Becoming-Music, Becoming-Intimate, Becoming-Imperceptible: Toward A Pragmatic Deleuzo-Guattarian Musicology

http://www.mshparisnord.fr/documentation/publications/item/1110-revue-filigran

Beats that Commute: Algebraic and Kinesthetic Models for Math-Rock Grooves

Math rock’s most salient compositional facet is its cyclical repetition of grooves featuring changing and odd-cardinality meter. These unconventional grooves deform the conventional rhythmic structures of rock, such as backbeat and steady pulse, in such a way that a listener’s sense of metric organization is initially thwarted. Using transcriptions from math-rock artists such as Radiohead, The Mars Volta, and The Chariot, the author demonstrates a new analytical apparatus aimed at making sense of the ways listeners and performers process these changing pulse levels: the pivot pulse. The pivot pulse is defined as the slowest temporal level preserved in a given meter change. The author suggests that the preservation or disruption of the primary pulse level (that is, the temporal level at which a listener’s or performer’s primary kinesthetic involvement happens, such as dancing or foot-tapping) is of paramount importance. For example, a change from 4/4 to 3/4, which preserves the quarter-note pulse, will be less disruptive to a listener’s metric entrainment than a change from 4/4 to 7/8 or 7/8 to 15/16, both of which split the primary pulse in half. In order to formalize pivot-pulse methodology, the author presents an algebraic model based on the commutative operations greatest common denominator and lowest common multiple. Pivot-pulse methodology is also applied metaphorically to the kinesthetic interpretations of performers and listeners to better understand the complex movements incited by math-rock grooves

ROCK HARMONY RECONSIDERED: TONAL, MODAL AND CONTRAPUNTAL VOICE-LEADING SYSTEMS IN RADIOHEAD

A great deal of the harmony and voice leading in the British rock group Radiohead’s recorded output between 1997 and 2011 can be heard as elaborating either traditional tonal structures or establishing pitch centricity through purely contrapuntal means. This mode of hearing Radiohead’s music departs from theories of rock harmony that (1) focus on fretboard-specific melodic gestures, (2) highlight the role of modal scalar collections or (3) associate pitch centricity with hypermetric emphasis. Willingness to hear Radiohead’s contrapuntal practice – a keyboard-centred affair in this mature period – in such a prolongational way demands hearing non-tonic phrase beginnings and even entire formal sections in keys for which no tonic chord is present. Graphic techniques ultimately derived from Schenker (though adapted for rock music by Everett, Burns and Nobile) illuminate this comparatively conservative way of hearing rock harmony. Under this rigorous model, which privileges descending fifth motions and melodically fluent contrapuntal structure, Radiohead’s 1997– 2011 corpus reveals three distinct systems of voice leading and harmony: functional tonal, functional modal and contrapuntal

BEATS THAT COMMUTE: ALGEBRAIC AND KINESTHETIC MODELS FOR MATH-ROCK GROOVES

Math rock’s most salient compositional facet is its cyclical repetition of ostinati featuring changing and odd-cardinality meters

An Open Educational Resource for the Analysis of Music Video

This project was funded by KU Libraries’ Parent’s Campaign with support from the David Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright and the Open Educational Resources Working Group in the University of Kansas Libraries.This Open Education Resource (OER) teaches students how to analyze and interpret music videos from 1981 to the present. Assuming no prior knowledge in any area, the text takes students through three major units (music analysis, visual analysis, sociological analysis), addressing several topics within each unit. Students are exposed to terms and concepts relating to music theory, music history, film and media studies, sexuality and gender diversity, ethnicity, and fashion

HEARING HEIMA: ECOLOGICAL AND ECOCRITICAL APPROACHES TO MEANING IN THREE ICELANDIC MUSIC VIDEOS

Analyzing 3 Icelandic music video

Subverting the Verse—Chorus Paradigm: Terminally Climactic Forms in Recent Rock Music

This is the published version. Copyright © 2013 by The Society for Music TheoryThis article defines and demonstrates a formal type I call “terminally climactic forms.” These forms, which appear frequently in rock songs after 1990, are characterized by their balance between the expected memorable highpoint (the chorus) and the thematically independent terminal climax, the song’s actual high point, which appears only once at the end of the song. After presenting the rationale for such forms, including new models of rock endings and climaxes, the article presents archetypes for three classifications of terminally climactic forms: two-part, three-part, and extended. Each archetype is supported by analytical examples from the post-millennial rock corpus

Understanding Through-Composition in Post-Rock, Math-Metal, and other Post-Millennial Rock Genres

Since the dawn of experimental rock’s second coming in the new millennium, experimental artists have begun distancing themselves from Top-40 artists through formal structures that eschew recapitulatory verse/chorus conventions altogether. In order to understand the correlation between genre and form more thoroughly, this paper provides a taxonomic approach to through-composition in several post-millennial experimental rock genres including post-rock, math-metal, art rock, and neo-prog. Combining the presence or absence of two salient formal parameters (hierarchical grouping structure and thematic unification) generates four possible through-composed archetypes. Representative examples from the post-millennial rock corpus are provided for each archetype, and accompanying analyses identify the specific musical elements that engender such formal divisions. Included interviews suggest that this taxonomic model is congruent with the language musicians use to describe their own compositional strategies. Throughout the article, a case is made for the substantive link between specific types of through-composed forms and the genres in which those forms regularly appear, as well as for the difference between formal designs found in post-millennial experimental rock and those found in conventional rock music

Subverting the Verse–Chorus Paradigm: Terminally Climactic Forms in Recent Rock Music

This article defines and demonstrates a formal type I call ‘‘terminally climactic forms.’’ These forms, which appear frequently in rock songs after 1990, are characterized by their balance between the expected memorable highpoint (the chorus) and the thematically independent terminal climax, the song’s actual high point, which appears only once at the end of the song. After presenting the rationale for such forms, including new models of rock endings and climaxes, the article presents archetypes for three classifications of terminally climactic forms: two-part, three-part, and extended. Each archetype is supported by analytical examples from the post-millennial rock corpus

Understanding Through-Composition in Post-Rock, Math-Metal, and other Post-Millennial Rock Genres

Since the dawn of experimental rock’s second coming in the new millennium, experimental artists have begun distancing themselves from Top-40 artists through formal structures that eschew recapitulatory verse/chorus conventions altogether. In order to understand the correlation between genre and form more thoroughly, this paper provides a taxonomic approach to through-composition in several post-millennial experimental rock genres including post-rock, math-metal, art rock, and neo-prog. Combining the presence or absence of two salient formal parameters (hierarchical grouping structure and thematic unification) generates four possible through-composed archetypes. Representative examples from the post-millennial rock corpus are provided for each archetype, and accompanying analyses identify the specific musical elements that engender such formal divisions. Included interviews suggest that this taxonomic model is congruent with the language musicians use to describe their own compositional strategies. Throughout the article, a case is made for the substantive link between specific types of through-composed forms and the genres in which those forms regularly appear, as well as for the difference between formal designs found in post-millennial experimental rock and those found in conventional rock music