Summary

COMPLEX STUDY OF CREATIVE PROCESS AND MUSICOI.OGY

by B. S. Meilakh

The study at the junction of different scientific disciplines of the processes of creating and perceiving works of art is a new trend in contemporary art studies. The author, Chairman of the Commission for Complex Studies of Ar­tistic Creation of the USSR Academy of Sciences, poses a number of problems of research into musical creativity with the utilisation of methods borrowed from the humanities and the natural and mathematical sciences. At the same time he stresses the necessity of taking into account the resources and limitations of each of these sciences in relation to music, a highly specific and extremely complex sphere of spiritual activity. The article contains concrete proposals concerning methods of studying the processes of creation and perception of musical compositions, and also the relationships between music and other arts — painting, the cinema and the theatre. In conclusion, the author discusses modern auxiliary technical media based on the achievements of cybernetics which can facilitate art research, at the same time criticising the idea that "machine creativity" and the work of an artist can be of equal value.

TOWARDS AN HISTORICAL SURVEY

OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF MUSICAL THINKING

by J. Burjanek

The article deals with the evolution of views on musical thinking and con­tains an historic-analytical survey of pertinent philosophical, psychological, aesthetic and musicological literature published in German and Czech from the early XIX century up to the middle of the XX century. The author also dis­cusses the problem of the content and limitations of the notion "musical think­ing", which undergo changes depending on the given philosophical, psycholo­gical, aesthetic and other conceptions.

SOCIAL CONDITIONING OF MUSICAL THINKING AND PERCEPTION

by A. Sokhor

Like any other artistic activity, musical thinking is a unity of all the main types of human activity: reflexion (which in its turn is a unity of cognition and evaluation), creation and communion.

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Especially obvious is the social conditioning of the reflective aspect of musical thinking. The dependence on social conditions of its construc­tive aspect is less obvious, but equally indubitable. In composing a musical work the composer in his own individual way applies the rules and utilizes the types of intonations peculiar to the musical idiom of a given nation and epoch, along with their semantics which has taken shape in the process of their so­cial existence.

The projecting of musical creativity towards the perception of a definite type of audience, the product of a definite social environment, indicates the social conditioning of the communicative aspect of musical thinking as well.

The same is true of the various aspects of musical perception which, at all stages, depends not only on the individual but also on the social experience of the listener and on his cultural macro- and micro-environment.

PROBLEMS OF SEMEIOTICS IN CONTEMPORARY MUSICAL AESTHETICS

by A. A. Farbstein

The article deals with certain philosophical conceptions studying the pos­sibility of interpreting music in the semeiotic aspect. It singles out general problems of musical aesthetics to which are applicable the notions and methods of semeiotic analysis. In analyzing current views on the problem the author expresses his own viewpoint as regards certain disputable questions of contem­porary musicology and poses the urgent methodological problem of the cor­relation between the methods of research into musical works. Semeiotic ana­lysis which is necessary in dealing with the communicative function of music can lay no claim to universality. It is a particular scientific method, one that should be supported by philosophical, sociological, psychological and musico­logical researches revealing the specific spiritual content of artistic phenomena.

THINKING, IDIOM AND SEMANTICS

by M. G. Aranovsky

The article deals with the specific nature of musical thinking, musical idiom and musical semantics. The specific characteristics of musical thinking are defined in connection with the functions of the mechanism governing the productive, reproductive and perceptive musical activities. An attempt is made to determine the possible boundaries of the notion "musical idiom". In this connection the author discusses certain peculiarities of the system of musical idiom which distinguish it from the verbal system, and studies the problem of "meaningful units" and their non-semeiotic nature The author notes the rela­tive, mobile and transformable nature of the semantics of the "meaningful units', determined, on the one hand, by the absence of object meanings and, on the other, by the temporal essence of music and the multidimensional na­ture of the "musical space". Particular attention is paid to the constituent function of stereotypes and models in the shaping of musical idiom as a gene­rative system. The author puts forward the idea of the expediency of diffe­rentiating between two types of semantics — extramusical and intramusical— which reflect different aspects of the content plan. The madiative functions peculiar to the levels of the system of musical thinking in the process of trans­formation of an extramusical impulse into musical content are clarified.

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REGARDING CERTAIN PRINCIPLES OF STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF MUSIC

by В. М. Gasparov

The article discusses the possibilities for applying structural method in the analysis of musical (mainly, harmonic) idiom By "structural" is meant an approach stating only the inner structure, the organization, of the object stu­died, in divorcement from its material realization (acoustical characteristics) and the concrete circumstances of its functioning The rules governing the transformation of the sound mass into musical texts, the structural founda­tion of the latter, are termed musical idiom, while the texts are regarded as musical speech A musical idiom is a multi-tier system, each element of which is determined in correlation with other elements and its place in the system, that is, "semantics" (de Saussure). These elements are regarded as structural invariants while their realizations, as variants The article shows the resources of distributory analysis, with the early Beethoven harmonic idiom as the ma­terial

ON PRINCIPLES OF STRUCTURAL THINKING IN MUSIC

by O. V. Sokolov

The article offers a typology of musical form construction. The author distinguishes two groups of principles: principles of general logic and those of musical construction. Group One, comprising repetition, juxtaposition, alterna­tion, variation, departure from the identical, etc., brings music close to other arts; the musical-construction principles are the types of interrelationship between general-logic principles, which have been established in music and on the basis of which are constructed specifically musical forms — ternary, rondo, sonata and others. These forms are transitory, because they depend on the evo­lution of the musical idiom. That is why at all turning-points in the history of music individual forms based on universal principles of structural thinking acquire particular importance.

SEMASIOLOGY OF MUSICAL FOLKLORE

by I. I. Zemtsovsky

The author proposes that the science of musical semantics should be de­fined as "musical semasiology". He discusses such problems as definition of the semantic unit (SU), the historical nature of musical semantics, semantic typol­ogy, the relationship between text and tune in song, and the connection be­tween semantics and structure. In accordance with the ideas of Asafyev and Evald, the author interprets the notion of SU as an organic, socially meaning­ful complex of elements of musical expression. The article deals solely with folklore material. The author introduces the notion of semantic type (ST) and shows the scheme of its realization. He notes in particular the polysemeiology of SU, which tends towards infinity but is compressed in typological nodules, the connection between situational and functional typology, on the one hand, and semantic typology, on the other, an so on.

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ON THE INFORMATION THEORY APPROACH TO SOME PROBLEMS OF MUSICAL THINKING AND PERCEPTION

by I. D. Rud and I. I. Tsukkerman

The composition, performance and perception of music have certain fea­tures in common with information processes It would be impossible to mea­sure the "absolute" information content of a musical work, but it is possible to give a quantitative characterization of some aspects of musical styles The best characteristics are not the mean values of parameters, but the initial dis­tributions of probabilities, determined by means of statistical analysis of mu­sical compositions There is a tendency to reduce the limitations and to extend the scope of choice in the course of the information evolution of musical think­ing and perception Aesthetic musical criteria and emotional reaction depend on information load on the perception channel and the degree of compatibility of this channel with the source of musical messages For research in compa­tibility, the nature of decoding acoustic signals in the hearing system must be taken into account The hearing system analyses not the initial time series, but the energy spectra which change in time Whatever changes musical think­ing may experience m the course of its historical evolution, it always depends on human information characteristics

STAGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MUSICAL PERCEPTION

by A. L. Gottsdiener

The article deals with the genesis of the ability to perceive music, during which process musical thinking is formed The research is based on the premi­se of the decisive role of the activity of effector - (muscle) systems in the process of perception the systems carry out acts of comparing in exploring external impressions and creating an adequate model in the human brain Per­ception is considered a transition from sensation to thinking The study of the problem and the experiments staged have led to establishing four phases in the formation of the ability to perceive music sensoro-motor learning perceptive actions formation of aesthetic models and heuristic Each phase has its own psycho-physiological peculiarities which do not disappear at higher levels of perception but are transformed into a mech­anism of greater perfection Each phase has its own specific forms of activ­ity and thinking operations It is stated that the ability to perceive music is formed in the process of accumulation and subsequent utilization of musical experience

THE PROBLEM OF PSYCHOLOGICAL PREMISES FOR OBJECT AND SPATIAL AUDITORY CONCEPTS

by M. G. Aranovsky

A very important condition for the formation of musical "matter" and the operational functions of musical thinking is the effect of spatial perception of acoustical phenomena, the objectivation of sounds. The author studies the question of the psychological premises of this phenomenon and expresses the opinion that its basis is the perceptive auditory experience formed phylo- and

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onto-genetically and rooted in the orientation-adaptation activity of hearing. The object and spatial notions arising on the pre-musical level acquire a par­ticularly important function in the conditions of musico-architectonic thinking. The problem is studied along theoretical lines, beginning with the most ele­mentary levels where sounds appear as signals (in the psycho-physiological sense of the term) and signs, and ending with the sphere of musical structures.

TEMPORAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MUSICAL EXPERIENCE

by G. A. Orlov

The aim of the article is to establish a system of interrelationships between various, both objective and subjective, aspects of the process of musical com­munication in terms of time. These aspects are as follows:

a) real duration of performance (phenomenal time),

b) the listener's personal evaluation of the duration of the act (projective time),

c) the importance (or aesthetic value) of the musical communication per­ceived (contemplated time).

Aspects b and с are considered as depending on d — the listener's attitude in a given act of communication (the degree of interest, or, in another context, the seeming density of musical events per unit of time).

The article consists of two parts. In the first part the author substantiates his concept of multidimensional time, which is necessary for an adequate des­cription of musical experience; then he constructs a consistent vector diagram reflecting the aggregate relationships between the temporal valuations indi­cated. In the second part he studies musical work as a whole. Here, the em­phasis is laid on problems of semantics in its connection with formal structu­res of the work, on the one hand, and the multiple stereotypes of the listener's musical thinking, historically and culturally determined, on the other. Depart­ing from this premise the author follows the process in the course of which the various segments of the musical structure produce in the listener's mind (as a result of consecutive mental integrations) a bilateral unity consisting of logical construction and a meaningful image of the work, a unity experienced as an organic whole. In conclusion, the author adds to his diagram one more index dealing with the limits of structural and semantic complexity of the •work, depending on its stylistic characteristics, musical idiom and genre.

NOTES ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF TIME PERCEPTION IN MUSIC

by S. Belaieva-Exemplarskaya

The article sums up the author's research into the perception of time in music, pursued for many years. Along with theoretical theses the author sets down the results of her experiments. The following are some of the aspects of the problem: perception of the pace of musical time; perception of the duration of the musical work; perception of tempo; perception of meter; the emotional impact of rhythm.

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