Emotion in the German Lutheran Baroque and the development of subjective time consciousness

This study examines some of the ways in which it was possible to understand emotion in Lutheran church music of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It suggests that emotion related to music more through association and contextual factors than through a fixed relationship, thus explaining the ways in which musical passages and techniques could be taken from a secular context to serve a sacred purpose. With these factors in mind, it is possible to suggest ways in which a listener's likely emotional association with music can be harnessed through particular compositional procedures. Schütz's setting of part of the Song of Songs may well engage with the listener's consciousness over time, stretching it and reinforcing the ‘useful’ emotional associations that the sacred context might bring. The opening aria of Bach's cantata ‘Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen’ achieves something similar over a longer span and with greater emotional intensity. Here there is the added sense of the believer finding, losing and then rediscovering the object of spiritual adoration. The music thus implies the potential alienation of the listener, something both supported and overcome through the very structuring of the music. Its repetitive ritornello process is sometimes hidden but always latent, thus playing on the potential for subconscious recognition. Together, these two examples suggest that music can be used as a powerful demonstration of the historical development of modern forms of consciousness as related to emotional states over time

The gray matter volume of the amygdala is correlated with the perception of melodic intervals: a voxel-based morphometry study

Music is not simply a series of organized pitches, rhythms, and timbres, it is capable of evoking emotions. In the present study, voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was employed to explore the neural basis that may link music to emotion. To do this, we identified the neuroanatomical correlates of the ability to extract pitch interval size in a music segment (i.e., interval perception) in a large population of healthy young adults (N = 264). Behaviorally, we found that interval perception was correlated with daily emotional experiences, indicating the intrinsic link between music and emotion. Neurally, and as expected, we found that interval perception was positively correlated with the gray matter volume (GMV) of the bilateral temporal cortex. More important, a larger GMV of the bilateral amygdala was associated with better interval perception, suggesting that the amygdala, which is the neural substrate of emotional processing, is also involved in music processing. In sum, our study provides one of first neuroanatomical evidence on the association between the amygdala and music, which contributes to our understanding of exactly how music evokes emotional responses

Audio Features Affected by Music Expressiveness

Within a Music Information Retrieval perspective, the goal of the study presented here is to investigate the impact on sound features of the musician's affective intention, namely when trying to intentionally convey emotional contents via expressiveness. A preliminary experiment has been performed involving $10$ tuba players. The recordings have been analysed by extracting a variety of features, which have been subsequently evaluated by combining both classic and machine learning statistical techniques. Results are reported and discussed.Comment: Submitted to ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR 2016), Pisa, Italy, July 17-21, 201

Towards a Critical Understanding of Music, Emotion and Self-Identity

The article begins by outlining a dominant conception of these relations in sociologically informed analysis of music, which sees music primarily as a positive resource for active self-making. My argument is that this conception rests on a problematic notion of the self and also on an overly optimistic understanding of music, which implicitly sees music as highly independent of negative social and historical processes. I then attempt to construct a) a more adequately critical conception of personal identity in modern societies; and b) a more balanced appraisal of music-society relations. I suggest two ways in which relations between self, music and society may not always be quite so positive or as healthy as the dominant conception suggests: 1) Music is now bound up with the incorporation of authenticity and creativity into capitalism, and with intensified consumption habits. 2) Emotional self-realisation through music is now linked to status competition. Interviews are analysed

Music evoked emotions are different-more often aesthetic than utilitarian

We disagree with Juslin & Västfjäll's (J&V's) thesis that music-evoked emotions are indistinguishable from other emotions in both their nature and underlying mechanisms and that music just induces some emotions more frequently than others. Empirical evidence suggests that frequency differences reflect the specific nature of music-evoked emotions: aesthetic and reactive rather than utilitarian and proactive. Additional mechanisms and determinants are suggested as predictors of emotions triggered by musi

‘Dark am I, yet lovely’: Tracing diabolical evil and femininities in gothic fusion tribal belly dance

While belly dance as a dance genre has been recognised for its ‘ambivalence’ (Downey et al, 2010: 379) in terms of its empowerment of women’s identities and body types and essentialising of narrowly constructed femininities, it has nonetheless in the research literature generally been regarded positively in its influence on women’s spiritualities, corporalities, sexualities and overall well-being. But what about its attraction and allure in its ‘darker’ forms, as a way of empowering women, especially older women, and enabling them to negotiate and traverse a range of difficult, deviant, damaged and/or otherwise negative experiences? Based primarily on a participant observation of a six-week series of dance workshops held in the north of England and drawing on my other experiences as a dancer of other belly dance forms, this paper references Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalytic theory of horror and the monstrous feminine to explore the meanings, experiences and performances of ‘darkness’ in what is belly dance’s darkest genre, Gothic Fusion Belly Dance (GFBD)

Making a star on the small screen: The case of Mina and RAI

© 2015 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. Anna Maria Quaini (née Mazzini), or Mina as she is more commonly known, is a prolific Italian pop singer who rose to fame in the late 1950s. She was particularly dominant from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, before her retirement from television appearances in 1974 and public performances in 1978. In particular, it was her relationship with and continued appearances on Radiotelevisione Italiana/Italian Radio-Television (RAI) programmes during this dominant period, which helped to cement her popularity with Italian audiences. This article examines Mina’s celebrity status through a detailed analysis of the construction of her star persona in a televisual context, taking as case studies her appearances on three RAI television series: Studio Uno/‘Studio One’ (1961-1962), Canzonissima 1968/‘Lots of Songs 1968' (1968-1969) and Teatro 10/‘Theatre 10' (1972). A comparative reading of her performances on these variety shows enables us to evaluate the extent to which RAI facilitated the construction of Mina’s star persona according to a specific set of cultural and ideological values. Ultimately, this article demonstrates the ways in which Mina’s evolving celebrity came to challenge the homogenizing mission of RAI during the period

Conceptual Metaphor in SZA's Song Lyrics

The purpose of this study is to examine how conceptual metaphors are used by SZA in her song lyrics. Finding the source domain and target domain of the conceptual metaphors used in song lyrics is the main goal of this study. A descriptive qualitative research approach is used, which includes semantic analysis and conceptual metaphor mapping in song lyrics. The information used consists of five well-known SZA songs that were specifically chosen. The author defines conceptual metaphors in 5 lyrics from SZA's song. In the “Kill Bill” song there is 1 conceptual metaphor, in the “Snooze” song there are 2 conceptual metaphors, in the “The Weekend” song there 3 conceptual metaphors, in the “Nobody Gets Me” song there are 4 conceptual metaphors, and in the “Open Arms” song there is 1 conceptual metaphor. The research provides our understanding of how conceptual metaphor is used in song lyrics and shows the depth of creativity and artistic expression found in SZA's songs. The findings of this study may be helpful for future semantics and cultural studies research, as well as for developing a deeper understanding of both the complexity and the beauty of SZA's song lyrics. Keywords: Conceptual metaphor, Lyrics, Songs, Semantic