Created by Dick Glasgow in 2006, Scots-Irish music presents information on the traditional instruments and music of Ulster, with additional information on the music’s relocation in the U.S. Appalachian region. The site includes numerous links to other online resources relevant to Ulster’s musical traditions.
The giant lambeg drum, above, is typically heard with traditional Ulster fife playing (below).
Fonoteca: Radio Nacional de Colombia presents over 29,000 historical recordings, including speeches by presidents and public employees since 1940, serials since 1941, interviews since 1944, religious music festivals, llanera, bagpipes, porro, vallenato, rock, reggae, and Native American music from 1975 to date, as well as lectures and high school class broadcasts from 1960 through 2004.
The site also features the virtual Fonoteca radio station, whose broadcasts have long been part of the youth-oriented Radionica, the Radio Nacional de Colombia FM station.
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Filed under Popular music, Resources
Although the notion of pitches being relatively high or low was well-established by the first century C.E., when Pliny used the terms summus, medius, and imus, there is no evidence that earlier Greek theorists espoused this metaphor. The terms νήτη (nētē, “down-located”) and ὑπάτη (hypatē, “up-located”) were used, but they referred to the physical placement of kithara strings, not to a spatial concept of pitch; in fact, the higher the pitch in our terms, the further down-located it was on the instrument.
The commonest adjectives for pitch in ancient Greek writings are ὀξύς (oxys, “sharp, piercing”) and βαρύς (barys, “heavy”). Ptolemy wrote that the former quality was a result of λεπτότης (leptotēs, “fineness”) and πυκνότης (pyknotēs, “close spacing [of notes]”, and that the latter was caused by μανότης (manotēs, “thickness”) and παχύτης ( pachytēs, “loose spacing”) . The idea of higher and lower sounds, and their eventual depiction as such in notation, was a later development.
This according to “The development of vertical direction in the spatial representation of sound” by Eleonora Rocconi, an essay included in Archäologie früher Klangerzeugung und Tonordnung: Musikarchäologie in der Ägäis und Anatolien (Rahden: Leidorf, 2002), pp. 389–392.
Related article: The perfect-pitch puzzle
In 1968 Johnny Carson stunned the entertainment world by inviting a Black man to fill in for him. For a full week in February Harry Belafonte hosted the Tonight Show, showcasing numerous other Black celebrities—not least, his friend and fellow civil-rights advocate Martin Luther King, Jr.
After relaxing the audience with a joke, Dr. King discussed serious public and personal matters. When Belafonte asked if he feared for his life, he responded “If something happens to me, maybe something good will come of it.” He was assassinated two months later .
This according to “Belafonte’s balancing act” by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (The New Yorker 26 August & 2 September 1996, pp. 133–43). Below, Belafonte sings Jake Holmes’s Martin Luther King.
Related article: Harry Belafonte and social activism
Filed under Politics, Popular music
On 14 January, which is both New Year’s Day and the Feast of St. Basil according to the old Orthodox calendar, villagers in Bulgaria and Macedonia perform the costumed ceremonial dance known as Сурва (Surva, “unripe year”). Children between 4 and 14 years old participate in the малечка Сурва (small Surva), while adults between 15 and 35 perform in the голема Сурва (big Surva).
On the eve of the event, youths go from house to house collecting wood for the ceremonial bonfire. In the morning the participants choose their roles and don the corresponding masks and sheepskin capes. The stock characters may include a groom, a bride, a devil, a priest, a gypsy, and a dancer with a bear. To the accompaniment of drums and shawms, the dancers parade through the village with abundant comical antics. The ceremony culminates with a spirited dance around the collective bonfire.
This according to “Сурварските обичаи од неколку струмички села” (Old customs performed on New Year’s day in villages of the Strumičko region) by Ivan Kotev, an essay included in Rad XIX kongresa Saveza Udruženja Folklorista Jugoslavije (Skopje: Združenie na Folkloristite na Makedonija, 1977, pp. 207–212). Below, Surva in Krupnik, Bulgaria.
Filed under Dance, Europe, World music
Founded in response to the excitement generated by the First International Conference on Analytical Approaches to World Music in 2010, Analytical approaches to world music (ISSN 2158-5296) brings together disciplines including music theory, ethnomusicology, musicology, cognitive psychology, computer science, and mathematics for a cross-cultural dialogue that aims to promote and enhance understanding of the diverse collection of traditions that is commonly referred to as world music.
Edited by Lawrence Shuster and Rob Schultz, the inaugural issue of this peer-reviewed online journal includes articles by Robert Morris, Sarah Weiss, David Locke, Richard Widdess, Jay Rahn, and Michael Tenzer.
Filed under New periodicals, Theory, World music
Libreria Musicale Italiana launched the series Quaderni del Laboratorio MIRAGE in 2010 with Luigi Nono: studi, edizioni, testimonianze. Edited by Luca Cossettini, the volume includes essays by Cossettini, Nicola Buso, Laurent Feneyrou, and Roberto Calabretto.
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Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, New series
In Macedonia the Synaxis of St. John the Baptist on 7 January is celebrated with Vodici, a musical ceremony that involves the high priest throwing a cross into a nearby body of water.
The waters are baptized through this act, but the real attraction is the local youths plunging into the icy water to retrieve the cross. The one who finds it becomes a local hero, and is believed to be blessed for the entire ensuing year.
T
his according to “Водичарски обреди и водичарско певање у Македонији” (The Vodici ritual and singing in Macedonia) by Rodna Veličkovska in Научни скуп Дани Владе Милошевића: Зборник радова (The conference Dani Vlade Miloševića: Collection of essays; Banja Luka: Akademija Umjetnosti, 2008).
Below, excerpts from the church and waterside ceremonies in Bitola.
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Filed under Europe, Sports and games
Below is an automatically generated report from our buddies at WordPress; we enjoyed it, and decided to share it with you.
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 17,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.
In 2010, there were 134 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 164 posts. There were 210 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 47mb. That’s about 4 pictures per week.
The busiest day of the year was May 4th with 689 views. The most popular post that day was Mozart’s flyswatter.
The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, mail.yahoo.com, twitter.com, google.com, and mail.live.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for petrucci music library, petrucci library, curt sachs, liszt caricature, and magrepha.
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
Mozart’s flyswatter March 2010
4 comments
Not a universal language August 2010
2 comments and 2 Likes on WordPress.com
Petrucci Music Library May 2010
Defining the folk June 2010
Ethnomusicological bananas May 2010
1 comment
The 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth in 2010 inspired the launch of a new Russian-language quaterly dedicated to piano, PianоФорум (PianoForum). Published by Международная Муызкально-Техническая Компания (International Music-Technical Company) and edited by the musicologist, pianist, and pedagogue Vsevolod Zaderackij, the journal covers diverse aspects of contemporary pianism, including instrument building, piano repertoire and interpretation, piano competitions and festivals, and piano pedagogy from the beginning level to professional training. A description of the contents of issue no. 3 (2010) in Russian is here.
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Filed under Instruments, Musicologists, New periodicals, Pedagogy
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