The Art of The Arranger in Pop Sunda, Sundanese Popular Music of West Java, Indonesia

This dissertation is a historical and stylistic analysis of music arranging in pop Sunda. Pop Sunda is modern commercial popular music in the Sundanese language accompanied by primarily Western instruments. The music blends traditional Sundanese and Western musical elements. I use pop Sunda as a case study to show that the role of the arranger is paramount in the production of pop Sunda, and that the arranger performs functions that are quite different from arrangers in other kinds of music. In pop Sunda, the arranger is also a composer who chooses the instruments and electronic sound timbres; composes melodic and rhythmic parts; determines the tempo; and sets the harmonic foundation of a piece. The arranger is a producer who coordinates the recording session and helps the composer, singers, and musicians understand the tastes of the audience. The arranger may also be a musician and studio engineer in the process of production. However, arrangers rarely receive credit as significant actors in the creation of pop Sunda. In order to demonstrate the central role of the arranger, I investigate the role of five prominent arrangers of pop Sunda: Mohammad Jassin, Tan Déséng, Yan Ahimsa, Doél Sumbang, and Ari Prigara. I use musical analysis to show points of interest and significant sonic devices to distinguish styles of arranging, from the 1960s to 2012. By tracing the history of pop Sunda through the lens of arranging, my dissertation aims to provide a new way of understanding the production of modern Sundanese music

Diskursus Musik Dalam Pendidikan

Saya menyambut gembira penerbitan buku Diskursus Musik dalam Pendidikan ini yang memang amat dibutuhkan sebagai buku ajar bagi para mahasiswa musik maupun referensi bagi para peneliti musik. Pendidikan musik telah berkembang dengan pesat sejak masa kemerdekaan dari awalnya berupa proses pembelajaran secara informal maupun non-formal akhirnya turut tersaji pada jalur pendidikan formal. Pembelajaran musik yang asal mulanya ditekuni pada jenjang pendidikan menengah telah merambah ke jenjang pendidikan tinggi. Silabus musik tidak sekedar menjadi muatan kurikulum seni melainkan juga kurikulum pendidikan. Dapat dikatakan bahwa musik telah menjadi topik diskursus yang diminati khalayak akademik secara kelembagaan maupun kemasyarakatan. Akan tetapi arti penting fungsi dan peranan musik dalam perkembangannya tidak diimbangi dengan ketersediaan literatur yang memadai guna membahas berbagai wacana musikal. Ekspansi kuantitas disertasi kajian sosial budaya yang meneliti tentang musik, bahkan tidak berimbas pada maraknya penerbitan buku-buku musik berbahasa Indonesia. Itu sebabnya di tengah situasi kelangkaan tersebut kehadiran buku ini telah lama dinanti-nanti, fenomena yang patut disyukuri bagaikan fatamorgana yang nyata ditengah hamparan padang pasir. Mengamati isi buku ini akan didapati bahwa spektrum musikal yang dibahas sangatlah komprehensif terutama dalam perspektif pemanfaatan dan pemberdayaan diseminasi musik Barat di Indonesia sejak masa pelayaran Jalur Sutra Maritim. Pemanfaatannya melalui inkulturasi musik Barat ke dalam format musik untuk ibadah keagamaan, musik yang populer di tengah masyarakat, dan musik pendidikan yang diajarkan di sekolah. Adapun pemberdayaannya dilakukan melalui upaya konservasi dan apropriasi musik tradisi etnik Nusantara menurut metodologi dan teknologi Barat. Berbagai wacana yang dipaparkan dalam buku ini bahkan telah teruji melalui eksekusi terhadap wawasan ranah budaya dan kearifan yang dimiliki bangsa-bangsa di Asia secara fundamental termasuk Indonesia. Tidaklah diragukan bahwa buku yang disusun sebagai hasil penelitian selama bertahun-tahun ini akan memberikan pemahaman yang mendalam terhadap konstelasi musik untuk dunia pendidikan, serta mampu menimbulkan inspirasi yang inovatif bagi para pendidik, penyaji, dan peneliti musik. Vivat Profesores.Victor Gana

Music of the Baduy People of Western Java

Music of the Baduy People of Western Java: Singing is a Medicine by Wim van Zanten is about music and dance of the indigenous group of the Baduy, consisting of about twelve-thousand people living in western Java. It covers music for rice rituals, for circumcisions and weddings, and music for entertainment. The book includes many photographs and several discussed audio-visual examples that can be found on DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5170520. Baduy are suppposed to live a simple, ascetic life. However, there is a shortage of agricultural land and there are many temptations from the changing world around them. Little has been published on Baduy music and dance. Wim van Zanten’s book seeks to fill this lacuna and is based on short periods of fieldwork from 1976 to 2016. Readership: Ethnomusicologists and anthropologists, especially those interested in ethnic minority groups. It is also meant for scholars, NGOs and administrators of intangible cultural heritage and people of Baduy descent

Dari Karya Maestro hingga Generasi Milenial: Refleksi Perjalanan Galeri R.J. Katamsi sebagai Representasi Galeri Seni Akademik

Tulisan reflektif perjalanan kegiatan tahunan Galeri R.J. Katamsi akan diawali dari pengelolaan pameran internal tahunan semenjak 2013 hingga periode terkini 2019. Secara umum, kegiatan pameran seni rupa di Galeri R.J. Katamsi dibagi menjadi dua bagian yakni pertama, pameran internal yakni pameran yang diadakan oleh sivitas akademika ISI Yogyakarta seperti pameran mahasiswa, staf pengajar/dosen, kegiatan prodi/fakultas dan pameran yang diinisiasi manajemen galeri. Kedua, pameran eksternal, yakni proposal pameran yang diajukan oleh pihak luar kampus seperti dari instansi negara, komunitas seni, alumni, galeri, maupun kelompok seni lainnya. Oleh karenanya, bisa dikatakan selama setahun, Galeri R.J. Katamsi dipadati dengan berbagai kegiatan, baik pameran seni rupa, workshop seni, artist talk, seminar dan diskusi seni. Rata-rata 10-14 main event pameran seni berikut dengan berbagai side event sebagai penunjang pameran

ホール効果を利用したコンパクトかつ柔軟な分散型3軸スキンセンサー「uSkin」の開発

早大学位記番号:新8143早稲田大

An Artificial Intelligence Approach to Concatenative Sound Synthesis

Sound examples are included with this thesisTechnological advancement such as the increase in processing power, hard disk capacity and network bandwidth has opened up many exciting new techniques to synthesise sounds, one of which is Concatenative Sound Synthesis (CSS). CSS uses data-driven method to synthesise new sounds from a large corpus of small sound snippets. This technique closely resembles the art of mosaicing, where small tiles are arranged together to create a larger image. A ‘target’ sound is often specified by users so that segments in the database that match those of the target sound can be identified and then concatenated together to generate the output sound. Whilst the practicality of CSS in synthesising sounds currently looks promising, there are still areas to be explored and improved, in particular the algorithm that is used to find the matching segments in the database. One of the main issues in CSS is the basis of similarity, as there are many perceptual attributes which sound similarity can be based on, for example it can be based on timbre, loudness, rhythm, and tempo and so on. An ideal CSS system needs to be able to decipher which of these perceptual attributes are anticipated by the users and then accommodate them by synthesising sounds that are similar with respect to the particular attribute. Failure to communicate the basis of sound similarity between the user and the CSS system generally results in output that mismatches the sound which has been envisioned by the user. In order to understand how humans perceive sound similarity, several elements that affected sound similarity judgment were first investigated. Of the four elements tested (timbre, melody, loudness, tempo), it was found that the basis of similarity is dependent on humans’ musical training where musicians based similarity on the timbral information, whilst non-musicians rely on melodic information. Thus, for the rest of the study, only features that represent the timbral information were included, as musicians are the target user for the findings of this study. Another issue with the current state of CSS systems is the user control flexibility, in particular during segment matching, where features can be assigned with different weights depending on their importance to the search. Typically, the weights (in some existing CSS systems that support the weight assigning mechanism) can only be assigned manually, resulting in a process that is both labour intensive and time consuming. Additionally, another problem was identified in this study, which is the lack of mechanism to handle homosonic and equidistant segments. These conditions arise when too few features are compared causing otherwise aurally different sounds to be represented by the same sonic values, or can also be a result of rounding off the values of the features extracted. This study addresses both of these problems through an extended use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The Analysis Hierarchy Process (AHP) is employed to enable order dependent features selection, allowing weights to be assigned for each audio feature according to their relative importance. Concatenation distance is used to overcome the issues with homosonic and equidistant sound segments. The inclusion of AI results in a more intelligent system that can better handle tedious tasks and minimize human error, allowing users (composers) to worry less of the mundane tasks, and focusing more on the creative aspects of music making. In addition to the above, this study also aims to enhance user control flexibility in a CSS system and improve similarity result. The key factors that affect the synthesis results of CSS were first identified and then included as parametric options which users can control in order to communicate their intended creations to the system to synthesise. Comprehensive evaluations were carried out to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed solutions (timbral-based features set, AHP, and concatenation distance). The final part of the study investigates the relationship between perceived sound similarity and perceived sound interestingness. A new framework that integrates all these solutions, the query-based CSS framework, was then proposed. The proof-of-concept of this study, ConQuer, was developed based on this framework. This study has critically analysed the problems in existing CSS systems. Novel solutions have been proposed to overcome them and their effectiveness has been tested and discussed, and these are also the main contributions of this study.Malaysian Minsitry of Higher Education, Universiti Putra Malaysi

Puppetry in Museum Interpretation and Communication

Although there is a growing practice of puppetry in education, there has been no academic research to date on the range of puppet theatre styles and techniques in the museum context. This interdisciplinary thesis seeks to investigate what I call ‘museum puppetry’, e.g. puppetry used for pedagogical purposes in museum studies’ with a focus on the exchanges, compromises and tensions among museum staff and puppet theatre practitioners. Although the research is conducted mainly from the puppeteers’ perspective, the voice of museum experts is also present throughout. The thesis examines puppetry’s theoretical and practical frames for creation and how these can be used to conceptualize the applied form of this marginalized medium in the contentious territory of museums today. It also investigates what benefits, challenges and limitations are faced by the two distinct communities of practice (puppeteers and museum staff) in the pre- and post-production of museum puppetry projects. This multiple case-study, qualitative research examines the current work of practitioners who present and perform in museums, mainly in the United Kingdom, United States, Greece and Israel. The data analysis, based on interviews and field work, also aims to investigate the projects’ preproduction processes. Furthermore, it explores the negotiations between puppeteers and museum staff around the visual and performance aspects of museum puppetry projects from a technical and aesthetic point of view (construction, narrative, manipulation techniques). The research also suggests that although museum puppetry is currently a marginalized museum practice, its distinct sign system renders it rich in meaningful and soulfull associations, strongly visitor-oriented and remarkably flexible. Commissioning long term museum puppetry projects remains —with a few exceptions— a missed opportunity, due to prejudices and low expectations. Overall, the thesis reclaims the pedagogical, aesthetic value of puppets as ultimate metaphors. It advocates the holistic, eco-friendly aspect of the practice and favours the empathy and thought-provoking gaps it traces. Finally, it attempts to balance constructive, unpredictable learning with significance and fun

The search for sense : Dance in Yogyakarta.

Dance plays an important role in how Javanese people represent themselves to each other and to non-Javanese. This study explores dance forms associated with the Sultan's palace in Yogyakarta, taken up by various interest groups after Indonesian independence. Part One presents a survey of current theoretical approaches to dance for anthropology, their limitations being illustrated by an analysis of palace dance, particularly the classification of forms, movements, and modes, and raises questions about the usefulness of the term 'dance', used here for convenience, not as an essentialised category (Chapters II-III). Implications are developed with reference to fields of aesthetics and semiotics, and I consider the relation of representations to reality (Chapter IV). Part Two introduces data about the traditional associations of these representations. Classifications and model- making in observer and informant accounts lead to how people make sense and how presuppositions generate discourses which allow meaningfulness to be delayed rather than fulfilled, and it is argued that 'poetic' features of this be rejected as constituting grounds for the formulation of the Javanese as 'other' (Chapters V-VI). How these styles of explanation affect our understanding of metaphysical dimensions is explored, from accounts of the self through Javanese theories of knowledge, to current Javanese polemics and what these make theories of communication look like, and how ideas about the past are used in the contest to define authenticity in 'classical' dance in Yogyakarta today (Chapters VII-VIII). The problem of closure in categories is the broadest concern of this study, particularly 'dance', 'Java', and also 'anthropology'. The perspectival approach aims to do justice to the ethnography, and to overcome misrepresentations arising from translations of indigenous terms and discourses. Though ignorance leads the fieldworker to take things too literally, informant ignorance is recognised. What data are is a matter of interpretation, and the conclusion hesitates to posit, and asks instead that we acknowledge our own tendency to create and rest on images, and take more note of what we are doing when we represent other societies to ourselves