The Chinese zither 古琴 guqin (Old zither 琴 qin zither), with strings stretched lengthwise on a flat wooden belly, is a pentatonic heptachord which can be played in three different ways: transversely on open strings, longitudinally by stopping, and also in harmonics (touched lightly on various marked points). Such an instrument, age-old in China, might be a theoretical archetype, which is able to make a contribution to the debate on issues concerning Greek music, something which has remained obscure in relation to the classical Western approach. Indeed, the assimilation “heptachord-heptatonic-diatonic” has ineluctably led most Western theorists to occasional misunderstandings of texts related to tuning, modulation, and the names of the modes. The demonstration is carried out in three steps: 1) a consideration of the seven tunings of the pentatonic guqin zither and their permutation through modulation on the diatonic scale; 2) an examination of the correspondence between musical systems and the Greater Perfect System; 3) a conclusion leading to the question as to whether the specific characteristics of the Chinese guqin were known or unknown by the Greeks. In order to maintain an effective methodological approach, we need to remember that Chinese writing gives different names to the notes, according to the system to which they belong. In conclusion, the hypotheses concerning the supposed exchanges and influences from Asia to Greece are strengthened anew.
Vztah emocí a hudby je aktuálním tématem hudební psychologie a důležitý přístup zde představuje zkoumání tělesně prožívaných reakcí, jako jsou mrazení (chills), slzení, bušení srdce apod. Dotazníkové šetření vycházející metodologicky ze dvou zahraničních studií (Sloboda, 1991; Schönberger, 2006) z části potvrdilo jejich výsledky, v některých zjištěních se však s nimi rozchází. Častější prožívání tělesných reakcí při hudbě u žen, které zjistily předchozí studie, tento výzkum potvrzuje pouze u respondentů starších třiceti let a poukazuje na interakci s věkem. Dále bylo zjištěno častější prožívání těchto reakcí u profesionálních hudebníků než u amatérů a nehudebníků. Souhlasně s předchozími výzkumy se husí kůže a pocity mrazení ukazují jako nejčastější reakce. Diskutovány jsou vztahy mezi jednotlivými typy reakcí, příčiny vzniku pocitů mrazení a možné souvislosti s osobnostními faktory. and The relationship between emotion and music is an up-to-date topic of psychology of music. Studying physicaly experienced responses such as chills, tears and racing heart represents an important approach. A questionaire survey methodologicaly based on two foreign studies (Sloboda, 1991; Schönberger, 2006) partly confirmed their results but disagrees with them in some findings. More frequent physical responses when listening to music in women, which was reported by previous studies, was confirmed only for respondents older that 30 in this survey and an interaction with age was found. Further, more frequent physical responses in professional musicans than in amateur musicans and non-musicans were found. In accordance with previous studies, goose-pimples and chills appeared to be the two most frequent responses. Relations between particular types of responses are discussed, as well as sources of experiencing chills and possible relationships with personality factors.
This study makes a contribution towards resolving the issues surrounding the interpretation of intermedia works that experimentally combine poetry, word, music and sound. The particular subject of this analysis is a project known as Scribbles by writing duo Jaromír Typt and Michal Rataj, which has seen the light of day both in the form of live performances and on two albums (Škrábanice [Scribbles], Zaškrábnutí [Scribbles more]), on which the present essay is also based.