IL PLAGIO. È LA PROVA DEL BUDINO DELLA MUSICOLOGIA?

I casi di plagio musicale, di tanto in tanto, emergono all’attenzione pubblica. È meno noto, tuttavia, che a occuparsene (oltre a giudici e avvocati esperti di diritto d’autore) siano docenti di musica e musicologi, in qualità di periti di parte o di ufficio. Ciò che viene messo a confronto, oltre a frammenti di canzoni, melodie, sequenze armoniche, ritmi, sonorità, sono le teorie in base alle quali è possibile sostenere la somiglianza o l’estraneità delle musiche coinvolte nel giudizio. In sostanza, ogni causa di plagio implica un confronto fra diverse interpretazioni dei concetti fondativi dello studio della musica. Non è un’esagerazione, dunque, affermare che il plagio sia la prova del budino della musicologia: un terreno di confronto consistente e articolato, spesso più sostanzioso di secolari controversie teoriche. Music plagiarism cases, now and then, emerge to public attention. It is less known, however, that those dealing with them (along with judges and lawyers, experts in copyright law) are music teachers and musicologists, as technical consultants for the parties involved and for the court. What is confronted, besides song fragments, melodies, harmonic progressions, rhythms, sounds, are theories according to which, it is possible to ascertain similarities or differences between music pieces involved in a case. In the end, every plagiarism case implies a confrontation between different interpretations of musicology’s fundamental concepts. It isn’t an exaggeration, then, to say that plagiarism is musicology’s proof of the pudding: a consistent and articulated test bed, often more substantial than lifelong theoretical controversies

Écouter les Shadows, quarante-huit ans plus tard et pour la première fois

Comme beaucoup de guitaristes des années 1960, Franco Fabbri a commencé sa carrière en essayant de copier le style de Hank B. Marvin, guitare solo des Shadows. Marta García Quiñones ne joue pas de la guitare et jusqu'à une date récente avait eu peu d’occasions d'écouter les disques des Shadows. Les deux auteurs s’intéressent aux modèles d'écoute, à l’analyse musicale, et aux réponses cognitives et émotionnelles à la musique. À l’origine de cet essai, une expérience d'écoute faite par Fabbri, qui, une nuit d’insomnie en voyage, a écouté pendant trois heures (en mode aléatoire, avec casque) une grande partie de sa collection de fichiers mp3 d'enregistrements des Shadows. Probablement en raison de son état semi-hypnotique, l'expérience l’a profondément frappé, lorsqu’il s'est mentalement déplacé à l’époque de son adolescence, quand il a écouté les Shadows pour la première fois et a commencé à jouer leurs morceaux instrumentaux. Fabbri a envoyé ensuite un bref rapport sur cette expérience à Marta García Quiñones, qui lui a posé des questions sur la façon dont cette musique était normalement écoutée dans les années 1960, et elle a décidé d'écouter le groupe (presque) pour la première fois. Cet essai est une version élargie de la correspondance initiée par cet acte d'écoute. Il tente de démontrer que la compréhension de tout événement musical exige de reconnaître et de reconstruire multiples strates d’expériences diverses : perceptives, émotionnelles, analytiques et performatives, présentes et passées, qui semblent être inscrites à la fois dans nos corps et dans nos esprits.Like many guitarists in the early 1960s, Franco Fabbri started his career trying to copy the style of Hank B. Marvin, soloist of The Shadows. Marta García Quiñones doesn’t play guitar and had few chances to listen to records by The Shadows until recently. Both authors have interests in listening models, music analysis, and cognitive and emotional responses to music. The paper was suggested by a listening experience by Fabbri, who one night, unable to sleep while travelling, listened for three hours (in shuffle mode, with headphones) to a large portion of his collection of mp3 files of Shadows’ recordings. Probably due to his semi-hypnotic state, the experience struck deeply, as he shifted back to his teens, when he first listened to The Shadows and started playing their instrumental pieces. Then, Fabbri sent a brief report about that experience to García Quiñones, who was moved to ask questions about how that music was listened to in the early 1960s, and decided to listen to The Shadows (almost) for the first time. The paper is an expanded version of the correspondence that was initiated by that listening act. It tries to demonstrate that understanding any music event demands to unfold and reconstruct multiple layers of perceptual, emotional, analytic and performative experiences, present and past, which seem to be inscribed both in our bodies and in our minds

Listening to The Shadows, Forty-Eight Years Later, and for the First Time

Comme beaucoup de guitaristes des années 1960, Franco Fabbri a commencé sa carrière en essayant de copier le style de Hank B. Marvin, guitare solo des Shadows. Marta García Quiñones ne joue pas de la guitare et jusqu'à une date récente avait eu peu d’occasions d'écouter les disques des Shadows. Les deux auteurs s’intéressent aux modèles d'écoute, à l’analyse musicale, et aux réponses cognitives et émotionnelles à la musique. À l’origine de cet essai, une expérience d'écoute faite par Fabbri, qui, une nuit d’insomnie en voyage, a écouté pendant trois heures (en mode aléatoire, avec casque) une grande partie de sa collection de fichiers mp3 d'enregistrements des Shadows. Probablement en raison de son état semi-hypnotique, l'expérience l’a profondément frappé, lorsqu’il s'est mentalement déplacé à l’époque de son adolescence, quand il a écouté les Shadows pour la première fois et a commencé à jouer leurs morceaux instrumentaux. Fabbri a envoyé ensuite un bref rapport sur cette expérience à Marta García Quiñones, qui lui a posé des questions sur la façon dont cette musique était normalement écoutée dans les années 1960, et elle a décidé d'écouter le groupe (presque) pour la première fois. Cet essai est une version élargie de la correspondance initiée par cet acte d'écoute. Il tente de démontrer que la compréhension de tout événement musical exige de reconnaître et de reconstruire multiples strates d’expériences diverses : perceptives, émotionnelles, analytiques et performatives, présentes et passées, qui semblent être inscrites à la fois dans nos corps et dans nos esprits.Like many guitarists in the early 1960s, Franco Fabbri started his career trying to copy the style of Hank B. Marvin, soloist of The Shadows. Marta García Quiñones doesn’t play guitar and had few chances to listen to records by The Shadows until recently. Both authors have interests in listening models, music analysis, and cognitive and emotional responses to music. The paper was suggested by a listening experience by Fabbri, who one night, unable to sleep while travelling, listened for three hours (in shuffle mode, with headphones) to a large portion of his collection of mp3 files of Shadows’ recordings. Probably due to his semi-hypnotic state, the experience struck deeply, as he shifted back to his teens, when he first listened to The Shadows and started playing their instrumental pieces. Then, Fabbri sent a brief report about that experience to García Quiñones, who was moved to ask questions about how that music was listened to in the early 1960s, and decided to listen to The Shadows (almost) for the first time. The paper is an expanded version of the correspondence that was initiated by that listening act. It tries to demonstrate that understanding any music event demands to unfold and reconstruct multiple layers of perceptual, emotional, analytic and performative experiences, present and past, which seem to be inscribed both in our bodies and in our minds

Biological network analysis with CentiScaPe: centralities and experimental dataset integration

The growing dimension and complexity of the available experimental data generating biological networks have increased the need for tools that help in categorizing nodes by their topological relevance. Here we present CentiScaPe, a Cytoscape app specifically designed to calculate centrality indexes used for the identification of the most important nodes in a network. CentiScaPe is a comprehensive suite of algorithms dedicated to network nodes centrality analysis, computing several centralities for undirected, directed and weighted networks. The results of the topological analysis can be integrated with data set from lab experiments, like expression or phosphorylation levels for each protein represented in the network. Our app opens new perspectives in the analysis of biological networks, since the integration of topological analysis with lab experimental data enhance the predictive power of the bioinformatics analysis

Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs), Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) and Their Interplay with Cancer Associated Fibroblasts (CAFs): A New World of Targets and Treatments.

Abstract: The importance of defining new molecules to fight cancer is of significant interest to the scientific community. In particular, it has been shown that cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a small subpopulation of cells within tumors with capabilities of self-renewal, differentiation, and tumorigenicity; on the other side, circulating tumor cells (CTCs) seem to split away from the primary tumor and appear in the circulatory system as singular units or clusters. It is becoming more and more important to discover new biomarkers related to these populations of cells in combination to define the network among them and the tumor microenvironment. In particular, cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are a key component of the tumor microenvironment with different functions, including matrix deposition and remodeling, extensive reciprocal signaling interactions with cancer cells and crosstalk with immunity. The settings of new markers and the definition of the molecular connections may present new avenues, not only for fighting cancer but also for the definition of more tailored therapies