Blog 6

Urtext

I enjoy how Urtext is described as a ‘magic word’ of absolute authenticity. I admit that I had to look up definitions of words in this article in order to understand the meaning of Urtext better. Interesting that Ursprache is the hypothetical first language; strange that Microsoft Word does not recognize it (nor do they Urtext) as a word(s). I kind of enjoy the lackadaisical approach to freely altering notes and harmonies that music scholars tool prior to Urtext (20^th century). Rimsky-Korsakov’s honesty is rather humorous but respectable. After reading this article, I question the complete authenticity of musical scores/pieces. I often relate this to the Bible, perhaps there are passages that were edited/rewritten throughout the years that defy the thought that the manuscripts are completely ‘pure.’  

Early Music

It is with quite sadness that the term Early Music had to change from a specific period of music, to a broad history of music as we struggle to maintain the survival or repertory no matter what century it was written. Mendelssohn has a fascinating opinion on early revival-music, he “looked upon early music not as a body of historical artefacts to be painstakingly preserved in their original state but as a repository of living art that each generation could – indeed should – reinterpret in its own stylistic idiom.”My own opinion was that this music was anachronistic. I always assumed composers during these times were very strict and unrelenting about their own music especially. This is even more reason to look into Mendelssohn and his music some more, as I have had a peculiarity and curiosity of the composer despite the fact that he never wrote for the Trombone.  In fact, looking this up right now, Mendelssohn said "I will not write trombone parts." Although he did promise to write a Concerto for Trombone, but passed it over to Ferdinand David, as he did not have time to. I was intrigues to read about Arthyr Dolmetsch, as I was perviously unaware of the name. It is Dolmesch that we find out who began this whole authenticity approach to music. I feel that if I lived during this era, I would be interested in the Collegium Musicam, as it brings together both professional and amateur musicians in performance. Although my opinion is ever-changing on the whole sacrosanctity of early music and its revival, I am glad to learn that various countries have come together to try and make a revival post-war. And especially appealing are the specifics of revival: singing, playing, staging, gesture, costumes, sets, and choreography. The most relieving part of this article is the impact of music education and culture. I can only hope that Ithaca Conservatory adopts a stronger Early Music program/ensemble.
 

Spin Doctors of Early Music

I have to admit that I do have some prior knowledge and opinion on the subject of what exactly Early Music entails and whether jud­gement should be passed on not maintaining the original intent and purity. I remember reading extensively on Barenboim and his opinion on Early Music, as he takes a more modern, less-inviolable approach. It is true that almost no-one completely performs 20^th century musi­c as it would’ve been performed exactly. I think it can start to get a little out of hand, however, there are some rules and rigidness that encompass this music and need to be followed, or else it would fall out of genre/place.

Composer’s Intent? Get Over it 

I was happy but not too surprised that Barenboim and Boulez performed in Carnegie Hall with two distinctively stylistic (historical and modern) approaches. I wonder if any of the conductors made the musicians’ blood boil over their inner disagreement. It reminds me of when I would often hear a certain conductor say “Trombones, play that notes and eighth-note shorter, Tchaikovsky didn’t know what he was writing there.” I also am surprised that this article did not mention Glenn Gould and his approach to many classical repertory, Alan Gilbert is quoted instead. My opinion is that each conductor, musician, and critic is worthy of his or her opinion. Also, these composers are all dead so it’s not like they are going to disagree or take offense.

Blog 5

Autograph

 

An Autograph is simply a document that is written or signed by a particular person of interest. In music, this would be the composer. This distinguishes a copy from an original signed document. There may exist multiple autographed manuscripts. I found it interesting that Beethoven ‘s string quartet includes two autographs, the latter reflecting his revised work. The period preceding 1600, many autographed manuscripts (as opposed to copies) cannot be identified with complete assurance.  This creates, in my mind, some skepticism and wondering that perhaps some originals were tampered with. Tampered enough, that possibly when I am rehearsing a piece of music from that period and I do not agree wholly with something written stylistically or for whatever reason, my claims may be justified when I outright resort to blaming the composer for (what was originally thought to be) my poor playing.

 

Holograph

 

Holograph distinguishes itself from Autograph, in that it is unaware exactly who the composer or person of interest is. I first learned about Holographs from ‘Antiques Roadshow.’ In fact, I enjoy the relation and importance of musical compositions’ and their value being directly related to whether it was an original or copy.

 

Sources

 

Sources are the notes and information that are used in the circulation of music. At times, musical compositions (when transcribed or copied) can misinterpret what the composer wrote or intended. I see this myself, when editors and publishers leave out certain words (ritard.) or interpretations, or even adding some marks or terms that they deem acceptable. This is where sources can sometimes alleviate any confusion. This is why I feel that it ultimately should be up to the performer (the ultimate interpreter) of certain cuts, adjustments, articulations etc.  But this should also involve the performer researching the sources contained in the piece. This is one of the many reasons I feel privileged to use ILL, in that I am able to research different versions of the same piece.

 

Editions, Historical

 

Historical editions include both scholarly and critical editions of music publications. I was familiar with the term Anthologies, as many theory and history books that we covered during Undergraduate studies included these. I am happy to learn what Facsimile series are, as I would occasionally see this word in the past, but never remembered to look up its meaning. I am surprised actually that this word needs to exist; I guess there are a plethora of editions that are reproduced without editorial comments, and its importance is vast. It is interesting that only newer works were published during the 18^th century, leaving old ones to their own survival based on popularity and demand. Editorial criteria did not exist in the early period. Each editor followed his own judgment, which assumed that the source’s knowledge, criteria, and understanding would surpass and exceed that of the editors’. During the mid-19^th century, a second phase developed of historical editions in which completeness became the rule instead of exception. Therefore, modern editing became established, more than not in collected editions of single composers and their complete works. Some incomplete works also remain the standard reference editions of today. Collected editions also appeared during this period, although they were limited. Aside from these, music publications grew at the request of amateur musicians. I was happy to read that after 1950, there were revisions made to older complete work sets. The article lists many major composers’ works that this was done to, I am curios if it was also done to lesser-known composers also.

 

Urtext

 

Urtext is basically an original text. I was surprised to read that Urtexts were developed during the study of biblical and medieval texts, where autographs and even holographs didn’t exist.  Stemattics comes into play to help validate the surviving versions.  This does become difficult though; certain changes made by the composer during and after that composition may not be considered his final work. It is hard to distinguish when marks and changes were made exactly during the composition, therefore any editorial interventions become suspect at the claims of any modern Urtext edition.

 

Facsimile

 

As discussed before, a Facsimile is the name given to a genre of book publishing based on photo-mechanical printing techniques that attempts to recreate the appearance of an original handwritten manuscript or printed edition. This was the only definition I had trouble paraphrasing into my own definition, minus the short definition I listed above, therefore I give full credit to Steven Immel from Oxford University Press for this explanation of Facsimile. It was the first half of the 19^th century which produced the ability to make photo reproductions uncanny to original documents. This was done by transferring the negative of a photo to the plate, which also is treated with photo-sensitive material. This makes sense, perhaps it is done similarly to counterfeit paper money, I am not sure. These abilities became prevalent during the heights of romanticism and post-romanticism (some of my favorite periods of music). I was surprised to read that Handel’s Messiah was one of the original facsimile editions. Interesting, that we are still have not completely perfected this process, and I am excited to see what is yet to come technologically!

 

Shelf life of Urtext

 

This makes one wonder, some Urtext editions are considered revised, but do they have expiration dates? Apparently yes, since new sources can appear and the urtext edition can be altered. When autographed famous works that were possibly in private possession then come available, this can screw everything up. Therefore, reviews must be done of the existing edition. Though I imagine that only small changes are to be made then, however small changes can impact the style, and interpretation of the piece dramatically in my opinion. I do enjoy at the end of the article, Annette mentioned that based on the information, we musicians are in a position to decide for ourselves. Ahh..freedom of expression!

 

Brahms’s Hungarian Dances: New Finds…

 

It’s relieving to read that the urtext catalogue is regularly checked and revised as needed. As a result, specifically Brahms’ Hungarian Dance had a new discography. But get this, the information had been out there in the public for 100 years, it was just looked past for that long. Now there were considerations for why this could’ve gone unnoticed, but it leads me to wonder if there are other major works where this is information already out there that may change our views of certain compositions etc.

 

Brahms’s Hungarian Dances: Struck’s edit. Notes

 

This article delves into the specifics of Brahms’ middle section of the Allegro. Interestingly enough, Brahms wrote a letter to I guess one of his critics Wilhelm Tappert explaining clearly how the measures should be played. I find this fascinating that they were able to find a letter that answers the question many performers has in mind. I wonder how many other letters, revised works etc. are out there somewhere having the answers to questions we may have about a certain section or passage of music.

 

The Art of Making a Book

 

How Cool! I never actually learned how a book is made. Though at times, I wish the video had someone explaining every move they made, although the piano music in the background adds a nice relaxing touch. And this way I personally can understand the process a little easier, although there are some instruments they use that I am not familiar with. I am also a little intrigued by the hand-made process, I thought that this day and age that it must be made completely by a machine. I also was not aware that decoration was made with hot tools on the leather outside of the book.

 

Upside Down, Left to Right

 

At a first glance, as they were pulling out drawers, I thought I may have been watching a film about the Dewey Decimal System. Thank god it is not! The Letterpress is a 500 year old process. I was never aware how much this process is that of an Art. Unfortunately, this process has jumped on the Lithography bandwagon, although looking up its definition, Lithography seems pretty interesting too. The quality is astounding of the Letterpress. I really enjoyed the different colors added too.

   Ryan Kuehhas

        Bibliography and Research in Music

             October 4^th 2015

              Blog # 4

Do Open-Access Articles Have a Greater Research Impact?-Kristin Antelman

This article questions the negative and positive impacts regarding more open access to articles. Regarding research articles, I have come to agreement that the more available an article is, the greater the impact is.  Antelman delves into the specifics of studies, data collections, results and discussions. Personally, I would like to absorb this information, and discuss how it relates and impacts my ideas to music: more particularly music performance, and research. Nowadays, there is the ability to find an abundance of information online (Youtube, Naxos, recordings) etc. Just decades ago, the professional musician had to travel further, do more research, and engage more overall in their specified field. This hard work and research alone would give the musician a stronger advantage, developing them into a better musician overall, even if they were not so to begin with. Now, information is so accessible and easy, that the beginner, intermediate, and advanced musician can get better at a much quicker rate. But I think this can be a positive thing; it encourages competition, weeding out the less-strong/capable. For instance, the article suggests that “Free online papers are likely to reach more readers, and therefore attract more citations.” This, metaphorically speaking, is a good thing for music in my opinion. In a day and age, where our school’s genres seem to be dying off by the day, we have resources offered to encourage listening that can demonstrate the strength, likeability, and importance of classical, jazz etc. If I relate the wealth of information that is available for research this day (due to technology) to my specific topic, I would argue that this is also a great thing. Being that my topic, whistling, does not have a lot of books relating, I have the option of reading journals/articles online that will probably end up being the plethora of sources I use for my bibliography, whereas this may not have been as readily available just 10-20 years ago.

Predatory Publishers are Corrupting Open Access-Jeffrey Beall

Beall argues that email became a great innovator, but that spam did not-often taking time and concentration to filter out what is not needed/important. He then relates this to open access publishing. I can see the analogy he is trying to make, however, with even more technological abilities/increases, spam has become less intrusive and easier to sift through. I do however agree with his analysis that open access has caused predatory counterfeits. This is something that I am concerned about. While creating my bibliography, I hope that I am able to tell the difference between a legitimate source, and one that may be an illegitimate copy. Perhaps I will take a look at his blog, Scholarly Open Access, although I am not totally confident that there will be any information regarding my topic. I did enjoy learning that publishers need to resist submitting quickly and easily. This is something we discussed in class, and I would like to learn more about it.

Battling Bad Science-Ben Goldacre

Goldacre went to school to be a doctor and now is an Epidemiologist. He explains that as a scientist, we need to question what we know, whether something is good or bad for you. I thought it was funny when he mentioned that studies show that coffee, licorice, etc. being said to both cause cancer, and prevent cancer.  “We need proper science, proper evidence.” I thought this might have been the most important quote in his discussion. He talks about how trials studies are not perfect. For instance, if you drink olive oil you will have less wrinkles. However, he states that most likely if you devote your daily task to drinking olive oil, you’re probably generally committed to eating healthy in most other areas. What we know is that our beliefs and expectations can be manipulated, therefore control against a placebo is important. I felt that this article was important when scrutinizing articles that have scientific tests, trials, and studies. This can be of importance when writing our bibliography, by making sure not to take these studies as complete fact. I think though, that it may not have as much importance for my topic in particular, since Whistling will probably not delve into trials and studies as much. I do feel that for something like my Doctor Dissertation that I will be researching for post graduate school, this TED video may have more meaning.

Scientific Articles Accepted-Kolata

It is interesting to read how the scientists were all duped solely because there was a hyphen added in a phony email that they received. I think, as written, a ‘white list’ of those open-access journals to meet certain standards might not be a bad idea to help fix this problem. I think it is a little ridiculous that the professional submitting a journal though has to pay the fee for publishing. Sometimes these fees can amount to thousands of dollars. This to me is where the real scam is.

Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOAJ)

The organizations described in this article list principles of transparency and practice for scholarly publications. They do not share information about the applications themselves submitted.  I will definitely be keeping these principles handy for my bibliography. Some of the principles of transparency I think will help me locate whether a source or journal is legitimate right now are:

Peer Review Process

Editorial team/contact information

Copyright

Name of Journal

Retraction Watch

Some things that I enjoy about this website is it has a subscription to a blog. This separates itself from the rest of the websites we have been advised to use, as it gives more personal views and opinions of topics. It also includes Facebook, Twitter, and email. I like that it is more modern socially in terms of research and posts. I also noticed that they keep a database of recent posts, something that is important when trying to locate an article that you may have read recently, and can’t seem to find it again. Also, this website currently encompasses most of the other topics we have been studying in Bibliography: Plagiarism, Predatory Journals, Publishers etc. Overall, I am excited to have the ability to use a website that seems more fitting, and socially modern in terms of research, and communicating ideas and opinions.