In this article, I argue that the dance practice of ‘Khaita – Joyful Dances’ has been intentionally designed as a mindfulness practice with the aim of fostering presence and awareness by the Dzogchen master Namkhai Norbu. The three Khaita principles of awareness (Dems, Gyu and Drig) revolve around aspects of proprioception, smooth movements, musicality, spatial and group awareness and guide dancers to the here and now. They demand non-judgmental, purposeful and non-reactive attention, hence mindfulness, that results in more mature states of awareness and presence.

The discipline of music therapy is practiced differently across the globe and over the years, in all regions of the world, the number of music therapy training programs has expanded. As such, there is a need to reflect on the differences between education and training programs, which vary according to the local culture, educational needs, theoretical background, and scope, among others. Music therapists work in a variety of environments including hospitals, community centres, regular or special education schools, speciality clinics, private practice, and long-term care homes, etc. Music therapists are tasked with navigating policies in their workplaces and balancing the needs of their clients/consumers/service users. This article written together by educators and a student aims to present brief highlights of the work of the authors whose collaboration resulted in a presentation at the European Congress of Music Therapy in June 2022. This presentation focused on the challenges and issues faced by the discipline of music therapy and health in general, based on the analysis of systemic issues in education and training, social issues, and significant issues such as multiculturalism, equity, and race around the world. These were identified as important issues for the authors who desired to raise awareness on these topics to further open ongoing dialogue. Our aim is to contribute to the establishment of dialogues between music therapy educators, allied health professionals, researchers, and students for the implementation of new courses and the updating of existing programs, expanding views on possible music therapy interventions in contemporary times.

Experiments on the bowed string are often carried out on monochord setups [1] and with specialized bowing machines [2, 3, 4, 5] in order to study the excitation in detail. These setups simplify the equipment with the necessary sensors. Furthermore, by using rigid body monochords, measurement uncertainties can be minimized by eliminating vibrating components such as the resonating body, bridge, neck, etc. When the string is then excited or bowed using a machine, there are further advantages in terms of reproducibility or controllability of the excitation and bowing parameters. This technical report provides technical details of a monochord built at the acoustic laboratory of the Department of Music Acoustics – Wiener Klangstil (IWK). The advantages of using strain gauge sensors for string vibration analysis are presented and discussed. In contrast to a custom- made bowing machine, however, an industrial robotic arm was used for string excitation, thereby allowing for highly versatile applications. Enclosed detail pictures, circuit diagrams and software flowcharts provide the possibility of simple replication of the setup described.

The study of 16th-century keyboard music, integral to historical performance since the early music revival of the late 20th century, has traditionally focused on structural analysis from notated sources and inferred improvisation practices. A paucity of historical performance sources has left many performance aspects unaddressed, relying heavily on aesthetics established by earlier generations. This article takes a transdisciplinary approach to examine Renaissance keyboard music, unravelling the complex interplay of elements in harpsichord playing, encompassing tangible and intangible factors. It aims to bridge the gap between contemporary aesthetics and the historical context, shedding light on the ideals shaping musical perception and performance. Exploring George of Trebizond’s rhetorical treatise De suavitate dicendi, and its emphasis in the importance of sweetness in rhetoric, the article parallels ideals of speech delivery with the art of harpsichord playing. It introduces a novel method to integrate non-musical historical sources into performance practice, applying rhetorical principles to analyse 16th-century keyboard musical taste, including tempo, rhythm, embellishments, timbral variety, technical aspects, material culture, and the composition-performance relationship. Addressing how to translate theory into guidance for modern performers, the methodology offers a structured framework for studying and performing 16th-century keyboard music, not presenting empirical results but fostering a alternative approach to better understand and convey the era’s musical ideals.

This article approaches the question how people practised at a keyboard instrument in the 16th century by evaluating the most extensive source, Tomás de Santa María’s Arte de tañer Fantasia (1565). Avoiding specific problems such as fingering or hand position, this article focuses on how practising can be organized, and how the advice given in the historical source can be applied in today’s didactic practice. As the hints scattered throughout the treatise suggest, learning is guided by an active engagement with singing, solmization and written-out compositions in various notational formats – instead of merely ‘interpreting works’. Equipped with a plethora of musical ideas and motor patterns acquired through vocal and instrumental experience, a skilled musician – in the sense of Santa María – can play polyphonic pieces based on paired imitations spontaneously, which sound as if they were written-out compositions.

Vor 100 Jahren wurde die Fachhochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst als eine der Vorgängerinstitutionen der heutigen mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien gegründet. Sie kann, soviel steht fest, als ein einzigartiges Spezifikum der österreichischen Hochschulgeschichte gesehen werden. Trotz ihrer äußerst kurzen Lebensdauer sowie wenig nachhaltigen Existenz ist es wert, die Geschichte dieser von 1924 is 1931 bestehenden Hochschule zu erzählen: Wie unter einem Brennglas offenbaren sich hier die Folgen von Fehlplanung, Intrige, weltanschaulicher Entzweiung und politisch-ideologischer Einflussnahme. Und obwohl die nur 7-jährige Geschichte der Hochschule fast als kurios zu bezeichnen ist, spiegelt sich in ihr die zunehmend radikalisierende innenpolitische Situation Österreichs in den Zwischenkriegsjahren wider.

Roles in the context of live-electronic music performance are often overlapping. We used a cross-cultural collaboration between a Vietnamese live-electronic composer-performer and a German instrument maker to study the development of roles. We followed the approach of building a digital music instrument inspired by existing acoustic instruments and conducted a case study with the task of developing a granular effect sample player, the Grain Bau, inspired by the Vietnamese monochord zither đàn Bầu. We analyzed the milestones, tasks and remote collaboration strategies and assessed the depth of participation. We found that in-person collaborative work tended to dissolve role definitions, while remote working emphasised them. We examine our strategies for remote working and discuss the influence of gender on our role development.

This paper presents the conclusions of an experimental study on fingering and hand position guided by Renaissance portraits of keyboard players as well as contemporary theoretical writings on keyboard technique. The author investigates the relationship between theoretical statements and representations in art, comparing and analyzing the different positions of fingers, hands and wrists in both type of sources. Particular attention is paid to a subject that began to appear in the first years of the 16th century and became fully fashionable from the beginning of the 17th century onwards: St. Cecilia at the keyboard. The representations of Cecilia dramatically increased after the ‘discovery’ of the saint’s body in 1599, and they offer a vast repository of images of keyboard players. The results of these investigations are presented in their practical application through images and videos recorded by Maria Luisa Baldassari and Augusta Campagne; the study finishes with a comprehensive reference guide that summarizes the rules for fingering and hand position of the most important treatises.