Національно-ментальні детермінанти музичної творчості
National mental determinants of musical creativity

Summary/Abstract: The national origins of musical artifacts (in the composership, as well as in performance) in many cases are the inherent implication that determines the particularities of the concepts, image systems, the composition and the structure of musical integrity, as well as the character of the special means selected by an artist to embody nuances of meaning. Each nation has a specific mentality, which embodies the facets and nuances of the conscious character and of the "collective unconscious" (Jung), expressed as a specific characteristics of the ethnic group in general: mental sets, worldview images, automatic actions, patterns of behavior, associations and others. Features of mentality are determined by the configuration of the ethnic dominants, by cognitive and emotional benchmarks, which include: geographical and climatic conditions, language, nuances of synesthesis, stereotypes of national character and behavior, national feeling of time and space, religious and contemplative world settings, historical and political factors, cultural traditions, rituals, etiquette, fashion and so on. It is difficult to study the mentality because of its integrity and the specific nature of the system. The initial element of this system is a combination of factors that form the specific relationships between themselves, while saving the factor of heredity. These relationships can be transformed, causing the inclusion (or exclusion) of certain elements in the system while maintaining the inherent shape of the overall configuration. Therefore, to identify the particularities of the national logic, we need to compare the integrity of the being of one nation with the same integrity of the other. When you create certain conditions and establish the contextual links, the ethno-differentiative contextual factors may acquire the status of national mental determinants of musical creativity. For example, vocal orientation of Italian art is determined by: - features of the Italian speech (non-reduced vowels, clear articulation and the active work of the entire speech apparatus, the prevalence of open syllables, the alteration of vowels and consonants, the match between the intonation contour of the utterance and the original code of the articulation complex, a significant range of the speech sound, the permanent emphasis which provides the rhythm of the sound, the presence of numerous hiatuses, many double consonants which create the physiological precondition of the high palatal position, high speed speech which forms virtuosity in the process of performance and in the conditions of musical perception); - paralinguistic factors (active gestures and facial expressions); - specific climate (warm sunny climate determines muscular freedom, lack of pinches in the singing apparatus); - historical features of formation of bel canto school, the rich vocal tradition that existed in the Roman Church, and others. Musical mentality is also presented as a multi-level system of many elements of the musical text (from the tone, the single sound, to the dramatical and conceptual opus features or performing artifact), which, due to the sub-sign nature of musical speech (M. Bonfeld), can selectively "respond" to the manifestations of qualities (or properties) of the national mentality. Moreover, the ethno-differentiative features of the musical mentality may be a more general phenomena: the tradition of music-making, the main genres, the factors of synesthesis, the dominant emotional and psychological characteristics of musical images and the tendencies of their implementation, etc. Thus, the term "ethno-differentiative musical properties" denotes the sub-signs of the musical language – the elements of musical text, the properties of musical expression, the nuances of the scenic behavior, musical traditions and trends which: 1) while actualized at some moment in some context, acquire the status of the value; 2) while perceiving and reflecting the specific ethnomental context, represent the national musical mentality. To indicate the actual time of response, of the communication between the systems of "national mentality" and of "music mentality", at the point (or in the area) of intersection of their semantic fields, we offer the term "mental-semantic resonance." The phenomena of mental-semantic resonance can occur in any versions of combinations of the subsystems and their individual elements. We develop the concept of "representative type of art" proposed by J. Melchakova with introducing its' purely musical projections: 1) The representative genre: a genre of music that symbolizes features of the national music culture. For Spain, for example, the representative genres are flamenco and cante hondo. The musical and expressive specificity of these genres became the basis of hispanisms which embody the "Spanish dream" in other national cultures. 2) Representative type of music: the type of musical communication that is predominant for the national musical culture. For example, the representative type of music in Sweden is the choral singing. Representative national musical culture types (genres, types of music, etc.) are the basis of the ethnomental music model, a kind of "emanation of mentality" (L. Gumilev) that stimulates the international interest in this phenomenon. We term the energetic and the charismatic phenomena the emanation of the mental field in music (passionate image of Spain, meditative image of the East, the charm of French chanson, etc.) that give rise to echoes and imitations in a foreign musical cultures. Therefore, in the article the author's theoretical concept of national mental determinants of musical creativity is proposed and its' nature is explored. Musical mentality is considered as an integral variable system in the light of its determinism of national mental factors. Within ethnomental approach, the concept of "musical speech" (as a potential (composer's work) or topical (performing interpretation) expression) is interpreted as a way of displaying the nuances of national mentality in musical creative activities.

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