Jay Rahn
Biographic Data
| ID | 213703 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jay Rahn |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jay |
| FAMILY NAME | Rahn |
| SIGNATURE | RAHN J |
| AFFILIATIONS | York University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0551-1830 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 10 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1976 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Afrofuturism’s Transcultural Trajectories: Resistant Imaginaries Between Margins and Mainstreams
Was Mesopotamian Tuning Diatonic? A Parsimonious Answer
On the basis of assumptions and conclusions first advanced in 1968 concerning tuning instructions that were originally written down ca. 1800 BCE, Assyriologists have agreed that Mesopotamian tuning was diatonic. Nonetheless, Sam Mirelman (2013) has recently suggested that this consensus view is "uncomfortably familiar and Eurocentric." As a follow-up to Mirelman's misgiving, the present report begins by identifying flaws in the reasoning concerni…
Entangled peripheries: Spatial agency in Jackie Kay'sTrumpetand Caryl Phillips'sThe Lost Child
With the increase in global mobility, notions of centre and periphery are becoming more unstable. Urban centres of colonial significance lose their importance as diasporic literature in general, and Black British literature in particular, explores liminal spatial perspectives within the diasporic experience. Two contemporary Black British novels, Jackie Kay’s Trumpet (1998) and Caryl Phillips’s The Lost Child (2015), imagine British peripheries a…
Afrofuturist trajectories across time, space and media
This introduction to the special issue Afrofuturism’s Transcultural Trajectories aims to provide momentary insights into the state of the art of an expanding and increasingly diversified field of exploration, cultural and artistic practice and theoretical debate. Momentary indeed, because so much is happening under the umbrella term of Afrofuturism that we can only relegate readers, quite literally, to the future for further assessments. We outli…
(Re-)Negotiating Black Posthumanism - The Precarity of Race in Nnedi Okorafor's ‚Lagoon
In his 1988 essay entitled "What Has Literature Got to Do with It?" Chinua Achebe stated that "[p]eople create stories create people; or rather, stories create people create stories" (Achebe 1990, 162), thus questioning the validity of a differentiation between people(s) and their stories.It seems, almost, as if the making-of-worlds through storytelling is an integral human characteristic that points towards the connectedness of all human experie…
Canada
Practical Aspects of Marchetto’s Tuning
In his historically momentous account of tuning, Marchetto of Padua (fl. 1305–19) proposed dividing the whole tone of received theory (9/8=204 cents) into 5 parts. This report develops determinate arithmetic and geometric realizations of Marchetto’s formulation—directly applicable to the medieval monochord, and sonically illustrated by digital files. The resulting intervals’ feasibility is compared with current findings in the psychology of inter…
Edith Fowke (1913-1996)
Turning the Analysis around: Africa-Derived Rhythms and Europe-Derived Music Theory
As Samuel A. Floyd Jr. (1993, 1) has emphasized, analysis is an activity that was developed as a way of examining chiefly Europe-derived works of music. Susan McClary and Robert Walser (1994, 77) have stressed further that the Europe-derived discipline of music theory has notoriously neglected rhythm in favor of abstract patterns of pitch and form. I feel that Europe-derived theory and analysis have not handled well the following topics, long and…
From Similarity to Distance; From Simplicity to Complexity; From Pitches to Intervals; From Description to Causal Explanation
Words and phrases specifying similarity and distance abound in musical discourse. This essay explores such pitch-predicates as “matches”, “is in the vicinity of”, and “is closer to . . . than to”. Sought here are ways in which pitch and pitch-interval predicates might be inter-connected logically. Within a nominalist framework, an orderly progression from pitch- to pitch-interval-predicates can be proven and interpreted in terms of simplicity. Al…
A Theory for All Music: Problems and Solutions to the Analysis of Non-Western Forms
Professor Rahn takes the approach to the analysis of Western art music developed recently by theorists such as Benjamin Boretz and extends it to address non-Western forms. In the process, he rejects recent ethnomusicological formulations based on mentalism, cultural determinism, and the psychology of perception as potentially fruitful bases for analysing music in general. Instead he stresses the desirability of formulating a theory to deal with a…
A Theory for All Music’
Journal Article ‘A THEORY FOR ALL MUSIC’ Get access JAY RAHN JAY RAHN Department of Music, York UniversityDownsview, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Music and Letters, Volume 68, Issue 1, January 1987, Pages 106–108, https://doi.org/10.1093/ml/68.1.106 Published: 01 January 1987
C'etait la plus jolie des filles: Repertoire des chansons d'Angelina Paradis-Fraser
Javanese Pélog Tunings Reconsidered
The fixed pitch instruments of Java are justly famous for the flexibility of their tuning. The absolute pitches of various ensembles differ substantially, and within an ensemble, tones of a given name vary greatly in pitch when produced on different instruments. Causes for these differences include the gradual changes which occur in the metals used in the instruments’ manufacture, and the high value placed on the production of acoustical beats am…
Text-Tune Relationships in the Hora Lunga Versions Collected by Bartók
The enigmatic union of a lyrical text with an improvisatory melody has earned for the hora lunga (or long song) a special place in the history of Rumanian folksong research. Béla Bartók first discovered this exceptional genre in the northern counties of Maramureş and Satu-Mare in the years 1912-13, and later remarked that this discovery had been the highlight of his career in Rumanian ethnomusicology (1967:24 and 1923:ii). Constantin Brailoiu (19…
Turning the Analysis around: Africa-Derived Rhythms and Europe-Derived Music Theory
As Samuel A. Floyd Jr. (1993, 1) has emphasized, analysis is an activity that was developed as a way of examining chiefly Europe-derived works of music. Susan McClary and Robert Walser (1994, 77) have stressed further that the Europe-derived discipline of music theory has notoriously neglected rhythm in favor of abstract patterns of pitch and form. I feel that Europe-derived theory and analysis have not handled well the following topics, long and…
Was Mesopotamian Tuning Diatonic? A Parsimonious Answer
On the basis of assumptions and conclusions first advanced in 1968 concerning tuning instructions that were originally written down ca. 1800 BCE, Assyriologists have agreed that Mesopotamian tuning was diatonic. Nonetheless, Sam Mirelman (2013) has recently suggested that this consensus view is "uncomfortably familiar and Eurocentric." As a follow-up to Mirelman's misgiving, the present report begins by identifying flaws in the reasoning concerni…
Entangled peripheries: Spatial agency in Jackie Kay'sTrumpetand Caryl Phillips'sThe Lost Child
With the increase in global mobility, notions of centre and periphery are becoming more unstable. Urban centres of colonial significance lose their importance as diasporic literature in general, and Black British literature in particular, explores liminal spatial perspectives within the diasporic experience. Two contemporary Black British novels, Jackie Kay’s Trumpet (1998) and Caryl Phillips’s The Lost Child (2015), imagine British peripheries a…
(Re-)Negotiating Black Posthumanism - The Precarity of Race in Nnedi Okorafor's ‚Lagoon
In his 1988 essay entitled "What Has Literature Got to Do with It?" Chinua Achebe stated that "[p]eople create stories create people; or rather, stories create people create stories" (Achebe 1990, 162), thus questioning the validity of a differentiation between people(s) and their stories.It seems, almost, as if the making-of-worlds through storytelling is an integral human characteristic that points towards the connectedness of all human experie…
A Theory for All Music: Problems and Solutions to the Analysis of Non-Western Forms
Professor Rahn takes the approach to the analysis of Western art music developed recently by theorists such as Benjamin Boretz and extends it to address non-Western forms. In the process, he rejects recent ethnomusicological formulations based on mentalism, cultural determinism, and the psychology of perception as potentially fruitful bases for analysing music in general. Instead he stresses the desirability of formulating a theory to deal with a…
Text-Tune Relationships in the Hora Lunga Versions Collected by Bartók
The enigmatic union of a lyrical text with an improvisatory melody has earned for the hora lunga (or long song) a special place in the history of Rumanian folksong research. Béla Bartók first discovered this exceptional genre in the northern counties of Maramureş and Satu-Mare in the years 1912-13, and later remarked that this discovery had been the highlight of his career in Rumanian ethnomusicology (1967:24 and 1923:ii). Constantin Brailoiu (19…
Javanese Pélog Tunings Reconsidered
The fixed pitch instruments of Java are justly famous for the flexibility of their tuning. The absolute pitches of various ensembles differ substantially, and within an ensemble, tones of a given name vary greatly in pitch when produced on different instruments. Causes for these differences include the gradual changes which occur in the metals used in the instruments’ manufacture, and the high value placed on the production of acoustical beats am…
C'etait la plus jolie des filles: Repertoire des chansons d'Angelina Paradis-Fraser
A Theory for All Music’
Journal Article ‘A THEORY FOR ALL MUSIC’ Get access JAY RAHN JAY RAHN Department of Music, York UniversityDownsview, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Music and Letters, Volume 68, Issue 1, January 1987, Pages 106–108, https://doi.org/10.1093/ml/68.1.106 Published: 01 January 1987
A Theory for All Music: Problems and Solutions to the Analysis of Non-Western Forms
Professor Rahn takes the approach to the analysis of Western art music developed recently by theorists such as Benjamin Boretz and extends it to address non-Western forms. In the process, he rejects recent ethnomusicological formulations based on mentalism, cultural determinism, and the psychology of perception as potentially fruitful bases for analysing music in general. Instead he stresses the desirability of formulating a theory to deal with a…
From Similarity to Distance; From Simplicity to Complexity; From Pitches to Intervals; From Description to Causal Explanation
Words and phrases specifying similarity and distance abound in musical discourse. This essay explores such pitch-predicates as “matches”, “is in the vicinity of”, and “is closer to . . . than to”. Sought here are ways in which pitch and pitch-interval predicates might be inter-connected logically. Within a nominalist framework, an orderly progression from pitch- to pitch-interval-predicates can be proven and interpreted in terms of simplicity. Al…
Edith Fowke (1913-1996)
Turning the Analysis around: Africa-Derived Rhythms and Europe-Derived Music Theory
As Samuel A. Floyd Jr. (1993, 1) has emphasized, analysis is an activity that was developed as a way of examining chiefly Europe-derived works of music. Susan McClary and Robert Walser (1994, 77) have stressed further that the Europe-derived discipline of music theory has notoriously neglected rhythm in favor of abstract patterns of pitch and form. I feel that Europe-derived theory and analysis have not handled well the following topics, long and…
Practical Aspects of Marchetto’s Tuning
In his historically momentous account of tuning, Marchetto of Padua (fl. 1305–19) proposed dividing the whole tone of received theory (9/8=204 cents) into 5 parts. This report develops determinate arithmetic and geometric realizations of Marchetto’s formulation—directly applicable to the medieval monochord, and sonically illustrated by digital files. The resulting intervals’ feasibility is compared with current findings in the psychology of inter…
Canada
(Re-)Negotiating Black Posthumanism - The Precarity of Race in Nnedi Okorafor's ‚Lagoon
In his 1988 essay entitled "What Has Literature Got to Do with It?" Chinua Achebe stated that "[p]eople create stories create people; or rather, stories create people create stories" (Achebe 1990, 162), thus questioning the validity of a differentiation between people(s) and their stories.It seems, almost, as if the making-of-worlds through storytelling is an integral human characteristic that points towards the connectedness of all human experie…
Afrofuturist trajectories across time, space and media
This introduction to the special issue Afrofuturism’s Transcultural Trajectories aims to provide momentary insights into the state of the art of an expanding and increasingly diversified field of exploration, cultural and artistic practice and theoretical debate. Momentary indeed, because so much is happening under the umbrella term of Afrofuturism that we can only relegate readers, quite literally, to the future for further assessments. We outli…
Entangled peripheries: Spatial agency in Jackie Kay'sTrumpetand Caryl Phillips'sThe Lost Child
With the increase in global mobility, notions of centre and periphery are becoming more unstable. Urban centres of colonial significance lose their importance as diasporic literature in general, and Black British literature in particular, explores liminal spatial perspectives within the diasporic experience. Two contemporary Black British novels, Jackie Kay’s Trumpet (1998) and Caryl Phillips’s The Lost Child (2015), imagine British peripheries a…
Was Mesopotamian Tuning Diatonic? A Parsimonious Answer
On the basis of assumptions and conclusions first advanced in 1968 concerning tuning instructions that were originally written down ca. 1800 BCE, Assyriologists have agreed that Mesopotamian tuning was diatonic. Nonetheless, Sam Mirelman (2013) has recently suggested that this consensus view is "uncomfortably familiar and Eurocentric." As a follow-up to Mirelman's misgiving, the present report begins by identifying flaws in the reasoning concerni…
Afrofuturism’s Transcultural Trajectories: Resistant Imaginaries Between Margins and Mainstreams
Art (10 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Musicology and Musical Analysis (6 works) · Diverse Musicological Studies (5 works) · Literature (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works) · Mathematics (4 works) · Musical (4 works) · Art history (3 works) · History (3 works)