Journal of Fine Arts: Performing Arts and Music
Year:2015 | Volume:20 | Issue:1|Papers Count:8

The purpose of this article is to study Arvo Pärt’s Tintinnabuli technique as well as additive/subtractive Process in a selected number of his pieces, and to compare them with some of repetitive elements in Iranian traditional music. The word Tintinnabuli is originally a Latin word which means «like a ringing bell» or «small bell». The choice of name has roots in Pärt’s interest in the sound of church bells and his efforts to recreate them in his music. This technique, which was invented in the 70s, is a two-voice texture, which consists of the notes of the tonic triad (Ttintinnabuli voice) and the melody line which usually moves stepwise. This technique can be defined in four different types (positions) based on the arrangement of the voices; first position-superior, second position-superior, first position-inferior, second position-inferior. In the superior positions the arpeggiation of the tonic triad is placed above the main melodic line and in the inferior type the arrangement is vice versa. In addition to tintinnabuli style, this article investigates the gradual increase and decrease as a leading factor in the structure of the selected pieces. We will reveal how these gradual changes apply to the number of notes in phrases, register and meter, and how they result in repetitive elements. An analysis of portions of Für Alina, Fratres and Tabula Rasa as three significant works written in the 70s based on the discussed techniques will follow the introductory discussion. The analysis will show Für Alina is merely based on the simplest form of the Tintinnabuli texture in first position (inferior). It also features a gradual increase followed by a decrease in the number of the notes throughout the piece. The analysis of Fratres will show that the retrograde relationship plays a prominent role in the structure of the main theme. In this composition we can see a combination of two different positions of the Tintinnabuli technique. Tabula Rasa is the last piece which will be studied in this article. This piece is a good example of interactions between increase and decrease in a variety of factors including meter, number of notes, and register. At the end, due to the similarities between the Parts compositional techniques and some of repetitive gestures in Iranian music, we will study examples of repetition in latter genre and will compare them to the Pärt’s music. The repetitive elements include strumming the open strings, the repetitions of «shahed» and «eest» notes in the melody, as well as the increase and decrease in the register of the melodic lines with emphasis on pivot tones. A few examples in each category will show how these repetitions in Iranian traditional music are similar to those of Part›s compositions. The purpose of this comparison is to identify the simple common aspects of Iranian music which have been practiced for hundreds of years with more recent approaches in Western contemporary music.

The present study attempts to explore how the so far mainly literary issue of the Unreliable Narratives/Narrators, can be formulated and dealt with in Cinema. Thus, in order to analyze the form and function of such narratives/narrators in Cinema, the present paper tries to discover how the author(s) of the cinematic narrative (the overall collaboration of the screenwriter, the director, the cinematographer, the editor etc.) design(s) unreliability through actions, words, appearance and behavior of characters, story-telling techniques, environmental and audio-visual signs, the mood and atmosphere of the film, its camera work and lighting, editing and its characterization and use of voice-over narration. According to these and depending upon the way the narrative progresses and the order through which story data are revealed, the audience, bringing their own overall knowledge of the world with them to the text, will have different degrees of understanding of how the story must actually be. Since, narratives are created, presented and read/viewed by human beings, with all their mental, emotional and cognitive capacities and properties, the present study adopts a cognitive approach to the analysis of the concept of narrative unreliability, to find out how knowledge of the humankinds’ cognitive faculties can help pattern out and better narratives of the unreliable kind, as we are here interested in, as an author, and be a better reader/viewer in light of what our cognitive knowledge can offer to the task of deciphering behavioral patterns of characters. To achieve that goal, having gained its theoretical roots from David Bordwell’s cognitive approach to film analysis, the present work offers a brief summary of the major thoughts of some other cognitive-minded scholars, such as Noel Carroll, Gregory Currie and Torben Grodal on the subject; in analytic philosophy, narrative theory and film studies (with view to biology and neuroscience), respectively. Then, focusing mainly on Bordwell’s approach, and upon review of the most prominent thoughts given to the concept of the unreliable cinematic narrative, the present paper uses Hansen’s analytic model of how such narratives could actually be represented and formulated in Cinema. Finally, upon study of Hansen’s typology of the unreliable cinematic narratives, and in view of Tamar Yacobi’s five strategies for the naturalization of textual ambiguities and inconsistencies in unreliable narratives in general, and examining filmic examples comprising unreliable narratives, the present paper concludes that different forms of narratives (cinematic narratives as we are here concerned) do not have a limited and predefined pattern and as new narratives are introduced into the world of Cinema, new forms of them can potentially be produced. However, the audience’s experience in reading and viewing texts and films with such narratives can be of great help in deciphering their ambiguities and narratological codes, and enjoying the usually mindful plays on literary/cinematic storytelling at work in them. Nevertheless, it’s noteworthy that floating in the pleasurable realms of ambiguity and secretiveness, and being in a state of uncertainty regarding what is actually going on in what we are viewing, has its own unspeakable twilight zone pleasures.

In cultural semiotics as posed by Tartu-Moscow circle the concepts of cultural sphere, border, and the (non) cultural other and the dialogue between this cultural self and that other on the borders are very critical. The mechanism of intercultural translation and the processes of inclusion and exclusion govern this intercultural dialogue. Such communication between cultures, in order to be realized, should be based on some similarities and differences. The presumed borders are not definite separating lines; rather there are some overlapping areas between two cultures. These are the areas which create continuity on the continuum of cultures. At the same time since the cultures want to create cultural identity through differences, gradually moving back from these margins towards the center (of culture), they experience a discontinuity. This dialectic of continuity and discontinuity generates the propelling energy and dynamicity of culture. In cultural semiotics, culture is not a self-contained, autonomous sphere, rather it is synchronically and diachronically a dynamic process of intercultural, inter-textual and intersemiotic relations, unstable, always in change and dynamic. Theater, in its contemporary sense, is a sub-sphere of culture developed through such intercultural translation and processes of inclusion and exclusion. This study tries to study the Iranian contemporary theater in the light of a cultural semiotic theory. We want to see how modern western theater found its way to Iranian cultural sphere, and was gradually appropriated, and found its local features. The collected data are classified thematically and then analyzed and finally we will have a case study which is the drama “Zaman Khan’s Rule” written by Mirza Agha Tabrizi who is known as the first Iranian playwright. The important figures studied in this article are Mirza Fathali Akhundzadeh and Mirza Agha Tabrizi which had a critical role in intruding theater to Iranian culture. These two people were contemporary to each other but because of living in different cultural contexts had different approaches to theater. In fact it was Mirza Fathali Akhundzadeh who was the source of inspiration for Mirza Agha Tabrizi and the interesting point is that Akhundzadeh himself lived in Tbilisi who was in fact a border and threshold between Iranian cultural sphere and western culture. As a matter of fact, Tbilisi’s theater was itself a result of intercultural relations with west. Thus Akhunzadeh himself, living for a long time in Tbilisi, looked at western theater as something belonging to a cultural other. Therefore Mirza Agha Tabrizi was experiencing a double intercultural translation. In this article we have tried to show the complicated double mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion and its effects on Iranian theater. It is evident that in this article we do not consider culture and as a result theater a product but a complex, multifaceted process, Theater entering Iran began a dialogue with local traditional plays and modern Iranian theater, like any other cultural process, is the result of such dialogues, between local forms and those coming from the other. Indeed this is in pace with all other aspects of our contemporary life.

The political, social, and religious conflicts between the Church and the Protestants during the Renaissance and afterward gave a unique dimension to the works of a large number of European artists such as Shakespeare. A few decades later, art critics defined this style under the rubric of Baroque. The writers of this article conduct an explanatory analysis of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the light of baroque aesthetics. The authors maintain that Hamlet’s behavioral instability and inconsistency is comparable to Baroque aesthetics. His madness also reflects the chaotic society of the seventeenth century Europe which was stricken by harsh religious controversies. Hamlet represents a generation lost between Catholicism and Protestantism. On the one hand, the ghost of Hamlet’s father draws Hamlet towards his ancestral religion, which is Catholicism; on the other hand, Claudius’ progressive opinions, along with Hamlet’s education at Wittenberg, the cradle of Protestantism, push Hamlet towards iconoclastic Protestantism. Moreover, like in Baroque aesthetics in which the artist tries to challenge the perception of Truth in the mind of the audience in order to create a sense of uncertainty, from the very beginning of the play, both the characters and the audience of the play become doubtful about the state of the world and their own selves. Also, similar to a baroque hero who wants to yoke both worlds of the material and the spiritual in order to convey a spiritual message by dint of material senses, Shakespeare endows an extraterrestrial dimension on the concept of revenge. For a baroque hero the world is infinite and worldly eyes are unable to identify a greater portion of it. In view of that, Hamlet’s obsession with the other-world prevents him from killing Claudius while he is repenting his sins to God. Furthermore, from among the reasons why Hamlet is reluctant about avenging his father is Hamlet’s proximity to Claudius’ socio-political opinions. Unlike Father Hamlet, Claudius is a politically progressive ruler. On the one hand, Father Hamlet asks his son to kill his uncle in order to retrieve family honor and dignity, but, on the other hand, Hamlet’s love for the new world forbids him from doing so. Nevertheless, he still suspects the innocence of the brave new world and the distrust is also responsible for his madness. Therefore, Hamlet is trapped in a limbo and has lost his way to his desired utopia. He ought to choose either his ancestors’ way of life or the progressive thinkers’ frame of mind. However, his madness exacerbates and he decides to commit suicide. Although he wishes to die, he avoids committing suicide because Catholicism forbids suicidal acts. But when Laertes invites him to a duel, Hamlet resorts to the discourse of predetermination which is an indispensable part of Protestantism. Thus, if he dies in a duel with Laertes, his wish to die is fulfilled without committing suicide. In this fashion, he victoriously finds a third way between Catholicism and Protestantism and becomes more of a triumphant hero than a tragic protagonist.

previous studies have shown that music can be used to increase the time of engagement in physical activities but music›s role in controlling the intensity of PA has not been studied much. The sensorimotor synchronization (SMS), the coordination of rhythmic movement with rhythmic sensory stimuli method, seems to have enough potential and can be applied instead of the previous method for ordinary people in public places and even for the professional athletes. Humans, in general, have strong tendencies for responding to the rhythmical and temporal qualities of music. This tendency often results in the synchronization between the tempo or speed of music and the athlete›s movement patterns. The previous studies have indicated that humans are capable of synchronizing their body movements with the music beat as a part of dance or simply as an individual response to the music. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the use of music in controlling the intensity of physical activity during cycling and the effects of different music meters on coordination between music and physical activity. Twenty-five subjects were involved in this study and performed four separate sessions. For this study, six isochronous music pieces and for each music meter two pieces with two different tempos were examined. Two trails were conducted without playing the music pieces and others with it. The order trials were randomized. In the lack of music trials, the participants were asked to ride the cycle ergometer with preferred cadences, but all subjects were instructed to synchronize their cycling speeds with music tempo during the music trials. They were instructed to maintain a 1:1 relationship between pushing the pedal and tone (sound). The participants were instructed to adjust the movement to the beat while cycling even if they could not precisely synchronize it with the beat. The trials began after a short practice. At all of these sessions, the subjects rode without the cadence feedback. In each trial, cycling speed and heart rate were measured. Data were analyzed with repeated measures ANOVA and Bonferroni post hoc test. Results showed that there were a strong correlation between the music tempo and cycling speed. We also identified that music meter has no influence on beat perception and synchronization (BPS). Results indicated that gender had no effect on beat perception and synchronization but heart rate was different in each beat rate. Also, the heart rates of women were significantly higher than men. The comparison of music and no-music situations, showed that the standard deviation of non-music condition was higher and this difference (between with and without music condition) reflected the impact of music on the cycling cadence. Therefore, the results of this study indicate that the heart rate status was not significantly different in different music meters at each music beat rate. The study showed music can be used as a method to control the intensity of physical activity. We also identified that the speed of music should be chosen based on physiological differences.

The eighties era (the equivalent of First decade of the twenty-first century) has an important role in the history of contemporary Iranian playwriting for its diversity. By evaluating the plays written in 1380s, on the one hand, some important information is achieved about the latest patterns, techniques and the styles of writing Iranian drama and on the other hand, many guidelines can be provided to enhance the quality of dramatic literature of Iran. By the same token and considering the effective role of dramatic ending, this research reviews the functional forms according to elements such as information transmission strategies in drama ending, variety of endings and major aspects for the method of ending in dramatic texts in 1380s. It seems that despite the different approaches existing in contemporary drama, what recent critics such as Martin Esslin and Manfred Pfister, put into consideration for explaining the structure of plot especially the ending provides a new way to discuss methods of collecting information about final act of Iranian plays. The authors have tried to identify the characteristics of various plays in terms of pattern of ending story using a constructivist approach and recognize its major form. It should be noted that this study suggests analyzing the dramatic works of the last decade only in order to know the common forms their ending. So instead of case study and analysis of dramatic relationships on the structure of individual plays of the decade, the authors try to understand the discussed pattern comprehensively and expose its results to the readers` judgment for more reflection. Although it cannot be claimed that the findings have certainly the qualitative validity due to limitation in evaluating the dramatic data but according to presented evidences it can indicates (Signifier) kind of significant structural feature on how to organize their narrative information. In total, nearly 35 dramatic works of the 1380s have been reviewed that a third of them are discussed with more emphasize in the body of the present study. Obviously, valid results of this research will be extensible to a larger statistical population by the incomplete induction method and at least it can be expected to get a comprehensive understanding of the modern performances and abilities of dramatic literature in Iran. The findings show that an aspect of tendency to empiricism can be seen in different levels of drama structure through evaluating Iranian dramatic data based on given tables and charts during 1380s. Reflect of this major tendency can be found in the late Iranian playwrights’ narrative styles the innovation existed in their writhing techniques. On the other hand, despite patterns and different issues for creating dramatic works, in the last decade, playwriting often focuses on experiences such as unfinished, semi-finished or completely open endings which at the same time include many structural similarities among these works. Accordingly, in spite of tendency to empiricism in other parts of the drama, this indicates a kind of repetition and stop in models of using closure while ignoring the repetition in ending of plays in 1380s (2000s).

This article studies five major classical Hollywood films: psycho, Casablanca, double indemnity, the apartment and the searchers and ratiocinates that in this era of cinema history, directors conform with a series of principles, procedures and protocols in order to start the films and also describes that these principles are based on philosophical theories of human minds ways of reasoning. This article argues that Hollywood studios utilized philosophy to develop a set of principles known as law of Ws. In this law W refers to four questions that should be answered in the beginning sequence and which are: where, when, who and what. This law committed directors to introduce four elements in the beginning sequence in order to orient the audience into the story. This article is to examine the philosophical value of this law with Aristotle’s views on inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning. Aristotle is the first philosopher who organized logical concepts. He introduced two major methods of reasoning for human mind. First method is deductive reasoning. To reach a reliable conclusion, Deductive reasoning starts with a primary term and uses a secondary term which is smaller than the first one to provide the groundwork for achieving the result. In this way the results are the subset of the primary prelude, hence if the primary and the secondary terms are valid, the result would have no defects. The second method is conductive reasoning. On the other hand conductive reasoning starts with small logical terms and ends up with a general result that surpasses the enormity of the preliminary terms; hence the result may have some defects. Plan by plan analysis of the beginning sequence and sketching a plan-time diagram of all four elements of the law of Ws for the selected films shows a very interesting similarity. This diagram shows that in all five films four elements are introduced. Location is the first one then time of the event, the main character and the story of the film. Further analysis shows that the ways each element is introduced are the same in all five films. All diagrams for every film have a similar slope. It means that the size of the plans through time decreases. For introducing the location where the story is happening directors use a long shot of where it’s happening and step by step the size of the plan decreases to details of the location. For introducing the main character all directors start with a long shot of the character or in the case of the searchers with a very long shot of a man approaching a cottage in the middle of a desert. John ford’s choice of plans is very similar to other director when they introduce their main character. This indicates that classical Hollywood decoupage could be a cinematic representation of Aristotle’s deductive reasoning. The purpose of this article is to analyze the beginning sequence of these five films to demonstrate law of Ws and to prove this law’s conformity with Aristotle’s theories.