Building a metrical ontology as a model to link digital poetic repertoires

The technology of semantic web seems to be a suitable environment to offer solutions for linking poetic repertoires that belong to different European traditions and literatures (González-Blanco & Sélaf 2013)1. The problem of linking poetic repertoires is not simple, as there are not only technical issues involved, but also conceptual and terminological problems: each repertoire belongs to its own poetical tradition and each tradition has developed its own analytical terminology for years in a different and independent way. The result of this uncoordinated evolution is a bunch of varied terminologies to explain analogous metrical phenomena through the different poetic systems whose correspondences have been hardly studied

Tackling the Toolkit. Plotting Poetry through Computational Literary Studies

In Tackling the Toolkit, we focus on the methodological innovations, challenges, obstacles and even shortcomings associated with applying quantitative methods to poetry specifically and poetics more broadly. Using tools including natural language processing, web ontologies, similarity detection devices and machine learning, our contributors explore not only metres, stanzas, stresses and rhythms but also genres, subgenres, lexical material and cognitive processes. Whether they are testing old theories and laws, making complex concepts machine-readable or developing new lines of textual analysis, their works challenge standard descriptions of norms and variations

Computational Stylistics in Poetry, Prose, and Drama

The contributions in this edited volume approach poetry, narrative, and drama from the perspective of Computational Stylistics. They exemplify methods of computational textual analysis and explore the possibility of computational generation of literary texts. The volume presents a range of computational and Natural Language Processing applications to literary studies, such as motif detection, network analysis, machine learning, and deep learning

Music Encoding Conference Proceedings 2021, 19–22 July, 2021 University of Alicante (Spain): Onsite & Online

Este documento incluye los artículos y pósters presentados en el Music Encoding Conference 2021 realizado en Alicante entre el 19 y el 22 de julio de 2022.Funded by project Multiscore, MCIN/AEI/10.13039/50110001103

Computational Stylistics in Poetry, Prose, and Drama

The contributions in this edited volume approach poetry, narrative, and drama from the perspective of Computational Stylistics. They exemplify methods of computational textual analysis and explore the possibility of computational generation of literary texts. The volume presents a range of computational and Natural Language Processing applications to literary studies, such as motif detection, network analysis, machine learning, and deep learning

Music Encoding Conference Proceedings 2021. 19–22 July, 2021 University of Alicante (Spain): Onsite & Online. Edited by Stefan Münnich and David Rizo

Conference proceedings of the Music Encoding Conference 2021 with Foreword by Stefan Münnich and David Rizo

A Composite Modernist Composer : A Study of Intersections between Composition, Theorizing, and Performance in Olivier Messiaen

Different professional roles within music change over time. The evolution of modernism in twentieth century art music elevated the composer to the pinnacle of musical creativity. Accomplished modernist composers came to be regarded as intellectuals, and were expected to hold rational conceptions of their individual styles. An increased focus on intentionality in composition, and on notated scores as representations of fixed works, went hand in hand with a tendency to neglect performance in common discourses on art music. This dissertation investigates such intersections between professional roles in the influential French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908‒1992). The study builds upon a noticeable revival of modernist studies in musicology in the twenty-first century. Scholars working on twentieth century music have typically moved away from a previous reliance on composers’ own conceptualizations of their music, in the act bringing methods and concerns from postmodern musicology into their methodologies. Messiaen has frequently been treated as self-standing figure among twentieth century composers. As a contrast, his self-understanding as a composer is here historicized and investigated as part of typical intellectual predispositions among leading modernists. The study draws on recent musicological advances on composers’ writings and their recorded performances. It establishes a theoretical framework for critical approaches to both kinds of sources, as valuable complements to notated scores in investigations of what here is called composite work ontologies. In methodological terms, the dissertation builds a novel connection between analyses in specialized Messiaen scholarship and methods in textual interpretation that originated in German Romantic philosophy. Messiaen’s writings have recurrently been found wanting in systematicity and in discursive expositions of pivotal concepts and methods in composition. His manner of writing provides an example of a phenomenon that within musicology have prompted calls for a gapology, i.e., studies of discontinuities and omissions in composers’ prose and conceptualization of their own music. A fundamental premise in the dissertation is that both human selfconsciousness and communal discourses are to be expected to contain such blind spots. Consequently, scholars often need to reconstruct fundamental thought patterns that operate below the surface level in writings. This understanding and concomitant methods are put to work in two discrete articles, investigating the pivotal impact of plainchant in Messiaen’s aesthetics and the intellectual reception of his music by the philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Messiaen’s interpretations of his own organ music are investigated in a third article, in which performance analysis is informed by deepened attention to the composer’s ideals of successful interpretations. The methods and theoretical framework formulated in the cover essay are also integral parts of the dissertation’s findings. They propose that a current broader revisiting of musical modernism provides a fertile framework for further work on Messiaen, performance and intellectual ideas operative in his compositions. The hermeneutical stance developed here is intended to serve similar carefully contextualized investigations of the composer’s writings and activities. The first article shows that Messiaen’s musical thought and some of his methods in composition were more thoroughly ingrained in a late Romantic paradigm of expressivity than many scholars have noted. It also reveals how he adopted vital theoretical premises from previous authors, turned them into musical ideas, and continued to adapt his use of them to developments within his own musical style. The second article opens new vistas for more thorough analyses of Messiaen as a composer-performer on the organ. In a novel manner, it suggests the need of considering Messiaen’s distinct ideas concerning the aims of musical interpretation, and their impact on his style of playing. This approach stresses the centrality of communicating the musical ideas and narrative content in individual pieces, to which notated scores are a means. The analysis shows that Messiaen at times perceived such ideas in a piece quite differently in his roles as a composer and as a performer. The third article corroborates previous observations concerning how Messiaen’s verbalization of his own music shaped its reception. At the same time, it highlights the impact of his student Pierre Boulez’s historiography of musical modernism, including the particular historical role it ascribed to Messiaen. The study also reveals how Deleuze and Guattari grasped pivotal aspects of Messiaen’s compositional methods on purely theoretical grounds, in the act facilitating philosophical employments of key musical techniques well beyond the composer’s stated understanding of them.Professionella roller inom musiken förändras över tid. Inom 1900-talets modernism kom tonsättarens ställning att höjas över andra roller inom musiklivet. Framstående tonsättare kom att betraktas som del av kategorin intellektuella i samhället och förväntades presentera välmotiverade ställningstaganden bakom sina kompositioner. En förhöjd värdering av sådana rationella aspekter gick hand i hand med en syn på noterade partitur som representationer av fixerade verk. Samtidigt framhävdes interpreters betydelse typiskt sett inte i diskussioner och analyser av konstmusik. Denna avhandling undersöker skärningspunkter mellan olika musikaliska yrkesroller hos den inflytelserike franske tonsättaren Olivier Messiaen (1908‒1992). Dess angreppssätt bygger på en ny våg av musikvetenskapliga studier av modernism som epok och begrepp. Studier kring 1900-talets konstmusik har rört sig bort från tonsättares egna sätt att teoretisera kring sin egen musik, i många fall inspirerade av metoder och frågeställningar i postmodern musikvetenskap. Messiaen har ofta behandlats som en fristående gestalt inom 1900-talets musik. Som en kontrast historiseras och undersöks här hans egna uppfattningar om rollen som tonsättare, inklusive dess växelspel med teoretiska idéer om musik samt med interpretation, som en del av mer generella tankemönster bland ledande modernistiska tonsättare. Avhandlingen tar intryck från nya musikvetenskapliga tolkningar av tonsättares skrifter och deras inspelade framföranden. Den etablerar ett teoretiskt ramverk för kritiska förhållningssätt till båda typerna av källor, som här betraktas som värdefulla komplement till partitur i undersökningar av vad som här kallas komplexa verkontologier. I metodologiskt avseende etablerar avhandlingen ett nytt samband mellan analyser inom den specialiserade Messiaenforskningen och texttolkningsmetoder med ursprung i tysk romantisk filosofi. Messiaens skrifter har återkommande funnits brista i systematik och diskursiva förklaringar av centrala begrepp och kompositionsmetoder. Hans skrivsätt utgör därmed ett exempel på ett fenomen som fått musikvetare att påtala behovet att studera diskontinuiteter och innehållsliga luckor i tonsättares prosa och teoretiserande av sin egen musik. En grundläggande utgångspunkt i avhandlingen är att både mänskligt självmedvetande och gemensamma diskurser kan förväntas innehålla sådana blinda fläckar. Följaktligen behöver forskare ofta rekonstruera grundläggande tankemönster som präglar skrifter, men utan att explicit exponeras i deras ytskikt. Denna syn, och metoder som växer ur den, präglar två av avhandlingens artiklar. Dessa undersöker den påtagliga betydelsen av gregoriansk sång i Messiaens estetik, samt receptionen av hans musik i filosoferna Gilles Deleuzes och Félix Guattaris skrifter. Messiaens tolkningar av sin egen orgelmusik undersöks i en tredje artikel, där interpretationsanalys tillåts präglas av ett fördjupat intresse för tonsättarens egna ideal kring lyckade uttolkningar. De metoder och teoretiska ramar som formuleras i kappan utgör delar av avhandlingens resultat. De indikerar att en vidare förnyad forskning kring musikalisk modernism utgör ett fruktbart ramverk för framtida studier av Messiaen och teoretiska idéer som präglar hans kompositioner. Den hermeneutiska hållning som utvecklas här är avsedd att tjäna som underlag även för liknande noggrant kontextualiserade studier av tonsättarens skrifter och aktiviteter. Den första artikeln visar att Messiaens musikaliska tänkande och flera av hans kompositionsmetoder var mer grundligt förankrade i ett senromantiskt expressivt paradigm än vad många forskare har noterat. Den visar också hur han anammade centrala teoretiska utgångspunkter från tidigare författare, omvandlade dem till musikaliska idéer, och fortsatte att anpassa sitt bruk av dem i takt med förändringar inom hans egen stil. Den andra artikeln presenterar ingångar för djupare analyser av Messiaen som interpret av sina egna orgelverk. Studien visar, på ett nytt sätt, på ett behov att överväga Messiaens specifika idéer om syften med musikalisk interpretation, och betydelsen av dessa idéer för hans eget sätt att spela. Denna ansats framhäver ett fokus på att kommunicera de musikaliska idéerna och det narrativa innehållet i enskilda verk, ett ändamål för vilket partitur är ett medel. Analysen visar att Messiaen i vissa fall förstod sådana idéer i ett stycke påtagligt annorlunda i sina roller som tonsättare och som interpret. Den tredje artikeln bekräftar tidigare iakttagelser om hur Messiaens egen teoretiska uttolkning av sin egen musik format dess reception. Samtidigt understryker den betydelsen av hans student Pierre Boulez historiografi kring musikalisk modernism, inklusive den specifika roll som denna tillskriver Messiaen. Studien avslöjar också hur Deleuze och Guattari lyckades analysera väsentliga aspekter av Messiaens kompositionsmetoder på rent teoretiska grunder, och därmed möjliggöra deras filosofiska användning av centrala musikaliska tekniker bortom tonsättarens egen förståelse av dem

invisible machines:collective action through digital space

Individual Concentration Programhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/85263/1/alpaca.pd

Speaking Songs: Music-Analytical Approaches to Spoken Word

If we can conceive of music as performance—indeed, if we tend to agree with director and drama theorist Richard Schechner that nearly anything can be studied ‘as’ performance—then it follows that nearly any mode of performance might also be studied for its musicality. Of course, some modes of performance are more conducive to musical study than others. The present work concerns a particularly responsive mode of performance through which the categorical divisions between language and music begin to dissolve: spoken word. Spoken word, in its diversity of forms, traditions, and styles, exists not simply on the fringes of any single scholarly field but at the intersections of multiple artistic disciplines. Despite the many interconnections between spoken-word traditions and musical practices, the former traditionally belong to the domains of literary or cultural studies, dominated by discussions of cultural significance or ambiguities pertaining to its literary status. While scholars of a variety of spoken-word forms ardently contend that the work is its performance, few offer insights on how to integrate the sound structures realized through performance into analyses of these works. Focusing on three distinct forms of spoken word––spoken-word song, slam poetry, and sound poetry––I investigate the rhythmic structures, melodic patterns, formal design, and communicative strategies of selected spoken-word performances using musically centred analytical methods, including recording analysis, formal functions, and motivic analysis. Featuring spoken-word song performances by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, slam poetry by the founder of the modern poetry slam, Marc Kelly Smith, and the sound poetry of avant-garde artist Kurt Schwitters, this dissertation endeavors not only to offer an array of analytical approaches and listening strategies that can provide a basis for future investigations of speech-based contemporary art music; it also strives to recognize the categorical overlap that exists among Spoken Word and music, and to bring Spoken Word further into the view of mainstream musicological research and analysis