Die Polyphonie der Personae: Vokalarrangement bei Kate Bush und Annie Lennox

Analyse populärer Musik dringt eher selten in Bereiche vor, die als genuin musiktheoretisch betrachtet werden können. Was als Defizit jener Analysen gelten könnte, ist jedoch, positiv betrachtet, durch die gründliche Betrachtung etwa popgeschichtlicher, soziokultureller oder technischer Aspekte zu erklären, die für musiktheoretische Ansätze kaum noch Raum lässt. Umgekehrt ist es wohl ein Defizit der Musiktheorie, dass eine Musik, die nicht primär in musikalischen Notaten vorliegt oder sich sogar genauer Notation entzieht, weiterhin stiefmütterlich behandelt wird. Hier soll nun versucht werden, einen sehr eingegrenzten Aspekt populärer Musik musiktheoretisch zu behandeln, um dann in einem weiteren Schritt sich Fragen von Gender und Persona zu nähern. Gegenstand soll Musik aus den frühen 80er Jahren sein, dargestellt am Beispiel von Ausschnitten aus den Transkriptionen der Songs »There Goes a Tenner« (Kate Bush, 1982) und »No Fear, No Hate, No Pain« (Annie Lennox/Eurythmics, 1983). Beide Sängerinnen galten zu dieser Zeit als extravagant, stimmlich vielseitig bis kapriziös, als Erscheinungen wandlungsfähig, Bush mit Hang zur theatralischen Inszenierung, Lennox als androgyn. Diese Vielgestaltigkeit der Charaktere soll hier anhand der Vokalarrangements analytisch beleuchtet werden: So erhält quasi jede Persona eine eigene Stimmfärbung, im Mix unterstützt durch Effekte und Verräumlichung. Theoretisch ergiebig ist auch die Analyse kontrapunktischer Aspekte, die einen Vergleich mit polyphoner Schreibweise für die Oper (etwa in Ensembles) herausfordern. Mehrstimmigkeit wird weniger in Gleichzeitigkeit erzeugt, als durch das Schneiden, Verzahnen und Schichten von semantisch geladenen Einzelelementen zu einem komplexen Narrativ. Abgerundet wird die Betrachtung durch analytische Aspekte des Arrangements, die sich zeittypisch in einem Spannungsfeld zwischen elektronischer Grundlage (Sequencer) und akustischer Schichtung (auch Geräusch und Weltmusikeinflüsse) bewegen.The study of popular music rarely reaches a point that can be genuinely regarded as the result of applying analytical methods of music theory. However, what could be regarded as a deficiency of these studies can be positively explained, on the one hand: the thorough reading of pop history, socio-cultural and technical aspects hardly leave room for musical analyses. On the other hand, it is a shortcoming of music theory that it neglects music which does not exist in notated form or even eludes exact notation. Here, we will try to treat a limited aspect of popular music in terms of music theory and then approach questions of gender and persona in a further step. The subject is music of the early 1980s; excerpts from transcriptions of the songs »There Goes a Tenner« (Kate Bush, 1982) and »No Fear, No Hate, No Pain« (Annie Lennox/Eurythmics, 1983) will serve as examples. At that time, both singers were regarded as extravagant and from versatile to capricious vocally. Their appearances were many-sided: Bush showed a penchant for theatrical staging, and Lennox was seen as androgynous. This variety of the characters will be analyzed here based on the vocal arrangements: almost every persona is represented by its own vocal timbre, supported in the mix by effects and spatialization. The highlighting of contrapuntal aspects is especially productive for analysis and provokes a comparison with polyphonic writing for opera (e.g., in ensembles). Polyphony is produced less in simultaneity than by juxtaposition, interweaving, and the layering of semantically charged elements into a complex narrative. The study is rounded off by analytical aspects of the instrumental arrangements which, typical for the time, move in an area between electronic basis (sequencer) and acoustic stratification (incorporating concrete sound and influences of world music)

Gravity-wave-induced cross-isentropic mixing: a DEEPWAVE case study

Orographic gravity waves (i.e., mountain waves) can potentially lead to cross-isentropic fluxes of trace gases via the generation of turbulence. During the DEEPWAVE (Deep Propagating Gravity Wave Experiment) campaign in July 2014, we performed tracer measurements of carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrous oxide (N2O) above the Southern Alps during periods of gravity wave activity. The measurements were taken along two stacked levels at 7.9 km in the troposphere and 10.9 km in the stratosphere. A detailed analysis of the observed wind components shows that both flight legs were affected by vertically propagating gravity waves with momentum deposition and energy dissipation between the two legs. Corresponding tracer measurements indicate turbulent mixing in the region of gravity wave occurrence. For the stratospheric data, we identified mixing leading to a change of the cross-isentropic tracer gradient of N2O from the upstream to the downstream region of the Southern Alps. Based on the quasi-inert tracer N2O, we identified two distinct layers in the stratosphere with different chemical composition on different isentropes as given by constant potential temperature 2. The CO–N2O relationship clearly indicates that irreversible mixing between these two layers occurred. Further, we found a significant change of the vertical profiles of N2O with respect to 2 from the upstream to the downstream side above the Southern Alps just above the tropopause. A scale-dependent gradient analysis reveals that this cross-isentropic gradient change of N2O is triggered in the region of gravity wave occurrence

Identification of de novo variants in nonsyndromic cleft lip with/without cleft palate patients with low polygenic risk scores

[Background]: Nonsyndromic cleft lip with/without cleft palate (nsCL/P) is a congenital malformation of multifactorial etiology. Research has identified >40 genome-wide significant risk loci, which explain less than 40% of nsCL/P heritability. Studies show that some of the hidden heritability is explained by rare penetrant variants. [Methods]: To identify new candidate genes, we searched for highly penetrant de novo variants (DNVs) in 50 nsCL/P patient/parent-trios with a low polygenic risk for the phenotype (discovery). We prioritized DNV-carrying candidate genes from the discovery for resequencing in independent cohorts of 1010 nsCL/P patients of diverse ethnicities and 1574 population-matched controls (replication). Segregation analyses and rare variant association in the replication cohort, in combination with additional data (genome-wide association data, expression, protein–protein-interactions), were used for final prioritization. [Conclusion]: In the discovery step, 60 DNVs were identified in 60 genes, including a variant in the established nsCL/P risk gene CDH1. Re-sequencing of 32 prioritized genes led to the identification of 373 rare, likely pathogenic variants. Finally, MDN1 and PAXIP1 were prioritized as top candidates. Our findings demonstrate that DNV detection, including polygenic risk score analysis, is a powerful tool for identifying nsCL/P candidate genes, which can also be applied to other multifactorial congenital malformations.The present study was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG)-Grants BE 3828/8-1, LU 1944/2-1, MA 2546/5-1, and LU1944/3-1