Lauren Wilson, Matt Chiu, and Morgan Markel, Editors
Articles
Joseph R. Jakubowski | Embodied Form in Grisey’s Prologue: Variation, Opposition, Tension (1–23)
HTML & PDF —— AbstractThis article explores intersections of embodied cognition and form in Gérard Grisey’s Prologue pour alto seul (1976). Drawing on work in mimetic imagery, gestural cognition, and body-based conceptualization, I trace Prologue’s seemingly abstract processes of variation, opposition, and tension to the performer’s actions and an embodied listener’s responses to those actions. My analysis demonstrates how Prologue relies on the body as a medium and metaphor for its structuring, from Grisey’s bodily metaphors for its motives to listeners’ responses to its boisterous and noisy climactic section. By concentrating on performance and embodiment concerns, I aim in my analysis to bring out the implicit role of bodies and materials in spectral theory and discourse more broadly. In conclusion, I reconsider the commonly held notion that spectral music is “about” sound in light of the close associations of sound with movement and action identified by embodied cognition.
Robert Komaniecki | Vocal Pitch in Rap Flow (25-45)
HTML & PDF —— Abstract In this article, I argue that pitch plays an important role in the structure and delivery of rap flows. I demonstrate the ways in which rappers manipulate pitch to create a structural parameter that can operate independently from or in tandem with rhythm and rhyme. Furthermore, I argue that pitched vocals take a wider array of forms in rap music than in other genres of popular music, ranging from carefully-pitched singing of modern rap flows to the imprecise and exaggerated declamatory features of speech that distinguished rap from other genres during its formative years. I assert that all rap flows can be classified as using pitch in one of five different ways, with each technique carrying its own unique set of analytical implications.
Reviews
Jonathan Dunsby | Performing Knowledge: Twentieth-Century Music in Analysis and Performance, by Daphne Leong, Oxford University Press, 2019 (47-51)
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Liam Hynes-Tawa | Hearing Homophony: Tonal Expectation at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century, by Megan Kaes Long, Oxford University Press, 2020 (53-58)
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Lauri Suurpää | Graphic Music Analysis: An Introduction to Schenkerian Theory and Practice, by Eric Wen, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019 (59-66)
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