German lute tablature (GLT), once widespread throughout central Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, remains underexplored in scholarship and largely abandoned in performance practice, partly due to its significantly greater complexity compared to other tablature types. E-LAUTE is an international, interdisciplinary research project assembling a comprehensive multimodal digital edition of surviving GLT sources, developing a research data infrastructure and corresponding workflows to effectively and sustainably support this collaborative effort. We describe the technologies, tools, environments, and workflows serving to fulfill the varied stakeholder requirements underlying our multimodal digital edition.

How can diverse musical interactions be productively used to promote inter- and transcultural communication, support human thriving and flourishing, empower marginalised social groups, or make society as a whole more sustainable, just and inclusive? Bringing together perspectives from research and practice, this edited volume explores how music mediation as a distinct artistic-educational practice can foster social cohesion, enable dialogue, and create new forms of engagement. The contributions critically reflect on the conditions, limitations, and potentials of music mediation in various contexts, providing insights for scholars, musicians, and practitioners working at the intersection of music and society.

An experimental study is conducted to investigate the effects of both the diameter and shape of wind instrument tone holes on the flow behaviour in an artificial, simplified scenario. Time-resolved particle image velocimetry is used to measure flow velocity over the entire length of a square recorder bore. Flow velocity measurements enable various approaches to analyse the flow under different tone hole configurations. Simultaneous to the flow measurements, the air pressure at the input (blowing pressure) and in the interior of the tube (at five locations along the bore) is measured. Realistic excitation conditions are emulated, incorporating a commercial bass recorder mouthpiece. The flow for three different tone hole diameters is examined, with two of the tone holes also varying in height and undercutting. The amplitude of the flow oscillations is examined and compared for all tone hole configurations. The effect of tone hole undercutting is further analysed in the frequency domain, where it is observed that undercutting concentrates more energy at the fundamental frequency. Finally, it is experimentally shown that undercutting lowers the vorticity of the flow.

Touchless control of human-computer interfaces in science-fiction has inspired several musical applications. This paper presents Cloud Hands, a touchless musical assemblage that controls sample-based granular synthesis via hand motion. The paper discusses how the assemblage manifests in three emanations: as a sound interface, a digital music instrument and an interactive multimedia composition. A dedicated Python script extracts the hand landmark positions and distances from a camera frame, which are mapped to control parameters of granular synthesis of a sample in Pure Data. A Wekinator patch may extract symbolic hand poses to change samples and playback speed. The emanations use varying modes of visual feedback, from no feedback at all to wire-frame models of the hand to sound material-related segmentation of video material as a reference map. Performance recollections from the first author and other users of Cloud Hands are analyzed in order to identify conveniences and constraints of the sensing technology, mapping, and sound production. Finally, the paper discusses the influence of conveniences and constraints on aesthetics, form and performance behavior.

In order to simulate the function of bowed string instruments, it is necessary to model the frictional interaction between the bow hair and the vibrating string. This is possible using an elasto-plastic friction model, which has previously succeeded in reproducing experimental data captured on a monochord setup. In this study, this elasto-plastic model is refined to guarantee passivity, and a stable numerical scheme is derived that inherits the energy balance of the underlying continuous model. The approach presented considers a finite-width bow, thus spreading the bow–string interaction over an area. The compliance of the bow hair and the torsional motion of the string are also taken into account. A sound example and animations of the string motion are provided to demonstrate the behavior of the model.

Vortices in musical instruments form in a non-uniform flow, where air currents of different velocities or directions mix. Non-uniform flow, in the case of flutes or recorders, occurs at the labium, at the open end and at the side holes. Side hole undercutting has been shown to minimise vortex formation. Previous numerical simulations have visualised airflow velocity influence on vorticity. In experimental studies, where a tube with a side hole was excited by a loudspeaker, it was observed that speaker loudness and hole geometry influenced the vorticity. Recent simulations explore the effect of undercutting on the transient and show detailed results on the vortex formation. In this study, we aim to compare vortex formation between 6 different side hole geometries with a significant undercut and another 6 without undercutting, under realistic input conditions. Using the same geometry as in the simulations mentioned above, we employ time-resolved Particle Image Velocimetry to measure flow velocity at a sampling rate of 10 kHz. The recorder is excited utilising a commercial recorder mouthpiece with constant input conditions maintained at 100 Pa.

Suizidalität ist ein verbreitetes Sujet unzähliger Lieder, Opernarien und Instrumentalstücke – so etwa im berühmt-berüchtigten Suicide Song »Gloomy Sunday«. Aktuell wird in fachlichen und populärwissenschaftlichen Debatten diskutiert, inwieweit Musik Einfluss auf reale Suizidhandlungen zeitigt, sei es als Risiko- oder als protektiver Faktor. Die Beiträge des Bands, die auf dem Symposium »Musik und Suizidalität« an der mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien 2022 der Öffentlichkeit vorgestellt wurden, greifen diese Debatten auf. Der Band bringt erstmals kulturhistorische, empirische, medizinische und therapeutische Perspektiven zusammen, um den Diskurs über das noch immer tabubehaftete Thema weiter zu etablieren und mit Sichtweisen aus der Praxis zu erweitern. Mit Beiträgen von Andy R. Brown, Julia Heimerdinger, Susanne Korn, Thomas Macho, Paul Plener, Claudius Stein, Benedikt Till & Thomas Niederkrotenthaler, Harm Willms sowie Studierenden der Musiktherapie und der Instrumental- und Gesangspädagogik