(M.A. (Bybelse Argeologie))

MAAS (Xitsonga) / Ehansi ka Senthara ya M.E. R. Mathivha ya Tindzimi ta Afrika, Vutshila na Ndhavuko / This study attempts to describe and understand the nature of Xangani traditional dances in Chiredzi District of Zimbabwe. Regrettably for the Xangani not so many literal works have been produced on their dances and it is this lack of documentation that has created gaps. This research has been designed to narrow such notable gaps within the Xangani culture. In this research the major prevalent among the Xangani people, the socio-economic and political values of dances as well the instrument, dress and music that accompany the Xangani traditional dances shall be looked into significantly. To achieve this, a sample of the population was studied and the results were inferred to the generality of the whole community population. Permission was sought from the community leaders and sampled people were interviewed, their views were collected through observation. The research was triangulate to minimize bias and also ensured that efficiency was enhanced. The study considered desktop data as well as written and oral tradition as sources of information on this research.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: An area of data mining and statistics that is currently receiving considerable attention is the field of multi-label learning. Problems in this field are concerned with scenarios where each data case can be associated with a set of labels instead of only one. In this thesis, we review the field of multi-label learning and discuss the lack of suitable benchmark data available for evaluating multi-label algorithms. We propose a technique for simulating multi-label data, which allows good control over different data characteristics and which could be useful for conducting comparative studies in the multi-label field. We also discuss the explosion in data in recent years, and highlight the need for some form of dimension reduction in order to alleviate some of the challenges presented by working with large datasets. Feature (or variable) selection is one way of achieving dimension reduction, and after a brief discussion of different feature selection techniques, we propose a new technique for feature selection in a multi-label context, based on the concept of independent probes. This technique is empirically evaluated by using simulated multi-label data and it is shown to achieve classification accuracy with a reduced set of features similar to that achieved with a full set of features. The proposed technique for feature selection is then also applied to the field of music information retrieval (MIR), specifically the problem of musical instrument recognition. An overview of the field of MIR is given, with particular emphasis on the instrument recognition problem. The particular goal of (polyphonic) musical instrument recognition is to automatically identify the instruments playing simultaneously in an audio clip, which is not a simple task. We specifically consider the case of duets – in other words, where two instruments are playing simultaneously – and approach the problem as a multi-label classification one. In our empirical study, we illustrate the complexity of musical instrument data and again show that our proposed feature selection technique is effective in identifying relevant features and thereby reducing the complexity of the dataset without negatively impacting on performance. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: ‘n Area van dataontginning en statistiek wat tans baie aandag ontvang, is die veld van multi-etiket leerteorie. Probleme in hierdie veld beskou scenarios waar elke datageval met ‘n stel etikette geassosieer kan word, instede van slegs een. In hierdie skripsie gee ons ‘n oorsig oor die veld van multi-etiket leerteorie en bespreek die gebrek aan geskikte standaard datastelle beskikbaar vir die evaluering van multi-etiket algoritmes. Ons stel ‘n tegniek vir die simulasie van multi-etiket data voor, wat goeie kontrole oor verskillende data eienskappe bied en wat nuttig kan wees om vergelykende studies in die multi-etiket veld uit te voer. Ons bespreek ook die onlangse ontploffing in data, en beklemtoon die behoefte aan ‘n vorm van dimensie reduksie om sommige van die uitdagings wat deur sulke groot datastelle gestel word die hoof te bied. Veranderlike seleksie is een manier van dimensie reduksie, en na ‘n vlugtige bespreking van verskillende veranderlike seleksie tegnieke, stel ons ‘n nuwe tegniek vir veranderlike seleksie in ‘n multi-etiket konteks voor, gebaseer op die konsep van onafhanklike soek-veranderlikes. Hierdie tegniek word empiries ge-evalueer deur die gebruik van gesimuleerde multi-etiket data en daar word gewys dat dieselfde klassifikasie akkuraatheid behaal kan word met ‘n verminderde stel veranderlikes as met die volle stel veranderlikes. Die voorgestelde tegniek vir veranderlike seleksie word ook toegepas in die veld van musiek dataontginning, spesifiek die probleem van die herkenning van musiekinstrumente. ‘n Oorsig van die musiek dataontginning veld word gegee, met spesifieke klem op die herkenning van musiekinstrumente. Die spesifieke doel van (polifoniese) musiekinstrument-herkenning is om instrumente te identifiseer wat saam in ‘n oudiosnit speel. Ons oorweeg spesifiek die geval van duette – met ander woorde, waar twee instrumente saam speel – en hanteer die probleem as ‘n multi-etiket klassifikasie een. In ons empiriese studie illustreer ons die kompleksiteit van musiekinstrumentdata en wys weereens dat ons voorgestelde veranderlike seleksie tegniek effektief daarin slaag om relevante veranderlikes te identifiseer en sodoende die kompleksiteit van die datastel te verminder sonder ‘n negatiewe impak op klassifikasie akkuraatheid.

Sergei Koussevitzky was one of the world’s premier conductors and virtuoso bass players whose favorite instrument was an unusually-shaped bass reportedly made in 1611 by the Amati brothers, Antonio and Girolamo. In 1962, 11 years after Koussevitzky’s death, his widow gave the bass to Gary Karr, currently considered to be the world’s premier double bassist. In 2004, Karr donated the bass to the International Society of Bassists. Close inspection by a team of experts in 2004, however, revealed stylistic inconsistencies that suggested a later construction date. We used four reference tree-ring chronologies developed from treeline species in the European Alpine region to anchor the dates for the tree rings from the double bass absolutely in time. The bass yielded a 317-year long sequence, the longest sequence yet developed from a single musical instrument. Statistical and graphical comparisons revealed that the bass has tree rings that date from 1445 to 1761. Based on the strength of these correlations, the spruce tree harvested to eventually construct the double bass likely came from the treeline Alpine area of western Austria, not too far from Obergurgl at the Italian border. Our results demonstrate that the double bass was not made by the Amati Brothers, but likely by French luthiers in the late 18th Century.

The purpose of the study was to determine whether students' timbre preferences in the sixth grade remain stable through the tenth grade. The investigation also examined whether gender, band instruction, or musical home environment makes any difference in influencing the stability of students' timbre preferences from grade six through ten. Students' timbre preferences at the beginning of the study were compared to their preferences four years later. The students' timbre preferences were obtained by employing Gordon's Instrument Timbre Preference Test (ITPT). A questionnaire was also utilized at the conclusion of the study to determine which students had musical home environments and which did not. All sixth grade students enrolled in a single school district took the ITPT. Each student's scores were tallied and ranked in order to determine their timbre preferences; four years later they were retested and their scores were ranked again.

The selected works by the composers studied in this thesis might well stand as illustrative of the normal development of the use of the bass trombone near the close of the nineteenth century. Although notable progress was made by the cited composers in increasing the bass trombone's usefulness in the orchestra, each composer also continued to use the bass trombone as it had been used in previous years, such as in doubling bass parts, harmonic backgrounds, and for strong rhythmic punctuations.

The thesis is focused on the activity of children instrumental ensembles in the region of the capital city Prague. In the first chapter we are studying the role of a musical instrument during the development of musical education in Czech schools. The next chapter concerns with psychological aspect of the human personality. Musical skills and abilities acquired by playing musical instrument and especially engaging in an ensemble, where it is important to perceive every other person and instrument support its development. The teachers are also an important part of an ensemble. We are dealing with use of the musical instruments that are currently available for teachers at schools. The research part of the thesis is dedicated to the particular ensembles in the region of Prague. Our goal was to map and summarize what motivates children to play in the ensembles and to find out what leads people to found musical ensembles, what they expect their work to be like and what they would appreciate in their pedagogical experience.

The master's thesis deals with Irish traditional music and its possible use in music teaching at lower secondary schools in the Czech Republic. The theoretical part provides information on Irish traditional music and the historical and geographical conditions under which it developed. The practical part deals with the possibilities of its implementation into school education in accordance with the Framework Educational Programme for Basic Education. Accompanying the thesis is an appendix consisting of pictures, texts, worksheets and sheet music. The attached CD contains audio and video recordings as well as multimedia presentations.

MA, School of Music, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand / In 2003 I made a documentary film called Karoo Kitaar Blues with South African songwriter and guitarist, David Kramer, on the rare musicians, music, and instruments of scattered coloured communities in the Northern Cape. When I set out, seven years ago, to make the film I had no intention of making an ethnographic film or producing a visual ethnography in the anthropological sense (I am a documentary filmmaker), but two academic reviews, critical of its lack of ‘ethnographic context’ caught my intention. This dissertation attempts to respond to their critique. I explore the territory of visual anthropology and ethnographic methodology in order to understand why my film, with hindsight, is and is not ‘ethnographic’, and to establish how ethnographic practice could enhance my work as a filmmaker. I use Karoo Kitaar Blues as my visual monograph and examine the differences between ethnographic film and documentary (in the observational mode) with reference to ethnographic methodologies and theory in ethnomusicology, and consider how film can be used ‘as’ ethnography or ‘in’ ethnography. I conclude that Karoo Kitaar Blues film lies somewhere between ethnographic and observational filmmaking.

Esta tese tem como foco principal a descrição e análise do ritual de iniciação pelo qual passam as moças ticuna, a chamada Festa da Moça Nova. Os Ticuna são um povo de língua isolada, habitantes, em sua maior parte, do Alto Rio Solimões (AM), distribuídos entre Brasil, Peru e Colômbia. Por ocasião da menarca, as meninas são colocadas em reclusão e é organizado o ritual. Para compreendermos esta Festa, que marca a saída das moças da reclusão, exponho suas relações com outras dimensões da vida ticuna: organização social e parentesco, mitologia, cosmologia, corpo e xamanismo. A etnografia e a análise se concentram principalmente nas canções, instrumentos musicais e narrativas míticas relacionados à Festa e seu processo ritual / This thesis mainly focuses on the description and analysis of the Moça Nova Festival, the initiation ritual through which Ticuna young women go through. The Ticuna people speak an isolated language and inhabit, for the most part, the Upper Solimões River (Amazonas, Brazil), spread across Brazil, Peru and Colombia. At the time of the menarche, girls are secluded and the ritual is organized. In order to understand this festival, which marks the moment when girls leave seclusion, I present how it relates to other dimensions of Ticuna life: social organization and kinship, mythology, cosmology, body and shamanism. Both the ethnography and the analysis concentrate primarily on the songs, musical instruments and mythic narratives related to the festival and its ritual process.