探花直播 of Cambridge - music

Military musicians returning from Napoleonic wars invented Britain鈥檚 brass bands

ta385 — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Military musicians returning from the Napoleonic wars established Britain鈥檚 first brass bands earlier than previously thought, Dr Eamonn O'Keeffe has found. 探花直播study undermines the idea that brass bands were a civilian and exclusively northern creation.

Pythagoras was wrong: there are no universal musical harmonies, study finds

ta385 — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 09:30:00 +0000

According to the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, 鈥榗onsonance鈥� 鈥� a pleasant-sounding combination of notes 鈥� is produced by special relationships between simple numbers such as 3 and 4. More recently, scholars have tried to find psychological explanations, but these 鈥榠nteger ratios鈥� are still credited with making a chord sound beautiful, and deviation from them is thought to make music 鈥榙issonant鈥�, unpleasant sounding.聽

But researchers from the 探花直播 of Cambridge, Princeton and the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, have now discovered two key ways in which Pythagoras was wrong.

Their study, published in Nature Communications, shows that in normal listening contexts, we do not actually prefer chords to be perfectly in these mathematical ratios.

鈥淲e prefer slight amounts of deviation. We like a little imperfection because this gives life to the sounds, and that is attractive to us,鈥� said co-author, Dr Peter Harrison, from Cambridge鈥檚 Faculty of Music and Director of its Centre for Music and Science.

探花直播researchers also found that the role played by these mathematical relationships disappears when you consider certain musical instruments that are less familiar to Western musicians, audiences and scholars. These instruments tend to be bells, gongs, types of xylophones and other kinds of pitched percussion instruments. In particular, they studied the 鈥榖onang鈥�, an instrument from the Javanese gamelan built from a collection of small gongs.

鈥淲hen we use instruments like the bonang, Pythagoras's special numbers go out the window and we encounter entirely new patterns of consonance and dissonance,鈥� said Dr Harrison, a Fellow of Churchill College.

鈥� 探花直播shape of some percussion instruments means that when you hit them, and they resonate, their frequency components don鈥檛 respect those traditional mathematical relationships. That's when we find interesting things happening.鈥�

鈥淲estern research has focused so much on familiar orchestral instruments, but other musical cultures use instruments that, because of their shape and physics, are what we would call 鈥榠nharmonic鈥�.聽

探花直播researchers created an online laboratory in which over 4,000 people from the US and South Korea participated in 23 behavioural experiments. Participants were played chords and invited to give each a numeric pleasantness rating or to use a slider to adjust particular notes in a chord to make it sound more pleasant. 探花直播experiments produced over 235,000 human judgments.

探花直播experiments explored musical chords from different perspectives. Some zoomed in on particular musical intervals and asked participants to judge whether they preferred them perfectly tuned, slightly sharp or slightly flat. 探花直播researchers were surprised to find a significant preference for slight imperfection, or 鈥榠nharmonicity鈥�. Other experiments explored harmony perception with Western and non-Western musical instruments, including the bonang.

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Instinctive appreciation of new kinds of harmony

探花直播researchers found that the bonang鈥檚 consonances mapped neatly onto the particular musical scale used in the Indonesian culture from which it comes. These consonances cannot be replicated on a Western piano, for instance, because they would fall between the cracks of the scale traditionally used.聽

鈥淥ur findings challenge the traditional idea that harmony can only be one way, that chords have to reflect these mathematical relationships. We show that there are many more kinds of harmony out there, and that there are good reasons why other cultures developed them,鈥� Dr Harrison said.

Importantly, the study suggests that its participants 鈥� not trained musicians and unfamiliar with Javanese music 鈥� were able to appreciate the new consonances of the bonang鈥檚 tones instinctively.

鈥淢usic creation is all about exploring the creative possibilities of a given set of qualities, for example, finding out what kinds of melodies can you play on a flute, or what kinds of sounds can you make with your mouth,鈥� Harrison said.

鈥淥ur findings suggest that if you use different instruments, you can unlock a whole new harmonic language that people intuitively appreciate, they don鈥檛 need to study it to appreciate it. A lot of experimental music in the last 100 years of Western classical music has been quite hard for listeners because it involves highly abstract structures that are hard to enjoy. In contrast, psychological findings like ours can help stimulate new music that listeners intuitively enjoy.鈥�

Exciting opportunities for musicians and producers

Dr Harrison hopes that the research will encourage musicians to try out unfamiliar instruments and see if they offer new harmonies and open up new creative possibilities.聽

鈥淨uite a lot of pop music now tries to marry Western harmony with local melodies from the Middle East, India, and other parts of the world. That can be more or less successful, but one problem is that notes can sound dissonant if you play them with Western instruments.聽

鈥淢usicians and producers might be able to make that marriage work better if they took account of our findings and considered changing the 鈥榯imbre鈥�, the tone quality, by using specially chosen real or synthesised instruments. Then they really might get the best of both worlds: harmony and local scale systems.鈥�

Harrison and his collaborators are exploring different kinds of instruments and follow-up studies to test a broader range of cultures. In particular, they would like to gain insights from musicians who use 鈥榠nharmonic鈥� instruments to understand whether they have internalised different concepts of harmony to the Western participants in this study.

Reference

R Marjieh, P M C Harrison, H Lee, F Deligiannaki, and N Jacoby, 鈥�Timbral effects on consonance disentangle psychoacoustic mechanisms and suggest perceptual origins for musical scales鈥�, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45812-z

探花直播tone and tuning of musical instruments has the power to manipulate our appreciation of harmony, new research shows. 探花直播findings challenge centuries of Western music theory and encourage greater experimentation with instruments from different cultures.

There are many more kinds of harmony out there

Peter Harrison

Pythagoras was wrong: there are no universal harmonies! | Cambridge research

Andrew Otto via Flikr under a CC license

A man playing a bonang

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥� on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Musical preferences unite personalities across the globe

ta385 — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Research involving more than 350,000 participants from six continents has found that links between musical preferences and personality are universal. 探花直播study suggests that music could play a greater role in overcoming social division.

探花直播 of Cambridge commits to a major new centre for music performance

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 12:00:00 +0000

This initiative will contribute to the recovery of the physical 探花直播 in the wake of the pandemic, and is an important signal of Cambridge鈥檚 ongoing commitment to the performing arts.

探花直播CMP heralds a step-change in music of all genres for outreach and inclusion, and for wellbeing across collegiate Cambridge. Maintaining a tradition of excellence, it will also seal the 探花直播鈥檚 position on a world stage for music performance.

探花直播CMP will be a seedbed of experimentation and innovation. A radical commitment to diversity will offer more opportunities to more students than ever before, to explore new styles of music-making and performance.

探花直播Centre will open at the end of the year; in the meantime the search is on for a new Director to take up their post in early autumn.

探花直播Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stephen J聽Toope, said: "At a time of unprecedented stress for the performing arts, I am proud that Cambridge is creating a new Centre for Music Performance. A step-change in the visibility, breadth, reach and role of music performance, it will nurture the highest aspirations of the very best performers, besides offering a wonderful array of opportunities to those with previously limited experience. In the long run the Centre will be a stimulus for interdisciplinarity, research excellence and all-round personal development. I am thrilled to see the CMP go ahead at Cambridge."

探花直播Senior Pro-Vice Chancellor (Education), Professor Graham Virgo, said: "This is one of the many ways Cambridge 探花直播 is expressing its commitment to outreach, inclusion and diversity. We expect this Centre to build on our excellent array of musical endeavour to draw more students into the cultural life of the 探花直播, building their skills and confidence and supporting their wellbeing."

Dr聽Anthony Freeling, Chair, Colleges鈥� Committee, and President of Hughes Hall, said: " 探花直播Cambridge Colleges are well-known as a seedbed of musical life; the Centre for Music Performance will not only support this but enhance its connectivity and visibility so that more students are attracted to, and can fully enjoy, the proven benefits of music performance."

Chair of the Faculty Board of Music and 1684 Professor of Music聽Katharine Ellis聽said: " 探花直播Faculty of Music is delighted to see the new Centre for Music Performance come into being. This new hub will be a game-changer supporting musicians right across the 探花直播, from soon-to-be professionals to those for whom music offers precious release from the stresses of intensive study. It will be a beacon for Cambridge鈥檚 already rich musical life and will enable students to access its variety more readily than ever before. We look forward to contributing to the CMP鈥檚 success."

探花直播Chair of the Cambridge 探花直播 Musical Society (CUMS) Trustees, Dame Fiona Reynolds, said: "CUMS has carried the flag for excellence in music performance at Cambridge for many years.聽During that time we have nurtured a host of young people for whom music is life-giving, from world-leading professional musicians to skilled amateurs. 探花直播CMP is the opportunity we have been looking for to take this to the next level, offering more students than ever before the opportunity to work with each other and professional artists from a wide range of genres in an atmosphere that fosters creativity and innovation."

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Images

Cambridge 探花直播 Jazz Orchestra, copyright聽Hideaway Streatham

Conducting and Concerto Competition Winners, Cambridge 探花直播 Musical Society, copyright Tom Porteous, with kind permission of Cambridge 探花直播 Botanic Garden

探花直播探花直播 of Cambridge is creating a Centre for Music Performance (CMP) to transform the visibility, scale, ambition and reach of musical life at Cambridge.

Images of CUJO copyright Hideaway Streatham. Image of Conducting and Concerto Competition winners copyright Tom Porteous

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.聽 All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥� as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

11 hip-hop artists who had something to say about mental health

cjb250 — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 09:55:59 +0000

How hip hop artists are opening up about their struggles with depression and anxiety, helping reduce stigma and encouraging others to seek support.

探花直播cellist whose Christmas starts in summer

cg605 — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 11:32:47 +0000

When he鈥檚 not running college choirs and keeping the piano tuned as Director of Music for Magdalene and Director of St John鈥檚 Voices, Graham Walker sometimes marvels at the wonderful purposelessness of music 鈥� and the absolute joy of creating something beautiful, even for a fraction of a second.

Music inspired by a survivor of the Nazis wins international recognition

ehs33 — Fri, 24 May 2019 14:18:19 +0000

BBC Radio 3 have selected a new orchestral composition by the Music Faculty鈥檚 Reader in Composition, Richard Causton to represent the UK at the annual International Rostrum of Composers to be broadcast across 27 countries worldwide. 探花直播Rostrum is run in association with UNESCO and the International Music Council.

探花直播piece - Ik zeg: NU聽 - was based on a story of survival. Three quarters of the World War II Jewish population of the Netherlands were killed by the Nazis. One of some 16,000 Dutch Jews to survive the war was a relative of Richard Causton, Salomon Van Son (now 98 years old), who survived Nazi persecution hidden in a hay barn for almost three years. 探花直播farmer who hid him was interrogated by the Germans repeatedly but never revealed where he was. This work is based on Salomon Van Son鈥檚 memoir about his experience.
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Richard explained, 鈥� 探花直播title, Ik zeg: NU (鈥業 say: Now鈥�) comes from Sal van Son鈥檚 ten-year-old great nephew, who remarked philosophically, 鈥業 say now now, and a moment later it is already history鈥�.聽聽
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鈥淭his child-like observation of how time passes seemed a brilliant description for music and how we experience it; but beyond that, it also describes life itself. We can never hang on to the moment, it is always slipping through our fingers. So my piece is about the passage of time and a homage to my 98-year-old relative, whose book traces the history of his Jewish family through four centuries, including his own years in hiding from the Nazis in occupied Holland during the Second World War.鈥�
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Richard constructed a new set of specially-tuned tubular bells especially for use in the piece, and together with the sounds of detuned vibraphones, a prepared piano and accordion, their haunting, resonant sound evokes the complex and elusive nature of passing time. 探花直播piece was commissioned by the BBC for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and was first performed at the Barbican Hall, London, in January to huge critical acclaim.
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鈥淩ichard Causton's new work for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Ik zeg: NU, holds two timeframes in play simultaneously, and brilliantly.鈥� ( 探花直播Guardian)
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鈥淣ow-ness and then-ness move in parallel in this spacious, beautifully constructed work.鈥� ( 探花直播Times)
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鈥淚t was a fabulously ear-tickling display of compositional skill, which every now and then took on a poetic resonance.鈥� ( 探花直播Daily Telegraph)聽

Image: Richard Causton pencil score of聽Ik聽zeg: NU

A new orchestral composition聽- Ik聽zeg: NU by Richard Causton聽- has been chosen by BBC Radio 3 for worldwide broadcast.

BBCSO Credit Sim Canetty-Clark

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Music to the ears: Liszt鈥檚 lost opera

ehs33 — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 13:48:34 +0000

Liszt's lost opera heard for the first time in 170 years