Research Articles (Odeion School of Music)
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Item Open Access Proposing a seamless learning experience design (SLED) framework based on international perspectives of educators from five higher education institutions(Academic Publishing International Limited, 2022) Hambrock, Helga; De Villiers, FreletSince seamless learning (SL) is still a rather unknown concept in higher education many educators classify it under the same categories as mobile, blended, online or hybrid learning. The purpose of this study is first to clarify the historical evolvement of the seamless learning concept over the past decades and, to position the seamless learning concept as it is understood today. Secondly, to find the most important concepts which can be proposed for a useful seamless learning experience design framework to assist educators with their course design. Considering this context, the research question for this study is formulated as follows: “Which concepts constitute a seamless learning experience design framework for students in higher education?” To answer this question, an inductive qualitative research analysis was conducted by collecting data from educators from countries on five continents on their views on this topic. Following a thematic coding approach of the combined dataset, five emerging themes crystallised, and are presented as part of a proposed Seamless Learning Experience Design (SLED) framework. They include core, positive, practical, human and design concepts – including sub-themes. The framework contributes to quality assurance processes in e-learning practices by providing a tool for developing seamless learning experiences for students.Item Open Access Tonality and texture in Arnold van Wyk’s Vier weemoedige liedjies: musical, poetic and personal considerations(University of the Free State, 2013) Viljoen, Nicol; Drennan, IanEnglish: The four poems as set in Arnold van Wyk’s (1916-1983) Vier weemoedige liedjies (Four sad little songs [1934, published 1949]) present a continuum of consciousness that explores various aspects of a sense of loss shared by the poets and echoed by the composer; whether on a cultural or personal level, the underlying motive that inspires their creative impulse is one of engagement reaching out to the unattainable. Van Wyk’s unique portrayal of melancholy in these songs is the result of a remarkable interaction of tonal and textural elements that give sensitive expression to the content of the carefully selected poetic texts. Through this interaction, the nature of van Wyk’s tonal language, albeit in an early stage of development in this instance, can already be determined, pointing to very specific ways of fusing together elements of structure and expression. Particularly notable are the ways in which tonality and texture are used in the immediate sense to capture the mood of the poems of these songs. On a more profound level, these elements bring forth deeper dimensions of meaning both with regard to the content of the poems and Van Wyk’s personal life experiences.Item Open Access Personality traits of successful music entrepreneurs(University of the Free State, 2013) Van Zuilenburg, Paul LoebEnglish: It is internationally accepted that music entrepreneurship presents an alternative form of employment for music graduates. The question that inadvertently arises concerns the suitability of this occupation for musicians. During this study, musicians and successful music entrepreneurs were interviewed in order to identify their critical personality traits. These were compared with the documented personality traits of entrepreneurs and the findings showed a strong correlation between the character traits of both groupings, but with critical differences apparent. The article presents a typology of personality traits and concludes that not all musicians are suited to a career in music entrepreneurship.Item Open Access The raised fourth in Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story(University of the Free State, 2010) Viljoen, Nicol; Visagie, JohannEnglish:This article traces the functions and applications of the raised fourth-scale degree in Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story against the background of the work’s precarious positioning between a Broadway musical and a modern opera. It attempts to demonstrate how the raised fourth operates in a variety of ways as a coherent tonal motive with distinctive tragic undertones. While it relates the main songs and musical sequences to one another, it also effects a poignant relationship between the lyrics, music and dramatic action. In this regard it represents a powerful instance of musical symbolism, its tragic quality being closely intertwined with the story’s disturbing theme of gangsterism.Item Open Access Acculturation as translation: mimicry, satire and resistance in Chewa dance(University of the Free State, 2012) Nthala, GrantEnglish: communities of Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. With this particular dance – and indeed with many others – historical connotations, cultural reverberations, and systemic institutionalisation come into play. The hierarchical organisation of the Chewa dance systems and the orderly and enigmatic tendencies of the dance displays are reminiscent of historical phenomena linked to the Chewa diaspora. In essence, mimicry, satire and other forms of enactment (often dramatic) in Chewa dance subtly or candidly unearth acculturative elements within the Chewa ethnicity. This article seeks to illustrate that the Chewa dances gulewamkulu and mganda constitute theatre and that their performance demonstrates a manifestation of traditional Chewa cultural features that have been altered or modified by borrowing from or adapting to other Bantu-related and European cultures.Item Open Access Music and (re-)translating unity and reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda(University of the Free State, 2012) Barz, GregoryEnglish: This article focuses on the ability of a historically important musical instrument in the East African country of Rwanda, the inanga, to contribute to the (re-)translation of issues related to unity and reconciliation efforts after the genocide of 1994. By concentrating on the transmission of tradition from Kirusu Thomas to Sophie Nzayisenga, from father to daughter, I underscore the significant changes in cultural contexts for historical and contemporary inanga performance while also positioning the instrument within the dominant cultural metaphors of ‘blockage’ and ‘flow’. Throughout the article, I draw on inanga song texts to demonstrate the role of the inanga as cultural translator.Item Open Access After universalisms: music as a medium for intercultural translation(University of the Free State, 2012) Viljoen, MartinaEnglish: Postmodernity is characterised by the fundamentalisation of plurality. As Aleida Assmann (1996: 99) finds, difference is affirmed in the form of deviance, gaps, and radical alterity. Within this intellectual milieu, the acknowledgment of alterity and the acceptance of difference have become foremost ethical claims (Assmann 1996: 99). Appropriating the thought of Goethe, she finds that the emphasis shifts from the embrace of the One to an encounter with the mode of the Two (Assmann 1996: 100). This encounter is marked by awe and surprise, but also by the shrouding of each of the Two as if cloaked in eternal solitude. The question posed in this article is whether Assmann’s viewpoints may enhance a reading of a work from the South African art music repertoire, Hans Huyssen’s Ciacona & Tshikona (2007). Engaging with a broader selection of viewpoints on cultural translation, it is asked whether Assmann’s (1996: 99) notion of otherness is a productive context for mediating a meaningful encounter between cultures and whether, as such, it is relevant to an interpretation of Huyssen’s work. A speculative interpretation of Huyssen’s Ciacona & Tshikona reveals that the work is suggestive of a complex heredity being translated into an ‘impure’ new South African contextuality.