Category Archives: Science

by | July 17, 2022 · 6:00 am

Mozart’s vitamin deficiency

Several hypotheses regarding the cause of Mozart’s death have been advanced, but until now none have noted the likelihood that a very low level of vitamin D in his system contributed to his untimely demise.

Mozart did most of his composing at night, so he must have slept during much of the day, minimizing his exposure to sunlight. Further, at Vienna’s latitude (48°N) it is impossible for the body to make vitamin D from solar ultraviolet-B irradiance for about six months of the year.

The composer died on 5 December 1791, about three months into the Vienna winter; since the half-life of vitamin D in the human body is four to six weeks, his level of the nutrient would have been very low—an important risk factor for infectious diseases.

This according to “Vitamin D deficiency contributed to Mozart’s death” by William B. Grant and Stefan Pilz (Medical problems of performing artists XXVI/2 [June 2011] p.117; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2011-3181).

Below, Jerry Hadley discusses solar irradiance in “Si spande al sole in faccia nube talor così” from Mozart’s Il rè pastore.

More articles about Mozart are here.

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by | June 30, 2022 · 6:00 am

Synesthesia with trombones

Data from an experiment in which subjects listened to a series of pitches played on various instruments while tasting flavors such as lemon, peppermint, and salt showed significant connections between the sounds of the instruments and flavor perceptions.

For example, the taste of sugar was considered inappropriate for trombones, while it matched well with the piano. Orange-flower went with trombones but not with strings, while coffee failed to correspond with brass instruments but suited woodwinds nicely. “Our results”, the researchers noted cannily, “raise important questions about our representation of tastes and flavors, and could also lead to applications in the marketing of food products.”

This according to “As bitter as a trombone: Synesthetic correspondences in nonsynesthetes between tastes/flavors and musical notes” by Anne-Sylvie Crisinel and Charles Spence (Attention, perception, and psychophysics LXXII/7 [October 2010] 1994–2002; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2010-7050).

Below, the picante trombones of Willie Colón’s band, ca. 1969.

More posts about synesthesia are here.

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by | September 29, 2021 · 6:00 am

Responses in Music to Climate Change and Sources for Climate Change Research

From 4 to 8 October 2021, The Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation hosts the virtual conference Responses in Music to Climate Change. The event brings together scholars, performers, composers, and activists, with the goal of exchanging ideas on musicians’ responses to changing ecosystems. It is one of the first academic conferences to consider how the arrival of Covid-19 has impacted musical practices already affected by anthropogenic climate change with the roundtable discussion Adaptations: Confronting Climate Change Amid Covd-19. The panel comprises scholars Aaron Allen (University of North Carolina at Greensboro), Mark Pedelty (University of Minnesota), Alexander Rehding (Harvard University),  Jeff Todd Titon (Brown University),  Denise von Glahn (Florida State University), and Holly Watkins (University of Rochester). 

The dramatic increase in climate pollution from global aviation has been well documented, fostering proposals by communities—scholarly and otherwise—to either curb or eliminate air travel, hold academic conferences less frequently, and include more options for remote participation. Accordingly, and in the interest of curbing the spread of Covid-19, the conference is completely virtual, comprising live and pre-recorded presentations and lectures—most followed by live-streamed Q&A. Registration is free and open to the public.

The conference’s keynote speaker is ethnomusicologist, visual/sound artist, and anthropologist Dr. Steven Feld (University of New Mexico). A MacArthur Fellowship recipient, Professor Feld’s work of the last 45 years in rainforest Papua New Guinea (Voices of the Rainforest [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1995-7420], Sound and Sentiment [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1982-5475]), Europe (The Time of Bells [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2004-41971]), and urban West Africa (Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra, [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2009-27214]) is published equally in sound, photographic/film, and textual media.

The opening day concludes with a pre-recorded talk by composer John Luther Adams, whose orchestral work Become Ocean was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music, as well as a Grammy award. Additionally, the conference features an interview with composer Christopher Tin (first to win a Grammy Award for a videogame score) on the afternoon of Tuesday, October 5. 

In anticipation of the conference, Lori Rothstein, Editor at RILM, has compiled a bibliography, discography, and webography of sources related to music and climate change, most of which can be found in RILM Abstracts of Music Literature. These sources are listed below, with the hope that they will serve as a point of departure for future research.

– Michael Lupo, Assistant Editor, RILM

Asterisks (*) identify authors/musicians who will take part in the Responses in Music to Climate Change conference.

Collections

*Allen, Aaron S. “Environmental changes and music”, Music in American life: An encyclopedia of the songs, styles, stars, and stories that shaped our culture, ed. by Jacqueline Edmondson (Santa Barbara: Greenwood, 2013) 418–421. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2013-50859]

Burtner, Matthew. “Sounding art climate change”, The Routledge companion to sounding art, ed. by Marcel Cobussen, Vincent Meelberg, and Barry Truax (New York: Routledge, 2016) 287–304. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2017-674]

Cooley, Timothy J. Cultural sustainabilities: Music, media, language, advocacy (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2019-5056]

*Feisst, Sabine. “Allô, ici la terre: Agency in ecological music composition, performance, and listening”, On active grounds: Agency and time in the environmental humanities, ed. Robert Boschman and Mario Trono. Environmental humanities (Calgary: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2019), 87–106. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2019-27030]

Post, Jennifer C. “Climate change, mobile pastoralism, and cultural heritage in Western Mongolia”, Cultural sustainabilities: Music, media, language, advocacy, ed Timothy J. Cooley (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019), 75–86. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2019-5064]

Quinn, Marty. “Data as music: Why musically encoded sonification design offers a rich palette for information display”, Environmental sound artists: In their own words, ed. by Frederick W. Bianchi and V.J. Manzo (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 92–101. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2016-5398]

*Titon, Jeff Todd. Toward a sound ecology: New and selected essays. Music, nature, place (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2020-60874]

_____. “Sustainability, resilience, and adaptive management for applied ethnomusicology”, The Oxford handbook of applied ethnomusicology, ed. by Svanibor Pettan and *Jeff Todd Titon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2015-6030]

Monographs

*Adams, John Luther. Silences so deep: Music, solitude, Alaska (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2020-61095]

Ingram, David. The jukebox in the garden: Ecocriticism and American popular music since 1960. Nature, culture and literature (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2010-50555]

Monacchi, David. Fragments of Extinction: An eco-acoustic music project on primary rainforest biodiversity (Urbino: Edizioni ME, 2014). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2014-87198]

*Pedelty, Mark. A song to save the Salish Sea: Musical performance as environmental activism.Music, nature, place (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2016-5269]

_____. Ecomusicology: Rock, folk, and the environment (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2012-6252]

*Watkins, Holly. Musical vitalities: Ventures in a biotic aesthetics of music. New material histories of music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2018-45388]

Periodicals

*Abels, Birgit. “‘It’s only the water and the rocks that own the land’: Sound knowledge and environmental change in Palau, Western Micronesia”, Asian-European music research e-journal 2 (2018) 21–32. https://cdn-cms.f-static.com/uploads/1266233/normal_5c219f9c55b34.pdf. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2018-11433]

*Allen, Aaron S.  “A “stubbornly persistent illusion”? Climate crisis and the North, ecomusicology and academic discourse”, European Journal of Musicology, 18/1 (2020) 16–35. https://doi.org/10.5450/EJM.18.1.2019.16. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2019-20596]

_____, *Jeff Todd Titon, and *Denise Von Glahn. “Sustainability and sound: Ecomusicology inside and outside the academy”, Music and politics 8/2 (summer 2014) 83–108. https://doi.org/10.3998/mp.9460447.0008.205.[RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2014-66057]

Barclay, Leah. “Sonic ecologies: Exploring the agency of soundscapes in ecological crisis”, Soundscape: The journal of acoustic ecology, 12/1 (2013) 29–32. https://www.wfae.net/uploads/5/9/8/4/59849633/soundscape_volume12.pdf. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2013-46393]

Brennan, Matt and Kyle Devine. “The cost of music”, Popular Music 39/1 (February 2020) 43–65. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143019000552. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2020-1536]

Burtner, Matthew. “Climate change music: From environmental aesthetics to ecoacoustics”, South Atlantic quarterly 116/1 (1 January 2017), 145–161. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-3749392. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2017- 61156]

Chisholm, Dianne. “Shaping an ear for climate change: The silarjuapomorphizing music of Alaskan composer John Luther Adams”, Environmental humanities 8/2 (2016) 172–195. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3664211. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2016-46641]

*Chung, Andrew. “Vibration, difference, and solidarity in the Anthropocene: Ethical difficulties of new materialist sound studies and some alternatives”, Resonance: The journal of sound and culture. 2/2 (2021) 218–241. https://doi.org/10.1525/res.2021.2.2.218. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2021-6586]

*Clark, Emily Hansell. “The ear of the Other: Colonialism and decolonial listening”, The quietus (23 January 2021) https://thequietus.com/articles/29445-sound-colonialism-and-decolonial-listening-focus-on-sound-emily-hansell-clark. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2021-6882]

Cline, Jake. “How one composer channels climate grief into orchestral pieces–And why John Luther Adams turned from activism to art”, Sierra: The magazine of the Sierra Club (30 December 2020) https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2021-1-january-february/mixed-media/how-one-composer-channels-climate-grief-orchestral-pieces-john-luther-adams. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2020-60871]

*Galloway, Kate. “Listening to and composing with the soundscapes of climate change”, Resilience: A journal of the environmental humanities 7/2-3 (spring–fall 2020) 81–105. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2020-60872]

_____. “The aurality of pipeline politics and listening for nacreous clouds: Voicing Indigenous ecological knowledge in Tanya Tagaq’s Animism and Retribution”, Popular music 39/1 (February 2020) 121–144. https://doi.org/10.1017/S026114301900059X. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2020-1537]

Gilmurray, Jonathan. “Ecological sound art: Steps towards a new field”, Organised sound, 22/1 (April 2017) 32–41. https://doi:10.1017/S1355771816000315. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2017-885]

_____. “Sounding the alarm: An introduction to ecological sound art”, Muzikološki zbornik/Musicological annual 52/2 (2016), 71–84. https://doi.org/10.4312/mz.52.2.71-84. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2016-22390]

Greene, Jayson. “What can music do during climate collapse?”, Pitchfork (22 April 2021) https://pitchfork.com/features/overtones/climate-change-music/. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2021-6841].

*Hawitt, Rowan Bayliss.“’It’s a part of me and I’m a part of it’: Ecological thinking in contemporary Scottish folk music”, Ethnomusicology forum 29/3 (2020) 333–355. https://doi.org/10.1080/17411912.2021.1897950. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2020-60873]

Kinnear, Tyler. “Voicing nature in John Luther Adams’s The place where you go to listen”, Organised sound 17/3 (December 2012), 230–239. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771811000434. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2012-11550]

Meyers, Rachel and Carolyn Philpott. “Listening to Antarctica: Cheryl E. Leonard’s eco-acoustic creative practice”, Fusion journal 19 (2021) 64–77. https://fusion-journal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Meyers-and-Philpot-Final-Listening-to-Antarctica.pdf. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2021-6587]

Monacchi, David. “Fragments of Extinction: Acoustic biodiversity of primary rainforest ecosystems”, Leonardo music journal 23 (2013) 23–25. https://doi.org/10.1162/LMJ_a_00148. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2013-10768]

Ochoa Gautier, Ana María. “Acoustic multinaturalism, the value of nature, and the nature of music in ecomusicology”, Boundary 2: An international journal of literature and culture 43/1 (February 2016) 107–141. https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-3340661. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2016-44040]

*Parrotta, Priya. “When oceans meet: Musical diversity, environmentalism, and dialogue in a changing world”, Musiké: Revista del Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico, 7/1 (October 2019) 17–27. https://issuu.com/revistamusike/docs/musike_7_. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2019-9880]

*Pedelty, Mark, *Rebecca Dirksen, Tara Hatfield, *Yan Pang, and *Elja Roy. “Field to media: Applied ecomusicology in the Anthropocene”, Popular music 39/1 (February 2020) 22–42. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143019000540. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2020-1541]

Peterson, Marina L. and Vicki L. Brennan. “A sonic ethnography: Listening to and with climate change”, Resonance 1/4 (winter 2020): 371–375. https://doi.org/10.1525/res.2020.1.4.371. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2020-54115]

Philpott, Caroline. “Sonic explorations of the southernmost continent: Four composers’ responses to Antarctica and climate change in the twenty-first century”, Organised sound 21/1 (April 2016) 83–93. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771815000400. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2016-734]

Ramnarine, Tina K. “Music and northern forest cultures,” European journal of musicology 18/1 (2019) 111–127. https://doi.org/10.5450/EJM.18.1.2019.111. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2019/20602]

*Rehding, Alexander. “Ecomusicology between apocalypse and nostalgia”, Journal of the American Musicological Society 64/2 (summer 2011) 409–414. https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2011.64.2.409. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2011-3936]

Ribac, François and Paul Harkins.”Popular music and the Anthropocene”, Popular music 39/1 (February 2020) 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143019000539. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2020-1557]

Ritts, Max and Karen Bakker. “New forms: Anthropocene Festivals and experimental environmental governance”, Environment and planning E: Nature and space (26 November 2019) https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848619886974. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2019-27032]

*Safran, Benjamin A. “’A gentle, angry people’: Music in a Quaker nonviolent direct-action campaign to power local green jobs,” Yale journal of music and religion 5/2 (2019) 82–102. https://doi.org/10.17132/2377-231X.1140. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2019-14114]

Sakakibara, Chie.”’No whale, no music’: Iñupiaq drumming and global warming”, Polar record: A journal of Arctic and Antarctic research 45/4 (October 2009) 289–303. https://doi.org/doi:10.1017/S0032247408008164. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2009-48488]

Seabrook, Deborah. “Music therapy in the era of climate crisis: Evolving to meet current needs”, The arts in psychotherapy 68 (March 2020) Article 101646, 8 p. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2020.101646. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2020-60875]

St. George, Scott, Daniel Crawford, Todd Reubold, and Elizabeth Giorgi. “Making climate data sing: Using music-like sonifications to convey a key climate record”, Bulletin of the American Meterological Society 98/1 (2017) 23–27. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00223.1. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2017-61069]

Sweers, Britta. “Environmental perception and activism through performance: Alpine song and sound impressions”, European journal of musicology 18/1 (2019) 138–159. https://doi.org/10.5450/EJM.18.1.2019.138. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2019-20604]

*Von Glahn, Denise R. “Sounds real and imagined: Libby Larsen’s Up where the air gets thin”, European journal of musicology 18/1 (2019) 99–110. https://doi.org/10.5450/EJM.18.1.2019.99. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2019-20601]

*Wodak, Josh. “If a seed falls in a forest: Sounding out seedbanks to sonify climate change”, Unlikely: Journal for creative arts 4 (2018) http://unlikely.net.au/issue-03/seed-in-space-sound-in-time. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2018-64229]

_____. “Popular music & depopulated species: Probing life at the limits in song and science”, Music and arts in action 6/3 (2018) 3–18. http://www.musicandartsinaction.net/index.php/maia/article/view/175. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2018-44013]

_____. “Shifting baselines: Conveying climate change in popular music”, Environmental communication 12 (2018) 58–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2017.1371051. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2018-54590]

Dissertations and Theses

Gervin, Kelly. Music and environmentalism in twenty-first century American popular culture (M.Mus. thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2017). http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1494162797534902. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2017-49202]

Gilmurray, Jonathan.Ecology and environmentalism in contemporary sound art (Ph.D. diss., University of the Arts London, 2018). https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/13705/. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2018-50689]

Hilgren, Bailey. The music of science: Environmentalist data sonifications, interdisciplinary art, and the narrative of climate change (M.Mus. thesis, Florida State University, 2019). http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/2019_Spring_Hilgren_fsu_0071N_15127. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2019-27031]

Kasprzyk, Cory Ryan. Found composition: Ecological awareness and its impact on compositional authority in music employing electronics (DMA diss., Bowling Green State University, 2017). http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1510572689037113. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2017-49201]    

Online Essays, Podcasts, Websites, and Videos

Adamo, Mark. https://www.markadamo.com/.

*Adams, John Luther. “Global warming and art (2003)”, http://johnlutheradams.net/global-warming-and-art-essay/.

_____. “The end of winter”, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-end-of-winter.

Cape Farewell. https://capefarewell.com/.

Chain, Lydia. “Capturing the songs of a changing climate”, Undark, 48 (22 September 2020) https://undark.org/2020/09/22/podcast-48-acoustic-ecology/.

Climate Keys. http://www.climatekeys.com/.

ClimateMusic. https://climatemusic.org/.

Climate Stories Project. https://www.climatestoriesproject.org/climate-music.html.

Crawford, Daniel and Scott St. George. “Planetary bands, warming world”, https://planetbands.mystrikingly.com/.

Currin, Grayson Haver. “Music for our emergency”, NPR music (5 December 2019) https://www.npr.org/2019/12/05/784818349/songs-our-emergency-how-music-approaching-climate-change-crisis.

Dunn, David. http://davidddunn.com/ASL/Welcome.html.

Earthsound. https://www.earthsoundmusic.net.

Eureka Ensemble. “Rising Tides: Confronting the climate crisis through music”, https://www.eurekaensemble.org/rising-tides.

*Feld, Steven. http://www.stevenfeld.net/.

_____. and Panayotis Panopoulos. “Athens conversation: On ethnographic listening and comparative acoustemologies” (30 April 2015) https://static1.squarespace.com/static/545aad98e4b0f1f9150ad5c3/t/5543bb7de4b0b5d7d7bb3d58/1430502269571/Athens+Conversation.pdf.

_____. Iracema Dulley, Evanthia Patsiaoura, et. al. “Sounding anthropology: A jam session with Steven Feld” n.d. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/545aad98e4b0f1f9150ad5c3/t/5fbf1a54173fb5383b932d46/1606359637987/Sounding+Anthropology.pdf.

Fragments of Extinction. http://www.fragmentsofextinction.org/fragments-of-extinction/.

Harris, Yolande. https://www.yolandeharris.net/.

Howe, Cymene and Dominic Boyer. “Matthew Burtner”, Cultures of energy: The energy humanities podcast. 96 (19 October 2017) http://culturesofenergy.com/ep-96-matthew-burtner/.

Jones, Lucy. “The music of climate change”, Dr. Lucy Jones (15 May 2019) http://drlucyjones.com/the-music-of-climate-change/.

Legacies of the Enlightenment: Humanity, Nature, and Science in a Changing Climate.  https://legaciesoftheenlightenment.hcommons.org/.

Mauleverer, Charles. “Can music ever be green? An overview of the changing musical climate”, (12 April 2019) https://www.charlesmauleverer.com/post/2019/04/12/Can-Music-Ever-Be-Green-An-Overview-Of-The-Changing-Musical-Climate.

Miles, Emily. “Empathy through environmental music, Part 1”. In this climate (3 February 2020) https://www.stitcher.com/show/in-this-climate/episode/empathy-through-environmental-music-part-1-67058147.

_____. “Empathy through environmental music, Part 2”, In this climate (3 February 2020) https://www.stitcher.com/show/in-this-climate/episode/empathy-through-environmental-music-part-2-67062837.

Orchestra for the Earth. https://www.orchestrafortheearth.co.uk/.

*Perrin, Lola.http://www.lolaperrin.com/lolaperrin.

Quin, Douglas.http://www.douglasquin.com/.

Reubold, Todd. “A song of our warming planet”, Ensia (28 June 2013) https://ensia.com/videos/a-song-of-our-warming-planet/.

_____. “What global warming sounds like from the Amazon to the Arctic”, Ensia (7 May 2015) https://ensia.com/videos/what-climate-change-sounds-like-from-the-amazon-to-the-arctic/.

*Tin, Christopher. https://christophertin.com/.

*Titon, Jeff Todd.“Music in a changing climate”, Sustainable music (1 September 2015) https://sustainablemusic.blogspot.com/2015/09/music-in-changing-climate.html.

*Twedt, Judy. Connecting to climate change through music. (2018) https://tedxseattle.com/talks/connecting-to-climate-change-through-music/.

Westerkamp, Hildegard. “The disruptive nature of listening” (18 August 2015) https://www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca/writings/writingsby/?post_id=11&title=the-disruptive-nature-of-listening.

Yakutchik, MaryAlice. “Composer records beetles to mark climate change”, NPR music (10 March 2008). https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88074919.

Recordings

*Adams, John Luther, Become trilogy. CD (Canteloupe Music CA21161, 2020).

_____. Lines made by walking. CD (Cold Blue Music, CB 0058 (2020).

Burtner, Matthew. Auksalaq: Live at the Phillips Collection. DVD (EcoSono, 2013).

_____. Glacier music. CD (Ravello Records RR8001, 2019).

_____. Six ecoacoustic quintets/Avian telemetry (Ravello Records RR8040, 2020).

Sayre, Mike. Music for icebergs. CD (Teknofonic Recordings, 2017).

*Tin, Christopher. The drop that contained the sea. CD (DeccaGold, 2014).

Volsness, Kristin. The year without a summer. CD (New Focus Recordings DCR218, 2018).

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by | September 8, 2021 · 6:00 am

Antonín Dvořák, railfan

Dvořák had tremendous admiration for technical inventions, particularly locomotives—in the U.S. he might be called a railfan.

“It consists of many parts, of so many different parts, and each has its own importance, each has its own place,” he wrote. “Even the smallest screw is in place and holding something! Everything has its purpose and role and the result is amazing.”

“Such a locomotive is put on the tracks, they put in the coal and water, one person moves a small lever, the big levers start to move, and even though the cars weigh a few thousand metric cents, the locomotive runs with them like a rabbit. All of my symphonies I would give if I had invented the locomotive!”

This according to Antonín Dvořák: Komplexní zdroj informací o skladateli / A comprehensive information source on the composer, an Internet resource created by Ondřej Šupka. Many thanks to Jadranka Važanová for her discovery and translation of this wonderful quotation.

Today is Dvořák’s 180th birthday! Below, the EuroCity 77 “Antonin Dvorak” leaving Prague for Vienna.

Related article: Johannes Brahms, railfan

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by | July 21, 2021 · 6:00 am

The dervish sound dress

The dervish sound dress is a piece of wearable technology inspired by the sacred experience of the whirling dervishes of Turkey.

The garment is a body instrument that emits musical sounds when the wearer moves in it, as well as triggering a haptic vibration response. It emulates the vibrations that are felt while a musician plays an instrument, and the emotional response that the musician and a performer such as a dervish feels.

The construction of the dress involves a variety of sensors that perform according to how the sound is triggered by the movement of the wearer. These determine the output based on the rotation of the dress using gyroscopes, accelerometers that measure the speed of the dress as it is turning, and flex sensors that trigger sounds when the arms are in certain positions.

The sound design component relies on organic sound samples of the classical Turkish ṭanbūr recorded by a musician and manipulated in computer music design software. This gives the garment a unique edge by functioning as a computer digitized representation of an instrument that is activated by motions of the body. The sounds are triggered using algorithms created in Max Cycling ’74 software. These patches will detect a threshold of movement by the wearer before a sound is triggered.

This according to “Dervish sound dress: Odjevni predmet sa senzorima koji emitiraju zvuk i haptičkim odzivom/The dervish sound dress: A garment using sensors that emit sound and haptic feedback” by Hedy Hurban, an essay included in Muzika–nacija–identitet/Music–nation–identity (Sarajevo: Muzikološko Društvo Federacije Bosne i Hercegovine, 2020).

Video documentation of the dervish sound dress is here.

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by | July 16, 2021 · 6:00 am

Journal of the Association for Technology in Music Instruction

Launched by the University of Tennessee Libraries in 2020, the Journal of the Association for Technology in Music Instruction is the official journal of the Association for Technology in Music Instruction.

The journal primarily publishes full-length and brief reports of original research, but also publishes methodological, review, and theoretical articles at all levels and across genres such as education, theory/composition, musicology, performance and music production, and music technology and music industry.

Peer-reviewed, it welcomes contributions from educators, researchers, and practitioners who are working with technologies in primary, secondary, and tertiary music education settings as well as unique learning populations. The research it publishes follows academically sanctioned methodology: experimental, case study, ethnographic, or historical.

Below, an instructional video by Robert Willey, who contributed to the inaugural issue with an article on teaching electronic music technology.

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by | March 25, 2021 · 6:00 am

Béla Bartók, entomologist

Béla Bartók is renowned as one of the twentieth century’s greatest composers and as one of the founders of ethnomusicology. Less known is his love of animals, particularly his fascination with insects.

When he was a child he bred silkworms, and later he systematically collected insects, assembling a beautiful assortment. His son Béla Jr. recalled helping him with this hobby. “The most important instruction that he gave…was that no pain whatsoever was to be inflicted on the animals. And so he always took the appropriate drug with him on his insect-collecting expeditions. The insects, therefore, died and came into his collection without any suffering.”

This according to “The private man” by Béla Bartók, Jr. (as translated by Judit Rácz), which is included in The Bartók companion (London: Faber & Faber, 1993; RILM Abstractsof Music Literature 1993-4867).

Today is Bartók’s 140th birthday! Above, a watercolor caricature of him as an insect enthusiast by his cousin Ervin Voit. Below, his “Mese a kis légyrõl” (From the diary of a fly, Mikrokosmos, BB 105, Sz. 107, VI/142).

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by | January 11, 2021 · 6:00 am

Didjeridu playing and sleep apnea

Snoring and obstructive sleep apnea syndrome are two highly prevalent sleep disorders caused by collapse of the upper airways. The most effective intervention for these disorders is continuous positive airway pressure therapy, which reduces daytime sleepiness and the risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in the most severely affected patients. For moderately affected patients who complain about snoring and daytime sleepiness, however, continuous positive airway pressure therapy may not be suitable, and other effective interventions are needed.

A didjeridu instructor noticed that he and some of his students experienced reduced daytime sleepiness and snoring after practicing with this instrument for several months. A randomized controlled experiment confirmed that regular didjeridu playing is an effective treatment alternative well accepted by patients with moderate obstructive sleep apnea syndrome.

This according to “Didgeridoo playing as alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome: Randomised controlled trial” by Milo A. Puhan, et al. (BMJ CCCXXXII [December 2006]; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2006-51373). The article won the Ig Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.

Above and below, traditional uses of the didjeridu.

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by | October 5, 2020 · 6:00 am

The theremin turns 100!

After the electronic oscillator was invented in 1915, revolutionizing the radio industry, the Russian inventor Léon Thérémin used this technology to develop the first fully functional electronic musical instrument; originally called the etherphone, it became widely known as the theremin.

Without touching the instrument, the player controlled pitch through relative proximity of the right hand to a vertical antenna, and volume through similar movements of the left hand in relation to a horizontal antenna. The instrument employed a heterodyne, or beat frequency system, and boasted a range of three to four octaves.

On the invitation of Lenin, Thérémin travelled throughout Russia, demonstrating his instrument, and toured Europe in 1927, causing excitement in Germany, France, and England. Later that year, Thérémin travelled to the U.S., where he remained until 1938.

In 1929 he sold his patent to the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), which made and sold 500 instruments. Leopold Stokowski collaborated on a fingerboard version, which he used with the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1929 to 1931. Thérémin performed with the New York Philharmonic and Cleveland Orchestra, and presented several coast-to-coast broadcasts. He returned to the USSR in 1938.

This according to The theremin in the emergence of electronic music by Albert Glinsky, a dissertation accepted by New York University in 1992 (RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 1992-424).

The theremin is 100 years old this month! Above and below, the inventor in action.

BONUS: A brief presentation of further historical and technical information.

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by | August 13, 2020 · 6:00 am

Sopranos and intelligibility

Many English-speaking people attending concerts sung in English readily state that they cannot understand the words being sung.

In a study, 21 subjects (15 women, 6 men), all Western classically trained performers as well as teachers of classical singing, sang 11 words—“beat, bait, Bob, boat, boot,” representing the most frequently occurring vowels in practice, and “bit, bet, bat, bought, but, book,” representing the other six vowels that occur less frequently—arranged in six random orders, singing on two pitches a musical fifth apart.

The sung words were cropped to isolate the vowels, and listening tapes were created. Two listening groups, four singing teachers and five speech-language pathologists, were asked to identify the vowels intended by the singers. In general, vowel intelligibility was lower with the higher pitch, and vowels sung by the women were less intelligible than those sung by the men.

This according to “Vowel intelligibility in classical singing” by Jean Westerman Gregg and Ronald C. Scherer (Journal of voice XX/2 [June 2006] 198–210; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2006-8289).

Many thanks to Improbable research for bringing this article to our attention! Above, an illustration from the study; below, Jason Eckardt’s Dithyramb).

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