This investigation surveys pertinent literature, from 1917 to 1982 inclusive, regarding artistic vibrato and tremolo in singing. The contents are subdivided into individual investigative reports by various vocal researchers. Due to mounting confusion within the amassed literature, the need for systematic organization and evaluation is evident. Misunderstandings within the context of the literature and misnomers within the terminology require clarification and resolution. The evaluation intends to produce a proper perspective on vibrato and tremolo, eradicating some of the confusion surrounding the terms. Artistic vibrato is recognized as a desirable component in Western vocal music. In contrast, tremolo is deemed a deviant vibrato, i.e., a vibrato which deviates from artistic norms. The study attempts to clarify the distinguishing traits of these two vocal phenomena.

Elements of continuous variation such as tremolo, vibrato and portamento enable dimensions of their own in expressive melodic music in styles such as in Indian Classical Music. There is published work on parametrically modeling some of these elements individually, and to apply the modeled parameters to automatically generated musical notes in the context of machine musicianship, using simple rule-based mappings. There have also been many systems developed for generative musical accompaniment using probabilistic models of discrete musical elements such as MIDI notes and durations, many of them inspired by computational research in linguistics. There however doesn't seem to have been a combined approach of parametrically modeling expressive elements in a probabilistic framework. This documents presents a real-time computational framework that uses a multi-attribute trie / n-gram structure to model parameters like frequency, depth and/or lag of the expressive variations such as vibrato and portamento, along with conventionally modeled elements such as musical notes, their durations and metric positions in melodic audio input. This work proposes storing the parameters of expressive elements as metadata in the individual nodes of the traditional trie structure, along with the distribution of their probabilities of occurrence. During automatic generation of music, the expressive parameters as learned in the above training phase are applied to the associated re-synthesized musical notes. The model is aimed at being used to provide automatic melodic accompaniment in a performance scenario. The parametric modeling of the continuous expressive elements in this form is hypothesized to be able to capture deeper temporal relationships among musical elements and thereby is expected to bring about a more expressive and more musical outcome in such a performance than what has been possible using other works of machine musicianship using only static mappings or randomized choice. A system was developed on Max/MSP software platform with this framework, which takes in a pitched audio input such as human singing voice, and produces a pitch track which may be applied to synthesized sound of a continuous timbre. The system was trained and tested with several vocal recordings of North Indian Classical Music, and a subjective evaluation of the resulting audio was made using an anonymous online survey. The results of the survey show the output tracks generated from the system to be as musical and expressive, if not more, than the case where the pitch track generated from the original audio was directly rendered as output, and also show the output with expressive elements to be perceivably more expressive than the version of the output without expressive parameters. The results further suggest that more experimentation may be required to conclude the efficacy of the framework employed in relation to using randomly selected parameter values for the expressive elements. This thesis presents the scope, context, implementation details and results of the work, suggesting future improvements.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T16:25:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao GILBERTO STEFAN - textual.pdf: 843240 bytes, checksum: 2e71477ba00e922c86401cd8e474c8b0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-31 / This work deals with teaching of tremolo and scordatura techniques as extended techniques. To do so, it is based on the repertoire of contemporary classical guitar, in this dissertation understood as that covering the period of the last 35 years. The goal is to demonstrate the use of these resources in the teaching of musical performance addressed to the musicians previously able to perform the tremolo and scordatura in the traditional way. Divided into three parts, this work presents, in Chapter I, the state of the art in concepts of extended techniques, tremolo, scordatura and guitar pedagogy. Books, articles, theses, dissertations and communications published in the last 10 years, both in Brazil and abroad, have been consulted in search of theoretical background to justify such research. The theoretical framework that supports this dissertation can be seen in the productions of Carinci, Oliveira and Ray (2010), Batista (2009), Ishii (2005), and Tokeshi (2003). Chapter II presents the selection criteria and the excerpts of works containing the resources of tremolo and scordatura. A demonstrative frame with the pieces is firstly exposed. Other relevant information, such as year of publication of the pieces, is presented along with a brief biography of their composers. The extended resources identified in each work are also presented so that they can be compared to their traditional techniques. Chapter III contains the analysis of the extended resources and suggests a pedagogical application for the teaching of guitar. The main considerations resulting from this dissertation summarize, besides the thought about the teaching of extended techniques to the guitar, initial reflections on the genesis and taxonomy of newly invented technical and composicional resources. / Este trabalho trata do ensino das técnicas de trêmolo e scordatura sob o viés de técnicas estendidas. Para tanto, apoia-se no repertório do violão erudito contemporâneo, compreendido nesta dissertação como aquele que abrange o período dos últimos 35 anos. O objetivo é demonstrar o uso destes recursos no ensino da performance musical dirigida a instrumentistas previamente aptos a executar o trêmolo e a scordatura por seu viés tradicional. Dividido em três partes, este trabalho apresenta no primeiro capítulo o estado da arte referente aos conceitos de técnicas estendidas, trêmolo, scordatura e pedagogia do violão. Foram consultados livros, artigos, teses, comunicações e dissertações publicadas nos últimos 10 anos, tanto no Brasil quanto no exterior, na busca de subsídio teórico que justificasse tal pesquisa. O quadro teórico que embasa esta dissertação apresenta-se na produção de Carinci, Oliveira e Ray (2010), Batista (2009), Ishii (2005), e Tokeshi (2003). O segundo capítulo apresenta os critérios de seleção e trechos de obras que contêm os recursos de trêmolo e scordatura. Um quadro demonstrativo com as peças é exposto de início. Outras informações relevantes, como o ano de publicação das peças, são apresentadas junto a uma breve biografia de seus compositores. Os recursos estendidos identificados em cada obra também são apresentados de modo que seja possível compará-los ao seu viés tradicional. O terceiro capítulo contém a análise dos recursos estendidos e aponta uma aplicação pedagógica para o ensino destes ao violão. As principais considerações resultantes desta dissertação sintetizam, além do pensamento sobre o ensino de técnicas estendidas ao violão, reflexões iniciais sobre a gênese e a taxonomia de recursos técnicos e composicionais recém-inventados.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--Boston University. This item includes the dissertation paper, handouts, as well as a video of the February 26, 2017 lecture and clarinet performance by Karen Luttik. / Géza Frid (1904-1989) was a significant Hungarian-born Dutch composer and pianist of Jewish descent. His compositional style was highly regarded in the Dutch musical scene of the 20th century; his music has been programmed on multiple occasions by the Concertgebouw Orchestra and in 1949 and 1954 won the City of Amsterdam Music Award. Major influences on Frid’s musical development started in his native Hungary where he studied with Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály before his move to the Netherlands. In 1972, he composed an unusually lovely concerto for Bb, A, Eb and bass clarinets (Op. 82) and dedicated it to George Pieterson, principle clarinet with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Scholarly discussions of Géza Frid’s clarinet music are not to be found in either the US based International Clarinet Society’s The Clarinet, or in the Dutch based De Klarinet. Intensive World Cat library searches have yielded no recordings of this piece, and currently there is not even one recording of Frid’s Concerto for Clarinets on YouTube or in the Naxos Music Library. The Concerto for Clarinets is a significant addition to the standard clarinet repertoire and needs to be introduced to the world wide clarinet community. Furthermore, save for some short selections on the Géza Frid website set up by his son, Arthur Frid and a Wikipedia article, no translations exist of Géza Frid’s autobiographical material. His life story was exceedingly interesting, having been a Jewish composer during the World War II years who was not allowed to perform or compose for years during the German occupation of the Netherlands. Luckily he survived the war years by going into hiding; he managed as part of the musician’s resistance to find ways to perform and work illegally giving clandestine concerts and falsifying documents. These were exceedingly dangerous risks, yet ones Géza Frid and his fellow musicians were willing to take because of their music. Frid published two autobiographical books and numerous articles for the Dutch music magazine Mens en Melodie, (People and Melody) revealing his deep musical insights; especially those relating to the music of the Concerto need to be summarized and translated to English from Dutch. This paper provides a general overview of the historical aspects of Géza Frid’s life, his WWII experiences, and his position as one of many persecuted Jewish musicians at the time. Géza Frid’s autobiographical information relating to his personal friendships with Bartók and Kodály is of interest when considering his music. Summaries and some translations are made of his two Dutch language autobiographical books, In 80 Jaar de Wereld Rond (Around the World in 80 Years) and Oog in Oog Met… (Eye to Eye With…). A basic analysis of Frid’s Concerto for Clarinets is provided regarding form, the various instrument appearances, and a special feature invented by George Pieterson called the ‘tremolo special’. Since this concerto was specifically composed for the Reformed Boehm system clarinets which George Pieterson used, a discussion of the differences between the French, German and Reformed Boehm clarinet systems is included. The performance portion of this project is a historically informed performance of this piece on the specific models of clarinets for which it was written. George Pieterson passed on in April 2016, and this project is a fitting tribute of his teaching to a generation of professional clarinetists in the Netherlands including the author.