference for a grid-based microtiming aesthetic, are very sensitive to and adept at manipulating such sonic features for expressive effect. Drawing on interviews with EDM producers, we show that producers are often concerned with both sonic and temporal features, as well as their interactions. We argue that sonic features are crucial to shaping groove and feel at the micro level of rhythm. Moreover, such features also tend to introduce an indirect microtiming aspect to the grid-based aesthetic of EDM through the ways in which they shape timing at the perceptual level.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138530611","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 presents a theoretical framework for understanding headbanging to metal music as an embodied practice of perception and offers several analyses to demonstrate how specific patterns serve as a common core of rhythmic patterning in the genre. Listeners express metal’s flexible rhythmic style through headbanging, creating experiences of heaviness and community. This motion brings felt beats into existence, guided by what I call “metering constructions,” familiar rhythmic/motional patterns that are both schematic knowledge of music and embodied practices of perception. I define metering constructions through theories of embodied meter and cognitive linguistics. Two constructions, the backbeat and the phrase-ending 332, are used throughout rock, but distinguished in metal by characteristic drum patterns and motional qualities. Headbangers thus create and perform their own beat interpretation, what I call a “patchwork quilt of recognized rhythms” stitched together in various orders and combinations—sometimes resembling regular isochronous meter, sometimes not.
{"title":"Bang your Head: Construing Beat through Familiar Drum Patterns in Metal Music","authors":"Stephen S Hudson","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtab014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtab014","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents a theoretical framework for understanding headbanging to metal music as an embodied practice of perception and offers several analyses to demonstrate how specific patterns serve as a common core of rhythmic patterning in the genre. Listeners express metal’s flexible rhythmic style through headbanging, creating experiences of heaviness and community. This motion brings felt beats into existence, guided by what I call “metering constructions,” familiar rhythmic/motional patterns that are both schematic knowledge of music and embodied practices of perception. I define metering constructions through theories of embodied meter and cognitive linguistics. Two constructions, the backbeat and the phrase-ending 332, are used throughout rock, but distinguished in metal by characteristic drum patterns and motional qualities. Headbangers thus create and perform their own beat interpretation, what I call a “patchwork quilt of recognized rhythms” stitched together in various orders and combinations—sometimes resembling regular isochronous meter, sometimes not.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"253 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138530610","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}
In AABA songs (sometimes called verse–bridge songs) written and performed by the Beatles, the song texts’ scansion and rhyme show significant contrasts between different sections, and these contrasts often have important formal and narrative functions. Combining rock Formenlehre with phonetic analysis, this article shows that A modules tend to have irregular scansion and frequent rhyme, while B modules tend to show regular scansion and less frequent rhyme. In the unusual cases where A modules have infrequent rhyme, the B modules tend to offer contrast by showing greater rhyme frequency. These contrasts represent an independent, recurring formal device in the Beatles’ catalogue that does not entirely comport with other well-defined formal processes, such as the loose-verse/tight-chorus schema. The scansion and rhyme have various narrative and formal functions: They often suggest a contrast between an active and passive state in the song’s protagonist, and disruptions to regular patterns or conflict with grammatical boundaries can play a critical role in shaping phrases. B modules that thwart the norm can connote an especially high emotional arousal or suggest a process of intensification and conclusion, linking the form to an expanded statement–response–departure–conclusion form. The analyses demonstrate the central role that prosody often plays in popular song and show the importance of considering its relation to other musical patterns.
{"title":"Norms of Textual Scansion and Rhyme in Beatles AABA forms","authors":"David Heetderks","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtab018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtab018","url":null,"abstract":"In AABA songs (sometimes called verse–bridge songs) written and performed by the Beatles, the song texts’ scansion and rhyme show significant contrasts between different sections, and these contrasts often have important formal and narrative functions. Combining rock Formenlehre with phonetic analysis, this article shows that A modules tend to have irregular scansion and frequent rhyme, while B modules tend to show regular scansion and less frequent rhyme. In the unusual cases where A modules have infrequent rhyme, the B modules tend to offer contrast by showing greater rhyme frequency. These contrasts represent an independent, recurring formal device in the Beatles’ catalogue that does not entirely comport with other well-defined formal processes, such as the loose-verse/tight-chorus schema. The scansion and rhyme have various narrative and formal functions: They often suggest a contrast between an active and passive state in the song’s protagonist, and disruptions to regular patterns or conflict with grammatical boundaries can play a critical role in shaping phrases. B modules that thwart the norm can connote an especially high emotional arousal or suggest a process of intensification and conclusion, linking the form to an expanded statement–response–departure–conclusion form. The analyses demonstrate the central role that prosody often plays in popular song and show the importance of considering its relation to other musical patterns.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138530634","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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