Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Review Of Sara Levy's World: Gender, Judaism, And The Bach Tradition In Enlightenment Berlin, Edited By Rebecca Cypess And Nancy Sinkoff, Jeanne R. Swack

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

A review of Sara Levy's World: Gender, Judaism, and the Bach Tradition in Enlightenment Berlin, edited by Rebecca Cypess and Nancy Sinkoff

The Dilemma Of Empty Halls, Joanna Lauer

Musical Offerings

Today, live classical concert attendance is low, a fact which threatens the careers of professional musicians. This paper examines recent statistics of classical concert attendance, theories as to why attendance rates are low, marketing methods for target audiences, and finally, recommendations to solve the dilemma of empty concert halls. To encourage concert attendance, classical music must be tastefully marketed to present-day audiences through the experience of technically excellent, musical, and interesting live performances. Ultimately, the relationship between art and its audience (the consumer) reveals that the key to the dilemma is the audience.

A Herderian Perspective On Finland, Sibelius, And The Kalevala, Philip R. Cataldo

Musical Offerings

Situated amidst the revolutionary spirits of 19^th-century Europe, Finnish nationalists sought to bring an end to roughly half a millennium of foreign rule for their land and their people. According to the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, a community must have a common language and a common history in order to constitute a nation. At this time, Finland had neither. Although Herder’s political philosophy is considered crucial to understanding the nationalist movements that took place in Europe during this period, Finland’s peculiar success in attaining and sustaining independence has until this point remained unexplained relative to a Herderian …

Singing Planets Don't Sing; They Speak, Joanna R. Lauer

Musical Offerings

Ancient Greek philosophers conceived a theory called Music of the Spheres. This ancient theory progressed for almost one thousand years before finally proving itself untrustworthy. However, this examination uncovers an overlooked fact: the large amount of natural order in sound and music existing before the creation of man. Scripture reveals that God is a God of order, and an extensive amount of natural order is found in the universe. Evidence points to God being the creator of the universe. Specific examples of such evidence are the inherent order of sound laid out in pitches, interval ratios, the overtone series, the …

Medieval Methods: Guido D’Arezzo’S Innovative Approaches To Music Education, Lydia C. Kee

Musical Offerings

Music education has been influenced by many people throughout history, but arguably none of them have done so as much as the monk, Guido D’Arezzo. His teaching methods have been embraced and developed by music educators throughout the centuries. For example, it is recorded that Guido was the first to use the five-line staff as we use it today. This was especially groundbreaking in a world of rote memorization. Today it is used globally in music education. The roots of solfege are also found in Guido’s writings; his syllables have been adapted by Zoltan Kodály. Not only that, but John …

Hearing Tolkien In Vaughan Williams?, Keri Hui

Journal of Tolkien Research

In recent years, musicians and Tolkien readers alike have associated Ralph Vaughan Williams’ music, particularly Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910), The Lark Ascending (1914), and Fantasia on Greensleeves (1934), with Tolkien’s fantasies. This article explores this tendency to hear Tolkien’s Middle-earth in Vaughan Williams’ musical fantasies, calling attention to the similarities in their shared devotion to the idea of English consciousness, interest in combining ecclesiastical and folk materials, and pastoral vision. A juxtaposition of their approach and philosophies not only helps explain the musical echoes, however, but also confirms an appealing mark of Tolkien’s craft is its …

Ishmael Album Review, Robert N. Moore

Backstage Pass

This is an extensive review of the metal album Ishmael, written, performed, mixed, mastered, and released all by Jared Smith. The album combines religion, intricate guitar riffs, and metal to create an avant-garde piece of art.

Producer Interview: Teak Underdue, Kris Jones

Backstage Pass

This interview is with three-time Grammy-nominated music producer Teak Underdue of Hallway Productions. He discusses his background and the path he has taken to become a well respected music creator and producer. The interviewee offers advice for aspiring producers on how to build their reputation and credits in the music industry.

Arganun (Organon) - In The Outlook Of Medieval Eastern Thinkers, Saodat Djurabekova

Eurasian music science journal

The Uzbek people have a very rich, worthy ancient history. The discoveries by many scientists and archaeologists of our country confirm the huge contribution of Central Asia to the development of human beings. During very long years of historical development, many great scientists in the fields of science, culture and art came out among our people. They have gratefully served for the progress of mankind. In this way, they raised the status of the nations of the East. Oriental scholars in their musical brochures, tried to comment not only on the musical-theoretical and practical sciences of the East, but also …

Warfare And Welcome: Practicality And Qur’Ānic Hierarchy In Ibāḍī Muslims’ Jurisprudential Rulings On Music, Bradford J. Garvey

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

While much ink has been spilled by musicologists on the legal standing of music in Islamic jurisprudential scholarship, few scholars have offered as comprehensive a view as Lois Ibsen Al-Faruqi. Thirty-five years after her major works on this issue, this article seeks to reassess her model of musical legitimacy within Muslim scholarship. Al-Faruqi places Qur’ānic recitation at the apex of a unidirectional continuum of sound art, with genres less similar to the recitation of the Qur’ān located progressively further away from it. Based on fieldwork in the Sultanate of Oman in 2015-17 and engaging with recent reinvigorations on the anthropological …

Me Too: The Effects Of Sexual Harassment And Assault In The Entertainment Industry, Cassandra M. Gaal

Backstage Pass

This paper gives insight to the growing issue of sexual harassment and assault in the entertainment industry. The paper provides information on the impact technology and social media have on sexual harassment and how women in particular are viewed in the entertainment industry. The paper also discusses how different genres of music and other forms of entertainment had oversexualized women, and how movies and TV shows have created this idea that someone being romantic is someone who is aggressive and forceful towards their partner.

The Next Frontier: Blockchain In The Music Industry, Manuel J. Manriquez Jr

Backstage Pass

This Research Paper takes a look at how Blockchain technology can potentially change the music industry as we know it!

Spotify Vs. Apple Music, Lexi Gerbino

Backstage Pass

A quick look at the differences of the two biggest music streaming services, Spotify and Apple Music.

Is La Bohѐme A Verismo Opera?, Leah P. Bartlam

Musical Offerings

Verismo is an Italian term that came to be used in reference to literature, theatre, and opera during the end of the nineteenth century. According to William Berger, “verismo is often translated as ‘realism’ but the word is closer to ‘truth’ in Italian.” The term was applied to literature beginning in the 1870s, and began to be applied to opera during the 1890s. However, it has never been particularly well understood. Evaluating it today is especially difficult because the modern perceptions of the term are not quite the same as the original meaning. La bohѐme was composed by Giacomo …

An Experimental Model Of Color And Sound Correlation, Elyorkhon Abdullayev

Eurasian music science journal

The article is devoted to the relationship between music and color, the degree of knowledge of this issue in science, some aspects of the history and theory of synesthesia. Based on the Pythagorean and Verdian systems, an attempt is made to analyze the interaction, differentiation of sound and color based on their frequency fluctuations. The general constants of music and images, as well as methods for their decoding, are investigated. Tables, diagrams and figures show the experimental model of color-sound correlation, which demonstrates the general laws of musical theory, harmony, color science and color.

Is Love A Ladder? Reading Plato With Leonard Bernstein, Joshua T. Parks

The Hilltop Review

This paper reads Leonard Bernstein's Serenade after Plato's "Symposium" as a careful interpretation of and commentary on Plato's text. While a straightforward reading of Diotima's speech in Plato's Symposium suggests that human relationships are merely an instrumental step toward higher loves, Bernstein's music emphasizes the intrinsic goodness of interpersonal love. The connections between the two works have been dismissed as superficial by critics, but Bernstein's piece is actually carefully engaged with the narrative structure of Plato's text. It therefore encourages a re-reading of Plato's dialogue in which its form shapes and complicates its meaning. By depicting in music the interpersonal …

A Christian Response To The Impact Of Nietzschean Philosophy On Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, Amanda N. Staufer

Musical Offerings

This article explores the way Friedrich Nietzsche’s worldview influenced the compositions of Richard Strauss, specifically Strauss’s most famous work—a tone poem called Also sprach Zarathustra. This tone poem is a fascinating piece of music because it reflects Strauss’s philosophical inquiries into the nature and meaning of life. Although Strauss left relatively limited explanations of Also sprach Zarathustra, his few words regarding the tone poem reveal his intention to convey in music an idea of man’s evolution from his original state up to Nietzsche’s idea of a superman. First, this article surveys the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche as it is displayed …

J.R.R. Tolkien And The Music Of Middle Earth, Emily Sulka

Channels: Where Disciplines Meet

Often referred to as “the Father of Modern Fantasy,” J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings trilogy between 1937 and 1949. Selling millions of copies each year, the Lord of the Rings is one of the bestselling books to date, and between the four books, six movies have been produced in an effort to relay the story of Middle Earth. However, movies do not stand alone as the only other art based off the trilogy. Throughout the novels, Tolkien includes poems that his characters sing, and in 1967, Donald Swann, after collaborating with the author, published a song cycle …

The Doctrine Of Affections: Where Art Meets Reason, Sharri K. Hall

Musical Offerings

The Doctrine of Affections was a widespread understanding of music and musicality during the Baroque era. The Doctrine was a result of the philosophy of reason and science as it coincides with music. It aimed to reconcile what man knew about science and the human body, and what man thought he knew about music. It was a reconciliation of practical musicianship and theoretical music which had begun to rise in the time. Though it is generally understood as being apart from Enlightenment thinking, the Doctrine is a result of Enlightenment-style philosophy. As the Enlightenment sought to explain why things occurred …

Shakespeare's Philosophy Of Music, Emily A. Sulka

Musical Offerings

Shakespeare is one of the most widely read figures in literature, but his use of music is not usually touched on in literary discussions of his works. In this paper, I discuss how Shakespeare portrays music within the context of his plays, through both dialogue and songs performed within each work. In Shakespeare’s time, Boethius’s philosophy of the Music of the Spheres was still highly popular. This was the idea that the arrangement of the cosmos mirrored musical proportions. As a result, every aspect of the universe was believed to be highly ordered, and this idea is prominent throughout Shakespeare’s …

Paper Disc Record: A Consumption-Based Account Of Musical Identity, David Prescott-Steed

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Since 1991, I have been keeping a pen and paper list of my CD's, added to with each new purchase. With the increasing availability of digital media, not everything that I now listen to comes from a disc. Nevertheless, I have never bought digital music downloads, and so every new album purchase is a physical product with the band name and release title still added to the list. I keep it rolled up in a desk draw (the first composition-pages of which are yellowing nicely). The list comprises approximately 280 entries. Each entry until March 5, 2006 is numbered, by …

The Partimento Tradition In The Shadow Of Enlightenment Thought, Deborah Longenecker

Channels: Where Disciplines Meet

How did Enlightenment ideals influence seventeenth-century music theory and composition pedagogy? This article investigates the relationship between partimento pedagogy and Rameau’s music theories as influenced by Enlightenment thought. Current research on partimento has revealed its importance in Neapolitan music schools of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Along with counterpoint, partimento was a core subject in the study of composition in the Neapolitan schools; however, as pedagogy and theory began to be influenced by Enlightenment ideals such as the scientific method or a preference for clear systemization, the partimento tradition began to wane. Juxtaposing the Enlightenment ideals of Rameau’s music theory …

From Silence To Golden: The Slow Integration Of Instruments Into Christian Worship, Jonathan M. Lyons

Musical Offerings

The Christian church’s stance on the use of instruments in sacred music shifted through influences of church leaders, composers, and secular culture. Synthesizing the writings of early church leaders and church historians reveals a clear progression. The early musical practices of the church were connected to the Jewish synagogues. As recorded in the Old Testament, Jewish worship included instruments as assigned by one’s priestly tribe. Eventually, early church leaders rejected that inclusion and developed a rather robust argument against instruments in liturgical worship. The totalitarian stance on musical instruments in sacred worship began to loosen as the organ increased in …

The Effect Of Richard Wagner's Music And Beliefs On Hitler's Ideology, Carolyn S. Ticker

Musical Offerings

The Holocaust will always be remembered as one of the most horrific and evil events in all of history. One question that has been so pervasive in regards to this historical event is the question of why. Why exactly did Hitler massacre the Jewish people? Why did he come to the conclusion that the Jews were somehow lesser than him, and that it was okay to kill them? What and who were his influences and how did they help form Hitler’s opinions leading up to the Holocaust? Although more than one situation or person influenced Hitler, I believe that one …

Coursing With Coils: The Only Orchestral Instrument Harder Than The French Horn, Sarah R. Plumley

Musical Offerings

Playing the horn has become not only more sophisticated and accurate, but simpler and more efficient for the horn player. The natural horn, used in a variety ways in early history, demanded an incredible level of skill and precision, more than our valved horn today in some ways because it required a more accurate ear, more embouchure dexterity, and the necessity of wrangling crooks for different keys. Thus, it required many practiced skills of the player that are no longer as necessary as they once were. This paper discusses each of these demands along with the history of the horn, …

Give My Regards To The Book, Kevin A. Hicks

Musical Offerings

This project is an analysis of the construction of American Musical Theatre. The research for this project has been drawn from direct quotes and writings from Musical Theatre writers, scores and scripts, and from historical books. Reading of these sources reveal principles of Musical Theatre writing which the authors use and the audience expects. This project analyzes how the book, lyrics, and music to a show are written and demonstrates that the writing of Musical Theatre has developed its own unique craft which is grounded in the book.

Ruling The Market: How Venice Dominated The Early Music Printing World, Elizabeth M. Poore

Musical Offerings

This paper attempts to prove that Venice was the main geographical center of music printing and publishing from the 1300s to the late 1500s using several economic, legal, and cultural factors. The primary research method was examining secondary sources on music printing, publishing, and European and Venetian history.

From the 1300s to the late 1500s, Venetian commercial trade and activity, including book publishing, reached unheard of levels. Venice held a powerful position in the European economy and its merchants were able to leverage this to great advantage when the new technology of printing became available. The specialized business of music …

A New Approach: The Feminist Musicology Studies Of Susan Mcclary And Marcia J. Citron, Kimberly Reitsma

Musical Offerings

One of the currently prevalent analytic approaches in academia is feminist theory and criticism. Its combination with musicology has influenced the field for the past four decades. The goal of the new approach, loosely termed “feminist musicology,” has been to discover, analyze, discuss, and promote the representation of women and the “feminine” essence in various disciplines of music. Today, feminist musicology is highly researched, published in books and journals, and presented as scholarly papers at various musicological conferences around the world. This new approach introduces the ideologies of feminism to the study of music.

Susan McClary and Marcia J. Citron …

Musical Rebirth In Fearless And The Truman Show, Erik Heine

Journal of Religion & Film

Films have long made use of pre-existing music, most notably by well-known composers such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. Director Peter Weir makes use of pre-existing music in nearly all of his films. In his two films from the 1990s, Fearless and The Truman Show, Weir uses music from two living (at the time) and largely unfamiliar Polish composers, Henryk Górecki and Wojciech Kilar, to accompany the climax of each film, coinciding with the rebirth of the central characters. The films show a parallel narrative, each with minor instances of renewals, until the respective characters are reborn, accompanied by music …

Music In The Third Reich, Delora J. Neuschwander

Musical Offerings

Music played a prominent role in the rise of Nazi culture in Germany and was used extensively in propaganda and indoctrination of the entire country; the Nazi party brought music and politics together and sought to shape their ideal culture by elevating their ideas of pure music to the highest status and outlawing what they defined as inferior. This study addresses Hitler’s specific views on music and explores several of the factors and individuals that contributed to his views. His views were directly inferred into the core of the Nazi party. Hitler himself was an artist and felt that art …