Journal articles on the topic 'Chinese vocalist'

Background. The article is devoted to the scientific-methodical analysis of the phenomenon of a folk songs assimilation into the multicultural vocal tradition. A folk song is presented in the aspect of national self-consciousness and plurality of modern performing traditions in the conditions of multi-stylistic cultural attitude. The relevance of the topic is the theoretical comprehension of the role of a folk song and singing in multicultural context. The purpose of the research is a comprehension of the phenomenon of the folk songs assimilation in multicultural vocal traditions under the new wave of interest in national dimension of “West – East” and necessity of quality vocal education of rising Chinese students-vocalists. The article based on the studies of materials of curriculums, methodical elaborations and manuals developed in the department of solo singing at Kharkiv National I. P. Kotlyarevsky University of Arts. Research results. Modern multicultural performing traditions in conditions of expanding geography of creative experience exchange needs in new philosophical and scientific-methodical comprehension. Based on variety international cultural programs there are traineeship groups, exchange of students and teachers, presentations of common creative projects. The modern cultural background of Ukraine is enriched with unique concerts of Chinese students performing not only classical repertoire, but Chinese folk songs as well. Methodical comprehension of stylistic layers and ways of formation of multicultural traditions occurs according to the methods of comparison of general intonations in folk songs. Vocal methodic of sound extractions is founded on general grounds, regardless of national specificity, however, the comparison and plurality make the process of performing reproduction of vocal styles more accessible for comprehension by students. The issues of national certainty and vocal-technical skills, interpretative experience in the concert forms and singing genres are considered in the research. The innovative aspect of the topic disclosure is the involvement of Chinese folk songs and pieces by Chinese composers in interaction with pieces by Italian and Ukrainian composers in the repertory of the learning vocalists. The practical task is to reveal the multi-national potential of musical mindset of contemporary singers in the context of the steady tendency to the mental-stylistic plurality in the art of the 21st century. It is proved that the vocal-technical learning of general world experience occurs through the recognition of the plurality of stylistic features of folk songs. The folk song is the “cornerstone” of the performing tradition, the basis of the vocal repertoire of any national school. It is included in a composition of compulsory pieces for participation in national and international vocal competitions. Thanks to the folk song what is the carrier of the ancient information and performing features included by previous singer generations, a deep connection of the artist with folk-song traditions occurs. The category “folk singing” is a coherent entity that contains the minimum set of information what includes distinctive harmonic figures, instrumentation, texture, acoustic features of rendition. The traditional Chinese song, based on pentatonic scale, becomes an illustration of the national “general intonation”. "Sense" of an entire tone for the formation of the purity of vocal intonation assumes an exclusive meaning. The success in acquisition of pentatonic melodies is provided due to similarity of intonation sets what are typical for musical cultures of different nations over the world. The folk song in the repertoire of the learning vocalist is a reflection of the multicultural traditions in the conditions of the domination of academic vocal culture. The study of the melodics of the song and its harmony and form peculiarities contributes to the adaptation of the singer’s mindset to the alternative mental principles of vocal art and to the universalism of mindset in the forming of professional academic performing. The Chinese folk song, the Ukrainian duma, East mugham singing and other similar reflect the spiritual world of folk reproducing historical antiquity. Therefore, the folk song as an integral part of the modern repertoire in vast enriches the intonation, spiritually-aesthetic and cultural fund of a vocalist. The conclusions summarize the complexity of the problem, the components of which are the adapting of mindset to the alternative mental bases of vocal art and rising of universalism in conditions of multi-stylistic plurality. The bases of formation of multicultural traditions are generalized: the comparison of stylistic layers; exploring the general world experience through the national certainty (basic vocal repertoire as a synthesis of stylistic plurality); vocal-technical equipment, the comparison of melodic, harmonic and tempo-rhythmic principles of differrent folk songs; rendition of the folk song in the original language. All of these bases reveal the content of the movement to the formation of multicultural performing traditions in order to advance of the professional academic background.

Background. One of the main positions of the vocalist’s practice is to understand the recitation as a kind of interpretation of the musical text, which is fixed in the notes. In the process of performing a piece of music, be it the song, the romance, the recitative, the aria in an opera or a musical drama, one specific variant is selected each time from its many potential meanings. This is the performer’s interpretation of the declamatory intonation, because the composer usually does not indicate the tone, timbre and strength of the voice, minimally orienting a singer in the desired intonation, in the duration and location of pauses for breath and in another wide arsenal of methods of declamatory expression. The aim of this research is to study the interpretive properties of recitation in the sphere of vocal music. Discovering the nature of the interpretive properties of declamatory intonation, based on the simultaneous and consistent sound of speech and music, will help to overcome the performance difficulties in the vocalist’s work on mastering the artistic technique of this area of expression. The main results. The specificity of the combination of words and music in the structure of melodic declamation, its origins in various national cultures, both European and Chinese, the peculiarities of being in different genre conditions (musical drama, opera recitative) are considered, certain difficulties and tasks for the singer-reciter are outlined. In European art, the tradition of melodic recitation has its roots in ancient mysteries. The beginning of European secular melodic recitation was marked at the end of the 16th century, but it was developing in the works of musicians known as the “Florentine Camerata” (Vincenzo Galilei, Giulio Cacchini, Jacopo Peri, Ottavio Rinuccini, etc.), becoming one of the origins of opera. A distinctive feature of melody recitation at that time was the desire for solo recitative singing. Later, as an expressive mean, recitation was existing within the opera genre, and from the middle of the 18 century in Europe, this technique was contributing to the formation of an independent concert genre – chamber and vocal works with ballad texts, which found their place in the works of romantic composers (F. Schubert, R. Schumann, etc.). Note, that in the process of historical development, the genre of melodic declamation, on the one hand, modifies in the form of a recitative in European opera, on the other – remains independent within the musical-stage drama, still popular in various national cultures. The Chinese Suzhou musical drama, which is indicative of our study, originated more than 200 years ago, beginning with folk melodies, including xiaochang (“little songs’), tales, dance movements, gestures (khuaguden dances – “with flowers, drums and lanterns’) etc., and gradually spread at the area near the city Suzhou in the lower Yellow River. It later spread to Anhui Province, the Northern parts of Jiangsu Province, and the Southern parts of Shandong Province. The creative achievements of this art, local at the beginning, later assimilated in the national Beijing Opera. But from its origins, this kind of musical and stage action is inextricably linked with the life of the Chinese people, is based on unpretentious plots, so it remains popular to this day, capable of significant emotional impact on the recipient – the audience and listener. Note, that the genre varieties of musical drama developed from the 16–17 centuries both, in China and in the different cultures of the European, American, and Asian continents, where they exist and today. This stability of the genre is not least due to the fact that in the structure of musical drama is an artistic synthesis of several types of art: the word interacts with music, live stage action. The melodic reciter in this context faces certain difficulties. So, one of the basic means of musical expression for the singer is diction, clear pronunciation of a word, which, in close connection with the melody, is subject to the task of transmitting the artistic content of the work – from composer to listener. It is impossible to convey the musical idea of the composition, to create a certain emotional mood, to embody one’s interpretation of the poetic image of the performed music without a clear proclamation of language inversions, which contain the significance of the immanent artistic content. This requirement does not apply to technical musical constructions used for singing, for “warming up” the singer’s vocal apparatus, nor does it apply to vocals performed without words. Every artist, including a vocalist who uses a verbal word, must understand its importance in creating a unique artistic image, consciously use diction as an articulatory technique of revealing the musical text content in the poetic context of chamber, opera, or musical-dramatic genres. Conclusions. So, verbal-musical factors of declamatory intonation have the immanent possibility of various interpretations in the process of vocal performance. Recitation is based on the expressiveness of the word, perceived by the listener or theatrical spectator on several levels: 1) auditory – we hear the intonation richness of shades of musical speech; 2) mental – we understand the logical meaning of texts; 3) psycho-emotional – with the help of imagination, fantasy, we sympathize with the moods, emotions of the heroes of the work of art. At the same time, the basis of interpretation in the art of singing is the voice as a physical phenomenon: it is not only a material carrier of speech sounds, but also the main tool for expressing musical meanings: the variety of voice sound modulations is inexhaustible. Therefore, the role of breathing in the process of clear proclamation of the word, diction in the process of vocal intonation is difficult to overestimate. It is necessary to emphasize the presence of constant transitions in the part of the performer-reciter from linguistic constructions to recitative and pure vocal. Mastering the techniques of correlation of singing and recitation is relevant for any vocalist, which caused an in-details study of this problem.

Background. The mindset of people who inhabit one or the other country determines the process of formation and fixation of intonational vocabulary, which reflects and in the music culture, including songs. In such a case, phonetic and syntax particular qualities of verbal language intersect with national musical language. The proof of that is a vocal art, whose essential parameters (from intonational scale to the aspects of voice staging) present originality of national worldview. However, in recent decades, the preservation of the uniqueness of the artistic expression of peoples and ethnic groups is under threat. Culture integration increasingly unifies musical thinking of representatives of different countries. The striking instance of this is an art of modern China. Here, vocalists work either based on national traditions of singing, or developing the achievements of leading European schools. Moreover, choice, made once, determines a singer’s creative fate – his technique and repertoire. As a result, there is a gradual transformation of the entire system of musical culture in China, a rethinking of the basic intonation complexes, including those that embody the national image of the world. These facts define the purpose of given research – uncovering specificity of Motherland image presentation in modern China vocalists’ interpretation. The methodology of the research is determined by its objective, it is integrative and based on a combination of general scientific approaches and musicological methods. The leading research methods are historical, genre-stylistic and interpretative analyzes. Results. Themes related to Motherland image are an integral part of China musical art. In folk art, these are songs that sing about China, about people living in this country, about love for the Motherland. Authors often recourse to allegories using synonymic emblematic row: dragon, red color, Yin and Yan signs, Beijing opera. These kinds of songs are gradually beginning to be accepted as the symbol of the country, where they were created. Exactly this way happened with one of the most famous in the world Chinese folksong «Jasmine Flower», which words for the first time were written down in the time of Ming dynasty. The version of «Jasmine Flower», which nowadays is the most times performed, is credited with composer He Fang. He Fang made some changes both in lyrics and in verbal text of the folksong. One of the greatest interpreters of «Jasmine Flower» is Song Zuying singing in the folk manner. It is revealing that song «Jasmine Flower» at her concert sounds exactly like a symbol of China, what characterize a lot of performing interpretation aspects. The song is construed by the singer not as a lyrical utterance, but as an “aria di sortita”. One more variant of Song Zuying’s «Jasmine Flower» interpretation was performed to the public together with Celine Dion at the «Spring Festival» in China (2013). According to the director design, the singers performing one song together appear as the embodiment of the images of their peoples that is reflected in the visual row. On deeper layers of understanding, this performance shows musical thinking specificity of representatives of different cultures. Consequently, ancient Chinese song «Jasmine Flower» appears in modern art as open text, which transformation process, obviously, will continue. One more composition, which became the symbol of China, is the song «Me and my Motherland» composed in 1985 by Qin Youngcheng (on Zhang Li lyrics). In our thinking, the song «Me and my Motherland» is illustrative of intonational transformation of music characterizing the Motherland image in the China art. Written in the last third of the twentieth century, the song is a vivid example of the refraction of European musical traditions, there is continuity with ideologically biased, but artistically distinctive and highly professional the Soviet pop. In this song, a person appears as a part of more important wholeness: nature, nation, a family. It is felt also in Liao Changyong’s performing version. His interpretation is characterized by happy combination of Chinese and West European traditions; bel canto singing and musical texture of song smooth out those Chinese language phonetic properties that usually demonstrate national arts specificity. Conclusions. Songs, presenting the image of China, are an integral part in Chinese vocalists’ work. These compositions inspired by love for their native land withstood the test of time, spread in sing repertoire and reflect that huge way that Chinese vocal school has passed over the past hundred years. Today, both the national tradition and the stylistics borrowed from a number of European countries organically coexist there. The demand for such compositions in concert world space testifies to the action of a centripetal force aimed at preserving national identity in conditions of cultural globalization.

AbstractInfants develop language-specific biases favoring either consonantal or vocalic information. These phonological biases affect various levels of spoken-language recognition in children and adults. This study explored whether adults who speak a second language (L2) apply phonological biases during L2 lexical processing, and whether the biases applied are those of the native language (L1), or those appropriate for the L2. Two word reconstruction experiments were carried out in English and Mandarin Chinese. L1 and L2 speakers of English demonstrated a consonantal bias by changing English vowels faster than consonants. L1 and L2 speakers of Mandarin demonstrated a vocalic bias by changing Mandarin consonants faster than vowels. Even relatively late L2 classroom learners whose L1 triggers a consonantal bias (English) exhibited a vocalic bias in their L2 (Mandarin). Lexically related processing biases are thus determined by the phonological and lexical characteristics of the stimuli being processed and not solely by listeners’ L1.

The modern Chinese folk opera “The Yimenshan Mountains” is the genre of historical revolutionary drama. The Yimenshan revolutionary bridgehead is the setting (1). Dramatic events unfold against the background of the War of Resistance against the Japanese invaders, the breakthrough of Daqingshan, a defensive battle on the cliff of Yuanzi. The story of the unity of the opera characters, Hai Tan, Lin Shen, Xia He, Commander Zhao, in the face of a national threat is at the center of the plot. The spirit of self-sacrifice, the spirit of unity of the army and the people of Yimenshan is revealed in the opera. Outstanding screenwriters, directors, and composers from all over the country were invited to work on the opera, the leading roles were played by famous Chinese vocalists. As part of the tour, more than 100 performances took place. The drama received wide public attention and was noted as "a new direction in the development of folk opera".

The article reveals the features of vocal traditions development in China and Ukraine in the historical context. The stages of vocal traditions development in China and Ukraine are outlined. The essential characteristics of vocal traditions at each stage of development in the studied countries are defined. The comparative analysis of both vocal traditions enabled defining the main differences and the common features in the development of the studied phenomenon. The differences lie in the fact that Ukrainian vocal tradition has been constantly improving, while Chinese – has experienced periods of decline; in China the basis of vocal training is philosophical, while in Ukraine – spiritual. The common features include implementation of foreign experience in the content of vocal education and training of vocalists in various fields – academic and folk, as well as the spread of pop singing.

This paper studies phonological variations within a Cantonese dialect preserved in Éléments de Langue Chinoise Dialecte Cantonais (1900), a textbook of Cantonese written by the French navy officer Commandant Lagarrue. The Cantonese pronunciations recorded in this book were transcribed using Romanized Vietnamese (Quôc Ngu), rather than Chinese characters. When transliterated back into the Chinese script, the same characters are found to correspond frequently to a variety of slightly different spellings exhibiting certain regular phonological correspondences. These variant recordings turn out to reflect either free vocalic alternation, variation induced by contact between Vietnamese and the Yue dialects spoken in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, or differentiation of tones determined by lexical meaning differences. The observed phenomena, in sum, present us with a precious record of the Cantonese dialect spoken at the Sino-Vietnamese border in the late 19th century.

The research aimed to describe the phonological system of the Pontianak Teochew dialect spoken by the Chinese community in West Kalimantan, including vocals, consonants, and tones, using descriptive method. The phonological escription in question included both phonetic and phonemic descriptions with the subject of language that objectively and accurately describes the current aspects of Teochew’s phonology. The phonetic system of the Pontianak Teochew language would be articulately identified based on the way sounds are formed by human speech tools, namely through consonants, vocals and diphthong. The research data were obtained from three Pontianak Teochew informants who used the Teochew dialect as their daily conversation language. The informants were around 70-75 years old. Based on the research results, there are 18 consonant phonemes, 88 vocal phonemes, and eight tones. The research results show that the Pontianak Teochew dialect has its own characteristics that distinguish it from the other regional Teochew dialects.

This research is based on a theory in Historical Comparative Linguistics. This theory is also called a diachronic theory, which involves the analysis of the form and regularity of changes in common languages such as those accompanied by sound changes. The objects of the research are Teochew (TC), Hakka (HK), and Cantonese (CO) dialects used in Medan city. These three dialects are categorized into the Sino-Tibetan family. Sino-Tibetan (ST) as one of the largest language families in the world, with more first-language speakers than even Indo-Europeans, is having more than 1.1 billion speakers of Sinitic (the Chinese dialects) constitute the world's largest speech community. According to STEDT (Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus), Chinese is considered as a Sino-Tibetan language family. The research method used is the qualitative method. The data collection method and technique used to refer to the conversation method with the techniques of recording and writing. The data were analyzed using the qualitative method of glottochronology. The result of the research shows that TC, HK, and CO were related in terms of sound correspondences and were separated thousands of years ago. TC and HK were related and both corresponded identically one similar vowel, one similar consonant, and one different phoneme, and one similar syllable. TC and CO were related and both corresponded to one similar vowel, one similar vocalic cluster, one similar consonant, and one different phoneme, and one similar syllable. HK and CO were related and both corresponded identically, one similar vowel, one similar consonant, one different phoneme, one different vocalic cluster, and one similar syllable. From all the findings and discussion in this research, the writer has concluded that HK and CO are the closest dialects among the three compared dialects.

In recent cross-cultural studies of pragmatics, we have witnessed a rise in interest in the comparative study of phenomena beyond the level of single and decontextualised utterances encompassing those on the level of speech events such as casual conversations. The underlying premise for such studies is that different cultural groups may have different rules for participation in and interpretation of conversation X that conflicts related to these rules are a major source of cross-cultural miscommunication. This study examines the use of listener responses by Chinese speakers in Chinese Mandarin conversations and by Australians in Australian English conversations. Following X prior framework by Clancy et al. (1996), the study examines similarities and differences in the use of listener responses by these two groups of people in terms of frequency of use, types of listener responses, and the positions of listener responses with respect to transition relevance place. Results show that Australian and Chinese speakers do exhibit quite different conversational styles as evidenced in their use of listener responses. Specifically, while Australians use more listener responses, use a higher percentage of lexical expressions as their listener responses and tend to place their listener responses at a possible completion point, Chinese speakers use fewer listener responses, favour the use of paralinguistic vocalic forms as their listener responses and tend to place their listener responses during a turn. These findings may suggest a culture specific way of turn taking and of what it means to be polite in conversational behaviour.

Background. The article is devoted to the study of the scientific works of Sang Tong in the field of the national theory of harmony. His studies has a leading role in the development theoretical thought in the area of Chinese musicology and composition. Sang Tong’s contribution to national music education is determined by clarity of presentation of his teaching materials supported by numerous examples that is motivation for students to comprehend the science of composition. Being an outstanding composer, Sang Tong talentedly integrated the dissonant and pentatonic writing, emphasizing in his writings the national specifics due to atonal organization of music. The works of Sang Tong sounds abroad, they are performed on a concert stage, occupies a worthy place in the educational process of students of conservatories from different countries. In this connection, seems to be relevant the purpose of this article is to identify the main provisions of the theoretical works of the outstanding Chinese composer in the field of the national science of harmony and their role in the development of Chinese musical art in the second half of the 20th century. The mastering of this information is extremely necessary for the performers of San Tong music, as well as for teachers who are studying this musical repertoire in a class with students. Finally, the information presented will provide an opportunity to comprehend the artistic value of the musical heritage of Sang Tong, as well as allow attract more wide circles of professional musicians and audiences to his works. The results of the study. The first theoretical work of Sang Tong was the article “Theory of chord application and their subordination” (1957), where the musician analyzes the views of various authors on the problem of harmonization in composer’s work, systematizes them, giving a personal assessment. He gives many examples of the use of one or another composition tool. The composer considers methods of textural complexity in the study “Parallels to historical evolution and its application in Chinese and foreign musical works combined with pentatonic melody” (1963). In searching for his own composer’s writing, Sang Tong wanted to find the perfect textural balance: on the one hand, not reaching the difficult to perceive linear polyphony, on the other – not simplifying the texture into primitive forms of contrasting polyphony (as a variation of heterophony). The research experience of the 1960s and the 70s Sang Tong summarized in the monograph “Discussion on the horizontal and acoustic structure of pentatonic” (1980), which became a quality-teaching tool in the field of secondary music education. University vocalists also study at lectures on harmony, which helps them to expand the horizons of knowledge about national music. In 1982, Sang Tong published the first comprehensive study of contemporary music in China entitled “Introduction to harmonic processing techniques” in the journal Musical Art. Since 1994, Sang Tong planned to write a fundamental work that sums up his research – the ontology of Chinese music, but from year to year, because of illness, postponed it. Finally, in 2004, the Shanghai Music Publishing House published a series of Sang Tong articles in the form of a monograph “The Historical Evolution of Semitones”. This work is a fundamental study of the history of the development of harmony in China, which provides answers to the questions of the evolution of Chinese semantics and, related to it, the theory of the acoustics of Chinese instruments. Thinking about the quality of secondary music education, Sang Tong decided to prepare a textbook for an initial five-year program of study. In 2001, he published the Harmony Course, submitting it to the state commission for consideration as a school textbook. The San Tong’s Course of Harmony has become a basic national textbook in China. To date, the level of this theoretical work is considered unsurpassed and attributed to masterpieces in the field of music education. It is distinguished by a solid theoretical foundation that allows the students to find any answers to questions concerning the principles of voce-leading, transport, rules of resolution of various intervals. Conclusions. The composer and theorist Sang Tong entered the history of Chinese music of the twentieth century as the founder in the field of the modern national theory of harmony. For more than fifty years of academic research, Sang Tong has made an outstanding contribution to the development of theory of harmony in China, was creating a number of musicological studies of harmony that demonstrate the highest theoretical level. He laid a solid foundation for the future development of the national school of harmony theory, bringing the younger generation of Chinese composers to a high professional level.

Formulation of the problem. An analysis of the genre-dramaturgical patterns in a poorly studied composition by the Chinese composer Zhao Jiping (2011) has been proposed. The relevance of the topic and the novelty of the received results of the genre-semantic analysis of the chosen vocal cycle are concluded in the search for the definition dictated by the artistic concept of its author – a cantata-type vocal poem (a small choir is introduced into the score). Among its criteria there are reliance on the orchestral accompaniment, the timbre variation of each song of the cycle, the poetry dictated by the presence of the image of the Poet, the symbolization of the poetic and intonation language, the cultural chronotope uniting the Time of History and its inclusion into the culture of the 21st century. The purpose of the article is to perform a genre-semantic analysis of “The Eight Songs” for Zhao Jiping’s voice and orchestra and to identify the main sound-image concepts of “the Chinese world view” that make up the drama of the vocal cycle. Analysis of the recent publications on the topic. In the second half of the 20th century, a new compositional approach to organizing vocal songs into a whole, poemness, appeared. In the articles by A. Belonenko (about “Petersburg” by G. Sviridov) and T. Zharkikh (about “Poemes pour Mi” by O. Messiaen), the research emphasis is placed on other problems of the organization of the vocal whole. For the first time, in the conditions of the poly-timbre vocal and orchestral synthesis and the national picture of the world poemness becomes the subject of a special interest of the singer-researcher. Research methods: the structural-functional analysis concerns the components of the composer’s text (the vocal melody and textural and timbre thematism of the orchestral part); the semantic one – reveals the symbolism of poetic texts; the genre analysis – aims to identify the individual interpretation of typical models of vocal music. The presentation of the main material. The poem principle became the embodiment of the author’s desire to unite several vocal miniatures into a single musical universe based on the common concept – the image of the Poet. The philosophical and religious feelings and thoughts contained in the texts chosen by the composer reflect not only his worldview, but also the national mentality and psychology of the world view of the “Chinese world view” (the chronotope of History). This rare quality of poetry – to unite the personality (I) and society (We) into a single “national image of the world” – is the essence of the symbolism of the ancient Chinese poetry of the Tang era. The desire to individualize the timbre composition in each of the parts of the cycle is a characteristic feature of many vocal and instrumental compositions of the 20th century. However, in Zhao Jiping’s work, the search for diversity acts simultaneously with the desire to preserve the timbre constants. As such, with this composer this role is represented by a string and bow group, as the carrier of the song beginning, which performs the function of the instrumental “nimbus” (more rarely, of the dialogue-counterpoint) in relation to the singer. In contrast to Western composers, Zhao Jiping does not seek to use “pure” timbres: vocals and xiao can be duplicated with the wind and plucked strings. The composer does not look for contrasting timbres in search of the associative community: on the contrary, he creates single-timbre groups (pipa + guzheng + harp, triangle + bells + cymbals) to vary the shades of the poetic text. Their “consonance” is close to assonance in poetry (from assono – “I sound in tune”), which in the musical context creates the timbre assonance. The symphonic instruments are combined in timbre groups (string, wind), and the ethnic often perform an individualized function (for example, guzheng with its irregular glissando in No. 2–4 gives a national flavour). The orchestral density, along with the gradual “academic turning” of timbres, increases from the second half of the sound of the cycle (No. 5) to the final. Xiao is replaced by the wind and brass (with No. 5), while the ethnic plucked is replaced by the harp. The gradual increase in the timbre multidimensionality of the texture also has the “opposite effect”, since it is combined with the enhancement of the timbre contrast in the final parts of the cycle and as a result of the “aggravation” of the chamberness. The most chamber part is number 6, where the brass is for the first time silenced, and only the pipa and guzheng are heard. The culmination of the “chamberness” is in the first stanza of the final: a duet of the voice and harp. Conclusion. The vocal-instrumental synthesis in the poem genre, identified in Zhao Jiping’s “The Eight Songs”, is characterized by the organic interaction of the national and European principles of musical thinking. The performers are faced with complex technical and psychological tasks that require a developed orchestral-timbre hearing, intellectualism and associative thinking. A vocal-instrumental poem is a way of modelling spiritual reality, in which the unity of time and space is manifested due to the poetic text, in which the integral sense-image of the Poet acts, personifying the sound-like concepts of the culture of its time and the history of an entire people (“national view of the world”), their “inclusion” into the musical chronotope of the 21st century.

Summary The present paper seeks to discuss and clarify the notions of ‘Grades’ and ‘Calls’ of traditional Chinese rime tables, which are commonly related to the presence or absence of glides, and continue to be taken as a basis for reconstructing vocalic and semi-vocalic portions of the post-initial elements in medieval and pre-medieval Chinese syllables. It is argued that, based on the discussions of Grades/Calls by Chinese scholars of the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, they were probably conceived as degrees of stricture of the phonatory apparatus, with progressive narrowing of the articulatory aperture, from wide and open to narrow and close. It is concluded that the linguistic perspective underpinning the classification of “sounds” in the linguistic tradition of China appears to be remarkably close to concepts long held in other linguistic traditions.

From 2006 to 2013, the increasing use of social media in China has provided a stage for citizens to report news and to vocalize viewpoints. News information circulated on social media at times contradicted the highly curated official news sources. In this study, we conducted two online surveys to explore 1) the level of trust that Chinese Internet users place on news from social media versus official media; and, 2) whether and how Chinese Internet users verify news from citizen sources. We found that news from official and citizen sources attracted different audience groups, who relied on different features to assess news trustworthiness. News verification was common and some users shared their findings through social media. We discuss the implications situated in a broader context of an authoritarian society.

Resumen: Este trabajo pretende mostrar la influencia fonológica de los dialectos chinos en el aprendizaje de español tomando el shanghainés como ejemplo. Se hace una comparación entre el inventario consonántico y vocálico, así como la entonación del dialecto shanghainés y del chino mandarín para encontrar las características fonológicas propias del primero que ayudan en el aprendizaje del español. La investigación revela que se facilita la pronunciación de las consonantes oclusivas sonoras y la entonación menos marcada para los hablantes del shanghainés gracias a su dialecto pero no les resultan fáciles los grupos consonánticos ni la vibrante. El gran número de consonantes nasales en el chino mandarín dificulta la distinción entre las sílabas que contienen los sonidos nasales y aquellas sin ellos. Por último, se propone el trabajo colaborativo entre el profesorado nativo y no nativo para emprender una enseñanza fonética correcta y eficaz. Palabras clave: estudio contrastivo, pronunciación de español, dialecto de China, shanghainés Abstract: This paper aims to show the phonological influence of Chinese dialects in Spanish learning Spanish taking Shanghainese as an example. A comparison between the consonantal and vocalic inventory, as well as the intonation of the Shanghai dialect (Shanghainese) and Mandarin Chinese are made to find the phonological characteristics of the Shanghai dialect that contribute to the learning of Spanish. The research reveals that the Shanghai dialect facilitate the learning of the pronunciation of occlusive voiced consonants and the intonation in Spanish, however, like other Mandarin Chinese speakers, the Shanghainese speakers also find it difficult to pronounce the consonant groups and the alveolar trill. The large number of nasal consonants in Mandarin Chinese makes it hard to distinguish between the syllables that contain the nasal sounds and those without them. Finally, the collaborative work between native and non-native teachers is proposed to undertake a correct and effective phonetic teaching. Keywords: contrastive study, Spanish pronunciation, Chinese dialect, Shanghainese

Resumen: Este trabajo pretende mostrar la influencia fonológica de los dialectos chinos en el aprendizaje de español tomando el shanghainés como ejemplo. Se hace una comparación entre el inventario consonántico y vocálico, así como la entonación del dialecto shanghainés y del chino mandarín para encontrar las características fonológicas propias del primero que ayudan en el aprendizaje del español. La investigación revela que se facilita la pronunciación de las consonantes oclusivas sonoras y la entonación menos marcada para los hablantes del shanghainés gracias a su dialecto pero no les resultan fáciles los grupos consonánticos ni la vibrante. El gran número de consonantes nasales en el chino mandarín dificulta la distinción entre las sílabas que contienen los sonidos nasales y aquellas sin ellos. Por último, se propone el trabajo colaborativo entre el profesorado nativo y no nativo para emprender una enseñanza fonética correcta y eficaz. Palabras clave: estudio contrastivo, pronunciación de español, dialecto de China, shanghainés Abstract: This paper aims to show the phonological influence of Chinese dialects in Spanish learning Spanish taking Shanghainese as an example. A comparison between the consonantal and vocalic inventory, as well as the intonation of the Shanghai dialect (Shanghainese) and Mandarin Chinese are made to find the phonological characteristics of the Shanghai dialect that contribute to the learning of Spanish. The research reveals that the Shanghai dialect facilitate the learning of the pronunciation of occlusive voiced consonants and the intonation in Spanish, however, like other Mandarin Chinese speakers, the Shanghainese speakers also find it difficult to pronounce the consonant groups and the alveolar trill. The large number of nasal consonants in Mandarin Chinese makes it hard to distinguish between the syllables that contain the nasal sounds and those without them. Finally, the collaborative work between native and non-native teachers is proposed to undertake a correct and effective phonetic teaching. Keywords: contrastive study, Spanish pronunciation, Chinese dialect, Shanghainese

'He did what the cipher could not, he rescued himself.' -- Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination (23) On many levels, the new Nine Inch Nails album The Fragile is a gritty meditation about different types of End: the eternal relationship cycle of 'fragility, tension, ordeal, fragmentation' (adapted, with apologies to Wilhelm Reich); fin-de-siècle anxiety; post-millennium foreboding; a spectre of the alien discontinuity that heralds an on-rushing future vastly different from the one envisaged by Enlightenment Project architects. In retrospect, it's easy for this perspective to be dismissed as jargon-filled cyber-crit hyperbole. Cyber-crit has always been at its best too when it invents pre-histories and finds hidden connections between different phenomena (like the work of Greil Marcus and early Mark Dery), and not when it is closer to Chinese Water Torture, name-checking the canon's icons (the 'Deleuze/Guattari' tag-team), texts and key terms. "The organization of sound is interpreted historically, politically, socially ... . It subdues music's ambition, reins it in, restores it to its proper place, reconciles it to its naturally belated fate", comments imagineer Kodwo Eshun (4) on how cyber-crit destroys albums and the innocence of the listening experience. This is how official histories are constructed a priori and freeze-dried according to personal tastes and prior memes: sometimes the most interesting experiments are Darwinian dead-ends that fail to make the canon, or don't register on the radar. Anyone approaching The Fragile must also contend with the music industry's harsh realities. For every 10 000 Goth fans who moshed to the primal 'kill-fuck-dance' rhythms of the hit single "Closer" (heeding its siren-call to fulfil basic physiological needs and build niche-space), maybe 20 noted that the same riff returned with a darker edge in the title track to The Downward Spiral, undermining the glorification of Indulgent hedonism. "The problem with such alternative audiences," notes Disinformation Creative Director Richard Metzger, "is that they are trying to be different -- just like everyone else." According to author Don Webb, "some mature Chaos and Black Magicians reject their earlier Nine Inch Nails-inspired Goth beginnings and are extremely critical towards new adopters because they are uncomfortable with the subculture's growing popularity, which threatens to taint their meticulously constructed 'mysterious' worlds. But by doing so, they are also rejecting their symbolic imprinting and some powerful Keys to unlocking their personal history." It is also difficult to separate Nine Inch Nails from the commercialisation and colossal money-making machine that inevitably ensued on the MTV tour circuit: do we blame Michael Trent Reznor because most of his audience are unlikely to be familiar with 'first-wave' industrial bands including Cabaret Voltaire and the experiments of Genesis P. Orridge in Throbbing Gristle? Do we accuse Reznor of being a plagiarist just because he wears some of his influences -- Dr. Dre, Daft Punk, Atari Teenage Riot, Pink Floyd's The Wall (1979), Tom Waits's Bone Machine (1992), David Bowie's Low (1977) -- on his sleeve? And do we accept no-brain rock critic album reviews who quote lines like 'All the pieces didn't fit/Though I really didn't give a shit' ("Where Is Everybody?") or 'And when I suck you off/Not a drop will go to waste' ("Starfuckers Inc") as representative of his true personality? Reznor evidently has his own thoughts on this subject, but we should let the music speak for itself. The album's epic production and technical complexity turned into a post-modern studio Vision Quest, assisted by producer Alan Moulder, eleventh-hour saviour Bob Ezrin (brought in by Reznor to 'block-out' conceptual and sonic continuity), and a group of assault-technicians. The fruit of these collaborations is an album where Reznor is playing with our organism's time-binding sense, modulating strange emotions through deeply embedded tonal angularities. During his five-year absence, Trent Reznor fought diverse forms of repetitious trauma, from endogenous depression caused by endless touring to the death of his beloved grandmother (who raised him throughout childhood). An end signals a new beginning, a spiral is an open-ended and ever-shifting structure, and so Reznor sought to re-discover the Elder Gods within, a shamanic approach to renewal and secular salvation utilised most effectively by music PR luminary and scientist Howard Bloom. Concerned with healing the human animal through Ordeals that hard-wire the physiological baselines of Love, Hate and Fear, Reznor also focusses on what happens when 'meaning-making' collapses and hope for the future cannot easily be found. He accurately captures the confusion that such dissolution of meaning and decline of social institutions brings to the world -- Francis Fukuyama calls this bifurcation 'The Great Disruption'. For a generation who experienced their late childhood and early adolescence in Reagan's America, Reznor and his influences (Marilyn Manson and Filter) capture the Dark Side of recent history, unleashed at Altamont and mutating into the Apocalyptic style of American politics (evident in the 'Star Wars'/SDI fascination). The personal 'psychotic core' that was crystallised by the collapse of the nuclear family unit and supportive social institutions has returned to haunt us with dystopian fantasies that are played out across Internet streaming media and visceral MTV film-clips. That such cathartic releases are useful -- and even necessary (to those whose lives have been formed by socio-economic 'life conditions') is a point that escapes critics like Roger Scruton, some Christian Evangelists and the New Right. The 'escapist' quality of early 1980s 'Rapture' and 'Cosmocide' (Hal Lindsey) prophecies has yielded strange fruit for the Children of Ezekiel, whom Reznor and Marilyn Manson are unofficial spokes-persons for. From a macro perspective, Reznor's post-human evolutionary nexus lies, like J.G. Ballard's tales, in a mythical near-future built upon past memory-shards. It is the kind of worldview that fuses organic and morphogenetic structures with industrial machines run amok, thus The Fragile is an artefact that captures the subjective contents of the different mind produced by different times. Sonic events are in-synch but out of phase. Samples subtly trigger and then scramble kinaesthetic-visceral and kinaesthetic-tactile memories, suggestive of dissociated affective states or body memories that are incapable of being retrieved (van der Kolk 294). Perhaps this is why after a Century of Identity Confusion some fans find it impossible to listen to a 102-minute album in one sitting. No wonder then that the double album is divided into 'left' and 'right' discs (a reference to split-brain research?). The real-time track-by-track interpretation below is necessarily subjective, and is intended to serve as a provisional listener's guide to the aural ur-text of 1999. The Fragile is full of encrypted tones and garbled frequencies that capture a world where the future is always bleeding into a non-recoverable past. Turbulent wave-forms fight for the listener's attention with prolonged static lulls. This does not make for comfortable or even 'nice' listening. The music's mind is a snapshot, a critical indicator, of the deep structures brewing within the Weltanschauung that could erupt at any moment. "Somewhat Damaged" opens the album's 'Left' disc with an oscillating acoustic strum that anchor's the listener's attention. Offset by pulsing beats and mallet percussion, Reznor builds up sound layers that contrast with lyrical epitaphs like 'Everything that swore it wouldn't change is different now'. Icarus iconography is invoked, but perhaps a more fitting mythopoeic symbol of the journey that lies ahead would be Nietzsche's pursuit of his Ariadne through the labyrinth of life, during which the hero is steadily consumed by his numbing psychosis. Reznor fittingly comments: 'Didn't quite/Fell Apart/Where were you?' If we consider that Reznor has been repeating the same cycle with different variations throughout all of his music to date, retro-fitting each new album into a seamless tapestry, then this track signals that he has begun to finally climb out of self-imposed exile in the Underworld. "The Day the World Went Away" has a tremendously eerie opening, with plucked mandolin effects entering at 0:40. The main slashing guitar riff was interpreted by some critics as Reznor's attempt to parody himself. For some reason, the eerie backdrop and fragmented acoustic guitar strums recalls to my mind civil defence nuclear war films. Reznor, like William S. Burroughs, has some powerful obsessions. The track builds up in intensity, with a 'Chorus of the Damned' singing 'na na nah' over apocalyptic end-times imagery. At 4:22 the track ends with an echo that loops and repeats. "The Frail" signals a shift to mournful introspectiveness with piano: a soundtrack to faded 8 mm films and dying memories. The piano builds up slowly with background echo, holds and segues into ... "The Wretched", beginning with a savage downbeat that recalls earlier material from Pretty Hate Machine. 'The Far Aways/Forget It' intones Reznor -- it's becoming clear that despite some claims to the contrary, there is redemption in this album, but it is one borne out of a relentless move forward, a strive-drive. 'You're finally free/You could be' suggest Reznor studied Existentialism during his psychotherapy visits. This song contains perhaps the ultimate post-relationship line: 'It didn't turn out the way you wanted it to, did it?' It's over, just not the way you wanted; you can always leave the partner you're with, but the ones you have already left will always stain your memories. The lines 'Back at the beginning/Sinking/Spinning' recall the claustrophobic trapped world and 'eternal Now' dislocation of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder victims. At 3:44 a plucked cello riff, filtered, segues into a sludge buzz-saw guitar solo. At 5:18 the cello riff loops and repeats. "We're in This Together Now" uses static as percussion, highlighting the influence of electricity flows instead of traditional rock instrument configurations. At 0:34 vocals enter, at 1:15 Reznor wails 'I'm impossible', showing he is the heir to Roger Waters's self-reflective rock-star angst. 'Until the very end of me, until the very end of you' reverts the traditional marriage vow, whilst 'You're the Queen and I'm the King' quotes David Bowie's "Heroes". Unlike earlier tracks like "Reptile", this track is far more positive about relationships, which have previously resembled toxic-dyads. Reznor signals a delta surge (breaking through barriers at any cost), despite a time-line morphing between present-past-future. At 5:30 synths and piano signal a shift, at 5:49 the outgoing piano riff begins. The film-clip is filled with redemptive water imagery. The soundtrack gradually gets more murky and at 7:05 a subterranean note signals closure. "The Fragile" is even more hopeful and life-affirming (some may even interpret it as devotional), but this love -- representative of the End-Times, alludes to the 'Glamour of Evil' (Nico) in the line 'Fragile/She doesn't see her beauty'. The fusion of synths and atonal guitars beginning at 2:13 summons forth film-clip imagery -- mazes, pageants, bald eagles, found sounds, cloaked figures, ruined statues, enveloping darkness. "Just like You Imagined" opens with Soundscapes worthy of Robert Fripp, doubled by piano and guitar at 0:39. Drums and muffled voices enter at 0:54 -- are we seeing a pattern to Reznor's writing here? Sonic debris guitar enters at 1:08, bringing forth intensities from white noise. This track is full of subtle joys like the 1:23-1:36 solo by David Bowie pianist Mike Garson and guitarist Adrian Belew's outgoing guitar solo at 2:43, shifting back to the underlying soundscapes at 3:07. The sounds are always on the dissipative edge of chaos. "Just like You Imagined" opens with Soundscapes worthy of Robert Fripp, doubled by piano and guitar at 0:39. Drums and muffled voices enter at 0:54 -- are we seeing a pattern to Reznor's writing here? Sonic debris guitar enters at 1:08, bringing forth intensities from white noise. This track is full of subtle joys like the 1:23-1:36 solo by David Bowie pianist Mike Garson and guitarist Adrian Belew's outgoing guitar solo at 2:43, shifting back to the underlying soundscapes at 3:07. The sounds are always on the dissipative edge of chaos. "Pilgrimage" utilises a persistent ostinato and beat, with a driving guitar overlay at 0:18. This is perhaps the most familiar track, using Reznor motifs like the doubling of the riff with acoustic guitars between 1:12-1:20, march cries, and pitch-shift effects on a 3:18 drumbeat/cymbal. Or at least I could claim it was familiar, if it were not that legendary hip-hop producer and 'edge-of-panic' tactilist Dr. Dre helped assemble the final track mix. "No, You Don't" has been interpreted as an attack on Marilyn Manson and Hole's Courntey Love, particularly the 0:47 line 'Got to keep it all on the outside/Because everything is dead on the inside' and the 2:33 final verse 'Just so you know, I did not believe you could sink so low'. The song's structure is familiar: a basic beat at 0:16, guitars building from 0:31 to sneering vocals, a 2:03 counter-riff that merges at 2:19 with vocals and ascending to the final verse and 3:26 final distortion... "La Mer" is the first major surprise, a beautiful and sweeping fusion of piano, keyboard and cello, reminiscent of Symbolist composer Debussy. At 1:07 Denise Milfort whispers, setting the stage for sometime Ministry drummer Bill Reiflin's jazz drumming at 1:22, and a funky 1:32 guitar/bass line. The pulsing synth guitar at 2:04 serves as anchoring percussion for a cinematic electronica mindscape, filtered through new layers of sonic chiaroscuro at 2:51. 3:06 phase shifting, 3:22 layer doubling, 3:37 outgoing solo, 3:50-3:54 more swirling vocal fragments, seguing into a fading cello quartet as shadows creep. David Carson's moody film-clip captures the end more ominously, depicting the beauty of drowning. This track contains the line 'Nothing can stop me now', which appears to be Reznor's personal mantra. This track rivals 'Hurt' and 'A Warm Place' from The Downward Spiral and 'Something I Can Never Have' from Pretty Hate Machine as perhaps the most emotionally revealing and delicate material that Reznor has written. "The Great Below" ends the first disc with more multi-layered textures fusing nostalgia and reverie: a twelve-second cello riff is counter-pointed by a plucked overlay, which builds to a 0:43 washed pulse effect, transformed by six second pulses between 1:04-1:19 and a further effects layer at 1:24. E-bow effects underscore lyrics like 'Currents have their say' (2:33) and 'Washes me away' (2:44), which a 3:33 sitar riff answers. These complexities are further transmuted by seemingly random events -- a 4:06 doubling of the sitar riff which 'glitches' and a 4:32 backbeat echo that drifts for four bars. While Reznor's lyrics suggest that he is unable to control subjective time-states (like The Joker in the Batman: Dark Knight series of Kali-yuga comic-books), the track constructions show that the Key to his hold over the listener is very carefully constructed songs whose spaces resemble Pythagorean mathematical formulas. Misdirecting the audience is the secret of many magicians. "The Way Out Is Through" opens the 'Right' disc with an industrial riff that builds at 0:19 to click-track and rhythm, the equivalent of a weaving spiral. Whispering 'All I've undergone/I will keep on' at 1:24, Reznor is backed at 1:38 by synths and drums coalescing into guitars, which take shape at 1:46 and turn into a torrential electrical current. The models are clearly natural morphogenetic structures. The track twists through inner storms and torments from 2:42 to 2:48, mirrored by vocal shards at 2:59 and soundscapes at 3:45, before piano fades in and out at 4:12. The title references peri-natal theories of development (particularly those of Stanislav Grof), which is the source of much of the album's imagery. "Into the Void" is not the Black Sabbath song of the same name, but a catchy track that uses the same unfolding formula (opening static, cello at 0:18, guitars at 0:31, drums and backbeat at 1:02, trademark industrial vocals and synth at 1:02, verse at 1:23), and would not appear out of place in a Survival Research Laboratories exhibition. At 3:42 Reznor plays with the edge of synth soundscapes, merging vocals at 4:02 and ending the track nicely at 4:44 alone. "Where Is Everybody?" emulates earlier structures, but relies from 2:01 on whirring effects and organic rhythms, including a flurry of eight beat pulses between 2:40-2:46 and a 3:33 spiralling guitar solo. The 4:26 guitar solo is pure Adrian Belew, and is suddenly ended by spluttering static and white noise at 5:13. "The Mark Has Been Made" signals another downshift into introspectiveness with 0:32 ghostly synth shimmers, echoed by cello at 1:04 which is the doubled at 1:55 by guitar. At 2:08 industrial riffs suddenly build up, weaving between 3:28 distorted guitars and the return of the repressed original layer at 4:16. The surprise is a mystery 32 second soundscape at the end with Reznor crooning 'I'm getting closer, all the time' like a zombie devil Elvis. "Please" highlights spacious noise at 0:48, and signals a central album motif at 1:04 with the line 'Time starts slowing down/Sink until I drown'. The psychic mood of the album shifts with the discovery of Imagination as a liberating force against oppression. The synth sound again is remarkably organic for an industrial album. "Starfuckers Inc" is the now infamous sneering attack on rock-stardom, perhaps at Marilyn Manson (at 3:08 Reznor quotes Carly Simon's 'You're So Vain'). Jungle beats and pulsing synths open the track, which features the sound-sculpting talent of Pop Will Eat Itself member Clint Mansell. Beginning at 0:26, Reznor's vocals appear to have been sampled, looped and cut up (apologies to Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs). The lines 'I have arrived and this time you should believe the hype/I listened to everyone now I know everyone was right' is a very savage and funny exposure of Manson's constant references to Friedrich Nietzsche's Herd-mentality: the Herd needs a bogey-man to whip it into submission, and Manson comes dangerous close to fulfilling this potential, thus becoming trapped by a 'Stacked Deck' paradox. The 4:08 lyric line 'Now I belong I'm one of the Chosen Ones/Now I belong I'm one of the Beautiful Ones' highlights the problem of being Elect and becoming intertwined with institutionalised group-think. The album version ditches the closing sample of Gene Simmons screaming "Thankyou and goodnight!" to an enraptured audience on the single from KISS Alive (1975), which was appropriately over-the-top (the alternate quiet version is worth hearing also). "The danger Marilyn Manson faces", notes Don Webb (current High Priest of the Temple of Set), "is that he may end up in twenty years time on the 'Tonight Show' safely singing our favourite songs like a Goth Frank Sinatra, and will have gradually lost his antinomian power. It's much harder to maintain the enigmatic aura of an Evil villain than it is to play the clown with society". Reznor's superior musicianship and sense of irony should keep him from falling into the same trap. "Complication" juggernauts in at 0:57 with screaming vocals and a barrage of white noise at 1:56. It's clear by now that Reznor has read his psychological operations (PSYOP) manuals pertaining to blasting the hell out of his audiences' psyche by any means necessary. Computer blip noise and black light flotation tank memories. Dislocating pauses and time-bends. The aural equivalent of Klein bottles. "Complication" juggernauts in at 0:57 with screaming vocals and a barrage of white noise at 1:56. It's clear by now that Reznor has read his psychological operations (PSYOP) manuals pertaining to blasting the hell out of his audiences' psyche by any means necessary. Computer blip noise and black light flotation tank memories. Dislocating pauses and time-bends. The aural equivalent of Klein bottles. "The Big Come Down" begins with a four-second synth/static intro that is smashed apart by a hard beat at 0:05 and kaleidoscope guitars at 0:16. Critics refer to the song's lyrics in an attempt to project a narcissistic Reznor personality, but don't comment on stylistic tweaks like the AM radio influenced backing vocals at 1:02 and 1:19, or the use of guitars as a percussion layer at 1:51. A further intriguing element is the return of the fly samples at 2:38, an effect heard on previous releases and a possible post-human sub-text. The alien mythos will eventually reign over the banal and empty human. At 3:07 the synths return with static, a further overlay adds more synths at 3:45 as the track spirals to its peak, before dissipating at 3:1 in a mesh of percussion and guitars. "Underneath It All" opens with a riff that signals we have reached the album's climatic turning point, with the recurring theme of fragmenting body-memories returning at 0:23 with the line 'All I can do/I can still feel you', and being echoed by pulsing static at 0:42 as electric percussion. A 'Messiah Complex' appears at 1:34 with the line 'Crucify/After all I've died/After all I've tried/You are still inside', or at least it appears to be that on the surface. This is the kind of line that typical rock critics will quote, but a careful re-reading suggests that Reznor is pointing to the painful nature of remanifesting. Our past shapes us more than we would like to admit particularly our first relationships. "Ripe (With Decay)" is the album's final statement, a complex weaving of passages over a repetitive mesh of guitars, pulsing echoes, back-beats, soundscapes, and a powerful Mike Garson piano solo (2:26). Earlier motifs including fly samples (3:00), mournful funeral violas (3:36) and slowing time effects (4:28) recur throughout the track. Having finally reached the psychotic core, Reznor is not content to let us rest, mixing funk bass riffs (4:46), vocal snatches (5:23) and oscillating guitars (5:39) that drag the listener forever onwards towards the edge of the abyss (5:58). The final sequence begins at 6:22, loses fidelity at 6:28, and ends abruptly at 6:35. At millennium's end there is a common-held perception that the world is in an irreversible state of decay, and that Culture is just a wafer-thin veneer over anarchy. Music like The Fragile suggests that we are still trying to assimilate into popular culture the 'war-on-Self' worldviews unleashed by the nineteenth-century 'Masters of Suspicion' (Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche). This 'assimilation gap' is evident in industrial music, which in the late 1970s was struggling to capture the mood of the Industrial Revolution and Charles Dickens, so the genre is ripe for further exploration of the scarred psyche. What the self-appointed moral guardians of the Herd fail to appreciate is that as the imprint baseline rises (reflective of socio-political realities), the kind of imagery prevalent throughout The Fragile and in films like Strange Days (1995), The Matrix (1999) and eXistenZ (1999) is going to get even darker. The solution is not censorship or repression in the name of pleasing an all-saving surrogate god-figure. No, these things have to be faced and embraced somehow. Such a process can only occur if there is space within for the Sadeian aesthetic that Nine Inch Nails embodies, and not a denial of Dark Eros. "We need a second Renaissance", notes Don Webb, "a rejuvenation of Culture on a significant scale". In other words, a global culture-shift of quantum (aeon or epoch-changing) proportions. The tools required will probably not come just from the over-wordy criticism of Cyber-culture and Cultural Studies or the logical-negative feeding frenzy of most Music Journalism. They will come from a dynamic synthesis of disciplines striving toward a unity of knowledge -- what socio-biologist Edward O. Wilson has described as 'Consilience'. Liberating tools and ideas will be conveyed to a wider public audience unfamiliar with such principles through predominantly science fiction visual imagery and industrial/electronica music. The Fragile serves as an invaluable model for how such artefacts could transmit their dreams and propagate their messages. For the hyper-alert listener, it will be the first step on a new journey. But sadly for the majority, it will be just another hysterical industrial album promoted as selection of the month. References Bester, Alfred. The Stars My Destination. London: Millennium Books, 1999. Eshun, Kodwo. More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction. London: Quartet Books, 1998. Van der Kolk, Bessel A. "Trauma and Memory." Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society. Eds. Bessel A. van der Kolk et al. New York: Guilford Press, 1996. Nine Inch Nails. Downward Spiral. Nothing/Interscope, 1994. ---. The Fragile. Nothing, 1999. ---. Pretty Hate Machine. TVT, 1989. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Alex Burns. "'This Machine Is Obsolete': A Listeners' Guide to Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.8 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/nine.php>. Chicago style: Alex Burns, "'This Machine Is Obsolete': A Listeners' Guide to Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 8 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/nine.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Alex Burns. (1999) 'This machine is obsolete': a listeners' guide to Nine Inch Nails' The fragile. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(8). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/nine.php> ([your date of access]).