Wiki!

Instructions: Over the course of the semester, remember to add two terms to this wiki, and edit one. You are welcome to add more terms, if you like. Wiki entries don’t necessarily have to be technical terms. Rather, think about words or phrases that help us understand some of the important ideas we’ve explored together.

When you edit someone else’s entry, add your text below theirs, so we have a record of how our understanding has changed or deepened over time. Whether or adding or editing, remember to put your name after your text in square brackets, so I be sure to give you credit for your work.

 

Terms:

Tonality: A system of organization for music. From the Renaissance until the 20th century, European music employed a tonal system, in which individual pieces of music privileged one pitch, as the center around which all other pitches were organized. At the end of the 19th century, composers like Richard Wagner and Gustav Mahler pushed this system to its limits. At the turn of the 20th century, Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg undertook a formal break with the tonal system, which led him to develop his twelve-tone method of composition. After some free-form atonal experimentation, Schoenberg came to believe that such a method was necessary “to replace those structural differentiations provided formerly by tonal harmonies” (Schoenberg, Composition with Twelve Tones, 218) and thereby enable the composition of longer musical works. [Leah]

Timbre: The quality, or character, of a sound which is distinct from its pitch, dynamic or duration. For example, pedals can change the sound of a bass to encapsulate different sonic qualities than the bass itself could produce. For example, in Cult Ritual’s “Last Time,” the vocals are scratchy, breathy and strained, the guitar introduction is warm, rounded and resonant, the sample of the lawn mower is shrill and harsh. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHnUQ1iizlI

Historically in Western classical musical thought, the timbre of a sound has been secondary to its tonal components, duration, and position within the larger schema or even structure of a piece. [Vasiliki]

Timbre was one of the tools that Paul Simon manipulated in Graceland that caused greater acceptance and appropriation by white South Africans. For example, the penny whistle in “You Can Call Me Al” had its intonation corrected, as well as the shrillness corrected for the final edit. [edited by Willow]

Hegemony: A group, politik, ideology, or structure which holds dominance by means of subjugation. For example, Western tonality is a hegemonic force in art music because its musical language has globally subjugated other tonal systems (ex. microtonal music, non-notated improvised music) in institutional settings. [Vasiliki]

Gebrauchsmusik [German]: Music which serves some kind of utilitarian purpose. Gebrauchsmusik could include mass song at political rallies, compositions for dance performance, or marches for military parades. Rather than existing solely for its own sake, gebrauchsmusik has a clear social or artistic function. [Ray]

German composer Paul Hindemith is perhaps the most notable composer figure to explicitly categorize his works as gebrauchsmusik (Steinberg, The Concerto: A Listener’s Guide, 212) and compose new works explicitly for this purpose under this terminology. His piece Wir Bauen Eine Stadt (“We’re Building a City”), an opera he wrote for 8 year olds, has been modified throughout the past century for various functions. This electronic adaptation of the work by Holger Hiller and Thomas Fehlman is an illuminating example of how specific functions of original gebrauchsmusik can shift to others in precisely in the action of ‘using’ the utile work itself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLzm4IM6Nz8 [edited by Vasiliki]

Diegetic music: Music in a film that comes from a source on-screen, or just off-screen. It must be evident to the viewer that something or someone within the world of the film is creating the sound. Non-diegetic music could include a film score or soundtrack added during the editing process of the film. In the film The Blue Angel, Lola’s cabaret performances are examples of diegetic music. [Ray]

The Threepenny Opera opens with a performance of ‘Ballad of Mack the Knife’. Instrumental music begins off-screen, increasingly loudly, but as the camera follows a crowd of people around a corner, a street performer is performer is revealed and framed in the centre of the shot. As if to suggest that the audience – the camera and thus the viewer – has arrived, the performer begins singing. To some extent the performance is both diegetic and non-diegetic, insofar as the music serves as a soundtrack and narration, as well as a part of the street scene. [Edited by Will]

Authenticity in Performance Persona: The critical analysis of whether a musician’s stage presence is/isn’t a portrayal of their own “off-stage” identity/personality. David Bowie is an example of a musician lacking this form of authenticity, as he constructed a persona (Ziggy Stardust) specifically as his on-stage persona.  The Sex Pistols, on the other hand, often tried to behave in similar fashions (spitting, swearing etc.) on and off-stage, meaning they strove to have this form of authenticity. [Willow]

Questions of authenticity can also be applied to artists engaging with musical styles and traditions outside of their own national or ethnic backgrounds. Paul Simon’s Graceland, for example, utilized traditional South-African instruments but “cleaned them up” in the studio to gain a wider international appeal. Thus, one can question whether his mobilization of South African music constituted true representation, or was merely catering to Western audiences through the guise of “authentic” folk tradition. [Edited by Ray]

Sound document: A historical record or artefact that captures, describes or contributes to the memory of a sound. A sound document is a primary source insofar as it provides documentary evidence for an event. A sound document may be non-musical and can take the form of, amongst others, “audiotape, film, typed transcripts, handwritten posters, personal diaries” (Bohlman 237). [Will]

Decadence: A difficult word to define due to its historical applications and inherent subjectivity, decadence refers to a decline in condition; a condition that may be moral, ethnic, cultural, or even musical. An example of ‘decadent’ music that we have encountered in this class is atonal music. In the Soviet Union atonal composition was criticized as decadent because it was seen to lack utility or accessibility and deviated from the commonly accepted, or hegemonic, tonal system. Decadence may also have ethnic or racial implications: the Degenerate Art Exhibition in Nazi Germany included music that was considered un-German or impure. [Will]