Cantorial anthology of traditional and modern synagogue music : arranged for cantor and choir with organ accompaniment

comp. and ed. by Gershon Ephros

Irish melodies, with the original prefatory letter on music; and a supplement containing a selection from his poetical works.

Added title-page engraved.

Hibernia : or, Comprehensive sketches of the history, curiosities, scenery, distinguished characters and religion of Ireland : with specimens of Irish poetry and music, and account of the causes of the degradation of the country /

Mode of access: Internet.

Motivating techniques within Irish and American manufacturing and service companies in the Northwest of Ireland

In today’s world, many companies are concentrating on both their technology and human resources to provide them with their competitive advantage. Hence, understanding what motivates people is particularly important for managers in order to develop and sustain a competitive edge. As a result, numerous theories have been advanced to help our understanding of the subject matter and from these theories many motivational methods have evolved to enhance motivation within the workplace. In addition, research has been conducted on the various types of motivational techniques utilised by companies within Ireland. However, very little research has been completed within specific geographical regions in Ireland concerning the types of motivational techniques implemented at different job levels and their impact on employees work performance. Thus the objective of this research was to identify the motivational techniques utilised at different job levels within large manufacturing and service companies in the Northwest of Ireland and examine how these techniques influence the performance levels of employees. Furthermore, the study examined if these companies have changed from traditional ways of motivating employees to newer techniques. The research methodologies used to undertake the research included interviews with the HR managers and questionnaires completed by different employees at various job levels within the participating companies. Overall the conclusions were varied. Many different types of motivation techniques were found within the study’s participating companies. Irish companies are improving their motivational techniques, however most of these techniques are only used within higher job levels. In contrast to their American counterparts, a variety of motivational techniques are utilised and implemented at all job levels. On a more positive note, the majority of these motivational techniques do increase performance levels at all job levels. From the extensive primary and secondary research conducted, the thesis concludes by offering a number of recommendations to assist companies in further development of their motivational techniques for all job levels. These recommendations hope to augment the success of companies through an enhanced motivated workforce.

Music digitalization and its effects on the Finnish music industry stakeholders

For the past two decades the music digitalization has been considered the most significant phenomenon in the music industry as the physical sales have been decreasing rapidly. The advancement of the digital technology and the internet have facilitated the digitalization in the music industry and affected all stages of the music value chain, namely music creation, distribution and consumption. The newly created consumer culture has led to the establishment of novel business models such as music subscriptions and à-la-carte downloads websites and live streaming. The dynamic digital environment has presented the music industry stakeholders with the challenge to adapt to the requirements of the constantly changing modern consumers’ needs and demands. The purpose of this study was to identify how music digitalization can influence change in the Finnish music industry value chain; i.e. how digitalization affects the music industry stakeholders, their functions and inter-relatedness and how the stakeholders are able to react to the changes in the industry. The study was conducted as a qualitative research based entirely on primary data in the form of semi-structured interviews with experts from different units of the Finnish music industry value chain. Since the study offers assessment of diverse viewpoints on the value chain, it further provides an integrated picture of the Finnish music industry current situation and its competitive environment. The results suggest that the music industry is currently in a turbulent stage of experimentation with new business models and digital innovations. However, at this point it is impossible to determine which business model will be approved by the consumers in the longer run. Nevertheless, the study confirmed the claim that consumption of music in its digital form is to become dominant over the traditional physical copies sales in the nearest future. As a result the music industry is becoming more user-oriented; that is the focus is shifting from music production towards artist branding and management and visibility to the audience. Furthermore, the music industry is undergoing the process of integration with other industries such as media, social networks, internet services providers and mobile phone manufacturers in order to better fulfill the consumers’ needs. The previously underrated live music and merchandising are also increasing their significance for the revenues in the stagnant music markets. Therefore, the music industry is developing at present towards becoming an integrated entertainment industry deeply penetrating every point of modern people’s leisure activities.

Marginal/minority popular music : the concept of the "third space" and the case for "hybridities" of cultures/identities /

The topic of this thesis is marginaVminority popular music and the question of identity; the term "marginaVminority" specifically refers to members of racial and cultural minorities who are socially and politically marginalized. The thesis argument is that popular music produced by members of cultural and racial minorities establishes cultural identity and resists racist discourse. Three marginaVminority popular music artists and their songs have been chosen for analysis in support of the argument: Gil Scott-Heron's "Gun," Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" and Robbie Robertson's "Sacrifice." The thesis will draw from two fields of study; popular music and postcolonialism. Within the area of popular music, Theodor Adorno's "Standardization" theory is the focus. Within the area of postcolonialism, this thesis concentrates on two specific topics; 1) Stuart Hall's and Homi Bhabha's overlapping perspectives that identity is a process of cultural signification, and 2) Homi Bhabha's concept of the "Third Space." For Bhabha (1995a), the Third Space defines cultures in the moment of their use, at the moment of their exchange. The idea of identities arising out of cultural struggle suggests that identity is a process as opposed to a fixed center, an enclosed totality. Cultures arise from historical memory and memory has no center. Historical memory is de-centered and thus cultures are also de-centered, they are not enclosed totalities. This is what Bhabha means by "hybridity" of culture - that cultures are not unitary totalities, they are ways of knowing and speaking about a reality that is in constant flux. In this regard, the language of "Otherness" depends on suppressing or marginalizing the productive capacity of culture in the act of enunciation. The Third Space represents a strategy of enunciation that disrupts, interrupts and dislocates the dominant discursive construction of US and THEM, (a construction explained by Hall's concept of binary oppositions, detailed in Chapter 2). Bhabha uses the term "enunciation" as a linguistic metaphor for how cultural differences are articulated through discourse and thus how differences are discursively produced. Like Hall, Bhabha views culture as a process of understanding and of signification because Bhabha sees traditional cultures' struggle against colonizing cultures as transforming them. Adorno's theory of Standardization will be understood as a theoretical position of Western authority. The thesis will argue that Adorno's theory rests on the assumption that there is an "essence" to music, an essence that Adorno rationalizes as structure/form. The thesis will demonstrate that constructing music as possessing an essence is connected to ideology and power and in this regard, Adorno's Standardization theory is a discourse of White Western power. It will be argued that "essentialism" is at the root of Western "rationalization" of music, and that the definition of what constitutes music is an extension of Western racist "discourses" of the Other. The methodological framework of the thesis entails a) applying semiotics to each of the three songs examined and b) also applying Bhabha's model of the Third Space to each of the songs. In this thesis, semiotics specifically refers to Stuart Hall's retheorized semiotics, which recognizes the dual function of semiotics in the analysis of marginal racial/cultural identities, i.e., simultaneously represent embedded racial/cultural stereotypes, and the marginal raciaVcultural first person voice that disavows and thus reinscribes stereotyped identities. (Here, and throughout this thesis, "first person voice" is used not to denote the voice of the songwriter, but rather the collective voice of a marginal racial/cultural group). This dual function fits with Hall's and Bhabha's idea that cultural identity emerges out of cultural antagonism, cultural struggle. Bhabha's Third Space is also applied to each of the songs to show that cultural "struggle" between colonizers and colonized produces cultural hybridities, musically expressed as fusions of styles/sounds. The purpose of combining semiotics and postcolonialism in the three songs to be analyzed is to show that marginal popular music, produced by members of cultural and racial minorities, establishes cultural identity and resists racist discourse by overwriting identities of racial/cultural stereotypes with identities shaped by the first person voice enunciated in the Third Space, to produce identities of cultural hybridities. Semiotic codes of embedded "Black" and "Indian" stereotypes in each song's musical and lyrical text will be read and shown to be overwritten by the semiotic codes of the first person voice, which are decoded with the aid of postcolonial concepts such as "ambivalence," "hybridity" and "enunciation."

Sofia Gubaidulina's violin concerto Offertorium : theology and music in dialogue

L’objectif de ce mémoire est de comprendre comment une certaine vision du monde, basée sur des croyances théologiques, a contribué à la composition du concerto pour violon Offertorium de Sofia Gubaïdulina. C’est par le biais de cette œuvre qu’est explorée l’idée du dialogue musicothéologique, en proposant des façons par lesquelles la pièce musicale en question peut servir de porteuse ou d’interprète d’une pensée théologique. Afin d’appuyer cette idée, la démarche intertextuelle employée par Heidi Epstein est utilisée. Cette méthode permet de faciliter non seulement le travail interdisciplinaire, mais aussi la lecture théologique de l’œuvre musicale. Le premier chapitre explore les sources, les questions et la problématique qui entoure le dialogue musicothéologique. La conclusion tirée est que l’étude d’Offertorium nécessite une approche équilibrée. Nous entendons par cela, une approche qui prend en ligne de compte la réflexion théologique autant que la recherche musicologique tout en respectant les contributions théologiques que l’œuvre musicale peut apporter en soi. Dans le deuxième chapitre, une analyse thématique d’Offertorium a été tentée ainsi qu’une étude du discours théologique et spirituel de la compositrice. Il a été conclu que l’arrière-plan russe orthodoxe de Gubaidulina a beaucoup influencé sa vision du monde et son approche artistique. Le concerto est porteur d’idées et de symboles liturgiques ou théologiques de l’Orthodoxie dans sa structure et dans sa construction thématique. Le troisième chapitre explore les parallèles entre la pensée de Gubaidulina et les écritures de plusieurs théologiens russes orthodoxes du 20e siècle. La conclusion de ce chapitre démontre que, même s’il est improbable que la compositrice connaisse bien ces auteurs, sa compréhension théologique et spirituelle sort du climat religieux de l’Église Orthodoxe. Cette idée explique les complémentarités et les similarités entre son discours, son œuvre et les propos des théologiens discutés. Le quatrième chapitre évalue la validité d’Offertorium comme moyen d’expression théologique ainsi que de générateur de réflexion théologique. La conclusion de la recherche est qu’Offertorium peut bel et bien être un espace théologique. Ce qui veut dire que des idées théologiques peuvent être communiquées par le biais de l’expérience sonore que ce soit par la mélodie ou l’ambiance générale. Également, cela implique que la musique devient un partenaire égal, quoique différent des méthodes de réflexion traditionnelles au sein de la conversation théologique.

Primary music education: the misrepresentation of the ideals of curricula in research

The author starts from a historical viewpoint to suggest that, at primary level, we have tended to perpetuate a nineteenth-century notion of music education. This is evident in the selection and organisation of musical content in curriculum documents, the scope of the teacher-pupil transaction implicit in these and the assumptions about music education which underpin research on practice conducted at official policy level. In light of the introduction of the 1999 Revised Primary School Curriculum, with its change in emphasis, she notes that it is timely to reconsider the situation. Central to this is the need to challenge the notion of music as a set of delineated skills, to explore the relationship between the primary teacher and music, and to move towards a notion of research which acknowledges the richness of multiple interpretations teachers bring to the curriculum.

Meteorological phenomena in Western classical orchestral music

Depictions of the weather are common throughout the arts. Unlike in the visual arts, however, there has been little study of meteorological inspiration in music. This article catalogues and analyzes the frequencies with which weather is depicted in a sample of classical orchestral music. The depictions vary from explicit mimicry using traditional and specialized orchestral instruments, through to subtle suggestions. It is found that composers are generally influenced by their own environment in the type of weather they choose to represent. As befits the national stereotype, British composers seem disproportionately keen to depict the UK's variable weather patterns and stormy coastline

THE FLUTE MUSIC OF PAUL DESENNE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYTICAL STUDY OF REPRESENTATIVE WORKS

The significance of the works by Venezuelan-born composer Paul Desenne lies in his unique compositional style that incorporates elements of Latin American folk, pop, and traditional music within the framework of the Western European tradition. His works, though easily classified as art music, nevertheless gain much of their emotional and referential meaning through this rich borrowing. This document focuses on three of Desenne’s flute pieces: the Solo Flute Sonata (2001), Gurrufío for flute orchestra (1997), and Guasa Macabra for flute and clarinet (2003). It provides an analysis of the three works, examining formal, structural, motivic, and rhythmic aspects. Scores and interviews with the composer have been employed as primary sources. Bibliographical material closely related to his music and other secondary sources support this analytical approach. This document also provides an introduction and stylistic discussion of Desenne’s other pieces that incorporate the flute. Chapter one consists of an introduction to Desenne’s life and general considerations of his musical style. Each of the following three chapters focuses on one the three aforementioned flute works, including information about the composition and premiere of each piece as well as analysis and an examination of its incorporation of traditional folk elements. The final chapter presents an introduction to and stylistic discussion of the other flute pieces by this composer. This study intends to provide a basic understanding of Desenne’s flute music, including general characteristics of his musical style, paving the way for further investigation of Desenne’s music, and flute music in particular.