Music Commons^™

Contemporary Instrumental Thumrī Styles, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Thumrī Rāgas And Their Structural Interrelationships, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Andalusian, Gypsy, And Class Identity In The Contemporary Flamenco Complex, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

This article endeavors to illustrate the important role played by flamenco and related subgenres in expressing and, to a considerable extent, helping to shape modern Andalusian identity. In this way we will attempt to demonstrate how musical style as well as text content can function not merely as passive reflections of broader sociocultural phenomena that shape them, but also as active contributors to the processes of cultural change.

Modal Harmony In Andalusian, Eastern European, And Turkish Syncretic Musics, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

This article examined, in a cursory form, the standardized ways of harmonizing predominantly modal melodies in the contexts of a set of interrelated urban folk and popular musics of the Mediterranean area. Insofar as these music employ a harmonic-melodic system qualitatively distinct from that of Western common practice, they are worthy of scholarly attention in themselves. This article further seeks to revive the spirit of "Comparative Musicology" and to suggest ways in which cross-cultural comparison of selected musical parameters may reveal new sorts of pan-regional music areas.

The Origins Of Thumrī, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Stylistic Analysis Of The Bandish Thumrī, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

1870-1920: Thumrī In Transition, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Concept Of Tāla In Thumrī, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Dādrā, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Stylistic Analysis Of The Bol Banāo Thumrī, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Evolution Of Thumrī As An Instrumental Genre, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Tone And Tune: The Evidence For Northern Ewe Music, V. Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

Abstract:

One of the most intriguing features of most African languages is that of tone, by which variations in speech tone generate different meanings (Pike, 1948, offers a valuable introduction to this subject and includes an extensive bibliography; Fromkin, 1972, is a comprehensive evaluation of specialised studies). In the Ewe language, for example, the word to [H] pronounced with a high tone means ‘ear’, as in To le venye (HLMM), ‘I have an earache.’ To can also mean ‘through’, Meto akɔnta me [MHLHML], ‘I have gone through the accounts.’ But as soon as the high tone is replaced by a …

Music In The Funeral Traditions Of The Akpafu, V. Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

"Nna lo senu kuwe, fie oresire somoloo?" ("Who laid a mat for him, so that he slept so deeply?") With this rhetorical question, the Akpafu of Southeastern Ghana initiate a period of public mourning occasioned by the death of one of their number.1 The philosophic significance of death in Akpafu culture is twofold. First, it marks the completion of the earthly cycle of existence, birth-circumcision-puberty-marriage-death. Second, it opens the door to a higher, spiritual realm in which the deceased, as an ancestor, takes his place alongside the lesser gods and the Supreme Being in the higher reaches of the hierarchy …

The Rhythmic Structure Of West African Music, V. Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

The music of Africa has long intrigued many Westerners. From scattered comments in the accounts of explorers of the so-called Afrique Noire to the full-fledged ethnomusicological studies of the last fifty years, the constant theme has been the fundamental role of music-making in African life and society. And of all the elements of that music, rhythm has received the most attention.

There is something to be gained from looking closely at the early writings on African music, for although they represent the work of non-specialists, and for all their ethnocentricism and anthropocentricism, these accounts touch on the fundamental questions regarding …

Tonal Strategy In The First Movement Of Mahler's Tenth Symphony, V. Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

During his summer retreat of 1910, Mahler sketched a five-movement symphony in F# major that was to be his tenth. He did not live to see the work completed. In spite of this, or rather because of it, the Tenth has accumulated a fascinating history, evident in the series of attempts to "realize" Mahler sketches, the best known of which is Deryck Cooke's "performing version."

Jaipongan: Indigenous Popular Music Of West Java, Peter L. Manuel, Randall Baier

Publications and Research

The advent of mass media - particularly cassettes and films - in Indonesia has led to the flowering of two mass popular music forms, namely, dangdut and jaipongan. Kroncong, an older urban popular form, presents a mixture of Portuguese folksong style and Indonesian features; dangdut style, while in some respects an extension of the orkes melayu tradition, is heavily influenced by Hindi film songs and Western pop; only jaipongan is purely Indonesian - or more properly speaking, Sundanese - in origin and style. While kroncong and dangdut have received some scholarly attention (Becker 1975, Heins 1975, Frederick 1982), jaipongan has …

"'Gi Dunu,' 'Nyekpadudo,' And The Study Of West African Rhythm", V. Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

Rhythm has remained the focus of much study of West African music since the pioneering studies of Ward (1927), Hornbostel (1928), Waterman (1948), Brandel (1951), Cudjoe (1953), Merriam (1959), and Jones (1959).

Listening To Babbitt, Joseph N. Straus

Publications and Research

The discussion that follows will take a listener-oriented, not a composer-oriented approach, and will concentrate on how a single passage of Babbitt's music, the first eighteen measures of the String Quartet No. 2, might be taken in, not on how it might have been made. Instead of beginning with precompositional materials (sets and arrays) and showing how they are musically concretized, we will begin with certain striking attractions of the musical surface. Furthermore, our efforts won't be directed toward deducing the underlying sets and arrays, a goal Babbitt himself derides as a sterile form of musical cryptanalysis. Instead, we …

Formal Structure In Popular Music As A Reflection Of Socio-Economic Change, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Heinrich Schenker As An Interpreter Of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas, William Rothstein

Publications and Research

There was a time when it seemed necessary for admirers of the work of Heinrich Schenker to remind the musical community periodically that it had grown out of a lifetime of practical musical experience—that is, that Der freie Satz did not represent a self-contained system of theoretical speculation. Schenker himself tried repeatedly throughout his career to impress this point upon his readers. In recent years, fortunately, this reminder—which had threatened to become merely ritualistic—has become somewhat less necessary. The change in Schenker's reputation may, it seems, be dated precisely to 1975, when Dover Publications issued an inexpensive reprint of his …

The Impact Of Language On Musical Composition In Ghana: An Introduction To The Musical Style Of Ephraim Amu, V. Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

In most cultures of the world, the creative act of composition may be defined simply as the transformation of pre-existing material into new, individualized structures. The precompositional resource may be a system such as the hierarchical arrangement of triads that forms the basis of Western tonality, a set of formulas that generates such genres as Gregorian chant and West African storytelling, or even a rigidly defined set of relationships such as those inherent in a twelve-tone row. In each case, the precompositional elements provide a framework for the analysis and interpretation of the composition.

The Concept Of Tala In Semi-Classical Music, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

This article explores certain rhythmic features distinctive of the concept of tal in North Indian light-classical music, especially thumri. Particularly salient is the way that ambiguity of beat counts in tals called dipchandi, addha, and jat reflect how these tals are traditionally conceived in terms of drum strokes (dha dhin dha dha dhin etc.) instead of beat counts, which are in fact variable. Published in: National Centre for the Performing Arts: Quarterly Journal (Bombay) 12(4), December 1983. pp. 7-14.

The Musical Language Of Kindertotenlieder No. 2, V. Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

Three times during his compositional career, Mahler turned to the medium of the orchestral song cycle either to experiment with or to refine certain technical procedures. This resulted in a variety of methods for establishing large-scale tonal coherence, using song as a resource for later symphonic composition, and stylizing folk material, melodically and rhythmically. These compositional techniques are clearly exemplified in Mahler's three cycles, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (1883-85), Kindertotenlieder (1901-04), and Das Lied von der Erde (1907-08).

The Relationship Between Prosodic And Musical Rhythms In Urdu Ghazal-Singing, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

A study of how prosodic meter in Urdu ghazal is treated in light-classical singing

Radhagovind Sangitsar Of Maharaja Pratap Singh, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

The Radhagovind Sangitsār (or simply Sangitsār) completed in Jaipur around 1800, is a significant musical treatise regarding North Indian classical music. Its special importance lies in its status as one of the very few writings on Hindustani music in the nearly two centuries between the 16^th-17^th Sanskrit and Persian texts and the early modern writings commencing in the decades around 1900. In the interests of disseminating it to interested students and scholars I have digitized chapter seven, on rāga, which is the chapter that has proved to be of most use and interest to musicologists.