Digital Commons Network^™

Benumbed Compulsion, Philip E. Stern

Student Theses

Benumbed Compulsion is a musical representation of the intense emotions that we live with and become used to carrying. Though we become desensitized to these feelings, they may pour out of us either subtly or explosively. The tidal dynamics and back-and-forth motion between the two dominating harmonies express the emotions we feel compelled to experience but often become numb to their effect.

An Examination Of Maria Schneider’S Big Band Artistry Through The Lens Of Wind Band Arranging, Amy Birdsong

Dissertations, 2020-current

Within the world of instrumental music there tends to be strict adherence to styles and genres that have historically been connected to a standard collection of instruments. Wind ensembles are expected to perform contemporary art music, orchestral transcriptions, or military marches, with little expectation of individual creative interpretation. Jazz ensembles, or “big bands,” are expected to perform styles of music such as “swing,” which cannot be properly notated using western notation, while also being rigidly glued to reduced instrument choices, repetitive chord cycles and standard song forms. While wind ensemble performers are confined to read and perform all aspects of …

The Art Of Sustaining Orchestras Through Intentional Educational Experiences, Kimberly Souther

Dissertations, 2020-current

The purpose of this study is to identify the most current and successful advances in audience engagement that champion connection and result in sustainability through purposeful educational experiences.

The Symphony Orchestra currently serves an audience which represents a multiplicity of perspectives, background, and understanding. In an era of expanded canon and outreach to local communities, the orchestra must acknowledge that change is necessary if we are to truly create fulfilling experiences for our listeners. Unfortunately, many orchestras fail to connect their outreach to the concert hall, woefully categorizing their patrons into pre-determined subsets. What if all patrons were trusted with …

Selected Lieder Transcriptions Of Franz Liszt And Leopold Godowsky: A Comparative Analysis, Jeremiah Padilla

Dissertations, 2020-current

Musicians have held differing views regarding the art of transcription. Purists, who are against the very idea of transcribing existing works, think of the genre as being disrespectful to the composer(s) of the original work. Conversely, musicians who appreciate the art of transcription welcome the opportunity to perform works not originally written for the piano. This document will examine Lieder (German art songs) transcriptions, which is is a valuable genre for transcription. The Lied has historically appealed to many composers, particularly Liszt and his contemporary, Leopold Godowsky, as a source of transcription material.

Chapters one and two will primarily compare …

Camargo Guarnieri's Twenty Estudos: A Commitment To Brazilian Nationalism And Virtuosity, Steven Brancaleone

Dissertations, 2020-current

This document aims to find how composer Camargo Guarnieri uses Brazilian trends and incorporates them into his individual style, specifically in his Twenty Estudos for piano. The long compositional period of these pieces displays frequent experimentation and maturation in Guarnieri’s style between 1949 and 1988. The trends that Guarnieri follow can be traced by examining his life, environment, and teachings. Brazilian figure and instructor, Mario de Andrade, also contributes to molding and refining Guarnieri’s ideas. With this study, the Twenty Estudos will display Guarnieri’s individualistic use of Brazilian trends and how they correlate to his mature compositional style.

Vibes At The Village Vanguard: Hauntings, History, And The Construction Of Jazz Place, Mark Mccorkle

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

There are ghosts that haunt the Village Vanguard. Or at least that’s what people say.

This dissertation examines the role of the contemporary jazz club as a site of heritage and meaning making in jazz cultures. I take New York’s revered jazz club, the Village Vanguard, as a case study, as it is the subject of many fanciful tales. These stories describe the club’s history as alive; the spirits of the legendary musicians from a bygone era of jazz who once performed at the Vanguard are said to haunt the present club’s soundwaves. Often described by writers as the club’s …

Community And Cultural-Centered Music Therapy With The Boys & Girls Club: A Qualitative Case Study, Moriah Treadwell

Music Therapy Theses

COMMUNITY AND CULTURAL-CENTERED MUSIC THERAPY WITH THE BOYS & GIRLS CLUB: A QUALITATIVE CASE STUDY

Abstract

Music therapy with The Boys & Girls Club of a rural area of middle Georgia would create a positive outlet for the youth to delve into an experience that would create worthwhile opportunities for them outside of their everyday routine, while implementing coping mechanisms, self-actualizing habits, and social benefits. With the implementation of music therapy used in The Boys & Girls Club of The Big Bend, this population would be exposed to not only a therapy that they are not accustomed to, but they …

Effect Of Selective Memory And Use Of Triangulation To Critique Songwriting, Maxwell A. Ramsey

Recital Papers

The cowriting of three successful popular songs is reconstructed through blind interviews with each of the contributors. In addition to insights into the actual compositional aspects, the interview questions were designed to reveal what role music industry executives may have played in arranging, inspiring, or promoting the songs throughout their journey to find success. The process of triangulation was applied to the interview answers in accordance with previous successful qualitative research methods to uncover the decisions and techniques that proved pivotal in best serving the respective song idea. The ultimate success of the songs is examined through chart and sales …

A Comparative Analysis Of The Early Twentieth-Century Music Appreciation And Community Music Movements In The United States, Andrew J. Blimke

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The music appreciation and community music movements sought to popularize, democratize, and socialize art music. While technology made it possible for anyone to listen to art music, its full aesthetic and social benefits seemed accessible only to those with talent and education in performance. Music appreciation proponents claimed that teaching active listening made it possible for the less talented, and those who needed to be taught to prefer art music to have a full musical-aesthetic experience without any training in self-performance. Community music proponents argued that music’s full benefits came from music making and worked to find ways to prove …

Sounding Ethics: Musical Signification Of Moral Choices In Video Games, Hayden Mesnick

Honors Projects

Interactivity is what distinguishes video games as a medium. In “moral choice video games,” or games in which the moral alignment of player choices affects plot and gameplay, the music often reflects the branching storylines. While scholarship exists that explores musical signifiers in video games, and scholarship alike exists that investigates moral choice video games, a gap in literature exists at the juncture of these two topics. This paper explores two moral choice video games—Undertale (Toby Fox, 2015) and Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games, 2018)—in order to identify musical signifiers used by each game’s composer to represent these levels …

La Fiesta Del Espiritu Santo: An Original Work For Choir, Soloists, And Small Ensemble Influenced By The Santeria Music Of The African-Dominican Community In The Dominican Republic, Rafael Scarfullery

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This study examines the role of Santería music as practiced by African Dominicans in Villa Mella, a neighborhood of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. This musical tradition comes from the culture and religion of the Yoruba people who were brought as slaves from Africa, and features complex drum rhythms and call-and-response chants. This paper deals with the historical and social context of Santería music within the Dominican Republic, but its principal objective is to adopt the musical language of this tradition and use it to create a new contemporary work for mixed choir and small ensemble.

One of the most …

Exploring The 19th-Century Bel Canto Style In Flute Playing: Selected Compositions By Leonardo De Lorenzo, Katerina Bachevska

Doctoral Projects

The subject of this research project is the accomplished and multifaceted Italian-American flutist, pedagogue, writer, and composer, Leonardo De Lorenzo. Although a limited amount of information is available about De Lorenzo, the bulk of all substantial research on the musician is predominantly in Italian, thereby creating limited accessibility for those who are not fluent in the language. Despite his significant musical influences, De Lorenzo's legacy remains underappreciated outside of Italian-speaking circles, leaving a profound void in the knowledge of his unique musical style and artistic vision. This document aims to bridge that void by providing contextualized information about this remarkable …

Comparative Curricular Study Of Undergraduate Music Education Programs At Ohio Public Institutions, Benjamin Jenkins

Honors Projects

Music Education programs must fulfill numerous requirements to receive approval from multiple accrediting bodies. At the national level institutions must meet the standards set forth by the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM). In Ohio, programs must also follow requirements from the Ohio Department of Higher Education. This study examines undergraduate music education degree requirements from twelve public institutions in Ohio. It discusses how each university fulfills NASM requirements and to gain insight into how they balance the requirements of multiple accrediting bodies.

Villa-Lobos Choros No. 1: A Study Of The Recordings, Andrei Jan Hoffmann Uller

Dissertations

This dissertation explores changing perspectives on performance practice for the well-known solo guitar work Choros No.1 composed in 1920 by Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), by documenting different interpretations heard on selected recordings from across the 20th century and into the 21st century. The methodology considers the recordings as the main object of study. Choros No. 1 features a hybrid style that makes it especially interesting for a research method that captures performance details such as articulations, dynamic and agogic accents, timbre, and tempo flexibility. This dissertation will consider performance decisions that are not often discussed in the research. For example, the …

A Survey Of The Comparative Performance Demands Of Performing Mozart’S Fourth Horn Concerto On The Natural Horn And Modern Horn, Brandon Garrison

Doctoral Projects

The four horn concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are fundamental standards of horn repertoire. Since the production of Dennis Brain’s early recordings in 1953, many virtuoso horn players have recorded these concerti on the modern horn. However, there are few professional recordings made on the natural horn. Though Mozart’s four horn concertos are prominent in horn study across the world, they are rarely executed with correct performance practice techniques. In my presentation, I will demonstrate passages from Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 4 to survey the challenges when performed on natural horn versus the modern horn. It is important to understand …

Evaluating The Perceived Preparedness Of Pre-Service Music Educators To Teach Students With Disabilities, Emily Jarvis

Honors Projects

This study evaluated the perceived preparedness of pre-service music educators to teach students with disabilities based on their university’s curriculum. Ten participants responded to a survey that asked questions on their feelings of preparedness in classroom management, teaching students with disabilities, university education, and personal perspectives. Overall, participants indicated they felt comfortable with teaching students with disabilities, but felt unprepared to teach specific components of disability education based on their program studies alone. Suggestions to improve university programs are based on implementing Universal Design Learning (UDL) practices.

Changing Minds And Changing Practice: Barriers And Facilitators To The Use Of Methods Associated With Popular Musicianship, And Strategies Music Teachers Use To Navigate Them, Rhiannon Simpson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this study was to identify factors which impede or facilitate teacher initiated changes to practice, and the ways in which these factors were strategically navigated by secondary school music educators employing methods associated with popular music education [PME] and/or informal music pedagogy [IMP]. The research was framed using a theoretical framework informed by Bourdieu’s (2000) concept of ‘hysteresis’ and Schmidt’s (2020) concept of ‘policy knowhow’. This served to highlight the dialectic relationship between the beliefs, values, agency and dispositions of individuals, and the presence of complex policy networks across macro, meso, and micro levels.

The research utilised …

Oscillith Matara, James Reilly Dickens-Hoffman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Oscillith Matara is a series of improvisational acousmatic compositions that explore themes of birth, death, trauma and transformation. Each composition is an entry from a log of my daily practice. This practice is a meditation using electronic instruments as feedback devices to explore my states of consciousness as it relates to my present situation and personal history. The sound generated through this process of reflecting and responding acts as a cathartic medium for processing depression, anxiety and chronic pain. As a thesis exhibition Oscillith Matara is presented as a group of selected works and is performed as a fixed duration …

The Reed-Above Embouchure: History, Geography And New Avenues For Clarinet Pedagogy, Gregorio Maria Paone

Dissertations, 2020-current

Clarinet is a versatile and expressive instrument that can be used in a variety of musical genres. This document is intended to investigate its versatility, how to develop it, and whether there are benefits from the adoption of an old approach, which today is generally considered obsolete.

Chapter 1 explores major issues involved in clarinet playing and tone production. I will discuss the physics of clarinet tone, as well as secondary approaches to tone production, such as double-lip embouchure. I will also devote a section of this chapter to clarinet equipment, especially the mouthpiece and the reed, and their mutual …

This Is A Man’S World: The Lived Gendered Experiences Of Blues People., Anthony Christopher Brown

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

American Blues is known for playing a role in the foundation of the country’s music. The ingredient of the musical tradition has roots going back to West Africa and was brought to the United States through the of transatlantic slave trade. During the period of slavery, it formally developed with plantation work songs which later continued after emancipation with sharecropping until the early to mid-twentieth century. During the early twentieth century, W.C. Handy in Tutwiler, Mississippi, and musicians formally popularized Blues music were being recorded. The first Blues superstars were women such as Ida Cox, Bessie Smith, and Ma Rainey …

Crossing The Pond: The Influence Of Southern Appalachian Old-Time On Contemporary Irish Music, Amanda Morgan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Numerous studies examine Irish traditional music influencing old-time music, but few examine the influence of old-time on contemporary Irish. As our societies become more global, folk music travels faster and becomes more open to influence. Thes influences can be heard in the music of “Alfi” and “Lankum,” two ensembles steeped in Irish traditional music.

This study defines common musical elements of old-time and examines the use of those elements in two recordings: Alfi’s, “Jubilee” and Lankum’s, “The Old Man from Over the Sea.” Much of my data comes from interviews with Irish and American musicians and my own professional knowledge, …

The Importance Of Female Bass Players: How They Have Influenced And Shaped Our Conception Of Music, Jessica Sacks

Theses

Music allows us to think creatively, dream, and create a soundtrack for our lives. When we think of female artists, most people recognize singers, but I want to describe how women have shaped music for over sixty years with their fantastic playing abilities. This project will analyze how female bass players have contributed to American music and society.

Character Development And Revolution: Use Of Leitmotif In The First Acts Of Les Misérables And Hamilton: An American Musical, Mary Katherine Pezzillo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Leitmotif, a recurring musical theme that represents a character, idea, or situation, is a device used in operas, film scores, and musical theater. Accredited to Richard Wagner, leitmotifs enhance storytelling and provide a sense of cohesion to a production. The popular musicals Les Misérables and Hamilton bear many similarities, including the use of leitmotif as a storytelling device. This thesis explores how the two musicals use leitmotif differently, through the lens of the protagonists, antagonists, and supporting characters. Though the leitmotifs in Les Misérables generally represent ideas and the leitmotifs in Hamilton are mostly character-based, this tool aids the overall …

The Power Of Female: The Representation Of Female Composers Through A Senior Flute Recital, Savannah Palmer

Honors Program Theses and Research Projects

In a prominent number of musical performances, the number of female compositions being performed is small. The dominance of male composers throughout time has created a barrier that prevents female composers from being represented in the music community. Female composers possess great creativity and virtuosity in their compositions, yet gender bias impacts their representation in music repertoire, specifically flute repertoire (Fairouz, 2017). With less than 6.10 percent of female compositions being programmed in concerts and recitals, members of various communities are lacking exposure to the powerful musical works that women create (Peters, 2016). To empower female composers and demonstrate their …

An Examination Of Non-Core Teacher Training In Special Education, Courtney Farber

Culminating Experience Projects

Research has shown that many non-core educators such as art, music, and physical education educators may lack the training needed to properly service students with special needs in their classrooms. The undergraduate programs researched were found to only require one course about special education. This lack of training leaves educators unprepared and always wondering how to best teach students with special needs in their classrooms. The lack of educator training also means that students with special needs are not able to participate to their full ability within these classes. This project looks at the training received by educators, the different …

Electromagnetic Field Analysis, Materials Characterization, And Advanced Modeling Of Modern Guitar Pickups, Luis Alonso Villarreal

Theses and Dissertations

This Thesis establishes the foundations of modern guitar pickup theory, enhancing current pickup design by an increase in voltage output, reduction of DC resistance, and a reduction of production costs. This research investigates factors that have received insufficient attention, such as the performance of different magnetic materials, magnet geometry, bobbin geometry, metal effects, etc. An equation to calculate the output of guitar pickups is developed. Additionally, this work constructs a modern pickup using the techniques developed in this thesis incorporating theory and advanced modeling techniques to simulate changes in performance and interactions with different magnetic materials and geometries. The new …

Introduction To Chinese Ethnic Percussion Through The Concept Of Free Rebound, Yupeng Wei

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

World percussion is becoming increasingly important as a major teaching course in American colleges and universities. The percussion chosen may come from Africa, Latin America, East Asia, and more. However, according to the study, no American colleges and universities have conducted Chinese ethnic percussion programs. There may be several reasons for this: first, it is geographically far away. Second, the existing papers on Chinese ethnic percussion, especially in English, are too broad in their choice of arguments. For example, these papers do not consider the possibility of implementation when choosing Chinese ethnic percussion instruments. On the contrary, the choice of …

Performative Mixing For Immersive Audio, Brian A. Elizondo

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Immersive multichannel audio can be produced with specialized setups of loudspeakers, often surrounding the audience. These setups can feature as few as four loudspeakers or more than 300. Performative mixing in these environments requires a bespoke solution offering intuitive gestural control. Beyond the usual faders for gain control, advancements in multichannel sound demand interfaces capable of quickly positioning sounds between channels. The Quad Cartesian Positioner is such a solution in the form of a Eurorack module for surround mixing for use in live or studio performances.

Diffusion/mixing methods for live multichannel immersive music often rely on the repurposing of hardware …

Marching To The Music: The U.S. Military’S Impact On American Youth Through The Marching Band Movement, 1910-1990, Elise Eaton

Honors College Theses

High school bands have evolved greatly since the first band boom in the early 1920s. Beyond the performance responsibilities and commitments to football and sporting events, bands have their own cultural elements that only band members, band staffs, and families of band students truly understand. This thesis will demonstrate that high school band culture since the 1920s developed alongside the changing fortunes of the U.S. military. Accordingly, U.S. military history shaped the evolving culture of high school marching bands and other youth performing arts groups while these civilian youth groups in turn embedded and reinforced elements of U.S. militarism in …

Variations And Similarities In Trumpet And Vocal Pedagogy, Ryn Jenkins

Honors College Theses

While both disciplines fall under the umbrella of professional music performance, trumpet and vocal pedagogy and performance are typically considered to be separate entities. Even though, historically, the two have impacted each other, very few materials evaluate these subjects in tandem. That is what this thesis proposes to do. In examining the two different disciplines, I will explore their similarities and differences, and how they can impact students and teachers today.

There are many benefits to be gained from studying trumpet as well as voice, but along with those benefits come pitfalls that students can easily fall into. In order …