Planning Curricular Proposals on Sound and Music with Prospective Secondary-School Teachers

Sound is a preferred context to build foundations on wave phenomena, one of the most important disciplinary referents in physics. It is also one of the best-set frameworks to achieve transversality, overcoming scholastic level and activating emotional aspects which are naturally connected with every day life, as well as with music and perception. Looking at sound and music by a transversal perspective - a border-line approach between science and art, is the adopted statement for a teaching proposal using meta-cognition as a strategy in scientific education. This work analyzes curricular proposals on musical acoustics, planned by prospective secondary-school teachers in the framework of a Formative Intervention Module answering the expectation of making more effective teaching scientific subjects by improving creative capabilities, as well as leading to build logical and scientific categorizations able to consciously discipline artistic activity in music students. With this aim, a particular emphasis is given to those concepts - like sound parameters and structural elements of a musical piece, which are best fitted to be addressed on a transversal perspective, involving simultaneously physics, psychophysics and music.Comment: 12 pages with 5 figures. Submitted for publication in Physics Curriculum Design, Development and Validation - GIREP 2008 book of selected papers, 200

Comparative teaching strategies In special relativity

Περιέχει το πλήρες κείμενοThe introduction of modern physics topics in secondary schools is one of the highest challenges in physics education. In this regard, a specific exercise has been carried out in the context of a dedicated Summer School involving both teachers with a Master in Education and secondary school students previously acquainted with these teachers. In the case of enlightening and overcoming conceptual and learning problems – with a deep insight to concepts and terms in contrast with common sense and everyday experience – a dedicated analysis of two different curricular proposals is outlined, showing possible weaknesses and strengths in both teaching frameworks and approaches

A Computational Model of Immanent Accent Salience in Tonal Music

Accents are local musical events that attract the attention of the listener, and can be either immanent (evident from the score) or performed (added by the performer). Immanent accents involve temporal grouping (phrasing), meter, melody, and harmony; performed accents involve changes in timing, dynamics, articulation, and timbre. In the past, grouping, metrical and melodic accents were investigated in the context of expressive music performance. We present a novel computational model of immanent accent salience in tonal music that automatically predicts the positions and saliences of metrical, melodic and harmonic accents. The model extends previous research by improving on preliminary formulations of metrical and melodic accents and introducing a new model for harmonic accents that combines harmonic dissonance and harmonic surprise. In an analysis-by-synthesis approach, model predictions were compared with data from two experiments, respectively involving 239 sonorities and 638 sonorities, and 16 musicians and 5 experts in music theory. Average pair-wise correlations between raters were lower for metrical (0.27) and melodic accents (0.37) than for harmonic accents (0.49). In both experiments, when combining all the raters into a single measure expressing their consensus, correlations between ratings and model predictions ranged from 0.43 to 0.62. When different accent categories of accents were combined together, correlations were higher than for separate categories (r = 0.66). This suggests that raters might use strategies different from individual metrical, melodic or harmonic accent models to mark the musical events

PLANNING CURRICULAR PROPOSALS ON SOUND AND MUSIC WITH PROSPECTIVE SECONDARY-SCHOOL TEACHERS

ABSTRACT Sound is a preferred context to build foundations on wave phenomena, one of the most important disciplinary referents in physics. It is also one of the best-set frameworks to achieve transversality, overcoming scholastic level and activating emotional aspects which are naturally connected with every day life, as well as with music and perception. Looking at sound and music by a transversal perspective -a border-line approach between science and art, is the adopted statement for a teaching proposal using meta-cognition as a strategy in scientific education. This work analyzes curricular proposals on musical acoustics, planned by prospective secondary-school teachers in the framework of a Formative Intervention Module answering the expectation of making more effective teaching scientific subjects by improving creative capabilities, as well as leading to build logical and scientific categorizations able to consciously discipline artistic activity in music students. With this aim, a particular emphasis is given to those concepts -like sound parameters and structural elements of a musical piece, which are best fitted to be addressed on a transversal perspective, involving simultaneously physics, psychophysics and music

The Tonnetz Environment: A Web Platform for Computer-aided “Mathemusical” Learning and Research (versión preprint)

We describe the Tonnetz web environment and some of the possible applications we have developed within a pedagogical workshop on mathematics and music that has been conceived for high-school students. This web environment makes use of two geometrical representations that constitute intuitive ways of accessing some theoretical concepts underlying the equal tempered system and their possible mathematical formalizations. The environment is aimed at enhancing “mathemusical” learning processes by enabling the user to interactively manipulate these representations. Finally, we show how Tonnetz is currently being adapted in order to lead computer-based experiences in music perception and cognition that will be mainly carried at universities. These experiences will explore the way in which geometrical models could be implicitly encoded during the listening process. Their outcome may reinforce educational strategies for learning mathematics through music

Seasonal thaws under mid-to-low pressure atmospheres on Early Mars

Despite decades of scientific research on the subject, the climate of the first 1.5 Gyr of Mars history has not been fully understood yet. Especially challenging is the need to reconcile the presence of liquid water for extended periods of time on the martian surface with the comparatively low insolation received by the planet, a problem which is known as the Faint Young Sun (FYS) Paradox. In this paper we use ESTM, a latitudinal energy balance model with enhanced prescriptions for meridional heat diffusion, and the radiative transfer code EOS to investigate how seasonal variations of temperature can give rise to local conditions which are conductive to liquid water runoffs. We include the effects of the martian dichotomy, a northern ocean with either 150 or 550 m of Global Equivalent Layer (GEL) and simplified CO$_2$ or H$_2$O clouds. We find that 1.3-to-2.0 bar CO$_2$-dominated atmospheres can produce seasonal thaws due to inefficient heat redistribution, provided that the eccentricity and the obliquity of the planet are sufficiently different from zero. We also studied the impact of different values for the argument of perihelion. When local favorable conditions exist, they nearly always persist for $>15\%$ of the martian year. These results are obtained without the need for additional greenhouse gases (e.g. H$_2$, CH$_4$) or transient heat-injecting phenomena (e.g. asteroid impacts, volcanic eruptions). Moderate amounts (0.1 to 1\%) of CH$_4$ significantly widens the parameter space region in which seasonal thaws are possible.Comment: Second and final version, 27 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

A Teatro con INAF - Il Portfolio degli spettacoli dell’Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica

A dicembre 2020, il Gruppo Storie dell’Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) ha pubblicato insieme al magazine di Didattica e Divulgazione dell’Ente, EduINAF, il Portfolio degli spettacoli dell’INAF. Il Portfolio è il risultato di un’accurata ricognizione in collaborazione con i referenti degli stessi ed è unico nel suo genere per un Ente di ricerca. Comprende una trentina di spettacoli, a tema astrofisico o scientifico, prodotti negli anni dal personale INAF in autonomia o in collabora-zione con realtà professionali. Nel Portfolio, ogni spettacolo è descritto in una scheda informativa e la fruizione è resa immediata grazie a filtri appositi. Il Portfolio è man mano aggiornato per meglio rispondere alle esigenze e curiosità del pubblico in cerca di approcci non tradizionali nell’esplorazione dell’astronomia e della ricerca in generale. Ad accompagnare il Portfolio, un breve video per la disseminazione sui canali social e un segnalibro dedicato, in preparazione, da offrire in incontri con scuole e in eventi con il pubblico. Grazie alla visione d’insieme offerta dal Portfolio, nell’Ente sono nate valutazioni per massimizzare la visibilità degli spettacoli tramite l’organizzazione di un ‘Festival INAF diffuso’. In questo report descriviamo il Portfolio, il suo contesto, le criticità riscontrate e i progetti futuri

The Relationship Between Musical Structure and Emotion in Classical Piano Scores : A Case Study on the Theme of La Folia

We explored the relationship between musical structure and emotion on different variations of La Folia – a musical theme of Portuguese origin based on a standard harmonic progression. Our approach aims to extend previous research by investigating more factors and comparing different models for music emotion. In a pilot study, 12 participants rated the emotion associated to the stimuli on a graduate scale from 1 to 10, according to 3 different models for music emotion: the valence/arousal-based emotion model (Russell, 1980), a discrete emotion approach (Izard, 1972), and the Geneva Emotional Music Scale (GEMS) (Zentner et al., 2008). Stimuli were commercial recordings of the first 8 bars of 32 variations of the Theme of La Folia by A. Scarlatti, C. P. E. Bach, S. Rachmaninov and F. Liszt, with different combinations of 9 factors that were judged and averaged by 2 musical experts using a 5-point rating scale. Preliminary results are: (i) there exist significant correlations between structural parameters and descriptors for emotions in all of the models; (ii) correlations between structure and emotion are more remarkable for the valence/arousal-based emotion model and for the GEMS model, and are higher for register, note density, dynamics, accentuation and articulation; (iii) agreement among raters for the DES model is significantly lower than for the other two models. On the base of these results, we planned two new experiments focussing only on the valence/arousal-based emotion model and on the firstorder GEMS model. They are: a second listening test based on a real music design (20 out of the previously selected 32 stimuli, corresponding to pieces featuring more extreme variability in the musical structure, with different combinations of 21 factors), and a new listening test based on a controlled and balanced design (24 variations with selected combinations of 4 factors, arranged and recorded in a deadpan performance by the first author). 24 participants (12 musicians and 12 non-musicians) have been involved in the current study, following the same procedure outlined above. We expect to extend understanding on the relationship between structure and emotion following more accurate, computational analyses of musical features, as well as by defining new predictors for emotion that are more appropriate for specific musical style(s) – like factorial analysis or multidimensional scaling.nonPeerReviewe

An accent-based approach to performance rendering: Music theory meets music psychology

Accents are local events that attract a listener’s attention and are either evident from the score (immanent) or added by the performer (performed). Immanent accents are associated with grouping, meter, melody, and harmony. In piano music, performed accents involve changes in timing, dynamics, articulation, and pedaling; they vary in amplitude, form, and duration. Performers tend to “bring out” immanent accents by means of performed accents, which attracts the listener’s attention to them. We are mathematically modeling timing and dynamics near immanent accents in a selection of Chopin Preludes using an extended version of Director Musices(DM),a software package for automatic rendering of expressive performance. We are developing DM in a new direction, which allows us to relate expressive features of a performance not only to global or intermediate structural properties, but also accounting for local events.QC 20120111</p

Possibilities of improving Grade 4 pupils’ listening skills/ culture in the acquisition of the mother tongue

O. Starovoitovas diplomdarbā analizētas galvenās problēmas, kas saistītas ar sākumskolas skolēnu klausīšanās prasmes apguvi dzimtās valodas mācību stundās. Analizēta un apkopota mūsdienu lingvodidaktikā uzkrātā pieredze, saistībā ar klausīšanās kultūras attīstību sākumskolas skolēniem, secinot, ka visi runas darbības veidi ir savstarpēji saistīti, un mācību panākumi skolā ir atkarīgi no visu runas darbības veidu apguves. Darbā norādīts, ka klausīšanās ir ne tikai svarīga runas prasme, bet arī paņēmiens, kā iegūt zināšanas, tas ir skolēna garīgās pasaules veidošanās līdzeklis un cilvēka kopējā kultūras līmeņa rādītājs. Piedāvāti paņēmieni klausīšanās tehnikas apguvē, kurus var izmantot sākumskolā efektīvai klausīšanās apguvei. Veicot pētījumu, aprobēti daži mācību uzdevumu veidi, kas virzīti uz klausīšanās tehnikas un kultūras pilnveidi. Diplomdarbam ir praktiska nozīme un to var izmantot kā metodisko materiālu, mācot sākumskolas skolēniem klausīties. Atslēgas vārdi: klausīšanās, klausīšanās kultūra, klausīšanās pilnveide, klausīšanās tehnika, sākumskolas skolēns.The present paper by O. Starovoitova considers basic problems which occur in the process of listening skills training for primary school children when acquiring the mother tongue. Having analyzed and summarized recent achievements in linguodidactics, the author indicates that all kinds of communication skills are interrelated, thus, success of school teaching depends on at what level those skills are applied. The author also points out that listening is not only an important part of communication but also a means for acquiring knowledge and making a child's inner world, as well as cultural growth rate. The author puts forward some listening skills techniques to make training more effective. During the research, the author has also evaluated a set of exercises targeted at developing listening skills and encouraging the growth of the culture of listening. The present research paper is of practical significance in developing listening skills of primary school children and can be used for teacher editions. Key words: culture of listening, development of listening skills, listening training techniques, listening, primary school child