Digital Commons Network^™

The Temple Of Immensity: For Choir And Electronics, Steven Naylor

Honors Projects

the temple of immensity is a composition for 16-part choir and fixed media electronics composed by Steven Naylor using astronomical data concerning the stars nearest to Earth and their properties. “The temple of immensity” is an archaic and rarely used term, defined as “the universe or the complete overhead expanse of the heavens, especially as conceived as an object of religious reverence.” This piece seeks to convey feelings of wonder and awe for outer space through the setting of an original self-composed poem and through the use of star data to determine musical aspects. The resulting 28-minute composition blends voices …

Home Quartet, Oliver Bonie

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Machine Is Angry, Seth David Allen

Graduate Thesis Collection

At its heart (or lack thereof) The Machine is Angry is a theater work. The visual components are as equally important as their acoustic counterparts. Sounds are only as valuable as the images they evoke and the intention of The Machine is to outline a picture that simultaneously conveys community and isolation; the idea that one can feel most alone when in a crowded room.

An Analysis Of Class In Composition From 1970-2010, Holland R. Cutrell

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Class and socioeconomic status in composition and rhetoric remains a topic that is felt, yet not often discussed. The language students use is highly indicative of their class background, and everyone has a slightly altered form of discourse they prefer (Zebroski, 2006). My thesis examines the issues working-class students have faced with literacy acquisition and discourse assimilation from 1970s–mid 2000s. My analysis illustrates how composition and rhetoric has evolved from the error-centered and hyper-correct culture of the 1970s to the technologically dominated, media driven production powerhouse that affects every aspect of college and beyond. To most effectively address how working-class …

The Future Is Full Of Monsters: Queer Survival One Click At A Twine, 'Aolani N. Robinson

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Spurred by a desire to explore queer rhetoric through interactive forms of media, this project analyzed the game-making program Twine to uncover how independent queer creators use the tool to explore queer survival against time, capitalism, and constrained identities. A more accessible platform than other game-making tools, Twine’s unique interactivity puts the ability to make interactive games and stories into the hands of indie marginalized creators who are often overlooked in both mainstream gaming and queer rhetorics (Anthropy, 2012). Thus, this thesis contributes to queer rhetoric, game studies, and trans rhetorics by exploring the strategies indie Twine creators use in …

Engaging With The Score: Wadada Leo Smith, Graphic Notation, And The Performer’S Perspective, Kennedy Taylor Dixon

Masters Theses

As a Composer/Performer, my work exists in both realms. This thesis reflects the principle that my experience as a violist influences my compositional process and vice versa. Since identifying under both artistic skill sets, it has become evident that the two areas that exist as a creative and presentational output, thrive off one another’s success.

In June 2019, I had the chance to play Wadada Leo Smith’s String Quartet No. 3: Black Church, The First World Gathering of the Spirit (1995) at the Nief-Norf Summer Festival. This encounter was the first time I interacted with graphically notated scores as a …

Playing Through The Motions: A Stylistic Analysis Of Brand Identity On Tiktok, Anthony Laboriel

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

The short-form video-sharing application TikTok has blossomed from a standard piece of social media into the multi-use platform known in households around the world. A consideration of how brand identities are created in online spaces has much to offer scholars in communication studies and rhet/comp. This project examines how brand identity and audiences are formed through analyzing successful brands and the content they post. My research applies a stylistic analysis, drawing from theories proposed by Ethan Bresnick, Donald Murray, and Carolyn Mae Kim, to observe five well known pages on TikTok: Chipotle, the National Basketball Association (NBA), Netflix, The Washington …

Queer Rhetorical Agency In Fort Lauderdale Tourist Lgbtq+ Advertisements, Jordan I. Guido

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

The following case study focuses on the implicit and explicit rhetorical messages in LGBTQ+ focused travel advertisements following Waitt and Markwell’s (2014) observations of LGBTQ+ advertisements increasingly gaining prominence within the mainstream promotional material. The case study investigates the queer messaging within Fort Lauderdale’s national 2015-2017 Hello Sunny Campaign; heralded for its groundbreaking LGBTQ+ and Trans representation. The scholarship that informs this study are at the intersections of composition and rhetoric, queer composition, and queer tourism studies. The methodology for the case study includes a rhetorical analysis incorporating a new materialistic lens. The two promotional images were analyzed for their …

Composition Portfolio, Joshua A. Aguiar

Music ETDs

A collection of music compositions, composed and imagined during study at the University of New Mexico.

Writing Inside And Outside The Rhetoric Of Containment: An Analysis Of Writing Strategies In First Semester Students Transitioning To The First Year College Composition Classroom, Brenda R. Gallardo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Based on Bowden’s (1993) notion of containment, this study analyzes how containment—as well as other pedagogical restrictions and limitations—was manifested in the high-school-to-college transition of first year student writers. This study addresses the following questions of inquiry: How do participants’ experiences in high school affect them as writers in college?; What practices and strategies do students in the first year composition classroom apply to overcome containment in the college writing classroom?; and, How can instructors use pedagogy to overcome containment? This dissertation applies a qualitative design to gather data via interviews, questionnaires, and classroom observations. Via grounded theory, data gathered …

Writing Not Writing: Transdisciplinary Poetics, Institutional Critique, Miriam L. Atkin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an exploration of transdisciplinary creative practice as a means of institutional critique. The artists I have chosen as my primary focus—Robert Kocik, Eleni Stecopoulos, Zora Neale Hurston, Jimmie Durham, Leslie Scalapino and Lyn Hejinian—employ multiple mediums and fields of discourse to address the presumptions and exclusions that are structurally integral to the institutions that house them. They enact “architextural” interventions through their use of forms that move between the page and three dimensional space, incorporating architecture, sculpture, drawing, painting, film, performance, poetry and prose. My work aims at a renewed understanding of critique as such, and therefore—though …

Exploring The Metaphysics Of Grief, Carolyn Garland

Dissertations - ALL

The goal of this dissertation is to develop an understanding of grief utterances: expressions of grief that in losing a loved one, the bereaved lost a part of herself. Grief utterances are commonplace, and their accompanying phenomenology suggests they are true. That gives us reason to think they are true. But if they are, what makes them true? I establish two potential answers to this question, ultimately favoring one according to which when a loved one dies we lose parts of our practical identities.

Chapter One introduces and sets up this topic it. It then focuses on the extent to …

Exploring The Metaphysics Of Grief, Carolyn Garland

Dissertations - ALL

The goal of this dissertation is to develop an understanding of grief utterances: expressions of grief that in losing a loved one, the bereaved lost a part of herself. Grief utterances are commonplace, and their accompanying phenomenology suggests they are true. That gives us reason to think they are true. But if they are, what makes them true? I establish two potential answers to this question, ultimately favoring one according to which when a loved one dies we lose parts of our practical identities.

Chapter One introduces and sets up this topic it. It then focuses on the extent to …

Recording Sounds And Instruments For Sample Libraries, Camden Daly

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

In this paper, we will look at the topic of instrument sampling for virtual instrument libraries. This paper will look at the history of recording devices, samplers, first technologies for playing orchestral sounds, and the process for making my own library. This paper looks at the techniques and processes for sampling a grand piano in detail. Details including pitch, dynamics, microphone placements, round robins, releases, and pedals. For my own sample library, I recorded and programmed Foley sounds that can be used for film compositions.

Motivation And The Young Writer: Reimagining John Dewey's Theory Of Experience, Billy Cryer

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Issues of motivation remain a perennial topic among teachers of English Language Arts and first-year college composition courses. While modern evidence-based research in educational psychology has yielded fruitful avenues for harnessing motivation in writing instruction, in recent decades, industrious composition scholars have also turned to history for insights on composition pedagogy. In this study, I also embark on a historical excavation to glean from our composition forebears regarding motivation in writing instruction. In particular, I examine how the educational writings of John Dewey were translated into the English classroom during the Progressive Era. More specifically, I seek to recover how …

The Best Is Yet To Come: Approaches To Rhythmic Development, Robert W. Lindsay Ii

Masters Theses

For my Masters of Arts thesis, I recorded a number of songs that I had written between 2015 and 2020 for an album titled “The Best is Yet to Come.” In this adjunct essay, I will analyze four of those pieces to demonstrate my use of rhythmic development; I use rhythmic development extensively in my work in order to generate cohesion between songs. The opening song, “Fresh Vegetables,” demonstrates the rhythmic motive that all other songs develop from. If anyone chooses to learn or analyze my music in the future, this document can be a reference.

Collaborative Storytelling: Composition Pedagogy And Communal Benefits Of Narrative Innovation, Aysel Atamdede

English (MA) Theses

Can gaming be considered narrative? Should gaming be allowed in a pedagogical space? Tabletop roleplaying games are probably not the first thing that come to mind when thinking about how to innovate narrative structure and teaching composition. Often considered a nerdy pastime, participants ridiculed for playing pretend and caring about imaginary characters, TTRPGs have nonetheless entered a sort of renaissance in recent years. While video games have slowly become more incorporated into pedagogy by teaching students more abstract concepts of interactivity with narrative, audience, and player engagement, TTRPGs have been slower on the draw. But incorporating the highly interactive and …

Grey Areas: Songs Of Memory, Imagination, Intellect, And Death For Baritone Voice And Mixed Instrumental Octet, Scott Stephen Hansen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The central element of this thesis is Grey Areas, a newly-composed dramatic piece in four movements for baritone and chamber ensemble. The work is highly personal in both its subject matter and its musical execution; it also contains a unique movement order that changes depending on the age of the baritone. Along with the written portion of this document and full score, I completed a studio recording of the entire composition as part of the project. Composers (by necessity) are more frequently functioning as their own recording and mixing engineers for their own works. I have been able to …

Compositions For 0 Or 1 Performers, Rodrigo Valente Pascale

Masters Theses

This thesis includes a collection of pieces composed for 0 or 1 performers – unaccompanied solo, solo and electronics or fixed media. The compositions for solo instruments include “Unnest” for bassoon solo, premièred by Ariane Petri during the V Congress of Music and Mathematics in 2020, and “Assemblage” for baritone saxophone solo, premièred by Erin Rogers in 2020. “Reizantwort” is a composition for viola and electronics which was first recorded by Laura Parra in summer 2020. Finally, "Discontinuous Mediation I" and "Discontinuous Mediation II" are fixed media compositions that were composed in Summer 2020 and Spring 2021, respectively. This collection …

Dungeons & Drafting: Using Trpgs In The First-Year Composition Classroom, Anyssa J. Gonzalez

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Roleplaying games (RPGs) are powerful tools that encourage players to form and alter identities (Bowman, 2010; Gee, 2003; Johnson, 2012), compose texts for the gaming community (Alexander, 2009; Colby & Colby, 2008), and evaluate texts in innovative ways (Glazer, 2015; Ostenson, 2013). However, there is research missing in the way of practical applications of RPGs in first-year composition (FYC) classrooms. This thesis presents a six-week tabletop roleplaying game (TRPG) module called Under Shady Terms, which uses the mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), fifth edition. My design of the TRPG takes into consideration composition scholarship on writing …

Southern United States English As A Rhetorical Device In The Field Of Marketing: A Study And Implications For Business Writing Pedagogy, Megan Jacklynn Busch

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation project, I examine how professionals in the South use their Southern United States English (SUSE) to communicate in business situations. My goals are to (1) understand how regional language variety rhetorically shapes writtenprofessional communication and (2) establish a pedagogical framework for business writing that attunes to the nuances of language variation in the workplace. I hypothesize that speakers of SUSE implement regional dialects to form interpersonal business connections and build ethos and that SUSE has a significant rhetorical role to place in professional communications. To test this hypothesis, I develop a hybrid method of interviewing, discourse analysis, …

Generic Expectations In First Year Writing: Teaching Metadiscoursal Reflection And Revision Strategies For Increased Generic Uptake Of Academic Writing, Kaelah Rose Scheff

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how student uptake of academic genres in First Year Writing (FYW) are challenged by the concept of writing expectations. Previous research on uptake has focused on uptake between genres with little attention to the role of writing expectations on the event of uptake or how to translate these expectations to students pedagogically. Identifying pedagogical uptake strategies for students to use across academic genres provides instructors with insight into student challenges in FYW and strategies for students to understand their own writing on a metacognitive level by assessing writing expectations. My thesis investigates uptake of academic writing in …

Pity The Nation, Kameron Zebadiah Mechling

Graduate Thesis Collection

In light of the unprecedented events of social unrest that took place in the year of 2020, this piece takes inspiration from the timeless poem “Pity the Nation” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Just as the text and themes relate to the United States during this time, they continue to resonate beyond multiple areas and eras.

When recalling the events of 2020, some remember fear, uncertainty, pain, anger, disgust, and loss. Pity the Nation depicts these emotions. The alto and tenor voices follow each line of text in the poem, interpreting the themes musically as they are given. The fear of the …

Midnight In July, Allegra Ondine Berger

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project Statement Allegra Berger

The collection of songs that I created for my senior project were all written some time in the past year. It was only in the past two weeks that I came to realize that a unifying theme had emerged. It is not something obvious- nor did I intend for it to be- but there were enough hints throughout to lead me this realization. Originally, my plan for the project was to compose choral pieces meant for a children’s choir to sing, which I would then teach to a group of children in the Bard area, …

Multimodality In Focus, Jonathan Abidari

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This project investigates how multimodality is taught and learned in the context of two sections of accelerated first-year composition (English 104) at Humboldt State University. The project sought to ascertain whether multimodality should be included as a learning outcome for the Composition and Rhetoric program by examining the reflective writing of students in both class sections and interviewing both instructors. The reflective writing and interview responses were then coded with responses being sorted into categories corresponding to the writing knowledge concepts that the students and teachers discussed. Those categories included genre, rhetoric, discourse, literacy, and multimodality. Once sorted, the coded …

Francesca's Sweet Lament: An Operatic Adaptation Of Canto V From Dante's Inferno, Javen Cristina Lara

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College

Developing A Music Composition Practice: Exploring The Choreography Of Cymatics, Joshua Jervis

Theses : Honours

Cymatics is an area of physics popularised by Hans Jenny that observes the influence of sound but more simply vibration on physical matter. When sound is directly applied to a substance, for example, water, the vibrations create kaleidoscopic movement within the medium. Specific variables primarily of pitch, container size, and water volume contribute to creating a variety of geometric shapes. Without sound cymatics does not exist and is, therefore, a visual characteristic of sound itself.

With an investigation into the behaviour and application of cymatics, this research uses the findings of an investigation to develop a ‘choreographical’ language that can …

Representations Of Chronic Migraine And Therapy Through New Electronic Music Composition, Peter Mcavan

Theses : Honours

This thesis explores compositional techniques in electronic music that depict and explore chronic migraine and the therapies that manage the condition. Migraines are typically described as a destructive, violent force or a hopeless ailment, but research shows that this perception is damaging for new patients learning to manage migraine. Furthermore, evidence suggests that better understanding of how pain works can be instrumental in reducing pain (a process called Therapeutic Neuroscience Education). Drawing from this literature and my experience as an electronic musician suffering from chronic migraine, I utilise a practice-led research methodology to explore current scientific understandings of migraine and …

Theoretical And Compositional Analysis Of Select Metal Works, Jacob Bird

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper is a comprehensive essay on the history, form, and compositional techniques of Extreme Metal music. Within Extreme Metal this paper will cover three sub-genres using compositions by Burzum, Death, and Gojira. This paper is meant to show a link between the compositional techniques used in Western Classical music and Extreme Metal through analysis of form, harmony, and tonality/modality. The scope of this paper primarily focuses on the popular music form verse/chorus which is compared to a variety of Western Classical music forms. The goal is to promote future research into the Extreme Metal style and other popular music …

Creative Constraints: Developing A Method For Restrictive Jazz Composition, Harry Mitchell

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research aimed to develop a method of jazz composition that utilises data-based restrictions to facilitate the composition process. An analysis rating tool (ART) was developed based on methodologies created by Aaron Stroessner and Jan LaRue to extract elements of melody, harmony, rhythm and form from compositions on Seamus Blake’s album Bellwether and Will Vinson’s album Stockholm Syndrome. The ART then facilitated a practice-led composition process in which the data from the analysis were used as the primary source of creativity to generate and record a set of 10 compositions. Through an iterative process of composing with and refining the …