This article aims to evaluate the cultural policy of Mozambique's Liberation Front (FRELIMO), focusing on music and dance during the liberation war and transitional period (1964–1975), and during the first 5 years after independence from Portugal (1975–1980). For the first period, we will focus on a repertoire entitled ‘revolutionary anthems’ and for the second, we will analyse Mozambique's sonorous representations in three national and international events: FESTAC77 (1977), the First National Festival of Popular Dance (1978) and the First National Festival of Song and Traditional Music (1980). Building on fieldwork data gathered through several interviews with politicians, radio broadcasters, producers, musicians and archival work, we aim to explain the significance of musical performance for the ‘sonorous construction’ of the ‘new Mozambican man’ project, as envisioned by FRELIMO.
This in an ethnomusicological study of choral performance in Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique. It includes a historical perspective over the last thirty years, and it analyzes the changes which took place in performance along with the political changes in this African country. The author studies the use of music for the purpose of creating a national identity. Makwayela, a characteristic kind of male choral performance which developed in Southern Mozambique, is used as a study case. Makwayela is described and framed within the range of expressive modes in Maputo. Its origins are discussed in the background of mining culture in Southern Africa, and its development is associated with recent social history in Mozambique, and particularly in Maputo.
The design of musical instruments is still mostly based on empirical knowledge and costly experimentation. One interesting improvement is the shape optimization of resonating components, given a number of constraints (allowed parameter ranges, shape smoothness, etc.), so that vibrations occur at specified modal frequencies. Each admissible geometrical configuration generates an error between computed eigenfrequencies and the target set. Typically, error surfaces present many local minima, corresponding to suboptimal designs. This difficulty can be overcome using global optimization techniques, such as simulated annealing. However these methods are greedy, concerning the number of function evaluations required. Thus, computational times can be unacceptable if complex problems, such as bell optimization, are tackled. Those issues are addressed in this paper, and a method for improving optimization procedures is proposed. Instead of using the (local) parameters Pf(r) as searched variables, the system geometry is modeled in terms of truncated series of orthogonal space-functions Pj(r)=∑najnψjn(r), and optimization is performed on the (global) coefficients ajn. Fourier series and orthogonal polynomials are typical functions ψjn(r). This technique reduces considerably the number of search variables, and has a potential for significant computational savings in complex problems. It is illustrated by optimizing the shapes of both current and uncommon marimba bars.
In sum, the 15 volumes of The Music of Islam are of uneven quality as musical documents. Volumes 5, 9, 10, and 14 can be useful for research or educational purposes. Volume 15 is highly recommended. DIETER CHRISTENSEN A Viagem dos Sons. The Journey of Sounds. 12-CD set. Recorded and annotated by various scholars and collectors. Portugal: CDP jPavilhao de Portugal da Expo '98jTradisom VSOI-VS12. 1998. A Viagem dos Sons (The Journe1J of Sounds) is an outstanding anthology of Portuguese-influenced musical cultures across the globe, from Cape Verde to Sumatra, Sri Lanka to Macau, comprising better-documented areas such as Malacca, Sumatra and Brazil, and lesser-known regions such as Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe in Africa. Released in June 1998, the 12-volume set features a wide range of music genres from field and studio recordings, as well as reproductions of previously published recordings. Each volume is individually packaged with a compact disc and an accompanying booklet that contains, in both Portuguese and English, contextual information of the area concerned, musical descriptions, separate notes for each track with song texts and translations, photographs and a bibliography of references cited. VSOI. Gavana-Goa. Annotated by Susana Sardo. 119 pages of notes in Portuguese and English. 8 color photographs. Tl-item bibliography. Region: Goa. Recorded in the studio. 12 tracks. 57:41.
The design of musical instruments is still mostly based on empirical knowledge and costly experimentation. One interesting improvement is the shape optimization of resonating components, given a number of constraints (allowed parameter ranges, shape smoothness, etc.), so that vibrations occur at specified modal frequencies. Each admissible geometrical configuration generates an error between computed eigenfrequencies and the target set. Typically, error surfaces present many local minima, corresponding to suboptimal designs. This difficulty can be overcome using global optimization techniques, such as simulated annealing. However these methods are greedy, concerning the number of function evaluations required. Thus, the computational effort can be unacceptable if complex problems, such as bell optimization, are tackled. Those issues are addressed in this paper, and a method for improving optimization procedures is proposed. Instead of using the local geometric parameters as searched variables, the system geometry is modeled in terms of truncated series of orthogonal space-funcitons, and optimization is performed on their amplitude coefficients. Fourier series and orthogonal polynomials are typical such functions. This technique reduces considerably the number of searched variables, and has a potential for significant computational savings in complex problems. It is illustrated by optimizing the shapes of both current and uncommon marimba bars.
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