Prof.Dr. Serban NICHIFOR
National University of Music Bucharest
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CHAMBER MUSIC GENRE
IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE
(speech)
– SYLLOGISM –
– Major Premise: the complexity of the genre;
– Premise – min.1: the prestigious baroque, classic, romantic, modern, and postmodern repertory;
– Premise – min.2: the accessibility of the genre – a.) in the public perspective; b.) in the economical perspective (relating to the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services);
– Premise – min.3: the open configuration of the genre – a.) relating to the ensemble structure; b.) relating to the interactive live-electronic music / live-computer music / Internet chamber music experiments (for example, the “SoundWIRE” research project – http://ccrma.stanford.edu/groups/soundwire/ );
– Premise – min.4: the application in the curriculum of the new analysis systems : the Schenkerian Analysis, the Phenomenology-based Analysis, and the Computer Analysis software projects – for example, “MaMuTh”
( http://flp.cs.tu-berlin.de/MaMuTh/ ) ,
and “Wavesurfer” (http://www.speech.kth.se/wavesurfer/ )
– see APPENDIX;
– Premise – min.5: the interferences with complementary musical genres (opera, symphonic, choral, vocal, jazz, pop, folk, rock, new age), with video productions (example: chamber music with real time visualizations – like fractal structures from the Mandelbrot Set), and with some experimental applications (therapy, genetic music , etc.).
CONCLUSIONS (“E Pluribus Unum” )
– C.1 – The application of a synchronized european curriculum in
the field of the chamber music course, leading to graduation and to the integration of the students in the so abundant musical activities – in connection with the intra- and extra-european experiences.
– C.2 – The importance of the contemporary musical styles (in
postmodernism – process, minimal, spectral, ambient, new consonant, new age, visual, fractal, genetic, psybient music, etc.) in the chamber music repertory of the students (ca 33%) – in connection with the traditional repertory (ca 66%), in a feedback process.
– C. 3 – The autonomy of the chamber music professor (his right of self-government, in connection with the Bologna documents) – particularly interested in developing an outstanding curriculum (that integrates musical instruction/ chamber coaching with creative presentation/ selected chamber performances) in order to produce distinguished and – in fact ! – innovative musicians for the future. The educational chamber music program integrates also master classes of some important artists.
– C.4 – In the evaluation of the musical performance the
purpose is “to examine the effects of rating scale instruction on self-evaluation accuracy among student musicians” (apud Nathan B. Kruse, “The Effect of Instruction on Sixth Grade Band Students’ Abilities to Self-Rate Etude Performance”,Michigan State University, School of Music, http://www.rider.edu/~vrme/v8n1/vision/VRME_Submission.Kruse.pdf. ). “Results indicated that rating scale instruction was more effective than no rating scale instruction in helping students improve self-rating accuracy (…) Rating scale instruction may not only benefit students’ self-evaluation accuracy, but may also be a practice strategy toward improving students’ independent musicianship.”
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APPENDIX: Example of Computer Analysis in the Chamber Music Course