Digital Commons Network^™

Spectral Analysis And Comparison Of Analog And Digital Recordings, Hannah N. Frosch

Honors Theses

The music industry is constantly shifting and changing as new developments emerge. The biggest transition still discussed to this day is the shift from analog to digital. The digital world of media has opened many doors and created a simpler way of making and consuming media. However, the desire for a vintage/analog sound environment has grown increasingly popular over the years. The main research question I will be addressing in this thesis is: How do analog and digital recordings compare at a signal level? I will attempt to answer this research question through analyzing different audio signals. To do so, …

Villa-Lobos's Compositional Techniques And Treatment Of Folk Melodies In Cirandas For Piano, Gustavo Schafaschek

Dissertations

Despite his significance as the most important Latin American composer of the twentieth century, serious analytical studies on the music of the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos are still few and far between. Recent scholarship has started to demystify the figure of Villa-Lobos as an intuitive composer with no technique, revealing an artist that strove to develop an idiosyncratic musical language. The present document aims to contribute to this new trend in Villa-Lobos’s scholarship by analyzing pieces from the piano cycle Cirandas, W220, considered one of the most important works from the composer’s mature style. Each of the sixteen pieces …

Knowledge And Practices Of Faculty At Nasm Accredited Institutions In The Southeast Region Regarding Standards-Based Instruction, Jonathan Leon Nelson

Dissertations

In 1993, Congress passed the mandate Goals 2000: Educate America Act, which established standards for K-12 education that outlined the core benchmarks of student achievement for individuals who have mastered the core curricula required to earn a high school diploma (Mark, 1995). Unfortunately, these curricular requirements did not include any criteria for music education, nor did they consider the curricular implications for higher education in providing NSME Standards based training for music educators.

The aim of this study was to determine if and to what extent music education faculty engage in NSME Standards-based instruction within the higher education classroom. Questionnaires …

Barfield, Kazik, Nazaykinskaya, And Beyond: A Discussion Of The Commission Process Regarding Trombone Literature, S. Kyle Moore

Honors Theses

There has historically been limited repertoire for trombonists to perform outside of orchestral writing—so limited that the first trombone solo recital was performed by Davis Shuman in 1947. The trombone has been present in the musical community since the mid-fifteenth century, yet it has only recently emerged as a unique, virtuosic instrument. Due to its delayed emergence and limited repertoire, the need to advance the instrument and its musical literature has led to the commission process between artists and composers: Interested parties approach composers with the prospect of writing music for compensation. In this manner, the composer is compensated for …

An Analysis Of Dvořák’S Symphony No. 6, Ii, Using Neo-Riemannian Transformation Techniques, Mary Hannah Mallett

Honors Theses

Music theory is often used to analyze compositions and provide insight into the inner workings of the literature. Any new type of analysis provides a different view of the work and they can all be used to better understand the work, composer, and performance practice. This analysis uses Neo-Riemannian Transformation Theory to highlight some of the voice leading within Dvořák’s Sixth Symphony. The Sixth Symphony currently has never been analyzed using Neo-Riemannian Transformation Theory. The entire second movement was analyzed using a traditional harmonic analysis and then the author selected three excerpts, containing voice leading that could be classified using …

"An Alphabet Of Soldiers”: Jake Heggie’S Farewell, Auschwitz, Lori Jo Guy

Dissertations

For the past 18 years, the non-profit organization Music Of Remembrance has worked to remember the Holocaust through concerts, education events, and by recording and commissioning new works. One such work, entitled Farewell, Auschwitz, premiered in May of 2013.

Farewell, Auschwitz is a unique composition for several reasons. One reason is that the poetry for the songs was adapted from lyrics written by Krystyna Żywulska, a Polish Jew, imprisoned at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. In the camp, she began creating poetry and songs in reaction to the horror that surrounded her. Her poetry is a commentary on the daily …

Beijing Opera Elements In Qigang Chen’S Piano Concerto Er Huang, Funa Wang

Dissertations

Beijing opera (known as jingju in Chinese) dates back to 1790 and is the most famous traditional Chinese regional opera of some 335 different styles, combining music, vocal performance, dance, and acrobatics. Originally considered vulgar by the court, Beijing opera became especially popular with the Qing dynasty court in its later days (1884-1910), thus raising its status at the beginning of the twentieth century to a ‘national opera.’ Furthermore, it has become an important nationalistic and traditional element in Chinese contemporary music.

Qigang Chen studied and lived in Europe for long time and is proficient in Western compositional techniques. On …

The Idiosyncratic Language Of Brazilian Music: Strategies For Performing Villa-Lobos Choros No. 10, Dennis Paz Leoni

Dissertations

Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Choros No. 10 is a composition with many cultural and symbolic inclusions. This work seeks to support a conductor’s informed performance of the piece by providing historical and technical context from the conductor’s life and influences. The first section examines the ethnographic and sociopolitical factors in Brazil during the conductor’s life, and then the personal influences on Villa-Lobos’ career, in order to establish the foundation for a section-by-section analysis of the work which illuminates the idiosyncratic nature of the composer’s masterpiece.

The Influences Of The French Flute School On Brazilian Flute Pedagogy, Fabiana Magrinelli Rocha Dahmer

Dissertations

In the second half of the twentieth century, flute teaching in Brazil improved considerably. The immigration of French flutists to Brazil and the exchange programs where Brazilian flutists went to study in France made a significant impact on the flute pedagogy in Brazil. This dissertation traces the influence of the French Flute School in Brazil by presenting the careers of the four most influential flutists living in Brazil today and how they can be traced back to the legendary flutist and teacher Paul Taffanel. Two of these flutists, Odette Ernest Dias and Jean-Nöel Saghaard, are French but moved to Brazil …

Re-Editing Isaia Billè’S 24 Studi-Capricci Per Contrabbasso A 4 Corde To Modern Notation For Double Bass, Samuel Dahmer

Dissertations

Isaia Billè was an Italian virtuoso double bassist as well as a great pedagogue who left one of the most extensive collections of compositions and pedagogical materials for the double bass. The 24 Studies-Caprices is a set of studies that can be considered a valuable part of the double bass repertoire for the challenging technique and valuable musical content. Unfortunately, the caprices were abandoned by contemporary double bassists due to outdated notation which is based in suono reale, where all the notes are written in the actual register they sound. Contemporary double bass players currently are used to reading notes …

Taiwanese Traditional Musical Idioms Meet Western Music Composition: An Analytical And Pedagogical Approach To Solo Piano Works By Tyzen Hsiao, Yi-Chuan Tsai

Dissertations

Since Western classical music was introduced in Taiwan, many contemporary Taiwanese composers have been experimenting with different musical forms and techniques. The members of the Third Generation of Taiwanese Composers began to lead the modernization of Taiwanese music after 1960. They proposed the establishment of a specifically Taiwanese musical tradition, one which would reach out to Taiwanese audiences through the incorporation of familiar folk songs and musical idioms, while incorporating Western compositional techniques and forms.

Tyzen Hsiao (蕭泰然) (1938-2015) was one of the most influential Taiwanese composers. His music is a blend of Taiwanese traditional musical idioms and Western music …