Retentional Syntagmatic Network, and its Use in Motivic Analysis of Maqam Improvisation

In this paper is defined a concept of Retentional Syntagmatic Network (RSN), which models the connectivity between temporally closed notes. The RSN formalizes the Schenkerian notion of pitch prolongation as a concept of syntagmatic retention, whose characteristics are dependent on the underlying modal context. This framework enables to formalize the syntagmatic role of ornamentation, and allows an automation of motivic analysis that takes into account melodic transformations. The model is applied to the analysis of a maqam improvisation. The RSN is also proposed as a way to surpass strict hierarchical segmentation models, which in our view cannot sufficiently describe the richness of musical structure. Instead of separability, we propose to focus instead on the connectivity between notes, modeled with the help of RSNs

Pathing the Ṭubū\u27: Modal Theory in the Modern Tunisian Conservatory

While the eastern Arab modal system of maqāmāt has been amply explored by a variety of scholars and practitioners, the systems of melodic modes which underlie North African- Andalusian music traditions colloquially called the ṭubū‘ (s. ṭab‘) are relatively unknown outside their native regions (even within the Arabic-speaking world), and their features have not yet been explored in Western ethnomusicological literature. This thesis attempts to represent the modal theory of the ṭubū‘ found in one style of North African-Andalusian music, Tunisian ma’lūf. It offers a summary of pedagogical approaches used for teaching the ṭubū‘ in a typical conservatory and describes the melodic features associated with each of the modes that comprise a standard conservatory curriculum. It will be shown that the Tunisian ṭubū‘, which are categorized melodically, are conceptually distinct from the eastern Arab maqāmāt, which are categorized tonally. Approximately half of the ṭubū‘ covered in this study have tonics and scales which are shared with at least one other ṭab‘. The melodic signatures of a given mode are therefore as theoretically essential to its nature and classification as is its set of pitches. This study shows how these melodic signatures or properties (khāṣiyāt) are theorized, how they are demonstrated pedagogically through a mode’s masār laḥnī (melodic path), how they are used in the context of melodies in songs from the ma’lūf repertoire, and how they are used to differentiate one ṭab‘ from another when two or more ṭubū‘ share the same scale. Finally, this thesis offers different models that can be used for ṭab‘ analysis as it relates to melody, rhythm, and form

The Preservation Of Subjectivity Through Form: The Radical Restructuring Of Disintegrated Material In The Music Of Gerald Barry, Kevin Volans And Raymond Deane.

This thesis examines Adorno’s concept of ‘disintegrated musical material’ and applies it to the work of the Irish composers Raymond Deane (b. 1953), Gerald Barry (b. 1952) and Kevin Volans (b. 1949). Although all three of these composers have expressed firm commitments to the ideal of creating new and radical works, much of the material in their music is composed of elements abstracted from the tonal past. This feature of their work would seem contrary to the views of Adorno, who is commonly seen as advocating progressive composition using only the most advanced means. This view comes across most strongly in Philosophy of New Music—his most well-known book on music—in which Stravinsky is accused of musical regression with his ‘inauthentic’ use of folkloric and archaic forms from the past. On this basis the so-called postmodernist period of the past forty years— which has encouraged the playful re-incorporation of historical material—would seem very much out of step with Adorno’s modernist aesthetics. However in some of his lesser known writings on Mahler, Berg, Bartók, and even in some earlier work on Stravinsky, Adorno managed to discern a number of positive aspects to their reincorporation of disintegrated materials in a way that would seem to contradict his verdict on Stravinsky in Philosophy of New Music. This thesis aims to unravel the issues at the heart of this contradiction to see if a radical musical aesthetic based on such material remains a possibility in the era of postmodernism. Through a detailed examination of the work of these three composers, this study aims to demonstrate how this material is recycled in their music in a way which attains new structural interrelations that transcend the fragmentary nature of the material itself

Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Folk Music Analysis, 15-17 June, 2016

The Folk Music Analysis Workshop brings together computational music analysis and ethnomusicology. Both symbolic and audio representations of music are considered, with a broad range of scientific approaches being applied (signal processing, graph theory, deep learning). The workshop features a range of interesting talks from international researchers in areas such as Indian classical music, Iranian singing, Ottoman-Turkish Makam music scores, Flamenco singing, Irish traditional music, Georgian traditional music and Dutch folk songs. Invited guest speakers were Anja Volk, Utrecht University and Peter Browne, Technological University Dublin

Musicological Writings from the Modern Arab “Renaissance” in Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth-Century Syria and Egypt

Historians designate the early decades of the nineteenth century as the beginning of the modern era in the Middle East, initiated by Napoleon’s 1798 invasion of Egypt and the subsequent European colonial presence that extended into the twentieth century. This was a period of intense self-reflection, especially in Egypt, as Egyptians responded to their experience with colonialism, Westernized modernization, and new forms of national identity. In this environment, discourse concerning preserving tradition and pursuing innovation brought these contested issues into musical as well as social and political contexts. By the late nineteenth century, Arab authors and journalists were referring to a new Arab “renaissance (al-nahḍa, “rising, awaking, revival, renaissance”). In this dissertation, I examine four Arabic texts on music of this period, written between 1840 and 1936, by one Syrian and three Egyptian authors who contributed to the emergence of modern Arabic literature on music: Mikhā’īl Mashāqa, al-Risāla al-shihābiyya fī al-sinā‘a al-mūsīqiyya (The Shihābī Treatise on the Musical Art), 1840 (the only one of these texts translated into Western languages); Muḥammad ibn Ismā‘īl ibn ‘Umar Shihāb al-Dīn, Safīnat al-mulk wa-nafīsat al-fulk (The Ship of Royalty and the Boat’s Precious Gem), 1843; Muḥammad Kāmil al-Khula‘ī, Kitāb al-mūsīqī al-sharqī (The Book of Eastern Music), 1904/05; and Qusṭandī Rizq, al-Mūsīqā al-sharqiyya w’al-ghinā’ al-‘arabī (Eastern Music and Arab Song), 1936. From these texts, we learn of the environments in the Ottoman provinces of Syria and Egypt in which these authors developed their interest in the music of their regions and their contributions to Arabic literature on music in the new Arab “renaissance.” The 1840 treatise by Mashāqa is highly significant for his presentation of his conceptualization of the modern Arab tonal system and its application to his documentation of melodic modes current in Syria in the first half of the nineteenth century. His contemporary in Egypt, Shihāb al-Dīn, is known for his extensive song-text collection and commentary on the poetic origins of many of the songs, with historical and anecdotal commentary on numerous poetic genres he discusses. While demonstrating considerable knowledge of the “science of music” derived from ancient Greek concepts, his lack of understanding of the twenty-four tone octave presented by Mashāqa is indicative of the early stages of its adoption in Egypt. In their early-twentieth-century publications, Egyptians al-Khula‘ī and Rizq analyze the social and ideological dimensions of Arab music in the modernizing Arab world, demonstrating the need for integrating both old and new musical features, characteristic of Arab music throughout its history. Al-Khula‘ī stresses the need for understanding and preserving the heritage of traditional Arabic poetry as expressed in song, while explaining his interest in adopting Western models for Arab music, such as notation and recording devices, as a means for preserving the Arabs’ musical heritage. Rizq warns of the destructive dangers of “innovation” and “modernization” upon Arab music, while also defining acceptable adaptions of Western-style modernity for creating a modern Egyptian nation. From their individual perspectives, these four authors demonstrate their commonconcern with promoting the value of traditional Arab music as an essential element defining Arab identity, with the latter two stressing the need for preserving their musicsl heritage in a changing world by adapting it to inevitable processes of “innovation” and “progress” while retaining the traditional musical and poetic aesthetics

Michael Finnissy's "The History of Photography in Sound": A Study of Sources, Techniques and Interpretation

To accompany the release of the CD recording of the work, Métier MSV 77501 (5 CDs)