1857 research outputs found
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The relationship between postural stability and dancers' past and future lower-limb injuries
No full textIn an effort to address dance-related injuries, screening programs are typically employed to assess injury susceptibility. The aim of this study was to explore for potential links between postural stability and dancers’ previous lower-limb injuries and susceptibility to future lower-limb injuries. Eighty-five contemporary dance students were recruited at a UK dance conservatoire. Information concerning previous injuries was collected by self-report survey. The participants completed two balance tasks, one static and one dynamic, performed on a RS Scan Footscan pressure pad to calculate postural sway. Injuries in the participant cohort were then tracked for a 10-month period to assess injury susceptibility. The participants exhibited significantly less postural sway when balancing on the left leg than their right, and the women exhibited less postural sway than the men. A one-way ANOVA revealed that participants who had experienced a lower-limb injury in the 12 months prior to testing exhibited more postural sway than participants who had not experienced a lower-limb injury, with some of the differences attaining significance (p <0.05). No significant links were found between either postural sway or previous injury and future injury susceptibility. The results suggest that assessments of postural stability via centre of pressure measurements are a reliable method for assessing dancers’ balance ability. While reaffirming the importance of comprehensive, multidisciplinary screening programs, the results also highlight the necessity of developing a greater understanding of both dancers and the environments in which they dance and work to fully ascertain injury susceptibility
'Il soprano e veramente l’ornamento di tutte l’altre parti': soprani, castrati, falsettisti and the performance of late Renaissance Italian secular music
No full textThe wealth of recent scholarship concerning women singers in late Renaissance Italy has assigned to them an importance and ‘visibility’ in our image of the musical practices of the most culturally sophisticated institutions (notably courts) that has far-reaching implications for our understanding of their wider meanings. However, despite all we now know about particular performances at specific places and moments, as well as the identities and reputations of numerous ‘sopranos’, there are still many unanswered questions about the performance of the cantus parts in vocal music of all kinds, both secular and sacred. Recent scholarship has also both re-evaluated and added to our knowledge of the other sorts of sopranos in sixteenth-century Italy – falsettists, boys and girls (although they have as yet received little attention) and, of course, castratos. It is now clear that professional castrato singers were to be found from at least the middle of the sixteenth century employed not only at the Papal chapel, but also in courts throughout Italy and Spain, but also in France, Germany and the Low Countries (albeit in small numbers). The surviving sources are, however, extremely sparse and mostly have little or nothing to say about everyday musical practice. One possible reason for this, I argue, is that those involved in professional music-making simply did not share our modern preoccupation with castratos as utterly different from all other singers. It is apparent that the idea of men singing soprano (or cantus) parts in madrigals using their falsetto voices was possibly very ubiquitous and thus similarly unremarkable. Indeed, ‘men singing soprano’ was possibly as normal in sixteenth century Italy as it is unusual today. Drawing on a variety of sources which describe the technical skills and working practices of both ‘star’ and rank-and-file singers, including Zacconi’s Prattica di musica, Francesco Patrizi’s praise of the virtuosa Tarquinia Molza, in L’amorosa filosofia, and the unparalleled information about rank-and-file court singers in Luigi Zenobi’s letter to a prince, written around 1600, this chapter constructs a general account of professional soprano singing in North Italian courts around the turn of the sixteenth century. This pragmatic approach to the phenomenon of male sopranos – castratos and falsettists – allows in turn suggests a revision of some wider ideas about the composition and performance of secular vocal ensemble music
A winning strike: the miracle of Mozart's 'Kegelstatt'
No full textInvestigates the provenance of Mozart's 'Kegelstatt' trio, K.498, and the implications for historically informed performance. The possible connection of the work with Mozart's penchant for games suggests that it was intended for private performances. His association with clarinetist Anton Stadler may have contributed to the use of the clarinet in a non-wind-band setting. The writing for both clarinet and viola find few, if any, other precedents in 18th-century chamber music
Case study: Mozart, Symphonies in E flat major K543, G minor K550 and C major K551
No full textThe original sound world of Mozart's last three symphonies can arguably never be recreated, if only because the evidence is fundamentally insufficient. In any case, to what extent can modern taste cope with primary materials that are sometimes decidedly uncomfortable? This is a fundamental question, since it would be scarcely surprising if the many intricacies of Mozart's last symphonies were not revealed at their premieres. It further seems likely that subsequent early performances would not have exhibited the degree of standardisation and consistency to which we have become accustomed. If this chapter cannot aspire even to speculate effectively, it can at least aim to open up some fruitful areas for reflection. The example of twentieth-century composer Edward Elgar is instructive; his own recordings from the 1920s and 1930s remain readily available yet have never been truly recreated, despite their primary perspective on both performance styles and technical standards. This would surely be true of aural evidence from 140 years earlier, were we to possess it
Influence of fitness and physical activity on cardiovascular reactivity to musical performance
No full textObjective: The current study examines the relationships between physical activity and fitness and reactivity to a musical performance stressor (MPS). Numerous studies suggest that being fitter and more physically active has a beneficial effect on individuals' cardiovascular responses to laboratory-based mental challenges. The results are equivocal regarding the transfer of such benefits to real world contexts such as musical performance. Participants: Forty six advanced music students completed this assessment. Method: All participants completed a 20-min pre-performance assessment of heart rate (HR), HR variability (HRV) and blood pressure. Participants also completed baseline measures and a sub-maximal fitness assessment on a separate day. Results: A positive association between fitness and HR pre-MPS was found. Fitness was also positively associated with root mean square SD RR_{interval} before the MPS. Higher fitness was related to lower state anxiety post-MPS. Conclusions: Implications of the findings are discussed in relation to classical musicians' day-to-day work and performance
Case study: Karlheinz Stockhausen: Gruppen für drei Orchester
No full textAt its world premiere, 24 March 1958, there would have been every reason to expect that future performances of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen for three orchestras would, at the very most, be extremely rare events. Gruppen should last for about twenty-five minutes – a relatively brief duration given the considerable instrumental resources which go into making it. The work is written for a total of 109 players. These include four flutes and one alto flute, three oboes and two cors anglais, an alto and a baritone saxophone, eight horns, six trumpets, seven trombones – five tenor, one bass and one contrabass – tuba and twelve percussion players as well as keyboard glockenspiel, celesta, piano, two harps, a large string section and an electric guitar. On its own this would be an orchestral line-up that could outpace even the excesses of some of the later Romantics, though here it is at the service of 1950s high modernism. But the most obviously and immediately demanding aspect of this extraordinary work is the splitting of this considerable range of performers into three roughly equal groups, each with its own conductor and placed to the front, left and right of the audience. This arrangement requires a space both large enough and with the flexibility to accommodate this highly individual orchestral disposition, which tends not to be most modern concert halls. Either an adaptable arena (and with a suitable acoustic) has to be found (let alone paid for) or an existing concert hall, if its architecture allows, has to be fitted out with some kind of temporary staging
Self-efficacy as a predictor of musical performance quality
No full textTwo studies explored the relationship between self-efficacy for performing and the assessed quality of a musical performance. Study 1 considered how university music students' self-efficacy for performing, practice time, and self-regulated learning related to assessed performance quality. A stepwise linear regression analysis showed self-efficacy as the only significant predictor, accounting for 10% of the variance in assessors' quality ratings. Study 2 examined music conservatory students and included students' self-efficacy for performing, self-reports of practice time, and self-rating of their overall level of performance skill. Results showed self-efficacy for performing accounted for 17% of the variance in the assessor ratings and, together with students' self-ratings of their overall level of performance skill, explained 30% of the variance. In both studies, only self-efficacy predicted students' self-ratings of performance quality (accounting for 11% of the variance in Study 1 and 25% in Study 2). Also in both studies, time spent practicing was not a significant predictor of performance quality, neither as an estimate of practice time in the week before the performance nor as the accumulation of practice since the beginning of participants' musical tuition