scholarly journals Cycling in Tonal Space. Neo-Riemannian Theory in der dritten Dimension

Author(s):  
Jakob Rieke
Keyword(s):  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Luchang WANG ◽  
Marina KALASHNIKOVA ◽  
René KAGER ◽  
Regine LAI ◽  
Patrick C.M. WONG

Abstract The functions of acoustic-phonetic modifications in infant-directed speech (IDS) remain a question: do they specifically serve to facilitate language learning via enhanced phonemic contrasts (the hyperarticulation hypothesis) or primarily to improve communication via prosodic exaggeration (the prosodic hypothesis)? The study of lexical tones provides a unique opportunity to shed light on this, as lexical tones are phonemically contrastive, yet their primary cue, pitch, is also a prosodic cue. This study investigated Cantonese IDS and found increased intra-talker variation of lexical tones, which more likely posed a challenge to rather than facilitated phonetic learning. Although tonal space was expanded which could facilitate phonetic learning, its expansion was a function of overall intonational modifications. Similar findings were observed in speech to pets who should not benefit from larger phonemic distinction. We conclude that lexical-tone adjustments in IDS mainly serve to broadly enhance communication rather than specifically increase phonemic contrast for learners.


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Rojas

The present article advances the notion of musical topography to describe the engagement between a practitioner and the musical instrument, emphasizing its developmental character. From the point of view of semiotic anthropology, it is suggested that the development of such a practical engagement is guided by expressivity, and that the instrument appears not only as an extension of the body, but participates in the generation of a unitary field, where bodily motion, the instrument and the tonal space are intertwined. The development of lived musical practice draws its force from a situated tradition that consists of normative, structural and stylistic elements, and of a constellation of genres and values shaped and reshaped by generations of practitioners. Finally, it is emphasized that the notion of musical topography brings back to musical praxis its long neglected imaginative dimension.


2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cathryn Yang ◽  
James N. Stanford ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
Jinjing Jiang ◽  
Liufang Tang

Abstract Endangered tone languages are not often studied within quantitative variationist approaches, but such approaches can provide valuable insights for language description and documentation in the Tibeto-Burman area. This study examines tone variation within Yangliu Lalo (Central Ngwi), a minority language community in China that is currently shifting to Southwestern Mandarin. Yangliu Lalo’s Tone 4, the rising-falling High tone, is lowering and flattening among young people, especially females, who also tend to use Lalo less frequently. Tonal range in elicited speech is shown to be decreasing as use of Lalo decreases. Concurrently, the standard deviation of the pitch of individual tones also decreases, while at the same time speakers with a narrow tonal range also show greater articulatory precision for each tone. Tonal range and standard deviation of pitch are both parameters of tonal space, the arrangement of, and relationship between, tones within the tonal system. The results from our apparent-time study suggest that tonal space provides a new avenue of sociolinguistic inquiry for tone languages.


2003 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 526-555
Author(s):  
Michael R. Dodds

While accounts of modal change in Baroque music have often focused on progressive genres such as opera, more conservative repertories may also reveal important shifts in the conceptualization of tonal space. The presence of "new" elements in a conservative context can provide an index of how deeply new ways of thinking have penetrated. For this reason, the plainchant treatises of Matteo Coferati (1638- 1708), a singer and chaplain at Florence cathedral for nearly 45 years, merit special scrutiny. Coferati's unprecedentedly detailed instructions on the use of unwritten sharps in plainchant present new solutions to old problems while implicitly reflecting the influence of polyphony in general and the alternating organ in particular. The relationship between plainchant and polyphony thus emerges as a reciprocal one. Moreover, the distance between monophonic and polyphonic modal norms turns out to be less than one might conclude by examining notated chants without considering unwritten performance practices. That Coferati's teachings represent practice at the Florence duomo is supported by a contemporaneous manuscript choir book from the cathedral's archives, containing the very sharps he advocates. In addition, new archival findings revise Coferati's long-accepted birth and death dates and provide specific information about his service as a cappellano of Florence's cathedral.


Phonetica ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 70 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianjing Kuang
Keyword(s):  

2020 ◽  
pp. 270-320
Author(s):  
Kenneth M. Smith

Following the rise of Deleuze in chapter 6, the chapter passes through famous remarks by Deleuze concerning cybernetics and acceleration, focusing on the futuristic projects of Alexander Skryabin, who wanted to speed up time through his music and, in particular, through his harmony. While other works set the hexatonic and the octatonic in a diatonic flux, the first as an energy-discharging mechanism, the second as a storage capacity, Skryabin’s Sonata No. 10, Op. 70, recently explored by Vasilis Kallis (2015), is unique in juxtaposing hexatonic composition with the octatonically rotating model as clearly segregated areas. The chapter asks: To what extent can the flow between these cycles carry our tonal desire? To what extent does our diatonic engagement fluctuate between distinct sections? How do these different types of tonal “space” impact on our perception of “time”? How can drive analysis meaningfully integrate with Funktionstheorie?


2003 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Spitzer

Pitch space and Riemannian space offer divergent perspectives on tonal space in general. This article suggests that cognitive metaphor theory offers a means of understanding Riemannian space as a metaphorical mapping from pitch space; as an extension from a “deontic” to an “epistemic” musical category. My approach differs from other theorists of musical metaphor in considering mappings not between musical structure and extra-musical “real” space, but rather mappings between musical categories themselves. I illustrate this claim by reviewing recent writings both on pitch-space and Neo-Riemannian theory, and an analytical example by Chopin.


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