Category Archives: Resources

LimerickSoundscapes

LimerickSoundscapes is an urban soundscapes project based in the small, multicultural, and post-industrial city of Limerick, Ireland, which is currently undergoing a process of urban regeneration following decades of challenges (high unemployment rates, rapid demographic shifts brought about by global migration, social disenfranchisement in marginalized neighborhoods, gangland criminality, and considerable stigmatization by the national media).

Facilitated by an interdisciplinary team involving ethnomusicologists, urban sociologists, and information technology specialists, the project combines ethnographic approaches from urban ethnomusicology with mapping practices from soundscape studies, through an evocation of critical citizenship to generate a soundscapes model that has the individual as a networked, social being and creative critical citizen at its core.

LimerickSoundscapes invites participants from a wide range of backgrounds, sourced through pre-existing routes and pathways—including clubs, charities, educational organizations, and societies—to engage in basic sound recording training on small, handheld devices. These sonic flaneurs or citizen collectors make short recordings of the sounds of their city, which are shared on an interactive website.

For the ethnomusicologists on the research team two tensions emerge. The first is around the research model, which makes collectors critical collaborators; this has implications for the open, creative, and participatory process by having an underpinning social activist agenda. The second relates to stepping outside the bounds of musicking and how that changes the more traditional role of the ethnomusicologist.

This according to “Sonic mapping and critical citizenship: Reflections on LimerickSoundscapes” by Aileen Dillane and Tony Langlois, an essay included in Transforming ethnomusicology. II: Political, social & ecological issues (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021, 96–114; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2021-3523).

Below, music in a Limerick pub.

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Filed under Curiosities, Resources

Idelsohn’s “Thesaurus of Hebrew Oriental melodies”

The First Committee of the Hebrew Language, Jerusalem 1912. Sitting (from right to left): Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Joseph Klausner, David Yellin, and Eliezer Meir Lifshitz; standing: Chaim Aryeh Zuta, Kadish Yehuda Silman, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Abraham Jacob Brawer. Photo by Ya’ackov Ben-Dov (Widener Library, Cambridge, public domain)

 

Upon settling in Jerusalem in 1906, the Latvian cantor Abraham Zvi Idelsohn (1882–1938) was deeply impressed by the diversity of the Jewish communities in Palestine and embarked on a massive project. Supported by the Academy of Science in Vienna and supplied with a phonograph for his fieldwork, Idelsohn recorded the unique musical and linguistic traditions of these communities. This ethnological work led to the publication of his Gesänge der jemenitischen Juden (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1914), which would become the first installment of his 10-volume Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz / Thesaurus of oriental Hebrew melodies (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel et al., 1914–32).

In its final form, the thesaurus covers a universe of over 8000 Jewish melodies including the musical traditions of Yemenite, Babylonian, Persian, Bukharan, Oriental Sephardi, Moroccan, German, Eastern European, and Hassidic Jewish communities in Palestine and throughout the Diaspora (as a cantor he had previously served in South Africa and in various cities in Germany). Idelsohn’s goal was to illuminate the “authentic” Hebrew elements in Jewish melodies. He firmly believed that neither geographical change nor outside influences could alter the basic spiritual mold of Jewish culture.

Both the original publication and the reprints of this exhaustive and seminal work are now accessible through RILM’s Index to Printed Music (IPM), the digital finding aid for locating musical works contained in printed collections, sets, and series. Researchers no longer have to cope with the print editions, working page by page through bulky tomes. For example, a search in IPM for Adon olam (Eternal Lord), a piyyut used in the Jewish liturgy since the 15th century, yields 58 renditions sprinkled throughout six of the volumes; these can now be easily located, along with page numbers and further details.

Below, a rendition of Adon olam that comes close to Idelsohn’s transcription no. 59 (Thesaurus. IV: Gesänge der orientalischen Sefardim / Songs of the Oriental Sephardim of 1923).

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Jazzomat

The Jazzomat Research Project takes up the challenge of jazz research in the age of digitalization, opening up a new field of analytical exploration by providing computational tools as well as a comprehensive corpus of improvisations with MeloSpyGUI and the Weimar Jazz Database.

The volume Inside the Jazzomat: New perspectives for jazz research (Mainz: Schott, 2017; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2017-48411) presents the main concepts and approaches of the ongoing project, and includes several case studies that demonstrate how these approaches can be included in jazz analysis in various ways.

Above, a graphic related to Jazzomat’s DTL Pattern Similarity Search; below, Don Byas’s recording of Body and soul, one of the book’s case studies.

More posts about jazz are here.

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Filed under Analysis, Jazz and blues, Resources

Norient

 

Norient: Network for local and global sounds and media culture is an online resource that researches new music from around the globe and mediates it multi-modally via various platforms. The authors discuss current issues critically, from different perspectives, close to musicians and their networks.

Through the Norient online magazine, festivals, performances, books, documentary films, exhibitions, and radio programs, Norient hopes to orient and disorient readers, listeners, and spectators with information about strong, fragile, and challenging artistic positions in today’s fast moving, globalized, digitized and urbanized world. The core team is based in Bern, Berlin, and Milano, and the network of contributors is spread around 50 countries.

Below, the trailer for The African cypher, the subject of a recent article in the magazine.

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Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Resources, World music

RILM takes over Index to Printed Music

In May 2017 James Adrian Music Company (JAMC), owner of Index to Printed Music: Collections and Series (IPM), signed an agreement transferring ownership of IPM to Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), effective 30 June 2018.

IPM combines index, bibliography, series, and names databases into a highly comprehensive resource for searching and identifying individual pieces of music printed in standard scholarly music editions. Currently the database includes 22,975 entries for individual volumes, an authority file with 25,889 personal names, 1133 entries for series and sets, and an index to 538,354 individual pieces of music. It provides superior access to this content for scholars, performers, teachers, and other researchers, including powerful searching capabilities for finding information on specific performing forces and repertoire. Many of the sets and series indexed in IPM are adding volumes continuously, and new editions appear on the market. Therefore, IPM grows every year to be as comprehensive and up-to-date as possible. IPM is curated by a team of experts and is available on EBSCOhost and via the EBSCO Discovery Service.

IPM is a natural addition to RILM’s suite of music resources. Since 2016 RILM has been expanding its resources for music researchers beyond its flagship publication, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, adding RILM Abstracts with Full Text; RILM Music Encyclopedias; and, in partnership with Bärenreiter and J. B. Metzler, MGG Online. With the addition of IPM, RILM is entering the world of printed music. RILM’s authority lists—including names, work titles, publishers, and terms—as well as RILM’s proven database capabilities and subject expertise will contribute to the further development and enhancement of IPM.

The founder of the Index to Printed Music, Dr. George R. Hill, states: “We are pleased that with RILM’s acquisition of IPM, its continuation, properly supported by an established leader in providing databases related to music, is assured. Over the years, IPM has largely depended on a dedicated group of musicologists and librarians devoted to its survival and growth. They include Joseph M. Boonin, Garrett Bowles, Lenore Coral, Mary Wallace Davidson, Elizabeth A. Davis, Vincent Duckles, Paul Emmons, Robert A. Falck, Virginia S. Gifford, Irving Godt, Ruth B. Hilton, Barton Hudson, Richard E. Jones, Sterling Murray, Barbara A. Renton, John H. Roberts, Gordon S. Rowley, Norris L. Stephens, Susan T. Sommer, and Eric Western.”

Dr. Barbara Dobbs Mackenzie, the Director of RILM, adds, “IPM is an indispensable resource for anyone looking for scholarly, reliable editions of individual musical works. RILM is delighted to be able to take ownership of this resource, and to bring our experience to bear to ensure IPM’s reputation for accuracy and comprehensiveness, and to bring new digital capabilities to enhance the database and its search and discovery potential.”

James Adrian Music Company, Bergenfield, NJ, a non-profit entity, supports and guides the creation, development, and distribution of the several databases collectively known as IPM. Components of IPM include digital files for name authorities, series, bibliography of editions indexed, and, most centrally, the index to music contained in the various editions. By adhering to established standards for bibliographic scholarship, JAMC is committed to providing a reliable and useful tool for musicians and researchers throughout the world. A hallmark of IPM has been the accuracy of index data, gathered directly by an examination of the printed music itself, not from secondary sources.

Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), New York, facilitates and disseminates music research worldwide. It is committed to the comprehensive and accurate representation of music scholarship in all countries and languages, and across all disciplinary and cultural boundaries. RILM’s flagship publication, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, is a comprehensive international bibliography of writings on music covering publications from the early 19th century to the present. RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text includes the bibliography as well as full text articles from over 200 journals linked from the bibliographic records. RILM Music Encyclopedias is a full-text repository of over 40 seminal music encyclopedias. In partnership with the publisher Bärenreiter and J.B. Metzler, RILM publishes MGG Online, which comprises the 2nd edition of Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart along with new and substantially updated content. RILM is a joint project of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres (IAML); International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM); and the International Musicological Society (IMS). RILM is housed at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. For further information, please visit http://www.rilm.org.

 

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Filed under Resources, RILM, RILM news

Berliner Philharmoniker digital concert hall

Berliner Philharmoniker digital concert hall is an online resource that contains an archive covering five decades.

Each season it offers over 40 live streams of concerts that are later added to the archive. Also included are interviews and documentaries. The sound quality is similar to that of a CD, and the picture quality is similar to HD television.

Below, a brief documentary takes you behind the scenes.

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Svensk jazzbibliografi

 

Svensk jazzbibliografi is a new online resource that covers writings about Swedish jazz in Swedish and in other languages, in the areas of jazz history; biographies and memoirs; jazz-related literature, photographs, and art; anthologies, essays, and other literature; discographies; and periodicals.

Published by Svenskt Visarkiv, this open-access bibliography was compiled and annotated by the Swedish composer, arranger, and conductor Mats Holmquist.

Below, Holmquist in action.

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Filed under Jazz and blues, Performers, Resources

The global jukebox

The global jukebox is the culmination of a lifetime of groundbreaking work by Alan Lomax, whose efforts to record and compile song and dance from around the world led to this collaborative project—an interactive portal for the world’s music, dance, and speaking traditions from almost every corner of the earth, recorded by hundreds of pioneering ethnographers.

This open-access resource is divided into three broad areas of inquiry: cantometrics, an analysis of the elements of song within and across cultures, and choreometrics and parlametrics, which similarly evaluate dancing and speaking.

Users can search by genre or culture and experience thousands of songs and videos that come from a myriad of traditions; seek their ancestry through song and dance; uncover the roots and connections of their favorite musical genres; take a guided tour through the vibrant musical culture of a single region or style; look at clusters of any tradition’s song styles; or search for their own answers with the site’s analytical tools.

Below, Lomax discusses the background of the project.

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Filed under Ethnomusicology, Resources, World music

Burns antiphoner

burns-antiphoner1

In September 2016 Boston College Libraries introduced Burns antiphoner, an interactive open access resource.

Using an early 14th-century Franciscan antiphoner from the collections of Boston College’s John J. Burns Library, this digital research platform presents and contextualizes a medieval liturgical manuscript for both scholarly and general audiences. Employing open source technologies to create structured data and encode over 1500 incipits and notation, the site enables users to query and view music notation, metadata, performances, and textual incipits through a searchable interface.

The website also includes scholarly essays about the manuscript written by Graeme Skinner and videos of performances from short sections of the antiphoner by Schola Antiqua.

Above, a page from the manuscript; below, one of the performances included on the website.

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Filed under Middle Ages, Resources

Sınırın ötesinden sesler / Sounds beyond the border

sounds-beyond-the-border

As Syrian refugees’ migration experience in Turkey sways between transience and permanence, the culture of coexistence can only occur with the refugees and the locals getting to know one another. Like any cultural/artistic production, music provides a fertile ground for this interaction.

Sınırın ötesinden sesler/Sounds beyond the border is an open-access resource presenting interviews that strive to understand Syrian musicians’ experience of migration through music. As a response to homogenizing and exclusionary perspectives, the series aims to draw attention to the refugees’ talents and practices, the diversity they bring to Turkish geography, and the possibilities of a common cultural world.

The interviews are conducted by Evrim Hikmet Öğüt; the project is sponsored by Friedrich Naumann Vakfı Türkiye Ofisi.

Below, Sadim Al Zafari, one of the musicians interviewed in the series.

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Filed under Asia, Resources