City meadows : Vitality from a living heritage

In the middle of the hustle and bustle of a city, you may find a city meadow. A city meadow refers to a green area situated in an urban setting, the management of which aims at maintaining meadow species and facilitating outdoor recreation for city residents. Some of these green areas situated in cities are managed in a detailed and planned manner, while others have been left untended and are now wild, overgrown and in some cases impenetrable. However, all these meadows share one similarity: they play an important role in producing ecosystem services. What, then, is meant by ecosystem services? The multitude of flowers that bloom during summer, recreational opportunities, maintaining nature’s diversity, as well as filtering urban runoff are some of the everyday “services” that city meadows provide for the urban environment and its residents. This publication covers several different points of view by numerous experts on the importance of green areas in cities. The message is clear: management of city meadows improves both natural and cultural environments in a cost-effective manner. City meadows also help improve the health and enjoyment of city residents. When a green area is well-managed, the reputation and image of the surrounding properties and neighbourhood will also improve, as will their financial value!

One process to rule them all? The role of a repository platform in the management of digitized cultural heritage at the National Library of Finland

Presentation at Open Repositories 2013, DSpace User Group, on 12.7.2013 in Charlottetown, PEI, Canada

”Du sköna sång, vårt bästa arv” - kanonisering av en sångskatt ur ett hermeneutiskt perspektiv

Songs have the power to get through to people. When lyrics are combined with a tune, the result is an entity where the first few notes of a melody can evoke emotions of recognition and belonging. A song treasury consists of such songs that are part of a canonized song tradition. The process where certain songs become part of an established song treasury is long, and many other aspects than the tune itself influence the forming of a song treasury. By examining the characteristics of a song tradition, the history of an ethnic group can be illuminated. In this study, music, pedagogy, and the sociocultural context are merged into a whole where a common song tradition, the song treasury, is in focus. The main aim of this study is to deepen the understanding of a song treasury, its development and contents. This understanding is accomplished by analyzing the musical and lyrical characteristics of 60 songs, which have been sung in schools, homes, and communities, thereby becoming popular among the Swedish-speaking Finns during the 20th century. The songs have been chosen by combining three song lists, of which two lists are closely related to school curricula. The third song list is a result of a survey on favourite songs, according to the situation around year 2000. The songs are examined in their notated versions, a number of song books and text books (n = 29) forming the empirical material. In this study, a hermeneutical approach is applied, content analysis being the method. The analysis is based on three perspectives: the sociocultural perspective, the music-pedagogical perspective, and the musico-analytical perspective. Within each perspective, two aspects are studied. This results in a hexagonal model which forms the structure of the study as a whole. The first two perspectives form the background; a historical context where nation, education, home country, and homestead are regarded as highly important. A common song repertoire is considered to be an effective means of building collective identity within ethnic groups, the common language and the cultural heritage being used as rhetorical arguments. During the early 1900s, choir festivals become an educational platform where conceptions of a common belonging are developed and strengthened through religious, patriotic, and poetical expressions. National school curricula in singing and music have similar characteristics, cultural heritage and values education being in focus. The song lyrics often describe nature and emotions, and they also appear to be personal and situated in a given time and place. Patriotic expressions and songs about music are also fairly common. The songs generally express positive attitudes, which are intensified by major tonality, rich and varied melodies with stable rhythms, and a strong tonal base. The analyzed details of the studied aspects are merged into a thick description, which results in an interpretation pattern with three dimensions: a song treasury can be considered an expression of collective identity, cultural heritage, and values education.

European Acoustic Heritage : äänimaisematutkimuksia

Julkaisumaa : 040 AT AUT Itävalta. - Julkaisu sisältää kaksi DVD:tä ja 13 sivuisen tekstiliitteen, projektin verkkosivusto http://europeanacousticheritage.eu/the-project/

Background for Designing an Improved Digital Musical Keyboard Instrument

Electrical keyboard instruments and computer-aided music-making generally base on the piano keyboard that was developed for a tuning system no longer used. Alternative keyboard layout offers at least easier playing, faster adopting, new ways to play and better ergonomics. This thesis explores the development of keyboard instruments and tunings, and different keyboard layouts. This work is preliminary research for an electrical keyboard instrument to be implemented later on.

Biodiversity Heritage Library: a global open repository

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Reusing repository technology for Cultural Heritage and Special Collections

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Heritage through Fiction: Dracula Tourism in Romania

Heritage and tourism have become inextricably linked. This link can be seen as producing inauthentic and falsified tradition, and it can therefore be seen as a threat to cultural heritage. On the other hand the link can be seen as a positive thing, as something which helps to preserve herit-age, culture and folklore in a changing and globalising world. This dissertation investigates heritage in the context of Dracula Tourism in Romania. Dracula tourism is tourism where tourists visit places connected with either the fictional vampire Dracula or the historical Dracula, a Romanian historical ruler Vlad the Impaler. The main research question of this study is how can Romanian heritage and culture be shown and promoted through a seemingly superficial Dracula tourism which is based on Western popular cul-ture? And is it possible to find Romanian heritage through popular fiction in Dracula tourism? The main sources for this work are based on the fieldwork done by the author in 2010 and 2011 and the web pages of ten Romanian travel agencies that offer Dracula tourism. The stories and images found on the web pages and used by the tour guides form the bulk of the research material. The emphasis and perspective of this research is folkloristic. Critical discourse analysis and multimodal discourse analysis form the main theoretical approach of this dissertation. In addition the research material is approached through intertextuality, folklore process, hybridisation, authenticity and social constructionism. This dissertation aims to offer new perspectives on the research literature concerning tourism and heritage and to offer a folkloristic view of tourism research. It also aims to offer new perspectives to folkloristics in terms of the research on the use of folklore and tradition and offer new perspectives on the use and definition of the concept of authenticity. Although the research subject of this thesis is Dracula tourism in Romania, the findings can be utilised and applied in a larger context and field of research. The key research findings show that heritage can be found within Dracula Tourism in three forms: as defined from above (UNESCO World Heritage Sites), as local heritage and as a form of opposition. The Romanian travel agencies researched in this dissertation use Dracula tourism as a gateway into Romanian history, culture, tradition and heritage. Kulttuuriperintö ja turismi yhdistyvät toisiinsa erottamattomasti. Toisaalta tämän yhteyden on nähty tuottavan epäautenttista ja väärennettyä perinnettä, ja tällöin sen on koettu muodostavan uhan kulttuuriperinnölle. Toisaalta yhteys on mielletty myös positiivisena asiana, sillä sen on nähty toimivan globalisoituvassa maailmassa kulttuuriperintöä, kulttuuria ja kansanperinnettä säilyttävänä tekijänä. Väitöskirjassa tutkitaan sitä, miten kulttuuriperintö ilmenee Dracula-turismissa Romaniassa. Dracula- turismi on turismia, joka liittyy joko fiktiiviseen vampyyrikreivi Draculaan tai historiallisena Draculana tunnettuun romanialaiseen hallitsijaan Vlad Seivästäjään. Väitöskirjan päätutkimuskysymyksenä on, miten romanialaista kulttuuriperintöä ja kulttuuria voidaan tuoda esiin näennäisesti pinnallisen ja länsimaiseen populaarikulttuuriin pohjautuvan Dracula-turismin kautta. Työn päälähteet pohjautuvat tutkijan vuosina 2010 ja 2011 tekemiin kenttätöihin sekä kymmenen Dracula-turismia tarjoavan romanialaisen matkatoimiston WWW-sivustoihin. Internet-sivuilta löytyvät tarinat ja kuvat sekä matkaoppaiden käyttämät tarinat muodostavat tutkimuksen tutkimusaineiston. Tutkimuksen painotus ja näkökulma ovat folkloristisia. Tutkimuksen teoreettinen viitekehys muodostuu kriittisestä diskurssianalyysistä sekä multimodaalisesta diskurssianalyysistä. Näiden lisäksi tutkimusaineistoa analysoidaan intertekstuaalisuuden, folkloreprosessin, hybridisaation, autenttisuuden ja sosiaalisen konstruktion käsitteiden avulla. Väitöskirjatutkimus tarjoaa uusia näkökulmia turismia ja kulttuuriperintöä käsittelevään tutkimukseen sekä tarjoaa matkailun tutkimukseen folkloristisen lisänäkökulman. Folkloristisen tutkimuksen näkökulmasta työn keskiössä ovat perinteen ja folkloren hyödyntäminen sekä autenttisuuden käsitteen määrittely ja käyttö, joihin työssä otetaan kantaa. Vaikka tutkimus käsittelee Dracula-turismia Romaniassa, ovat tutkimustulokset käytettävissä ja sovellettavissa myös laajemmin. Työn keskeiset tutkimustulokset osoittavat, että kulttuuriperintö ilmenee Dracula-turismissa kolmella eri tavalla: ylätasolla kuten esimerkiksi UNESCO:n kohteissa, alatasolla paikallisten ihmisten tai ihmisryhmien määrittelemänä sekä vastustuksen muotona. Väitöskirjassa tutkitut matkatoimistot käyttävät Dracula-turismia ikään kuin porttina romanialaiseen historiaan, kulttuuriin, perinteeseen ja kulttuuriperinteeseen.

Manipulating Greek musical modes and tempo affects perceived musical emotion in musicians and nonmusicians

The combined influence of tempo and mode on emotional responses to music was studied by crossing 7 changes in mode with 3 changes in tempo. Twenty-four musicians aged 19 to 25 years (12 males and 12 females) and 24 nonmusicians aged 17 to 25 years (12 males and 12 females) were required to perform two tasks: 1) listening to different musical excerpts, and 2) associating an emotion to them such as happiness, serenity, fear, anger, or sadness. ANOVA showed that increasing the tempo strongly affected the arousal (F(2,116) = 268.62, mean square error (MSE) = 0.6676, P < 0.001) and, to a lesser extent, the valence of emotional responses (F(6,348) = 8.71, MSE = 0.6196, P < 0.001). Changes in modes modulated the affective valence of the perceived emotions (F(6,348) = 4.24, MSE = 0.6764, P < 0.001). Some interactive effects were found between tempo and mode (F (1,58) = 115.6, MSE = 0.6428, P < 0.001), but, in most cases, the two parameters had additive effects. This finding demonstrates that small changes in the pitch structures of modes modulate the emotions associated with the pieces, confirming the cognitive foundation of emotional responses to music.

Schelling e a constituição da estética musical

O presente artigo conta investigar o processo de constituição da estética musical a partir da teoria da arte elaborada por F. W. J. von Schelling. Para tanto, espera-se mostrar a maneira pela qual o filósofo alemão procura redimensionar as bases que davam sustentação à chamada estética sistemática para, a partir de uma ponderação extremamente inovadora, caracterizar a música como um objeto original de saber.

From transcendental to practical intersubjectivity: a social psychological approach to Kant's musical aesthetics

It is well known that Kant’s aesthetics is framed intersubjectively because he upholds the claim of taste to universality. However, the transcendental foundation of this shared universality is a supersensible ground which is taken for granted but which cannot be brought directly into communicative experience. Kant’s reliance on the synthetic a priori structure of aesthetic judgment also removes it from the sphere of observable personal interaction. This argumentative strategy exposes it to skeptical challenge and generates inaccessible references to inner representations (be they intuitions, categories of the understanding or rational ideas). It is not sufficient, as Kant did, to propose a description of aesthetic experience that is subjectively plausible and thereby claim its intersubjective validity. It is indispensable to embody intersubjectivity in behavior and language. In practical intersubjectivity, aesthetic attitudes are dealt with in a concrete and accessible manner without relying on mentalistic assumptions as a foundation. Conceptual terms such as 'agreeable’, 'beauty’, 'sublime’, 'ugly’, 'universality’ acquire new meaning in a conversational context and aesthetic claims are tested in a dialogical game semantics model.