Music Theory Commons^™

Varying Degrees Of Difficulty In Melodic Dictation Examples According To Intervallic Content, Michael Hines Robinson

Masters Theses

Melodic dictation has long been a daunting task for students in aural skills training. Research has found that interval identification is a factor when taking melodic dictation. Research has also found that some intervals are easier to identify than other intervals. The goal of this thesis is to determine whether the difficulty of melodic dictation examples can be categorized by their intervallic content. A popular aural skills text was used as the source for the melodic dictation examples. The adjacent intervals in each melodic dictation example were counted and recorded by interval type. The analysis of the melodic dictation examples …

Guest Artist Recital - University Of Idaho - Moscow, Id, Nicole Molumby, Leslie Moreau

Leslie M. Moreau

The Lionel Hampton School of Music at the University of Idaho presents a recital featuring guest artists Nicole Molumby, flute, and Leslie Moreau, clarinet, on Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 4 p.m. in the Haddock Performance Hall in the music building on the Moscow campus. Molumby and Moreau serve on the faculty at Boise State University. Their delightfully varied program showcases music by Jim Cockey, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Blaz Pucihar, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Jorge Montilla and Robert Muczynski. They will be assisted by pianist Barton Moreau, faculty, Boise State University; clarinetist Shannon Scott, faculty, Washington State University; and Leonard Garrison, assistant …

The Form Of The Preludes To Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites, Daniel E. Prindle

Daniel E. Prindle

This thesis proposes a methodology for understanding the form of a Baroque prelude, particularly the preludes to the Six Suites for Unaccompanied Violoncello written by Johann Sebastian Bach. Four musical dimensions, tonal structure, motive, texture, and the potential implications of a piece’s genre, parse the preludes in different ways. As the features of these musical dimensions undergo either an evolution or a dramatic change over the course of each prelude, they each suggest a different form. Points of change in each dimension delineate segments in the music. When aligned, these changes create significant formal junctures and suggest an overall form …

The Chameleon Clarinet Cultural And Historical Perspectives In America Through The 20th Century, Julie Ann Vangyzen

Honors Projects Overview

The clarinet is unique in that depending on what setting it is performed in determines the character it can assume. Generally, these styles all sound completely different from one another despite the fact that the clarinet physically remains the same. However, is any one of these types of music so different from the other, or are they all related in some way? This paper determines how the genres of Dixieland and Swing Jazz, Jewish Klezmer, Avant-Garde, and Western European Classical Music are connected to each other through the use of the clarinet. Using twentieth century America as a backdrop, the …

The Impact Of Vowels On Pitch Finding And Intonation In The Movable-Do Solmization System, Thomas Neuerburg

Student Research, Creative Activity, and Performance - School of Music

The modern movable-Do solmization system based on syllables devised by Guido d'Arezzo was modified and pieced together over centuries by various scholars and pedagogues, each with their own rationale. To date, considerations of the movable-Do system have not sufficiently examined the effects of the vowels contained within its solfège syllables. While vowels have been thoroughly analyzed among vocal pedagogues, that information has not been adequately transferred to the realm of aural theory. Individual vowels contain perceptual qualities and intonational tendencies, due to their physiological articulation and acoustic properties. This document relates vowel characteristics with the solfège syllables used in the …

Pitch Perception In Changing Harmony, Cecilia Taher

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The role of harmony in the definition of tonality provides theoretical framework for the hypothesis that harmonic context affects pitch perception. In tonal music, the stability of individual notes depends on the harmonic setting. It seems then reasonable to expect harmonically guided variations in the cognitive representation of tones. With the purpose of enhancing current models of pitch perception, this thesis proposes an empirical investigation of the effects of harmony on pitch sensitivity. In two experiments, nonmusicians performed a same/different discrimination task on two pitches (a reference tone RT and a comparison tone CT) that were embedded in a melody …

Metrical Transition And Resolution In The Music Of Blindside, Patrick Sallings

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Meter in rock cannot always be determined by the backbeat. I have adapted metrical analysis models developed by Harald Krebs and others to the music of the rock band Blindside to address the issue of identifying logical metrical schemes in a particular repertoire of rock music. Blindside's use of metrical dissonance necessitates expansion of the existing analytical models in that the meter in some of their songs is ambiguous at times, allowing for a period of transition from one metrical scheme to another. The ambiguity of the meter in songs such as "The Endings," combined with the message of the …

Variations On A Russian Folk Song, Brian R. Denu

Student Publications

This piece for solo piano demonstrates a wide range of techniques utilized in twentieth century composition. The theme is taken from the Finale of Igor Stravinsky's ballet "The Firebird", which itself is based on a Russian folk song. Each subsequent variation focuses on one or more compositional technique.

I. Theme

II. March (chords by thirds, extended triads)

III. Molto grave e expressivo (chromaticism)

IV. L'istesso tempo (ten-tone row)

V. Fast and light (twelve-tone row, secundal harmony)

VI. Much less (minimalism, extended techniques)

VII. Hazy (quartal harmony, modal melody)

VIII. Finale (spectralism)

The order of the variations partly reflects a chronological …

Ironwood Clarinet Trio, Jana Starling, Leslie Moreau, Anne Watson

Leslie M. Moreau

Works by Alfred Prinz, Paquito D’Rivera, Michael Kibbe, David Snow, and Peter Schickele.

A Survey Of The Sacred Choral-Orchestral Works Of Sir Henry Walford Davies (1869-1941), Martin C. Cook

Student Research, Creative Activity, and Performance - School of Music

In the closing years of the 19th Century, when Charles Villiers Stanford, Hubert Parry and Edward Elgar were at the height of their fame and influence in British musical society Henry Walford Davies emerged as one of the most promising talents of the day, receiving commissions from the provincial music festivals of Great Britain, which were a rite of passage for emerging composers.

Between 1904 and 1929 Davies produced eleven sacred choral-orchestral works for these festivals and one further work, which were received favorably in their day but are now almost forgotten. There are five large multi movement works: The …

The Count's Dilemma, Or, Harmony And Dissonance In Legal Language, Ian Gallacher

Ian Gallacher

Lawyers have had a long, but ambivalent, relationship with metaphor. Viewed by some as a mere literary device, a trick of language that "adds little of substance to an argument," metaphor is seen by others as an essential component of legal language, a rhetorical device inseparable from thought. On one thing, though, all can agree: lawyers only have words to express their thoughts, so they have an obligation to use words, whether used metaphorically or not, as exactly as possible. This article offers a critique of the way lawyers meet this obligation when they use metaphors based in musical language. …

The Count's Dilemma, Or, Harmony And Dissonance In Legal Language, Ian Gallacher

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

Lawyers have had a long, but ambivalent, relationship with metaphor. Viewed by some as a mere literary device, a trick of language that "adds little of substance to an argument," metaphor is seen by others as an essential component of legal language, a rhetorical device inseparable from thought. On one thing, though, all can agree: lawyers only have words to express their thoughts, so they have an obligation to use words, whether used metaphorically or not, as exactly as possible.

This article offers a critique of the way lawyers meet this obligation when they use metaphors based in musical language. …

Questions Of Authorship In Josquin, Monteverdi, And Mozart: Documentary Versus Stylistic Evidence, Jillian Andersen

Summer Research

No abstract provided.

Electric Horizons: Advancing The Wind Band In Art Music, Joe Bozich

Summer Research

It goes without saying that the Symphony Orchestra holds a higher degree of artistic value than the Wind Ensemble in the professional musical world. Given the small body of repertory available to the band, it is clear also to see that the body of symphony-quality concert pieces is proportionately minute. A primary purpose of this research project, then, is the examination of those strong symphonies or symphony-like works for winds, deconstruct their successes and failures, and attempt to write another, symphonic-scaled work for the ensemble. The secondary purpose, given the recent popularity of large ensemble works combined with electronic augmentation, …

Uncharted Progress: A Musical Analysis Of The Elements And Evolution Of Rap, Mark Janzer

Summer Research

This research analyzes rap music from the earliest recordings to present day from a purely musical perspective, focusing on rhythm, rhyme, phrasing, and their interactions. Using these aspects of analysis, the paper reveals patterns, techniques, and styles rappers use, whether they are conscious of it or not. By analyzing rap of every era, the evolution of these patterns, techniques, and styles is brought to light. To achieve this, the paper also creates a system that other musicologists can use to analyze rap from a purely musical standpoint.

A New Geometric Model And Methodology For Understanding Parsimonious Seventh-Sonority Pitch-Class Space, Enoch S. A. Jacobus

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Parsimonious voice leading is a term, first used by Richard Cohn, to describe non-diatonic motion among triads that will preserve as many common tones as possible, while limiting the distance traveled by the voice that does move to a tone or, better yet, a semitone. Some scholars have applied these principles to seventh chords, laying the groundwork for this study, which strives toward a reasonably comprehensive, usable model for musical analysis.

Rather than emphasizing mathematical proofs, as a number of approaches have done, this study relies on two- and three-dimensional geometric visualizations and spatial analogies to describe pitch-class and harmonic …

Running Barefoot, Benjamin Marx

Senior Projects Spring 2012

I have been required by the registrar to submit an artist statement, and to be honest I do not know what I am supposed to say. If I am expected to explain a deep profound message about my music, I have none. And if I should to discuss the pieces in my concert, I would rather leave it up to the audience to figure out what the pieces mean to them. Now I am only on the cusp of my musical exploration. I have just this year glimpsed the vast world of music and begun to understand its endlessness. While …

Investigating The Structure Of Acoustic And Electronic Noise : An Analysis Of 'Volumina' By Gyorgy Ligeti And 'Canaanda' By Merzbow, Sam Gillies

Theses : Honours

The term noise as it pertains to music is a subjective one and open to interpretation. What we find is that over 20th century discourse, the term noise has been used as a broad label to encapsulate all musical sound that functions in a way that opposes what would widely be considered 'musical'. While much of the literature covers the categorisation and political theory of noise in music, there is comparatively little literature that analyses musical construction of noise music beyond that of a purely aesthetic or political reaction.

This thesis seeks to explore the world of noise music with …

A Sonata-Theory Analysis Of Mozart's Piano Sonata In B-Flat, K. 333, I. Allegro, David Castro

Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy

No abstract provided.

Faure's "Nocturne," Op. 43, No. 2, Jena Root

Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy

This analysis assignment includes a blank score for the piece, and includes an English translation of the French text, an annotated score, with suggested analysis answers, a study guide that contains questions that may be given as a homework assignment and/or used for class discussion of the work, and answers to the study guide and points for further class discussion.