PROPOSAL #1:   Broadway Musicals as Cartography of Changes in US Sociocultural Values

Description

Musical theatre as a legitimate scholarly field only came to the fore in the 1990s, in a large part due to musical theatre’s status as popular entertainments and the prejudice against popular forms in the academic culture. However, the modern hierarchy of taste that dismisses the musicals has not prevented the form from being the most beloved legitimate form of all theatre.  From the 1920s to the 60s, Broadway musicals in its so-called “Golden Age” contributed largely to the formation of US culture.  Contemporary Broadway musicals are still consumed every year by millions of people who travel to New York from all around the world, and performed and appreciated by endless fans all over the world.  Broadway musical theatre continues to be the most distinctive form of US theatre.

This project is my attempt to create a digital pedagogical tool to help people understand the gap between the popular and scholarly perceptions of musical theatre—why certain musicals are applauded by general audience but despised by scholars, and why certain critically acclaimed musicals are never popular—through quantifying “taste” in the context of Broadway’s production of desire, consumption of pleasure, and creation of national identity.

Personas

Xanadu is a published scholar in Broadway musical theatre.  He is trained in musicology and is an expert in late 19th century and early 20th century European music, especially operetta and opera comique.  In his musical theatre class, however, he always disagrees with his students.  What his students love (eg. Phantom of the Opera), he hates; the pieces he admires (eg. A Little Night Music), his students roll their eyes at.  He is frustrated by this seemingly unbridgeable gap of perception and taste.  Plus, he has a cousin, Yawper, who he finds annoying and would never go out to musicals with.

Yawper is a working-class man in New York, and an enthusiastic goer to Broadway musicals.  To him, Broadway musical theatre is his sanctuary; a world that’s more real than his mundane trivial daily life—the emotions are more authentic, the people are more genuine, and he is able to be his true self in that world.  In that world, he doesn’t want to think that much or analyze that much.  H he can focus on how he FEELS.  His cousin Xanadu thinks he is coarse and unrefined.  He, however, thinks Xanadu is pretentious, snobbish, and boring.  He would much rather hang out with his niece Zuhanna.

Zuhanna is a student of musical theatre.  She has read the 20-some canonical scholarly books that are most important in the field (mostly musicological works), and realizes that there is still a lot to be done.  She finds that popular works are under researched academically, and there is a lack of online archives, or scholarship that address overall trends of the development of Broadway musicals.  She wishes there are better online resources to study Broadway musicals.

Use Case Scenario

This tool will tentatively be in the form of a website/ online archive, accessible via computers, tablets, and mobile devices.

By clicking the name of a musical, the user sees the basic information of the musical (creators, cast, length of performance, whether it is exported abroad and for how long, etc), its placement in the “popular” and “critical” spectra, its overall theatrical structure, a chart of the sum of its song forms and key musical elements, the key issues this musical explores in comparison to those explored in the same decade, and where it falls in the entire historical span.

By clicking into a decade, the user sees a chart of the contextualization of the musicals in that decade in terms of theatrical structure, key issues, and musical forms.  The user could choose to compare any two decades (by clicking, say, 50s and 70s), to explore the changes that have taken place.

By clicking into a cultural key word (eg “the Vietnam War,” or “strong female character”), the user sees a list of musicals with their key issues and representative song forms listed.

By clicking into a specific song form/ harmonic pattern, the user have access to a list of songs that share the same/ similar structural pattern.

By clicking into a cultural affect, the user is given a list of songs that share that certain cultural affect.

Full Version and Timeline

The Broadway musicals of each decade (from 1920s to the present) are grouped into three ranking lists: 1) the longest running, or the most popular; 2) the most critically acclaimed; 3) the most frequently exported.  Theatrical structure, musical form, and textual topics are the three foci  of data analysis.  Based on that, below I list a series of tentative indicators within the musicals that reflect the changes in the mode of consumption, the style of production, audience taste, and ultimately, the changes in sociocultural values:

Textual Indicators:

• Large sociocultural themes the musical addresses;
• Trendy topics the musical addresses;
• References to popular culture;
• The affect generated through the textual aspect of the musical (described using key words);

Musical Indicators:

• Musical genres and styles, and song forms;
• Musical references;
• The original use of musical idioms, chord progression, voice leading, etc.;
• The affect generated through the musical aspect of the piece;

Socio-economical Indicators:

• The cost of production of the musical domestically;
• The cost of production of the musical outside of the US;
• The revenue of the musical throughout its domestic run;
• The revenue of the musical throughout its international run;
• Ticket price of the musical;

Theatrical/Performative Indicators:

• The theatrical structure of the piece;
• Casting choices and other performance elements (choreography, vocality, setting design, costume design, etc.)

Topic modeling and data visualization will be the two most prominent skills required of this project.  I have intermediate knowledge of mallet and gephi, and am currently learning python, R, and D3.  I expect the project will take approximately a year and a half to complete.  The  data collection and the musical data processing will take the most time—approximately 9 months to a year.

Brief Version and Timeline

The musical form analysis is what I regard to be the most unique aspect of this project.  It is therefore what I have decided to work on first.  Much work has been done in terms of MIR (musical information retrieval), and I’m currently doing research on what existent models would  be most beneficial to take onto this project.  The Million Song Project and Hooktheory might serve as good precursor examples.  I am currently collaborating with a few students from the Computer Science Department on. The music part of this project should take us approximately two semesters (Spring and Fall 2015).

 

Proposal #2:  Calligraphy Design / Linguistic Pedagogical Gaming Tool

Description

As one of the oldest forms of art in human history, calligraphy is on the verge of slowly dying out, especially as the digital age has “freed” human beings from taking up a pen and resorting to handwriting.  This tool/app is designed to digitally preserve the performative nature of practicing calligraphy, and more over, to serve as a pedagogical tool for learning new (especially non-alphabetic) languages and writing systems.

Personas

Amil, 6-year-old brother who is learning hand-writing.

Bailee, 19-year-old sister who is learning about symbols and characters in her design class.

Cad, 45-year-old parent who is interested in learning a new language.

Doe, 70-year-old grandparent who is looking for physical and intellectual exercise.

Use Case Scenario:

This tool is available on mobile devices, tablets, computers with touch screens, and large home use devices (eg. similar to Wii video games and devices).

Beginner Level: To Learn the structure of a character / how to write a character;

Intermediate Level: To play with fonts, script styles;

Advanced Level: To design your own fonts and script styles; to use pen-and-board controllers creatively.

Full Version and Timeline:

For the Beginner’s level, To Learn the structure of a character / how to write a character, when the user enters one stroke, the app will ask the user to choose from a list of strokes (the order of strokes are very important in, for instance, Eastern Asian countries.)  This requires the programming of the stroke order in each single character in multiple languages.  It is reasonable for me to start with the Chinese language, as not only did I grow up with this language, I was also trained in Chinese calligraphy since an early age.

For the Intermediate Level, To play with fonts, script styles, each character will appear hollow (with stroke order indicated), and the user will fill each one in by either handwriting on the screen, or using specially designed pen-and-board-shaped controllers that come in different shapes, styles and sizes. After the user finish writing, for instance, an Indian proverb (7 characters) or a Tang poem (20-28 characters), the app will generate the calligraphy piece the user has created in an interactive platform which allows one to make further changes, save, and share online.  Inspirations can be drawn from the iPad Calligraphy App’s tracing system.

For the Advanced Level, the user may invent one’s own distinctive script styles, name them, save them, and share them online.  This has similar function to online drawing apps such as Sketchpad and AWW (A Web Whiteboard).   The user may also use pen-and-board controllers creatively, the way devices are used in Wii. The largest pen controller should be as large as 4 feet long, and one can practice wall calligraphy or ground calligraphy (dishu), the results of which will be projected and saved on file for further use.

The skills required to make this tool are mostly ones I do not yet possess in my digital tool pool.   It will therefore take me at least two years to accomplish this project.

Brief Version and Timeline

The Beginner’s Level could be the brief version of the project.  This requires character pool and an efficient tracing-operating system.  If I have the right collaborators, this version could take 9 months to a year to complete.