We set out to perform a cluster analysis of harmonic structures (specifically, chord-to-chord transitions) in the McGill Billboard dataset, to determine whether there is evidence of multiple harmonic ...grammars and practices in the corpus, and if so, what the optimal division of songs, according to those harmonic grammars, is. We define optimal as providing meaningful, specific information about the harmonic practices of songs in the cluster, but being general enough to be used as a guide to songwriting and predictive listening. We test two hypotheses in our cluster analysis — first that 5–9 clusters would be optimal, based on the work of Walter Everett (2004), and second that 15 clusters would be optimal, based on a set of user-generated genre tags reported by Hendrik Schreiber (2015). We subjected the harmonic structures for each song in the corpus to a K-means cluster analysis. We conclude that the optimal clustering solution is likely to be within the 5–8 cluster range. We also propose that a map of cluster types emerging as the number of clusters increases from one to eight constitutes a greater aid to our understanding of how various harmonic practices, styles, and sub-styles comprise the McGill Billboard dataset.
The late Sheila Whiteley examined how different styles of psychedelic rock in the 1960s and early 1970s shared a common musical rhetoric (or “codes”) that, together with the socio-cultural context in ...which the music was presented and heard, conveyed elements of the psychedelic experience. In this essay, the author probes further the ways in which some types of popular music serve to represent the psychedelic experience, not so much through semantically stable stylistic codes but through the affordances these sound-shapes and their context provide. To illustrate the application of this expanded notion of psychedelic musical rhetoric, he examines the psychedelic aspects of some of the music of contemporary Norwegian pop band, Highasakite, whose work provides a good example of the post-millennial evolution of the musical vision of psychedelia’s earliest proponents.
The paper points to the disappearance of the division of art into 'high' and 'popular', with a particular emphasis on popular music, which under given circumstances adopts certain aesthetic standards ...of classical music forms. The authors also analyse the reverse process: the popularisation of classical music, in the composing-arranging and the performing sense. Particular attention is paid to the role, status and reach of popular culture/art in contemporary postmodern ventures. In this context, the Beatles represent a paradigmatic example, due to the fact that they used a plethora of postmodern creative procedures. The authors conduct an analysis of two characteristic Beatles' albums (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Beatles, known as 'The White Album') that incorporate the key principles of postmodern aesthetics.
If studying and teaching classical music relies a lot on the use of scores, the pop-rock-jazz genres have a different approach, from using a large variety of score-types to not using at all. Pupils ...from secondary schools and high schools practice pop-rock-jazz, either on their own or coordinated by a music teacher, in which case it is fairly expectedfor them to be familiarized with the types of scores that can be found in these genres. However, many band teachers prefer using demonstration as a method, some of them claiming that the scores limit the creativity. It is true that music notation in these genres is not standardized. In this article, we will cover the most common approaches for integrating music notation in jazz-pop-rock band teaching.
The main goal of our approach is to analyse the social representations of alternative rock in Portugal (or, using a terminology more akin to 1980s Portugal, of the "modern music vanguard") from 1980 ...to 2010. This is part of broader research into the 30 years of modernization of the country (from the post-revolutionary period initiated in 1974 on), in which alternative rock is regarded as a significant social practice within the scope of the social, artistic and musical structuring of the country itself. We consider that alternative rock is a subject that is illuminated by Bourdieu's theory of fields, without overlooking its clear interconnection with 'art worlds' or music scenes, and the aesthetic cosmopolitanism of late modernity. The article is a pioneering work on the Portuguese sociology of culture, whose results may be the starting point of a debate to problematize the functional logic of popular music in various Anglo-Saxon settings.
In the summer of 1978, the B-52's conquered the New York underground. A year later, the band's self-titled debut album burst onto theBillboard charts, capturing the imagination of fans and music ...critics worldwide. The fact that the group had formed in the sleepy southern college town of Athens, Georgia, only increased the fascination. Soon, more Athens bands followed the B-52's into the vanguard of the new American music that would come to be known as "alternative," including R.E.M., who catapulted over the course of the 1980s to the top of the musical mainstream. As acts like the B-52's, R.E.M., and Pylon drew the eyes of New York tastemakers southward, they discovered in Athens an unexpected mecca of music, experimental art, DIY spirit, and progressive politics--a creative underground as vibrant as any to be found in the country's major cities. In Athens in the eighties, if you were young and willing to live without much money, anything seemed possible.Cool Town reveals the passion, vitality, and enduring significance of a bohemian scene that became a model for others to follow. Grace Elizabeth Hale experienced the Athens scene as a student, small-business owner, and band member. Blending personal recollection with a historian's eye, she reconstructs the networks of bands, artists, and friends that drew on the things at hand to make a new art of the possible, transforming American culture along the way. In a story full of music and brimming with hope, Hale shows how an unlikely cast of characters in an unlikely place made a surprising and beautiful new world.
Objective: To evaluate the determining factors of noise-induced sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) in professional musicians (PMs).
Methods: An extensive review using Pubmed, Medscape and Google ...scholar research was performed and studies with the following keywords were selected: 'hearing loss, tinnitus, hyperacusis, music, classical music, rock music, pop music, musicians, orchestra, music student, professional musician, non-professional musician, music exposure and temporary hearing loss'. A histopathology study from individuals who during life were musician in orchestra was described.
Results: Eighty to ninety per cent of PMs are affected from noise-induced SNHL at 3000-8000 Hz frequencies. The range of the frequency of SNHL was correlated with the frequency of the specific frequency of the musical instrument and to the sound intensity which they were exposed. The two temporal bones studied, showed a severely loss hair cells at the basal turn of both cochleae and moderate loss of hair cells in medial and apical turn.
Conclusion: The review and the results of the temporal bones (TBs) findings show that the intensity and frequency range are the more relevant factors causing noise-induced high frequency SNHL. The time exposed to sound, instead, can impact the low frequency range as supported by temporal bone results.
Expressive isomorphism is characterized as the process through which national uniqueness is standardized so that expressive culture of various nations, or of social sectors within them, comes to ...consist of similar expressive forms and stylistic elements. Expanding on Meyer, the presence of pop-rock music in world culture is discussed as a major manifestation of expressive isomorphism. This is done by looking at these aspects of pop-rock music: electric instrumentation, ritual classification, ritual periodization, diffusion of styles and genres, legitimation discourses, and the emergence of ethnic rock. Following Bourdieu, a sociological account that focuses on recognition and status concludes the article.
The increasing presentation of popular music culture as heritage is manifested in the recent proliferation of museums of pop/rock culture. This calls for an examination of the current practices of ...disseminating pop/rock heritage through exhibitions. Two trends have been identified and criticised by previous commentators: first, the prominence of nostalgia in exhibition narratives and second, that exhibitions of popular music tend to display ancillary objects rather than music itself. This article offers a rethinking of nostalgia as a strategy for disseminating pop/rock heritage and explores the potential of music as a trigger for nostalgic experiences in exhibitions. While agreeing with much of the critique levelled at the nostalgic approach to pop/rock culture, we suggest that with a more nuanced conception of reflective nostalgia, the affective appeal of the nostalgic approach can be harnessed without giving in to glamourised oversimplifications of the past. Further, we suggest that mediated memories can form the basis of nostalgic feelings and thus enable the nostalgic approach to span the generational gap and engage visitors who do not have a lived experience of pop/rock heritage. We will illustrate this by contrasting our approach to that taken at ABBA The Museum.
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