Journal articles on the topic 'Conducting. Wind quartets. Music'

We discuss a recent peer-learning project we undertook as co-conductors of the Young Conservatorium Wind Orchestra at Griffith University. Drawing on current educational theory on peer learning and material from our conducting practice and research, we explore how this approach offers professional conductors the opportunity to work together in an inclusive and empowering learning environment. We outline our peer learning context, the learning relationship we shared, the most significant musical outcomes of such a process, and the implications for conducting pedagogy and the professional development of conductors.

Acquiring nonverbal skills necessary to appropriately communicate and educate members of performing ensembles is essential for wind band conductors. Virtual reality learning environments (VRLEs) provide a unique setting for developing these proficiencies. For this feasibility study, we used an augmented immersive VRLE to enhance eye contact, torso movement, and gestures of novice wind band conductors. Ten undergraduates randomly assigned to no VRLE ( n = 3), VRLE with head tracking ( n = 4), or VRLE without ( n = 3) head tracking received eight treatment sessions over a 4-week period. While participants conducted a live ensemble, their eye contact, torso movements, and gestures were measured. A comparison of pretest and posttest scores showed that students using the augmented immersive VRLE with head tracking demonstrated greater conducting skill improvement than those not using virtual reality.

This study was designed to examine whether the presence of excellent or poor ensemble performances would influence the ratings assigned by ensemble members to conductors who demonstrated highly expressive conducting. Two conductors were videotaped conducting one of two excerpts from an arrangement of Frank Ticheli’s Loch Lomond. These videos subsequently were duplicated and synchronized with either excellent or poor performances that previously had been recorded with a university wind ensemble. To determine whether identical conducting performances would be evaluated differently on the basis of excellent or poor ensemble performance, college band, choir, and orchestra members ( N = 120) viewed each of the four 1-minute excerpts and rated conductor expressivity and ensemble performance quality on 10-point Likert-type scales and provided one brief written comment about each video. Results indicated that ensemble performance quality significantly affected ratings of conductor expressivity ( p < .001). However, the effect size was modest (partial η2 = .29). Participants’ written comments were directed most frequently to the conductor in the excellent-performance condition and to the ensemble in the poor-performance condition.

In this study, the authors examined whether a conductor's use of high-expressivity or low-expressivity techniques affected evaluations of ensemble performances that were identical across conducting conditions. Two conductors each conducted two 1-minute parallel excerpts from Percy Grainger's Walking Tune. Each directed one excerpt using high- and one using low-expressivity techniques. After watching a video of the four conducting segments set to a single audio performance of the selection by a university wind ensemble, participants ( N = 118) evaluated ensemble expressivity using a 10-point Likert-type scale. Half of the participants also rated the expressivity of the conductor using a second identical scale. Ensemble expressivity was rated significantly higher for the high-expressivity conductors; effect size was strong (partial η 2 = .57). Among participants evaluating both conductor and ensemble, there was a significant moderate correlation between ratings ( r = .56).

Background. The question of a comprehensive assessment of certain musicians’ work has both artistic and aesthetic, sociocultural, and ethical projections associated with the evaluation of the creativity and activity of the musician both during their lifetime and after their passing. This issue also continues to be acutely relevant in the area of studying and shaping the scope of cultural knowledge about traditions and innovations in all spheres of musical art, about the role of an individual in the historical and cultural process both in the national and in the civilizational, globalizational aspects. Another important aspect is the study of one’s own cultural traditions and achievements (at the national, regional and other levels.), which makes it possible to reveal something universal and particular in all areas of musical practice (composition, performance, teaching, etc.) and give them an objective assessment. In this connection, musicians – our contemporaries, whose achievements are diverse and very significant in the musical field and whose versatile contribution to the development of musical art cannot be overestimated, – need special public and scientific attention. One of such outstanding figures of modern Ukraine is Valerii Bohdanov (13/07/1939–10/10/2017), a trumpet performer, conductor, teacher, musicologist, who devoted his whole life to music art in its various manifestations, achieved the highest results in all spheres of activity and went down in the history of Ukrainian musical art as one of the rare examples of a universal musician. His performance, conducting, pedagogical, and research activities in the field of wind instruments performance are so significant that they require a complex study, which as yet does not exist, and this paper seems to be one of the first steps on this path. Objectives. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the life and career of the outstanding musician Valerii Bohdanov from the viewpoint of his contribution to the study of the history of wind performance in Ukraine. Methods. This paper employs a complex of several research methods related to the statement of the theme and its specificity: historical method, which allowed considering facts from life and work of V. Bohdanov in relation to the peculiarities of historical conditions of the time; historical and cultural method, thanks to which one can take into account the general context of music art, in particular, events and phenomena of musical practice within certain conditions of national culture, traditions and possibilities, specified amongst others at the ideological level; biographical method of research, due to which different periods of the musician’s creativity, directions of his activity, as well as their prerequisites, development paths and results are described; comparative method, associated with the comparative characteristics of stages and tendencies of Valerii Bohdanov’s work in different periods of his life; phenomenological method, featuring characteristics of unique interaction of various facets of the universal musician – the artist of music art. Results. The versatile activity of V. Bohdanov, a prominent musician, performer, conductor, teacher, researcher of the history of wind art in Ukraine, is distinguished by a special degree of interrelation of these spheres, which indicates the special quality of the universalism of Valerii Oleksandrovych’s personality as a phenomenon. According to the outlined and characterized areas of the musician’s activity all his achievements are determined, firstly, by the peculiarities of different periods of his life and career, historical circumstances and certain artistic experience, and secondly, by his personal qualities. The research and pedagogical activity of V. Bohdanov is one of the peaks of his multifaceted activity and the embodiment of the true mission, which combined the talent and experience of the practising musician, performer and conductor with pedagogical, scientific and educational work to the extent that allows speaking about a special status of a universal musician – a worker of musical art. An individual feature of V. Bohdanov’s universalism is that, being a practising musician, performer and conductor, he achieved the highest results in the scientific field, made an invaluable contribution to the study of the history of wind performance in Ukraine. Conclusions. The research findings indicate that Valerii Bohdanov’s activity is distinguished by the diversity and special status of universalism; its various facets are not just interconnected, they are interdependent and, thanks to a complex of personality characteristics, have become the basis for the outstanding result that was achieved by the musician. At the same time, the scientific side of Valerii Bohdanov’s work, dedicated to the history of wind instrument performance in Ukraine, has become a kind of pinnacle of his creative and life journey. Based on the aforesaid, we believe that the results of the presented research can be used in further scientific research related to such issues as: the study of Valerii Bohdanov’s research, performance, conducting, and pedagogical activities, as well as the work of other musicians, representatives of the wind music art of Ukraine; the characteristic of wind instruments performance schools; the search for answers to the questions faced by modern wind instruments performance, in particular, in the context of tradition and innovation, organology, genre-stylistics, repertoire, etc.

The essence of K. Orff’s musical and pedagogical concept is considered in the article; the importance of the creative development of students of secondary schools is revealed. The meaning of 'elementary music,' which is connected with movement, dance, and word and creates a basis for the child’s development, is clarified. The five-volume collection 'Orff-Schulwerk. Musik für kinder' is analyzed; its role in creating analogues in different countries is revealed. The problem of stimulating the creative potential of the individual by means of the music-pedagogical system is highlighted. The instruments of the children’s orchestra developed by K. Orff together with K. Sachs are described, which included melodic and noise percussion instruments, the simplest wind, and strings. The principle of active music-making and creative development of personality on the basis of playing children’s musical instruments, rhythmic movements, dance, and pantomime is analyzed. The role of rhythmic, vocal, and instrumental improvisations for the creative development of students is revealed. The curriculum at the Orff’ Institute is covered, which included the methods of teaching children’s musical instruments, a course of rhythmic exercises, choreography, conducting, solfeggio, instrumentation. The work ‘Theory and practice of music and aesthetic education according to the system of K. Orff’ (by E. Kurishev, L. Kurisheva) is analyzed, which highlights the practical experience of Ukrainian teachers in the classroom and extracurricular activities with students. The countries that have shown interest in Orff's pedagogy and continue to work actively on this system are listed. K. Orff's conviction is formulated that the art of the future is inherent in the nature of human abilities and it is only necessary to create conditions for the creative development of the individual.

La naturaleza produce una serie de sonidos, que al analizarlos en su habitad, representan un encanto especifico, el viento, las olas, un rio, una cascada, el movimiento de los arboles por el viento, el cantico de las aves; sonidos que el hombre a intentado reproducir con ayuda de instrumentos inventados por el, para crear la música, cada época, cada grupo social y cultural modifican los sonidos, los combina, para crear el arte musical, para satisfacer las necesidades de un grupo, o como inspiración en base a la necesidad de expresión artística única. Estos sonidos representados han producido influencia en los animales y en los seres humanos, inclusive las plantas, el propósito de este artículo es estudiar el efecto de la música en la conducta del adolescente. Dentro de los objetivos de la investigación, se demuestra como la música influye en la conducta de los adolescentes; en sus efectos emocionales, reminiscencias, como herramientas de socialización, desarrollo del apego intrafamiliar, modificación de la capacidad intelectiva. En la descripción de la muestra para la investigación se cuenta con una población de 317 estudiantes adolescentes, donde se utiliza la observación directa, análisis explicativo correlacional, cuantitativo y cualitativo, mediante la aplicación de encuestas y experimentación. AbstractNature produces a series of sounds which when analyzed in their habitat, represent a specific charm, wind, waves, a river, a waterfall, trees moving in the wind, the song of birds; sounds that man tried to play using invented by instruments to create music, every age, every social and cultural group modify sounds, combined to create the musical art, to meet the needs of a group, or inspiration based on the need for unique artistic expression. These sounds have been represented influence on animals and human beings, including plants, the purpose of this article is to study the effect of music on adolescent behavior. Among the objectives of the research, it is shown how music influences the behavior of adolescents; in their emotional effects, reminiscences, as tools of socialization, development of domestic attachment, modification intellectual capacity. In the description of the research shows it has a population of 317 adolescent students, where direct observation is used, correlational quantitative and qualitative explanatory analysis, by conducting surveys, and experimentation.

<p><em>The main goal of the work</em> is to study the level of physical fitness of students of music specialties. The objectives of the study reflect the gradual achievement of the goal. It also gives the analysis of the static strength endurance of the muscles of the body <em>Methods of research</em>: analysis and generalization of data in literature, pedagogical methods of research (experiment, testing), methods of mathematical statistics. 154 students of the first and second year of the Vinnitsa School of Culture and Arts named after M. D. Leontovich participated in the pedagogical experiment. Such as students of the specialty “Music Art”, the specializations “piano, orchestra, string instruments” (violin, viola, cello, double bass); “Orchestral wind instruments and percussion instruments” (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone, horn, trumpet, trombone, tubo, percussion instruments), “folk instruments” (accordion, accordion, domra, bandura, guitar); “Vocal, choral conducting”. <em>Results</em><em>.</em><strong> </strong> It is noted that the level of work capacity, health status and occupations depends on the effectiveness of their physical education. It is possible to increase the effectiveness of the process of physical education of students through optimization and development of professionally important physical qualities. Student’s educational and further activity of the specialty "Musical art" provides an unpleasant work pose and peculiarities of the manifestation of physical qualities, which level of development depends on the effectiveness of professional activity. <em>Findings.</em> The estimation of indicators of the physical readiness of students with the use of battery tests, which characterize the static strength endurance of the muscles of the torso is evaluated. Evaluation of the students' physical fitness made it possible to determine the general tendency of significant deterioration of the indicators for the period of study. </p>

Background. Musical culture of Kharkiv has a rich history associated with the names of prominent musicians such as R. Genika, I. Slatin and others. But the creative work of our senior contemporaries, artists, who created in the second half of the XX and early XXI century, made a great influence on the formation of the modern musical face of Kharkiv, the state of professional music education, too. O. I. Litvinov, a composer, pianist (as well as accordion player, performer on wind instruments), conductor and arranger, is no doubt among those artists. However, the creativity of this outstanding musician, who was actually the founder of professional jazz education in Kharkiv, is not currently the subject of widespread discussion in contemporary Ukrainian musicology. There are few sources that would cover O. I. Litvinov’s life and career. For the first time, he is mentioned as the founder of pops’n jazz performance department in a print publication dedicated to the 85th anniversary of KhNUA named after I. P. Kotlyarevsky. In the same context, O. Litvinov’s name is found in O. Kononova’s essay on the evolution of music education in Kharkiv in the jubilee edition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the University. There is a biographical article in this very anniversary publication. In the earlier anniversary edition “Pro Domo mea” (on the 90th anniversary of the institution) there is some information about O. Litvinov regarding the history of the jazz department creation. Basic biographical data are briefly presented in the article of I. O. Litvinova in the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine. A small booklet dedicated to the major milestones of O. Litvinov’s life and creative work was published in the KhNUA (then KhSUA) named after I. P. Kotliarevskyi to mark the 75th anniversary of the musician. There are also several publications devoted mainly to specific dates in the creative life of the maestro (concerts, anniversaries, etc.): by H. Derev’ianko, L. Lohvynenko, M. Dvirnyi, A. Moshna, I. Polska, and O. Sadovnikova. Among purely research works devoted to this striking personality are the Master’s work by Yu. N. Shikova, which was written under the guidance of І. І. Polska at Kharkiv State Academy of Culture. The purpose of the article is to systematize existing information on the life and creative path of the prominent Kharkiv musician, give a brief description of the main features of his performing and composing style. Methods. The work employs historicobiographical, analytical and comparative methods, as well as a genre-stylistic approach. Results. O. Litvinov was born on November 17, 1927 in Zaporozhye. He received his elementary education at a piano music school. From 1943 to 1951 he was in military service, participated in the World War II. After the war, he continued to study music at Kharkiv Music College named after B. Lyatoshynsky, later at the Composition Faculty of Kharkiv Conservatory. He was expelled from there because of his passion for jazz. From 1951 he continued his musical activity as an artist of the MIA Variety Orchestra (in Dnepropetrovsk), in 1955–1956 he was a soloist of the Sakhalin Oblast Philharmonic and Khabarovsk Regional Philharmonic. In 1956–1958 he was the leader of the variety band of the Palace of Culture for Food–Industry Workers, in 1958–1961 he was the leader of the concert band of the Palace of Culture for Builders. From 1961 to 1973, he was the director of his own collective – Honoured Variety Ensemble “Kharkivyanka” at Kharkiv Electromechanical Plant. In 1965 he received the title of Honored Artist of Ukraine, in 1978 – People’s Artist. From 1973 to 1978 – Artistic Director and Conductor of the “Donbass”, Honored Mining Ensemble in Donetsk; from 1978 to 1980 – assistant at the Department of Cultural Studies, director of the Jazz Orchestra at Kharkiv Institute of Law. Since 1980 he worked permanently at Kharkiv I. P. Kotliarevskyi State Institute of Arts: first as a senior lecturer, later as an associate professor of the Chamber Ensemble Department, then as a professor of the Orchestra Wind Instruments Department. Since 1994 he created and headed the Department of Variety Orchestra Instruments, and at the same time he directed the variety-symphony orchestra of Kharkiv State Academy of Culture, the violin ensemble of the National Academy of Law named after Yaroslav the Wise. Since 1999 O. Litvinov was a full member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences of National Progress. In 2001 he became a diploma winner of the regional competition “Higher school of Kharkiv region – the best names” in the nomination “Head of Department”. In 2002 he was awarded the Honorary Medal of the Ministry of Culture and Arts of Ukraine. He died on March 15, 2007. O. Litvinov’s creative personality combines the image of composer, arranger, conductor, performer-multiinstrumentalist (apart from piano O. Litvinov played the accordion, organ, wind instruments, violin). O. Litvinov’s works employ the best achievements of world classics and Ukrainian academic music, in particular, the Kharkiv composition school, and embody the best features of jazz and, more broadly, variety music of the twentieth century. These stylistic origins often coexist organically in one piece by O. Litvinov. The performance style of O. Litvinov as a conductor is characterized by very clear, bright, emotional gestures, especially outstanding sounding of the orchestra, the ability to clearly show every change in the thematic development of the piece. The style of O. Litvinov’s arrangements was significantly influenced by the music of Hollywood films, the art of contemporary Soviet composers – Saulsky, Broslavsky, Pokrass, Dunaevskyi, jazz masters – Tsfasman, Utesov, Bernstein and others. Conclusions. O. Litvinov’s creative life was very bright and rich, and his musical activity was diverse and multifaceted. In the present works, the main focus is made more on the “polyphony” (according to A. Mizitova and A. Sadovnikova (2002, p. 17) of this life, its external events. Characteristics of the composer’s, performing, conducting styles of the artist are “inscribed” in this polyphony only as its “voices”. However, each of these voices needs, in our opinion, more detailed consideration. For example, O. Litvinov’s compositional heritage is very large, but only a few of his compositions are performed today and well known to the public. In fact, only one piece for violin ensemble (or for violin and piano), “Eternal Movement”, received true popularity among the performers and the public. Most other works are not published, and the fate of most scores is unclear. So, the direction of further research can be related to a more detailed study of some particular works of O. Litvinov that have survived as well as to deepening knowledge about his performing and pedagogical activity.

Background. Topicality, objectives, methodology and novelty of the research. The creative achievements of the Honored Art Worker of Ukraine, Professor Shaliko Harehinovych Paltadzhian (1941–2020) are a significant contribution to the history of the development of Ukrainian musical culture and, of course, deserve special attention and thorough in-depth research. However, there is not still any fundamental work about this talented musician, brilliant French horn player and wonderful conductor. The author of this article was lucky to study together with Sh. Paltadzhyan at the Kharkov Conservatory and to work with him until the end of life of this outstanding artist. This essay aims to capture some of the features of the creative portrait of Shaliko Paltadzhian, relying on the few existing reference sources and self-own memories about the artist, and also to emphasize his, in a sense, a unique role in the educational process at the Kharkiv National University of Arts and at Ukraine in general. Accordingly, touching upon the educational, methodological and sociological spheres, the study as a whole adheres to the chronological method of presenting events inherent in the genres of historical and biographical essays and portraits. The main results of the research. We traced the creative path of Shaliko Paltadzhian from his very appearance in Kharkiv in 1959 as an entrant at the Kharkiv Conservatory, where, despite the almost complete impossibility of communication due to the language barrier (the musician was born in Armenian city Gyumri, which was known as Kumayri from the period of the Kingdom of Urartu), he, nevertheless, charmed the examiners with the extra-ordinal expressive sound of his French horn, and until the last decade of fruitful work of this wonderful musician at Kharkiv National University of Arts and the “Slobozhansky” Youth Academic Symphony Orchestra . We consider Sh. Paltadzhian’s working with this orchestra as a new special stage in his conducting activities. Being, at the same time, the leader of the Student orchestra of the Kharkiv National University of Arts and the professional team of the “Slobozhansky” Orchestra, Sh. Paltadzhian, thus, makes the first in Ukrainian musical education sphere practical step in the implementation of a modern project on the introduction of so named “dual form” of vocational training, which joints the instructive process in an educational institution with the practice at the workplace. In addition, he does it long before the official directives (“Slobozhansky” Orchestra already exists 28 years). The example of the “Slobozhansky” Orchestra testifies that the organization of the educational process in a dual form gives a positive result and fully corresponds to modern educational methods: after graduating from the University, the musicians come to new teams as the very well prepared professionals, because they were passing through a “double” school as orchestra students. Shaliko Paltadzhian as a conductor proved this in practice. Conclusions. In perspective, the method of dual form of education can be adapted to any specialization. In our case, the practical bases for this are orchestras (symphony, wind), children’s music schools, music colleges, art faculties at other universities, and so on. “Slobozhansky” Orchestra partially solves the problem of mass moving abroad of the best domestic youth. The orchestra has an interesting creative atmosphere. World-famous conductors, soloists work with him; the collective tours in Denmark, Spain and Italy. Some graduates have already turned down foreign offers and stayed at home in Ukraine. Thus, Shaliko Paltadzhian played a key role in a landmark scientificeducation experiment conducted at the Kharkiv National University of Arts named after I. P. Kotlyarevsky. The weird and wonderful, versatile talent of this bright, charismatic musician is striking. As a Professor at the University, Sh. Paltadzhian taught various educational disciplines in the last decade of his life: opera and symphony conducting, musical instruments studies, arrangements, reading scores. He is also the author of scientific papers and manuals. His brilliant talent and clear human soul will forever remain in our memory.

Background. The article focuses on articulating the role of chromatic button accordion in the modern sociocultural system of Ukrainian musical art, based on the case of one leading school established in 1951 on the basis of Kharkiv National Kotlyarevskyj University of Arts. Objectives. The objective of the article is to provide an analysis of Kharkiv regional accordion school (since the second half of the 20th century to the present day), as well as its personalities using as an example five generations of performersteachers. Methodology of the study includes researching of the history and practice of performing chromatic button accordion (the fundamental works of M. Imkhanycjkyj, U. Loshkova, I. Snjedkov, A. Mirek, А. Stashevskyj) Results. After the invention of the chromatic button accordion a little over 100 years ago, it went from a primitive musical instrument satisfying everyday needs to one recognized on the professional concert stage. The status of the instrument has been changing hand in hand with its improvement and the creation of original repertoire. Now the chromatic button accordion is on par with other academic instruments recognized worldwide. Currently there are four chromatic button accordion schools in Ukraine - in Kyiv, Odessa, Lviv and Kharkiv. Kharkiv has been viewed as a regional center of development of the chromatic button accordion performing since early 20-ies of the 20th century. However, the original “Kharkiv school of performing” was fully established with the opening of the chromatic button accordion class at the orchestra department of the University in 1951. This event became final in the formation of the system of professional chromatic button accordionists and teachers preparation. It is as follows: music school, music college, conservatory. The founder of the chromatic button accordion class was L. M. Horenko (1925- 1989). Volodymyr Yakovych Podgornyj (1928-2010), an outstanding performer, composer and teacher, played the key role in the formation of Kharkiv original chromatic button accordion school. His unique compositional and performing style dramatically changed the teaching methodology, performance priorities, approaches to transcription and translation of works for an chromatic button accordion, the “harmonic mindset”. Volodymyr Yakovych contributed greatly to the creation of original chromatic button accordion repertoire which surpassed existing samples in its quality, giving a new direction to the chromatic button accordion development not only in Kharkiv, Ukraine but also abroad. Thus, L. M. Horenko and V. Y. Podgornyj became the first generation of chromatic button accordion teachers in Kharkiv National Kotlyarevskyj University of Arts. The second generation of teachers at the department including Podgornyj’s students O. I. Nasarenko and A. P. Ghaidenko used to uphold these principles, but they also brought additional details generally related to their inherent features of character. The representatives of the third generation at the department - professors O. V. Mishhenko and I. I. Snjedkov brought innovative characteristics to the general terms of the performing school. They have been known to pay attention to the logic of dramatic development, conciseness of musical forms, technical perfection, academicism, the balance of the emotional and rational performance components, the perfection of small intonation pieces. The fourth generation includes Andrij Ghetman who`d been working since 1995 to 2007, and Andrij Strilets who started his career in 1998. They both were students of Kharkiv chromatic button accordion school taught by Professor I. I. Snjedkov. Following general principles of “Podgornyj school”, those personalities deviate significantly from the original source. A. Ghetman’s performing is characterized by specific academicism both in the quality of performing and in selecting a concert repertoire. A. Strilets distinguishes by advanced orchestral thinking, focused work with the viewer, attention to a musical phrase structure, expressiveness and emotional completeness of performance. The fifth generation consists of Dmytro Zharikov (a soloist of the regional Philharmonic society) who has received a Master’s degree at Rostov Academy of Music named after. S. V. Rakhmaninov under the direction of the world-famous accordion player Yurij Shyshkin and Yurij Djjachenko (a student of O. I. Nasarenko) who teaches the conducting course. They have worked at the department since 2015. Conclusion. The modern chromatic button accordion through developing in the plane of professional instrumental performing, repeats the path of other famous academic musical instruments. Moreover, Kharkiv regional accordion school, being one of the leading development centers of the chromatic button accordion in Ukraine, has entered the value system of the 21st century culture. Its development and increasing authority in the world arena are related to: 1) the further integration into the extensive network of European music universities; 2) experience exchange not only at the level of teaching methods, but also through the introduction of exchange programs with students from leading conservatories of different countries worldwide; 3) the creation of the conditions for the training of a certain unification specialists according to the existing genre and stylistic directions of performance on chromatic button accordion; 4) the orientation on the implementation of all the advanced instruments constructive capabilities (sound production and strokes) and timbral coloring; 5) the search for forms of the chromatic button accordion (as an academic instrument) creative synthesis: from established forms of ensembles (such as strings or wind) to modern theatrical, vocal and dance performances, music and light show.

Background. The performance practice of recent decades demonstrates an obvious tendency to expand and update the repertoire due to the use of the works of those composers whose pieces had “lost” over time against to the pieces of their more famous contemporaries. At the same time, in sociology, psychology, culturology, gender issues are largely relevant. Musicology does not stand aside, applying the achievements of gender psychology in the study of composer creativity and musical performing (Tsurkanenko, I., 2011; Gigolaeva-Yurchenko, V., 2012, 2015; Fan, Liu, 2017). In general, the issue of gender equality is quite acute in contemporary public discourse. The indicated tendencies determine the interest of many musicians and listeners in the work of women-composers (for example, recently, the creativity by Clara Schumann attracts the attention of performers all over the world, in particular, in Ukraine the International Music Festival “Kharkiv Assemblies” – 2018 was dedicated to her works). The theme of the proposed work is also a response to the noted trends in performing practice and musicology discourse. For the first time in domestic musicology an attempt is made to give a brief overview of the life and career of another talented woman, whose name is little known in the post-Soviet space. This is a Swedish violinist, composer and pianist Amanda R&#246;ntgen-Maier (1853–1894), a graduate of the Stockholm Royal College of Music and the Leipzig Conservatory, a contemporary of Clara Schumann, J. Brahms, E. Grieg, with whom she and her husband – composer, pianist, conductor Julius R&#246;ntgen – were associated for enough long time by creative and friendly relationships. In the post-Soviet space, not a single work has been published that would be dedicated to the works of A. Maier. In European and American musicology, the composer’s personality and creative heritage is also not widely studied. Her name is only occasionally mentioned in works examining the musical culture and, in particular, the performing arts of Sweden at that time (J&#246;nsson, &#197;., 1995, 151–156; Karlsson, &#197;., 1994, 38–43; Lundholm, L., 1992, 14–15; L&#246;ndahl, T., 1994; &#214;hrstr&#246;m, E., 1987, 1995). The aim of the proposed study is to characterize Amanda Meier’s creative heritage in the context of European romanticism. Research results. Based on the available sources, we summarized the basic information about the life and career of A. Maier. Carolina Amanda Erica Maier (married R&#246;ntgen-Maier ) was born on February 20, 1853 in Landskrona. She received the first music lessons from his father, Karl Edward Mayer, a native of Germany (from W&#252;rttemberg), who worked as a confectioner in Landskrona, but also studied music, in particular, in 1852 he received a diploma of “music director” in Stockholm and had regular contracts. In 1869, Amanda entered to the Kungliga Musikaliska akademien (Royal College of Music) in Stockholm. There she learns to play several instruments at once: the violin, cello, piano, organ, and also studies history, music theory and musical aesthetics. A. Maier graduated from Royal College successfully and became the first woman who received the title of “Musik Direktor”. The final concert, which took place in April 1873, included the performance of the program on the violin and on the organ and also A. Maier’s own work – the Romance for Violin. In the spring of 1874, Amanda received the grant from the Royal College for further studies at the Leipzig Conservatory. Here, Engelbert R&#246;ntgen, the accompanist of the glorious orchestra Gewandhaus, becomes her teacher on the violin, and she studies harmony and composition under the guidance of Karl Heinrich Karsten Reinecke and Ernst Friedrich Richter. Education in Leipzig lasts from 1874 to 1876. In the summer and autumn of 1875, A. Maier returns to Landskron, where she writes the first major work – the Concerto for violin and orchestra in one-movement, D minor, which was performed twice: in December 1875 in Halle and in February 1876 with the Gewandhaus Orchestra under the direction of K. Reinecke. The further career of A. Maier, both performing and composing, developed very successfully. She made several major concert trips between 1876 and 1880: to Sweden and Norway, to Finland and St. Petersburg; she also played to the Swedish king Oscar II (1876); concerts were held with constant success. While studying in Leipzig, A. Maier met her future husband (the son of her violin teacher) Julius R&#246;ntgen, composer and conductor. They married 1880 in Landskrona. Their personal relationships included active creative communication, both playing music together, and exchanging musical ideas, getting to know each other’s works. Part of his chamber opuses, for example, the cycle of Swedish folk dances, A. Maier created in collaboration with her husband. An analogy with life of Robert and Clara Schumann may take place here, although the R&#246;ntgen spouses did not have to endure such dramatic collisions that fell to the lot of the first. After the wedding, R&#246;ntgen family moved to Amsterdam, where Julius R&#246;ntgen soon occupies senior positions in several music organizations. On the contrary, the concert and composing activities of A. Maier go to the decline. This was due both, to the birth of two sons, and to a significant deterioration in her health. Nevertheless, she maintains her violin skills at the proper level and actively participates in performances in music salons, which the family arranges at home. The guests of these meetings were, in particular, J. Brahms, K. Schumann, E. Grieg with his wife and A. Rubinstein. The last years of A. Maier’s life were connected with Nice, Davos and Norway. In the fall of 1888 she was in Nice with the goal of treating the lungs, communicating there with her friends Heinrich and Elizabeth Herzogenberg. With the latter, they played Brahms violin sonatas, and the next (1889) year A. Maier played the same pieces with Clara Schumann. Amanda Maier spent the autumn of 1889 under the supervision of doctors in Davos, and the winter – in Nice. In 1890, she returned to Amsterdam. His last major work dates back to 1891 – the Piano Quartet in D minor. During the last three years of her life, she visited Denmark, Sweden and Norway, where she performed, among other, her husband’s works, for example, the suite “From Jotunheim”. In the summer of 1889, A. Maier took part in concerts at the Nirgaard Castle in Denmark. In 1894, she returned to Amsterdam again. Her health seems stable, a few hours before her death she was conducting classes with her sons. A. Maier died July 15, 1894. The works of A. Maier, published during the life of the composer, include the following: Sonata in H minor (1878); 6 Pieces for violin and piano (1879); “Dialogues” – 10 small pieces for piano, some of which were created by Julius R&#246;ntgen (1883); Swedish songs and dances for violin and piano; Quartet for piano, violin, viola and cello E minor (1891). Still unprinted are the following works: Romance for violin and piano; Trio for violin, cello and piano (1874); Concert for violin and orchestra (1875); Quartet for piano, violin, viola and clarinet E minor; “Nordiska Tonbilder” for violin and piano (1876); Intermezzo for piano; Two string quartets; March for piano, violin, viola and cello; Romances on the texts of David Wiersen; Trio for piano and two violins; 25 Preludes for piano. The composer style of A. Mayer incorporates the characteristic features of the Romantic era, in particular, the Leipzig school. Lyric elements prevail in her works, although the composer is not alien to dramatic, heroic, epic images (the Piano Quartet E minor, some pieces from the Six Songs for Violin and Piano series). In the embodiment of such a circle of images, parallels with the musical style of the works of J. Brahms are quite clearly traced. In constructing thematic structures, A. Maier relies on the melody of the Schubert-Mendelssohn type. The compositional solutions are defined mainly by the classical principles of forming, which resembles the works of F. Mendelssohn, the late chamber compositions of R. Schumann, where the lyrical expression gets a clear, complete form. The harmonic language of the works of A. Maier gravitates toward classical functionality rather than the uncertainty, instability and colorfulness inherent in the harmony of F. Liszt, R. Wagner and their followers. The main instrument, for which most of the opuses by A. Maier was created, the violin, is interpreted in various ways: it appears both, in the lyrical and the virtuoso roles. The piano texture of chamber compositions by A. Maier is quite developed and rich; the composer clearly gravitates towards the equality of all parties in an ensemble. At the same time, piano techniques are reminiscent of texture formulas by F. Mendelssohn and J. Brahms. Finally, in A. Mayer’s works manifest themself such characteristic of European romanticism, as attraction to folklore, a reliance on folk song sources. Conclusions. Periods in the history of music seemed already well studied, hide many more composer names and works, which are worthy of the attention of performers, musicologists and listeners. A. Mayer’s creativity, despite the lack of pronounced innovation, has an independent artistic value and, at the same time, is one of such musical phenomena that help to compile a more complete picture of the development of musical art in the XIX century and gain a deeper understanding of the musical culture of this period. The prospect of further development of the topic of this essay should be a more detailed study of the creative heritage of A. Maier in the context of European musical Romanticism.

The article briefly analyzed the biography of the students of I.P.Lviv, the associate professor of the Chernihiv Pedagogical Institute. The purpose of our article was to show the biography of the students of the lecturer I.P.Lvov, who was known all the world. Our graduates were born and grew up in the Chernihiv region. We briefly wrote about the graduates of I.P.Lvov, and there are P. Tychyna, H. Verevka, F. Los and V. Dyadychenko. All of them grew up and lived in difficult times, when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. I. P. Lvov’s students made an outstanding contribution to science, culture of pedagogy in Ukraine. P. Tychyna was a famous Ukrainian poet, interpreter, public activist, academician, and statesman of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. He was born in a big family. His father was a village deacon and a teacher in the local grammar school. In 1900, he became a member of an archiary chorus in the Troitsky monastery near Chernihiv. Simultaneously P. Tychyna studied in the Chernihiv theological school. In 1907−1913 P. Tychyna continued his education in the Chernihiv Theological Seminary. In 1913−1917, he was studying at the Economics department of the Kiev Commercial Institute. At the same time, he worked on the editorial boards of the Kiev newspaper Rada and the magazine Svitlo. In the summer, he worked for the Chernihiv statistical bureau. In 1923, he moved to Kharkiv, entering the vibrant world of early post-Revolution Ukrainian literary organizations. Later he started to study Georgian, and Turkic language, and became the activist of the Association of Eastern Studies in Kyiv. P. Tychnya printed many works, but we viewed only Major works Clarinets of the Sun, The Plow, Instead of Sonnets or Octaves, The Wind from Ukraine, Chernihiv and We Are Going into Battle, Funeral of a Friend, To Grow and Act. H. Veryovka was a Ukrainian composer, choir director, and teacher. He is best known for founding a folk choir, and he was director it for many years, gaining international recognition and winning multiple awards. Veryovka was also a professor of conducting at the Kyiv Conservatory, where he worked alongside faculty including B. Yavorsky, M. Leontovych. H. Veryovka was born in town of Berezna. In 1916, he graduated from the Chernihiv Theological Seminary. In 1918−21 H. Veryovka studied at the Lysenko music school studying a musical composition by B. Yavorsky. In 1933, he received an external degree from the institute. Since 1923 Veryovka continued to work at the Lysenko institute and later Kiev Conservatory. In 1943 in Kharkiv, H. Veryovka organized his well-known choir and until his death was its art director and a main conductor. In 1948-52 he headed the National society of composers of Ukraine. F. Los was born in the village of Pivnivchyna. He studied at the Chernihiv Institute of Social Education. He taught at the secondary school of Volochysk then at the Gorodiansky Pedagogical College of the Chernihiv Region. In 1935, he was a post-graduate student to the Institute of History of the All-Ukrainian Association of Marxist-Leninist Institutes. He researched on the rural community of the early twentieth century. F. Los worked in institutes at such departments: the head of the Department of History of the USSR and Ukraine of the Kiev Pedagogical Institute, the lecturer of the Higher Party School by the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik), Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, and the professor of the History Department. He published over 200 scientific papers, such as: 15 textbooks on the history of Ukraine co-authored about 20 collective monographs, collections of articles, collections of materials and documents. He buried in Kiev. V. Dyadychenko was a researcher, lecturer and methodologist. He was born in Chernihiv in a family of statistician. He graduated from the Chernihiv Institute of Public Education. Having received a diploma of higher education, he taught at the Mykolaiv Pedagogical Institute. Later V. Dyadychenko moved to Kiev and worked at the Institute of History of Ukraine Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. In the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv V. Dyadychenko worked at such chairs: the Department of History of the USSR, the history of the Middle Ages and the ancient history, archeology and museology. Professor V. Dyadychenko collaborate in the writing of school-books on the history of Ukraine for students in grade 7-8. V. Dyadychenko was social and political active worker. In 1973, he died.

We conducted two studies to complement extant tempo preference work. In Study 1, we explored preferred tempos for excerpts from selected wind band masterworks of band directors and undergraduate instrumental music majors. Participants used a sort-and-rank procedure to indicate tempo preferences of six excerpts. Preferences for four of the pieces were substantially the same: There was no difference between original tempos and the 6% increase in tempo. These results comport with research showing increased preference for faster tempos. For the other two excerpts, listeners preferred original and decreased tempos. These results parallel earlier research showing that pieces heard as already fast were preferred with slightly slower tempi. However, in one example, music majors preferred the faster tempi, demonstrating that when examples are unfamiliar, faster tempi are preferred. In Study 2, collegiate and secondary school band directors tapped preferred tempi of four works used in Study 1. Results agree with extant literature: Regression to moderate tempi was demonstrated by participants. Conductors tapped slow examples faster and fast examples slower relative to expert baselines. Tapping performance preferences were consistent with the listening preference task. Awareness of these inclinations may inform musical decisions made by students and band directors when rehearsing and conducting.

Of all the characteristics that may be emphasised by those seeking to set apart the serious, authoritative critic from the inconsequential, workaday reviewer, perhaps the most fundamental is the liberty typically enjoyed by the former. So, while the celebrated literary critic F.R. Leavis (in The Great Tradition) is able to confidently assert in microscopic detail the comparative merits of Lawrence, Joyce, Conrad and Woolf, what Meaghan Morris (106) calls the “gulp it down, chew it over, throw it up” crowd strive (in no more than five hundred words and by close of business today, thanks very much) to explain why John Grisham’s latest tome will turn either heads or stomachs. Amongst reviewers, not surprisingly, one can find hugely varying levels of competence and principle. But when it comes to contemporary music, where the art of the review continues to be practiced across a wide range of media, there are many commentators who would deem the virtues of competence and principle irrelevant to begin with. These critics can be grouped into two distinct camps. On the one hand, it has long been argued that discussions of music (popular or otherwise) are intrinsically flawed if they eschew technical analysis. Thus Wilfrid Mellers, in his 1973 book The Music of the Beatles: Twilight of the Gods, states that “descriptive accounts of music cannot be valid unless they are based on what happens in musical terms” (15). In what amounts to a variation on Mellers’s theme, cultural studies analysts have largely studied popular music as “an expression of rebellion, subversion, resistance and critique” (Regev 258), thereby supporting the view that the sounds themselves cannot be discussed with any authority outside of musicology departments. In this way the virtues of Madonna (and, largely due to her extra-musical activities and role in the development of the video clip, it almost always was Madonna) could be couched in terms of ideological meaning without the need to negotiate the awkward terrain of aesthetic content (Frith 14). At the same time, those few critics who shared Mellers’s technical grounding were poking at the alien specimen that is contemporary music with an entirely different set of instruments, but more or less the same results – that is, conducting no doubt useful but ultimately bloodless examinations. A prime example of this is William Echard’s amazingly meticulous musicological/semiotic dismantling of Neil Young’s “Powderfinger”, from which it is nonetheless impossible to discern whether the author actually likes the song in question. However, a second arm of criticism has been even more dismissive of modern music writing. Because here is where Michael Bywater, Martha Bayles, Roger Scruton and others conclude, by implication, that there is no value in such practices for the simple reason that there is essentially no aesthetic value in contemporary music, period. This school of thought, emanating from a lonely island fortress mired in a perceived sea of mass-cultural pollutants, takes Frankfurt School culture industry critique to its (il)logical nadir by roping off high culture from its insidious, ubiquitous opposite and claiming entire genres, such as popular music, to be inherently anti-intellectual: “Pop is surface all the way down. The musical toolbag contains only surface instruments – rhythmic thud, punch, whine and whop – and the emotions, too, are superficial” (Bywater 44). On this thinking the new Eminem record, for example, is seen as part of a phenomenon to brood over rather than as a distinct artefact worthy of thoughtful evaluation. Both strands of critical thought – the first locking contemporary music inside the musicology building, the second dropping it in the garbage can outside – are characterised by the kind of uncompromising, one-way dialogue Robert Dessaix describes as “excluding”. This style of argument, even when meritorious, ensures that anyone who approaches from outside certain scholarly circles is “silenced – but not by respect for authority” (129). It also calls to mind another commonly cited distinction between critic and reviewer (discussed in Morris 108-9) – a superiority of knowledge and taste that defines not only the serious critic but also the limited scope of his or her audience. Although the popular press, too, has its fair share of didactic prose, Dessaix’s theory does suggest where the worth may lie in an oft-maligned occupation like record reviewing. While non-academic music writers must endure likely time and word limitations, the twin criticisms of abstraction and irrelevance, and the tedious old “dancing about architecture” cliché, at least there is some chance they will invite “complicity in an unexpected adventure” (133) by deftly treading that fine line between expert and enthusiast. Whether plotting a course through English literature à la Leavis or discussing the latest batch of Scandinavian death metal albums, it would be churlish to claim that the role of critic/reviewer is not a legitimate one: the impossibly vast array of cultural productions accessible to the modern-day audience make some form of “expert” guidance indispensable. So, as new music tumbles down upon us like an endless monsoonal rain, thousands of fans masquerading as journalists (or, more frighteningly, journalists masquerading as fans) dutifully strive to sort the releases of the past week, year or decade into some semblance of order … and, as with all criticism, the judgements they come up with are only part of the story. The greatest trick a reviewer (and when referring to the practice of “reviewing” one trusts that at least some degree of editorial control is involved – read the customer comments at Amazon.com and weep) can master is to convince the reader that his or her piece of creative non-fiction is a minor work of art, whilst simultaneously putting forward a lucid argument to the effect that the object under scrutiny is (or isn’t, as the case may be) a valuable one. And, despite the endless kilometres of formulaic and/or sycophantic copy that clog review columns in newspapers, magazines, and on innumerable Web-sites, it does happen every now and then. In Spin magazine’s review of the year 2000’s musical landscape, Jon Dolan provided the following capsule review of P.J. Harvey’s fifth album, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea: Chapter V: Polly Gets Her Gun. But it’s not the return to true grit that makes this her best record since she was Jesus with PMS; it’s that whereas the old stuff took your head off, this rewires your guts. All the beautiful bullshit’s here – pathetic fallacies, Patti Smith mythopoeia, a Thom Yorke duet – but it’s more earned, more cathartic. Sand in her joints. Wind through her hair. Blood on her tracks. What I believe Dolan achieves here is a near-perfect amalgamation of instruction and art. He doesn’t ram his analysis down our throats – to discover how he feels about Harvey, the writer assumes you actually might know something about her yourself: her approximate location on the rock family tree (the Patti Smith allusion is indirect, yet perceptive); that she has been brilliant before (this record merely presenting a new type of brilliance); that at its best her music is complicated and unconventional, furious and revolutionary. The subtlety of the writing evokes shared connections for those familiar with the artist’s recorded output, at the same time inviting neophytes to come and see what all the fuss is about. Not only do the last three sentences summarise Harvey’s resolve, free will and intensity in thrillingly-eloquent prose, but the oblique Bob Dylan reference invites readers to consider complex associations across space and time whilst implicitly recognising their ability to figure out those associations for themselves. And all of this in well under one hundred words. Dolan’s seamless, perspicacious set-piece is evidence that, in all forms of art, the informal-yet-intelligent review can stand alongside the meticulous, highly-ritualised assessment of the academically-situated critic. Of course serious criticism has an important role but it certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on intelligent writing, and besides, there are some aesthetic pleasures that are only enhanced by a less pretentious style of analysis. Or, as P.J. Harvey herself puts it on Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea: “I can’t believe life’s so complex/when I just want to sit here and watch you undress.” The art of the entertaining, insightful review is alive and well in creative non-fiction; you just have to sort through a considerable amount of chaff to find it. References Bayles, Martha. “Body and Soul: The Musical Miseducation of the Youth.” Public Interest 131 (1998): 36-49. Bywater, Michael. “Never Mind the Width, Feel the Lack of Quality.” The Spectator 13 May 1995: 44-5. Dessaix, Robert. (& So Forth). Sydney: MacMillan, 1998. Echard, William. “An Analysis of Neil Young’s ‘Powderfinger’ Based on Mark Johnson’s Image Schemata.” Popular Music 18.1 (1999): 133-44. Frith, Simon. Performing Rites: Evaluating Popular Music. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996. Leavis, F.R. The Great Tradition. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1948. Mellers, Wilfrid. The Music of the Beatles: Twilight of the Gods. New York: Schirmer, 1973. Morris, Meaghan. The Pirate’s Fiancee. London: Verso, 1988. Regev, Motti. “The ‘Pop-Rockization’ of Popular Music.” Popular Music Studies. Ed. David Hesmondhalgh and Keith Negus. London: Arnold, 2002. 117-30. Scruton, Roger. Aesthetics of Music. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Biron, Dean. "The Tortoise and the Hare." M/C Journal 8.5 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0510/05-biron.php>. APA Style Biron, D. (Oct. 2005) "The Tortoise and the Hare," M/C Journal, 8(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0510/05-biron.php>.

Preamble: Medium/Format/Marker Medium/Format/Marker (M/F/M) was a visual-aural improvisational performance involving myself, and musicians Joe Sorbara, and Ben Grossman. It was formed through my work as a PhD candidate at the Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice research initiative at the University of Guelph. This performance was conceived as an attempted intervention against the propensity to reify the “new.” It also sought to address the proliferation of the screen and question how the increased presence of screens in everyday life has augmented the way in which an audience is conceived and positioned. This conception is in direct conversation with my thesis, which is a practice-based research project exploring what the experimental combination of intermediality, improvisation, and the cinema might offer towards developing a reflexive approach to "new" media, screen culture, and expanded cinemas. One of the ways I chose to explore this area involved developing an interface that allowed an audio-visual ensemble to improvise with a film's audio-visual projection. I experimented with different VJ programs. These programs often utilize digital filters and effects to alter images through real-time mixing and layering, much like a DJ does with sound. I found a program developed by Chicago-based artist Ontologist called Ontoplayer, which he developed out of his practice as an improvisational video artist. The program works through a dual-channel interface where two separate digital files could be augmented, with their projected tempo capable of being determined by musicians through a MIDI interface. I conceptualized the performance around the possibility of networking myself with two other musicians via this interface. I approached percussionist Joe Sorbara and multi-instrumentalist Ben Grossman with the idea to use Ontoplayer as a means to improvise with Chris Marker's La Jetée (1962, 28 mins). The film itself would be projected simultaneously in four different formats: 16mm celluloid, VHS, Blu-ray, and Standard Definition video (the format the ensemble improvised with) projected onto four separate screens. From left to right, the first screen contained the projected version of La Jetée that we improvised with, next to it was its Blu-ray format, next to that, a degraded VHS copy of the film, and next to that, the 16mm print. The performance materialized through performing a number of improvisatory experiments. A last minute experiment conceived a few hours before the performance involved placing contact microphones overtop of the motor on a Bell & Howell 16mm projector. The projector was tested in the days leading up to the performance and it ran as smoothly as could be expected. It had a nice cacophonous hum that Ben Grossman intended to improvise with using some contact mics attached directly over the projector’s motor, a $5 iPad app, and his hurdy-gurdy. Fifteen minutes before the performance began, the three of us huddled to discuss how long we'd like to go. We had met briefly the day before to discuss the technical setup of the performance but not its execution and length. I hadn't considered duration. Joe broke the silence by asking if we'd be "finding beginnings and endings." I didn't know what that entailed, but nodded. We started. I turned on the projector and it immediately started to cough and chew on the 40 year old 16mm print I found online. My first impulse was to intervene, to try to save it. The film continued and I sat frozen for a moment. Joe started playing and Ben, expecting me to send him the audio track from La Jetée, prompted me to do so. I let the projector go and began. Joe had a digital kick-drum and two contact mics on his drum kit hooked into a MIDI hub, while Ben's hurdy-gurdy had a contact mic inside it, wired into the hub. The hub hooked into my laptop and allowed for an intermedial conversation to emerge between the three of us. While the 16mm, VHS, and Blu-Ray formats proceeded relatively unimpeded alongside each other on their respective screens, the fourth screen was where this conversation took place. I digitally reordered different image sequences from La Jetée. The fact that it’s a film (almost) comprised entirely of still images made this reordering intriguing in that I was able control the speed of progressing from each image to the next. The movement from image to image was structured between Ben and Joe’s improvisations and the kind of effects and filters I had initialized. Ontoplayer has a number of effects and filters that push the base image into more abstract territories (e.g.: geometric shapes, over pixelation) I was uninterested in exploring. I utilized effects that to some degree still kept the representational content of the image intact. The degree to which these effects took hold of the image were determined by whether or not Ben and Joe decided to use the part of their instrument that would trigger them. The decision to linger on an image, colour it differently, or skip ahead in the film’s real-time projection destabilized my sense of where I was in the film. It became an event in the sense that each movement, both visual and aural was happening with an indeterminate duration. La Jetée opens with the narrator proclaiming: “this is the story of a man marked by an image from his childhood.” The story itself is situated around a man in a post-apocalyptic world, haunted by the persistent memory of a woman he saw as a child while standing on the jetty at Orly Airport in Paris. The man was a soldier, now captured, and imprisoned in an underground camp. The prison guards have been conducting experiments on the prisoners, attempting to use the prisoner’s memories as a mechanism to send them backwards and forwards in time. The narrator explains, “with the surface of the planet irradiated … The human race was doomed. Space was off limits. The only link with survival passed through time … The purpose of the experiments was to throw emissaries into time to call the past and future to the aid of the present.” La Jetée is visually structured as a photomontage, with voice-over narration, diegetic and non-diegetic sound existing as component parts to the whole film. I decided to separate these components for the sake of isolating them before the performance as instruments of the film to be improvisationally deployed through the intermedial connection between Ben, Joe, and myself. The resulting projections that emerged from our interface became a kind of improvised "grooving" to La Jetée that restricted the impulse to discriminately place sound beneath and behind the image. I selected images from different points in the film that felt "timely" given the changing dynamic between the three of us. I remember lingering on an image of the woman's face, her hand against her mouth, her hair being blown back by the wind. I looked and listened for the moment when the film would catch and then catch fire. It never came. We let the reel run to the end and continued on improvising until we found an ending. But the sound of that film catching but never breaking, the intention and tension of the film being near death the entire time made everything we did more precious, teetering on the brink of failure. We could never have predicted that, and it gave us something I continue to ponder and be thankful for. Celluloid junkies in the room commented on how precipitous the whole thing was, given how rare it is to encounter the sound of celluloid film travelling through a projector inside a cinematic space. An audiophile mused over how there wasn’t any document, his mind adequately blown by how “funky” the projector sounded. With there being no document of the performance, I'm left with my own memories. In mining the aftermath of this performance, I hope to find an addendum that considers how improvisation might negotiate with augmentation in ways that speak to Walter Benjamin's assertion that the "camera, the film, on the one hand, extends our comprehension of the necessities which rule our lives; on the other hand, it manages to assure us of an immense and unexpected field of action” (Benjamin 236-7).Images to be Determined I got a job working in a photo lab eight years ago, right around the time digital cameras started becoming not only affordable, but technologically-comparable alternatives to film cameras. The photo printer in the lab was setup to scan and digitize celluloid filmstrips to allow for digital “touchups” by the technician. It was also hooked into touchscreen media stations that accepted a variety of memory card formats so that customers could “touchup” their own images. Celluloid film meant that as long as their format was chemical, touching up their images remained the task of the technician. Against the urging of the lab’s manager, I resisted altering other people’s images. It felt like a violation, despite the fact that almost every customer was unaware of this process. They assumed a degree of responsibility for a chemically-exposed image. I still got blamed for a lot of bad photography, but an image chemically under or overexposed was irreparable. Digital cameras changed all of that. I still preferred an evenly exposed celluloid print to a digital, but the allure was the ability for these images to be augmented. Augmentation is synonymous with "enhancement," "prosthesis," "addition," "amplification," "enrichment," "expansion,” and "extension" (to name a few). For the purpose of this essay, I am situating augmentation as an agential act engaging with a static form to purposefully alter its aesthetic and political relation to a reality. To what extent can we say that the digital image is itself, an augmentation? If Instagram is any indication, the digital image's existence is bound by its perpetual augmentation. A digital image is only as good as its capacity to be worked on. The ubiquity of digitally applying lomographic filters to digital images, as a defining step in their distributive chain, is indicative of the discursive impact remediating the old into the new has on digital forms. These digitally-coded filters used to augment “clear” digital images are comprised of exaggerated imperfections that existed to varying degrees, as unforeseen side effects of working with comparatively more unstable celluloid textures. The filtered images themselves are digital distortions of a digital original. The filters augment this original through obscuring one or a number of components. Some filters might exaggerate the green values or sharpen a particular quadrant within the frame that might coincide with the look of a particular film stock from the past. The discourse of “film” and “vintage” photography has become a synonymous component of the digital aesthetic, discursively warming up what is often considered to be a cold, and disembodied medium. Augmentation works to re-establish a congruous relationship between the filmic and the digital, attempting to reconcile the aesthetic distance between granularity and pixelation. This is ironic because this process is encapsulated through digitally encoding and applying these filters for the sake of obscuring clarity. Thus, the object is both hailed as clear and clearly manipulable. Another example a bit closer to the cinema is the development of digital video cameras offering RAW, or minimally compressed file formats for the sole purpose of augmenting the initial recording in post-production workflows in an attempt to minimize degradation in the image. The colour values and dynamic range of these images are muted, or flattened so that the human can control their elevation after the fact. To some degree the initial image, in itself, is an augmentation of its filmic relative. From early experiments with video synthesizers to the present digital coding of film effects, digital images have tantalized video artists and filmmakers with possibility shrouded in instantaneity and malleability. A key problem with this structure remains the unbridled proliferation and expansion of the digital image, set free for the sake of newness. How might improvisation work towards establishing an ethics of augmentation? An ethics of this kind must disrupt the popular notion of the digital image existing beyond analogical constraints. The belief that “if you can imagine it, you can do it” obfuscates the reality that to work with images, whatever their texture, is a negotiation with constraint. Part of M/F/M’s fruition emerged from a conversation I'd had with Canadian Animator Pierre Hébert last summer. Now obvious, but for Hébert, the first obstacle he needed to overcome as an improviser was developing an instrument that he could gig with. Through the act of designing an instrument I immediately became aware of what wasn't possible, and so the work leading up to the performance involved attempting to expand the possibilities of that instrument. How might I conceive of my own treatment of images simultaneously treated by Joe and Ben as a kind of cinematic extended technique we collaboratively bring into being? Constraint necessitates the need for extension, for finding new ways to sound and appear. Constraint is also consistently conceived as shackling progress. In scientific methodologies it is often arbitrarily imposed to steer an experiment into a desired direction. This sort of experimental methodology is in the business of presupposing outcomes, which I feel is often the case with what ultimately becomes the essay of end result in Humanities research. Constraint is an important imposition in improvisation only if the parties involved are willing to find new ways to move in consort with it. The act of improvisation is thus an engagement with the spatio-temporal constraints of performance, politics, memory, texture, and difference. My conception of the cinema is that of an instrument, whose past is what I work with to better understand its future. Critic Gene Youngblood, in his landmark book, Expanded Cinema, theorized a new conception of the cinema as a global planetary phenomenon suffused inside a space of intermedia, where immersive, interactive, and interconnected realms necessitated the need to critically conceptualise the cinema in cosmic terms. At around the time of Youngblood's writing, another practitioner of the cosmic way, improviser and composer Sun Ra was staking a similar claim for music's ability to uplift the species cosmically. Ra's popular line “If we came from nowhere here, why can’t we go somewhere there?” (Heble 125), articulated the problematic racial politics in post-WWII America, that fixed African-American identity into a static domain with little room to move upward. The "somewhere there" to Ra was a non-space, created from "a desire to opt out of the very codes of representation and intelligibility, the very frameworks of interpretation and assumption which have legitimated the workings of dominant culture" (Heble 125). Though Youngblood's and Ra's intellectual and creative impulses formed from differing political circumstances, the work and thinking of these two figures remain significant articulations of the need to work from and towards the cosmic. In 2003, Youngblood published a follow-up essay in a reprint of Expanded Cinema entitled Cinema and the Code. In it, he defines cinema as a “phenomenology of the moving image.” Rather than conceiving of it through any of its particular media, Youngblood advocates for a segregated conception of the cinema: Just as we separate music from its instruments. Cinema is the art of organizing a stream of audiovisual events in time. It is an event-stream, like music. There are at least four media through which we can practice cinema – film, video, holography, and structured digital code—just as there are many instruments through which we can practice music. (Youngblood cited in Marchessault and Lord 7) Music and cinema are thus conceived as the exterior consequences of creative and co-creative instrumental experimentation. For Ra and Youngblood, the planetary stakes of this project are infused with the need to manufacture and occupy an imaginative space (if only for a moment) outside of the known. This is not to say that the action itself is transcendental. But rather this outside is the planetary. For the past year I've been making a documentary with Joe Sorbara on the free improv scene in Toronto. Listening to musicians talk about improvisation in expansive terms, as this ethereal and ephemeral experience, that exists on the brink of failure, that is as much an act of memory as renewal, reverberated with my own feelings surrounding the cinema. Improvisation, to philosopher Gary Peters, is the "entwinement of preservation and destruction", that "invites us to make a transition from a closed conception of the past to one that re-thinks it as an endlessly ongoing event or occurrence whereby tradition is re-originated (Benjamin) or re-opened (Heidegger)” (Peters 2). This “entwinement of preservation and destruction” takes me back to my earlier discussion of the ways in which digital photography, in particular lomographically filtered snapshots, is structured through preserving the discursive past of film while destroying its standard. The performance of M/F/M attempted to connect the augmentation of the digital image and the impact this augmentation had on conceptualizing the past through an improvisational approach to intermediality. The issue I have with the determination of images concerns their technological standardization. As long as manufacturers and technicians control this process then the practice of gathering, projecting, and experiencing digital images is predetermined by their commercial obligation. It assures that augmenting the “immense and unexpected field of action” comprising the domain of images is itself a predetermination. References Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. New York: Schocken Books, 1985. Heble, Ajay. Landing on the Wrong Note. London: Routledge, 2000. Marker, Chris, dir. La Jetée. Argos Films. 1962. Marchessault, Janine, and Susan Lord. Fluid Screens, Expanded Cinema. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Peters, Gary. The Philosophy of Improvisation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.