ÍMPAR: Online Journal for Artistic Research
Exploring transdisciplinary performance and creation in Le corps qui habite en moi for solo flute
This paper is aimed to clarify the creation of the composition and performance of Le corps qui habite en moi, the result of the collaborative process between two artist-researchers. It is an exploration of our searches as musicians and researchers within the Western Classical Music esthetics, raising questions related to the creativity and the freedom of expression in our environment. We believe that it is necessary to go beyond some barriers and question preconceived ideas within the tradition about what is a concert, a performance and a creative process. Another central question is related to the relation of mind-body in our modern society as well as on the Western Classical Music esthetics, where the player’s body is many times effaced and renegade in the musical performance. Within the field of artistic research, the main objective was the creation of a composition and a transdisciplinary performance that could reveal the expression of a body on stage. From the composition it was created a semi-opened choreography and a series of watercolors that interact with different moments of the composition, creating a narrative elucidating the awaken of the human body as an expressive agent in the performance, as well as the intermodal character of the creative activity. The central part of this paper is the performance presented at the Post-ip Congress of the University of Aveiro in December 2022; therefore, we recommend watching the video before reading the text.
Direitos de Autor (c) 2023 ÍMPAR: Online Journal for Artistic Research
Re-enacting an eighteenth-century method for reinforcing musical expression
This article demonstrates the artistic re-enactment of affective cultural practices in musical performance, with the goal of developing an increased understanding of the practices that we re-enacted, and the influence they can have on a performance. To re-enact a practice, an aesthetic mindset or conception means that they get embodied and experienced. In the research project explained here, we re-enacted the practice of evoking the music’s affections in oneself in order to arouse them in the listeners – a practice that formed a part of the eighteenth-century culture of sensibility. Through enacting the affective content of selected pieces of music, we wanted to explore how musicians and listeners interacted in a performance; the mutual influences between aesthetic mindsets and affective practices; and what difference these practices and mindsets make to the artistic effect in a musical performance. Our process included musical and emotional preparations, a video-taped re-enactment-in-performance with six participants (two players and four listeners), the writing of reflections, and analyzing them. The re-enactment highlighted how the various ways of viewing music and art in different cultures interact with how art is and was performed and experienced. The option to modify codes of performance, such as the behavior of everyone involved, the placement of people in the room, or the lighting, showed a potential to pinpoint and reflect upon aesthetic ideas about music and artistry. It opened up for choosing between ideas and conceptions we want to emphasize in a performance.
re-enactment; music; affect; sensibility culture
This article synthesises the use of Messiaen's manuscript notebooks of birdsong transcriptions as creative material. It presents the thesis Migrating to the origin as a space for establishing a flexible relationship between the final score and its sketches by incorporating them into a new narrative of the Catalogue d’oiseaux. Messiaen’s birdsong sketches are analysed questioning them as transcriptions or compositions. A new perspective for the birdsong transcriptions sketchbooks brings a new relation between performer and score resulting in an unconventional interpretation, in the framework of an ecologically aware revision of the work.
Cahiers, birdsong transcription, Catalogue d’oiseaux, artistic research, environmental awareness.
Direitos de Autor (c) 2021 ÍMPAR: Online Journal for Artistic Research
‘Painting a Western musical score with Chinese ink’
This research paper is an outcome of my ongoing Ph.D. project in which I intend to create a performance whose scenic dimension is explored to suggest a pre-reflective, embodied and interactive layer of awareness of Macao's mystical atmosphere to the audience. The performance will comprise the piano solo works of Áureo Castro, a Portuguese composer who lived in the 20th century in Macao and was an enthusiastic of Chinese music. His “Chinese Style” piano works merge Western composition techniques with melodies and rhythms inspired by Chinese folk music, thus revealing traces of Sino-Western interculturality. This paper addresses the second piano sonata of Áureo Castro and describes how performative choices are explored having as reference Chinese culture concepts and Chinese instrumental sonorities and gestures. These choices most likely are influenced by the performer´s imagery and poetic narrative from her own living experiences in Macao. Concepts such as non-sound, virtues, Chinese metaphors and musical gestures were experimented in order to create a compelling musical narrative. Moreover, piano playing and affordances were explored not only emulating and integrating the gestures and sonorities of traditional Chinese instrumentalists but also experimenting accordingly with musical parameters such as agogic, meter and phrasing to create sonorities that resemble or were inspired by Chinese music. From my perspective as performer, a conventional interpretation of piano works (i.e. one that follows traditional Western performance practices) would fail to be representative of Áureo Castro’s intentions as a composer who had a fondness for Chinese music and aimed to express feelings concerning the exotic atmosphere of Macao and its communities, but would miss as well to explore essential affordances of this music. As revealed by Áureo Castro about one of his most prominent compositions – “Macao Scenes” – the composer seeks to express the music as a “painting with ink that breathes Chinese atmosphere”. I hope this paper contributes for a better understanding on how exploring performative practices can enrich approaches and perspectives to cross-cultural music works and to contribute to the development of intercultural artistic research in the domain of music performance, where intercultural exchanges and hybridization are, on one hand, increasing and continuously reassessing cultural identities and, on other hand, have the potential to inspire future artistic works.
Áureo Castro, cross-cultural performance, musical narrative, intercultural artistic research, Macao
Tongue articulation on the Recorder: An interpretation of Ganassi’s ‘Lingua laquale nõ proferisse sillaba niuna’
Teaching and learning tongue articulation are usually done through analogy with phonetics. The syllables used become biomechanical metaphors that depend on subjective and often imprecise interpretations both from the expert who is trying to describe his skill and the novice who is trying to acquire it. In Chapter 8 of Silvestro Ganassi’s 1535 treatise La Fontegara, there is an enigmatic description of an articulation where the movement of the tongue goes from one lip to the other. Since this movement is not present in normal speech, no syllable can be used as a biomechanical metaphor. In our opinion, most interpretations of this chapter have not been satisfactory. We have developed a tonguing technique that, although it does not follow precisely Ganassi’s description, can be seen as an approximation to his apparent intentions. The tongue movement is similar to the one used in the zaghareet, an ululation common in Arabic culture. Two recorded examples of Van Eyck’s variations with 32nd notes are included to illustrate the use of the technique in a musical context.
Silvestro Ganassi; articulation; Van Eyck; Recorder
I propose to describe, clarify, and communicate a performative experience, which express my transformation concerning music making and being on stage. "A path to artistic research" reports a growing process in my PhD, which has been going on for over a year. In this paper I describe some reflections of my experience based on the bodily and emotional memories of my performance, albeit brief but significant. This certainly marked a new direction in my musical career. Supported by a verbal language, I intend to convey in as much detail as possible, what led me to produce this performance and what this change of direction meant, which indeed has complemented my career as a Western Classical Musician. The connection and empathy with nature is not alien to the human being. Remembering and living a performative ritual, brings out that natural relationship with the cycle of life, sharing the relationship with sound and space that envelop the body in an atmosphere without time or points of comparison. The Sufis, the Yogis, call it transe, a state in which the whole being enters into a state of rapport and deep immersion with something unknown.
Topicality in the Piano Music of John ireland
Leonard Ratner’s pioneering work on topic theory in his 1980 book Classic Music: Expression, Form and Style presented topics as 18th-century meaning-bearing aspects of musical compositions, embracing types such as dances and marches, and styles such as hunt and pastoral. Amongst other authors, Robert Hatten (1994, 2004), Raymond Monelle (2000, 2006) and Kofi Agawu (2009) have subsequently developed the concept and taken it well outside the confines of the 18th century. Despite this expansion into the 19th- and, to a lesser extent, 20th-century music, the focus of topic theory has tended to stay within the Classical period, and its interaction with performance has remained under-investigated. This article thus addresses the subject of topics in 20th-century piano music and assesses their significance for the performer. Solo piano pieces by the English composer John Ireland (1879–1962) are used as case-studies, and a variety of topics, including pictorial ones, are discovered in his music, most of them not named in a title (such as ‘Minuet in G’). Thus pastoral music is found in parts of the Rhapsody and a twentieth-century equivalent of Empfindsamkeit in ‘In A May Morning’ from Sarnia. Placing these works and others in the context of Ireland’s biography adds extra richness to the investigation. New topics are suggested for the works under consideration, one of which relates to idiomatic piano writing as a generative principle. At the heart of the article is an exploration of topicality in Ireland’s music as an aid to a pianist’s interpretative decision-making, a process which engages with the composer’s perceived codes of meaning and expression, and seeks for ways in which to project these to the listener. The essay is illustrated by video extracts featuring the author’s live and studio performances.
Topics; John Ireland; Piano; Performance; Interpretation
Direitos de Autor (c) 2020 ÍMPAR: Online Journal for Artistic Research
Las flautas de Maximilian Schwedler surgieron en 1885 con la intención de poder competir en volumen sonoro con la flauta cilíndrica de sistema Böhm (1847), pero sin tener que renunciar al sonido característico de las flautas cónicas de madera de sistema antiguo. Maximilian Schwedler seguía una tradición sonora heredada de Anton Bernhard Fürstenau que estará vigente en Alemania hasta bien entrado el siglo XX. Las flautas construidas por Schwedler en colaboración con diversos constructores tenían posibilidades sonoras que se perdieron con el uso de la flauta de sistema Böhm y que hoy representan un reto para cualquier flautista. Este artículo se enmarca dentro de una investigación artística que pretende aprovechar los recursos sonoros de estas flautas caídas en el olvido. El reto de este trabajo de ivestigación es, por tanto, la experimentación con esas posibilidades sonoras que las flautas Schwedler ofrecen al flautista actual.
LAS ARTES DE LA ESCENA: MIRAR A LOS DIOSES DE FRENTE
Tomando como referente la razón poética de la filósofa María Zambrano, se tratará de cercar la importancia que supone la incorporación de las artes escénicas en el ámbito académico universitario. Su exclusión histórica de este territorio podría explicar, simbólicamente, la desafección y decadencia de una época y una manera compartida de estar en el mundo que sostuvieron la idea de Europa, cimentada en la igualdad, la fraternidad y la libertad. A partir de aquí, se propone revisar esa idea, buscar dónde se perdió, qué supone el abandono de sus sueños democratizadores, ofreciendo una “poética del sur” que se valiera de “metodologías del respeto”. Entre ellas, destacaríamos abordar el tema con perspectiva de género, para que el detalle y lo excluido intencionadamente del orden canónico, permitiera a la universidad cumplir su encomienda de ser creadora de espacios plurales de lo común con capacidad de acoger “lo universal” y sus enriquecedoras diferencias.
I believe that Artistic Research prevails because of its power to intervene and reconfigure in a very specific intersection where subjectivity and intersubjectivity meet, where individual desires, fears and unconscious meanings nurture common beliefs, shared fictions, mythopoetic configurations. Since only the exploration of one's own subjectivity and its singularities opens up access to this field, neither philosophical nor scientific approaches are adequate or capable of meeting this challenge, focused as they are on generality. However, all the arts and all the artists explore this very same realm without overlaps and disputes by generating. through their creative work, new meanings, insights and (embodied) knowledge, and connecting us, in this way, to the ineffable. Rather than concepts and rational constructions, the ineffable demands images, gestures, emotional narratives. Artistic meaning constructions open thus to the possibility of connecting us with the ineffable establishing a continuum of images, gestures and emotional narratives were boundaries make no sense. For the same reason it doesn’t make much sense to establish frontiers within artistic research.
For nearly as long as the piano has existed, composers have been interested in producing sounds for which the instrument was not conceived. Whilst most of us may be at ease with a pianist’s fingers gliding over the keyboard, many feel more resistance towards someone who hits the keys with the flat of the hand, or is bent over the keyboard to play directly on the strings. Yet, these techniques have been in use since the 18th century, unlike their common association with ‘new music’. In contrast to this extensive repertoire for professionals, pieces that are written to introduce such techniques to children exhibit mostly adult aesthetic preferences. As regards performance technique, the composers have not distinguished between the different pedagogical chronologies and algorithms of learning to play the keyboard and the inside of the piano, nor do they seem to have imagined whether a child always has ready access to the accessories that are sometimes required to do so. In collaboration with composer Hans Cafmeyer, a project was set up at the Orpheus Institute to develop new music through artistic research, catering to children’s aesthetic horizons, their technical abilities, pedagogical needs, and personal biotope, and the technological constraints of the instrument. With Hans Cafmeyer’s decade-long experience in teaching children, in addition to writing music for them which suits their pedagogical level, as well as Luk Vaes’ research into the history and performance practices of extended techniques, “peyotl” was created, a collection of pieces allowing teachers to integrate extended techniques into the protocol of regular keyboard-specific pedagogy. The multimedia publication includes the score as well as online videos of the composer and children performing the music.
extended techniques; piano repertoire; teaching
The Deterritorialization and Reterritorialization of Artistic Research
In the earliest days of developing the discourses pertinent to artistic research, the apparent openness of its territory was vital in order that the varied protagonists engaging with it in the manner of pioneers could each recognise themselves within it while remaining open to the often-divergent needs and natures of others around them. This notionally deterritorialized domain had a utopian quality, serving as an idealized zone in which artists might be able to exist and work on their own terms while contributing to something new: a meta-discourse that would generate new and more inclusive kinds of ‘knowing’. Responding to that potential, in 2009, Kathleen Coessens, Darla Crispin and Anne Douglas published The Artistic Turn: A Manifesto, an early analysis of the emergent artistic research field, using Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix Guattari’s metaphorical concepts of deterritorialization and reterritorialization to point up some of the promises – and pitfalls – to be found within the emergent artistic research field. Ten years after the publication of that book, it seems appropriate to return to the text, to reflect on its analysis of that dualistic approach to territory and to test it against more recent developments. This is also an opportunity to point up some of the ‘red flags’ around potential disciplinary shortcomings in artistic research – and to make tentative suggestions as to how these might be overcome. The essay proposes a model that emphasises the rhizomic interconnectedness of the territories of artistic research. It argues that the nature of this ‘saturated connectedness’, free from privileged or marginalised elements and continuously dynamic in its functioning, is as crucial to an understanding of artistic research as is a proper comprehension of the separate identities of the territories themselves.
In this article, I propose that there is a reality that can be clarified by art. This mode of reality — the ontologically subjective — is by definition inaccessible to science. Artistic creation hence stands as the academic endeavour which is better equipped to provide a suitable ground for its clarification, here understood as providing the means for a shared comprehension of such reality. However, not all artistic creation aims to do that and, if misdirected — as when it follows research methods and procedures borrowed from science —, it can’t help but fail to do so. We thus face the challenge of defining a focus that is specific to artistic creation and that can help art to accomplish its full potential within the academy.
Art Worlds, Voice and Knowledge: thoughts on quality assessment of artistic research outcomes
This paper discusses the nature of artistic knowledge, and proposes that knowledge production through artistic research takes material and embodied forms. Further, the author proposes that artistic researchers must be clearly situated in an art world, as well as in academia. The assessment of artistic quality must be carried out to a great extent outside academia, by agents identified in the art world within which the project is situated. In the paper, four recent PhD theses produced in three institutions in Sweden are presented and analysed from the socio-cultural perspective of their art worlds. Further, the paper proposes that artistic knowledge can be further accessed through a systematic inquiry into the material and performative forms in which it is manifested. A brief analysis of the emergence of a shared voice between a composer and a performer - through a study of the use of transcription in the working process - aims to further unpack the possibilities of accessing artistic knowledge through multiple methods for documentation and analysis. In the final analysis, the author proposes that artistic research must develop more considered approaches to artistic knowledge, and thereby, also to aim for artistic results that allow artistic researchers to make a difference in their respective art worlds.
Created in 2017, ÍMPAR is a biannual publication whose objective is to disseminate the knowledge production in the field of Artistic Research. With this issue, the journal concludes its 3rd year of activity with a golden key. The editorial board of ÍMPAR invited three outstanding researchers from the field of Artistic Research to submit articles that would address at least one of the fracturing issues within this area of knowledge. It was with great satisfaction that we received immediate confirmation from all the invited researchers accepting our challenge: Professor Darla Crispin, Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo, Norway; Professor Stefan Östersjö, Piteå School of Music, Luleå University of Technolog, Sweden; and Professor Rui Penha, School of Music and Performing Arts, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Portugal.
Using Flute Physics to Tune Multiphonics
The horizon of multiphonic flute playing has not been fully explored, due to well-established perceptions of the technique’s limitations. These perceptions are not fully accurate, although they came about with good reason. Sustaining, tuning and balancing multiphonics all present significant challenges. However, this article questions the perceived and widely-accepted limits of the technique, and presents a tool kit of strategies for overcoming the challenges the technique presents.
The interaction of the flute with the Sampo device in the performance of mixed electro-acoustic music
This article discusses the flute’s interaction with the Sampo device in the performance of mixed electroacoustic repertoire with sound files or in real time in light of the experience of presenting a lecture recital at the international conference “Flute: Hands on Research 2017”. Three pieces were adapted for flute and Sampo for the performance. The intention was that each piece should define a different mode of interaction with electroacoustic resources, with the objective of demonstrating the variety of its characteristics. The device was created in 2014 by Alexander Mihalic (composer and member of Musinfo in Saint Étienne, France), in order to facilitate the interpretation of electro-acoustic repertoire without requiring a technical assistant. The article will also approach the processes of preparing, constructing and performing this repertoire, focusing on important aspects that include: the possibility of changing the parameters of the effects, stopping and starting the electronics with sound track and in real time, using the pedals (up to 7 pedals per device). The requirements of the sound production which arose throughout the preparation of the pieces and the interaction of an acoustic instrument with the Sampo device will also be discussed, in order to provide the performer with a greater involvement in the process of performing works which include electroacoustic elements.
Este artigo propõe uma reflexão sobre a dimensão ética da performance musical. Nesse sentido, a ética é tomada enquanto a prática de um conjunto de valores que constitui um ethos. Partindo dos postulados aristotélicos, serão pontuados os desdobramentos que o filósofo deu ao ethos retórico, que são objeto de reflexão aqui dentro do discurso musical. A ética é, portanto, o estudo e a ação de se constituir um ethos, mais do que uma ciência de se apontar o certo e o errado em sentidos absolutos. Essa superação faz com que a Ética seja entendida menos como uma moral e mais como uma relação de responsabilidades, dando espaço à proposição de níveis de responsabilidade, subsidiados pelo pensamento de Kierkegaard. Por fim, são propostos meios de se colocar em prática esses valores de maneira adequada aos pressupostos estabelecidos, residindo no conceito de gesto musical uma síntese desses particulares, aqui tomados pelo termo de origem grega frônese.
Approaching the Liminal in the Performance of Iannis Xenakis' Instrumental Solo Works
In contemporary music repertoire, the solo works of Greek composer Iannis Xenakis are known to be extremely demanding. In this paper, Theraps for solo double bass is examined, combining issues of performance practice with an aesthetical and theoretical approach. Using my personal study of this piece as a starting point, questions concerning its practice and performative experience are tackled: how can musicians practise, achieve high focus and stamina and deal with physical pain? How do perceptual phenomena encoded in the score inform the experience of performing this piece? As methodology, I am applying Turner ́s theory of liminality which offers a model to describe performance situations as acts of crossing a threshold. This is combined with perspectives from the medical, cultural and psychophysical aspects of instrumental performance, resulting in a complex view that can be expanded into further consequences for music practice and musicological research.
Musical Performances are (not) Artistic Research
Estudo de portamenti em gravações do início do século XX e sua aplicabilidade na obra de Nicolau Medina Ribas
Esta pesquisa centrou-se na interpretação de obras para violino de Nicolau Medina Ribas, violinista espanhol que viveu no Porto no século XIX, abordando os estilos interpretativos desse período. Não existem gravações de Nicolau Ribas ou dos seus alunos. Analisaram-se gravações de violinistas do início do século XX para avaliar aspectos específicos que poderiam ser aplicados ao trabalho de Ribas, em particular o uso de portamenti. O portamento, como recurso expressivo, foi um elemento-chave da técnica do violino desde meados do século XIX até as primeiras décadas do século XX. Esta pesquisa relacionou os diferentes tipos de portamenti, seu contexto e frequência em gravações do início do século XX, com o estilo implícito de Nicolau Ribas, registado nas partituras.
For her: An exploration of a piano recital to raise awareness of social issues
Building on the tradition of music being used as a political tool, for her is an interdisciplinary proposal using a piano recital as a tool to raise awareness about trafficking and sexual exploitation of children. The work presents three structural elements: piano performance, testimonies, and dolls scattered among the audience. In order to open additional channels of perception, the “defamiliarization” technique was explored through the visual element of placed dolls. Results from experimental performances raised questions about the unity of the work, strategies to enhance engagement and the performer figure. This work intends to encourage an investigation of the sensorial impact of the blending of varied elements within the performance space, whilst simultaneously inviting a social reflection through an artistic experience.
Som, Cor e Poesia em Movimento Performativo: Images II para piano de Claude Debussy
O presente artigo pretende estudar as questões performativas surgidas quando a autora interpreta a segunda série das Images para piano de C. Debussy. Tal como o próprio compositor explicita no título desta obra – Images, a composição está plena de cenários da natureza. Os sons foram criados como cores e pintam poeticamente “o toque de sinos através das folhas”, “o repouso da lua num templo remoto” e “a flutuação de peixedourado na água”. Estas descrições auditivas/visuais fornecem à autora um panorama recreativo e, ao mesmo tempo, levantam também problemáticas, nomeadamente como é que a mente de um pianista desempenha uma combinação entre a imagem descritiva, o som e o movimento performativo. Será esta combinação motivada pela sinestesia sensorial audiovisual e exteriorizada através do sentido táctil, de modo a formar movimentos e gestos para obter uma individualidade performativa? Tendo em conta a vertente poética, a autora entende que Debussy criou um encanto metafórico, associado a uma conceção filosófica muito próxima do Budismo oriental. Relativamente a este aspeto, na continuidade musical, verifica-se a expressão de “difuso melancólico” com o fim de invocar o sentimento de perda e tristeza, que é sublimado, posteriormente, pelo vazio e eternidade, através dos símbolos – lua e templo remoto; a expressão de “vivo” é indicada para um ciclo de renascimento, e mais uma vez, através da simbolização – peixe-dourado e água. De facto, esta compreensão poética e (ou) filosófica proporciona à autora uma consciência e um horizonte interpretativo da música, mas será este o fator principal para transformar sentimentos em ações performativas? Em caso afirmativo, como é que esta interage com as sensações auditivas e visuais? Portanto, todas estas questões são estudadas neste artigo com o objetivo de entender a importância do movimento e dos seus componentes técnicos e musicais em performance, criando, assim, uma forma interativa que articula entre a consciência intelectual, os elementos sensoriais e o mecanismo cinético.
Guitarra, gesto & movimiento: A partir de una revisión crítica de los métodos y tratados canónicos de la guitarra clásica de la segunda mitad del siglo XX, hacia la construcción de nuevos paradigmas
Los paradigmas tradicionales asociados con la performance de la guitarra clásica están relacionados con la influencia de los métodos y tratados canónicos del instrumento publicados desde finales del siglo XVIII, y principalmente aquellos de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Tal influencia ha contribuido a la consolidación de una sólida tradición instrumental; sin embargo, existen paradigmas dogmáticos con soportes argumentativos dudosos que se han establecidos de forma colateral y que son raramente cuestionados. En este artículo confrontaré algunos de estos paradigmas en aspectos relacionados con “cuerpo” y “gesto”, con modelos alternativos basados en una perspectiva holística derivada tanto de mi propia experiencia como guitarrista profesional y profesor universitario, como de la evidencia de campos de estudio transdisciplinarios.
Reflections on Creative Processes in Fredric Lieberman’s Ternary Systems
My research concerns the relationship between the performer and improvised music with the focus on indeterminate aspects of compositions and with a specific focus on flute performance. Within this field I explore forms of composition and notation that offer the performer a significant creative role: scores that are not fully notated, but that define a context (in different ways) in which the performer can act creatively and musically; this includes verbal, graphic and scores with other non-conventional notations. Within these categories, I have, for this project, concentrated on graphic scores of contrasting approach for exploration with the flute. Many of these scores reveal their interest, their creative potential and limitations, only through active practical exploration. The exploration of these scores has been process-oriented – rather than focusing on creating an explicitly prescribed product – which introduces a certain amount of indeterminacy regarding the results obtained. I have chosen to work with a broad range of scores in order to get different perspectives of the field. For this exploration, I have used Lieberman’s Ternary System (1965). How can I as a performer approach graphic scores without being limited to my instrument and creativity? Is there a way of following the creative process and perhaps making an impact on it? Using stimulated recall methodology I have found a way of documenting and unlocking the creative process. This may help the performer with the deciphering/interpretation of the score and increase the creativity by seeing possibilities and not limitations. I will demonstrate how the resistance between score, instrument and performer will impact on artistic choices.
Undisciplining music: Artistic research and historiographic activism
Disciplining Music, by Katherine Bergeron and Philip Bohlman, was an iconic book along the road towards rethinking the relations between what were then three apparently separate fields: historical musicology, ethnomusicology, and musical practice itself. Since that distant 1992, the upsurge in theoretical perspectives and research experiences in these and other fields has intensified so much that this very interaction has spawned new opportunities for reflection and action. This article focuses on the potential of the interaction between artistic reflection and alternative historiographic perspectives, one that will be applied to the canonic repertoire of Western classical music to show how the existence of a precise tradition can turn performance into a laboratory for experimentation for both musicians and scholars. Taking as a reference point the relation between activism and performance in the writings of Richard Schechner and Dwight Conquergood, and the idea of "declassification" as shaped by Antonio García Gutiérrez, I propose the concept of historiographic activism as a specific framework for possible applications in Artistic Research to tap music's potential to bring about individual and collective changes.
Afinación como elemento expresivo en la música de cámara: aplicación en el dúo de viola y guitarra clásica
La afinación es un tema complejo ya que la percepción auditiva es diferente para cada individuo. Concertistas y pedagogos de instrumentos de cuerda frotada parecen estar de acuerdo en que el uso de la afinación pura o pitagórica depende principalmente del contexto musical. La afinación en el dúo de viola (u otro instrumento de afinación variable) y guitarra clásica, al parecer, difiere de la que se usaría en el dúo de viola y piano o en el cuarteto de cuerdas. Con base en evidencia preliminar, se plantean al menos dos premisas que pueden ser aplicadas al tocar música tonal: 1. Afinar la guitarra en la tonalidad principal de la pieza y, 2. Construir la afinación de la parte de la viola de acuerdo al contexto armónico.