Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Contralto Marian Anderson As Goodwill Ambassador, Jolie Rocke
Contralto Marian Anderson As Goodwill Ambassador, Jolie Rocke
Doctoral Dissertations
Marian Anderson was an internationally-acclaimed contralto and goodwill ambassador for the United States government. In her role as a political asset, she utilized her talents to evoke a perception of the United States that differed from past assessments involving race relations. To provide an understanding of how she became an icon and asset to the State Department, three theoretical frameworks are applied—performativity, prototype, and social semiotics. In classical theories of performativity, classification separates us into categories and hierarchies, while concepts help us to categorize, understand, and predict the material world. Scholars have defined identity as a series of citational acts …
Male Zwischenfächer Voices And The Baritenor Conundrum, Thaddaeus Bourne
Male Zwischenfächer Voices And The Baritenor Conundrum, Thaddaeus Bourne
Doctoral Dissertations
This study will examine the Zwischenfach colloquially referred to as the baritenor. A large body of published research exists regarding the physiology of breathing, the acoustics of singing, and solutions for specific vocal faults. There is similarly a growing body of research into the system of voice classification and repertoire assignment. This paper shall reexamine this research in light of baritenor voices. After establishing the general parameters of healthy vocal technique through appoggio, the various tenor, baritone, and bass Fächer will be studied to establish norms of vocal criteria such as range, timbre, tessitura, and registration for each Fach. …
The Genesis Of Aaron Copland's Piano Variations: Sketches, Drafts, And Other Manuscript Sources, Lillie Gardner
The Genesis Of Aaron Copland's Piano Variations: Sketches, Drafts, And Other Manuscript Sources, Lillie Gardner
Doctoral Dissertations
Aaron Copland’s Piano Variations, composed in 1930, is his most important work for piano and one of the most significant works of his entire oeuvre. It is a staple of twentieth-century American piano literature and it has been analyzed in many published works. However, practically no studies have examined the sketches for the Piano Variations, which exist at the Copland Collection at the Library of Congress. The Collection includes five folders relating to the Piano Variations: the sketches, the final manuscript, two copies of the manuscript with handwritten edits, and the published score with Copland’s handwritten orchestration …
The Secular Latin-Texted Works Of Adrian Willaert, Jonathan Harvey
The Secular Latin-Texted Works Of Adrian Willaert, Jonathan Harvey
Doctoral Dissertations
In addition to a large body of extant works including masses, hymns, psalm settings, motets, chansons, madrigals, canzone villanesche, and instrumental ricercares, sixteenth-century composer Adrian Willaert (1490 – 1562) also wrote nine settings of secular Latin texts. These nine works can be divided into three categories: five civic motets (Adriacos numero, Haud aliter, Inclite Sfortiadum princeps, Si rore Aonio, and Victor io salve); three settings of excerpts from Virgil’s Aeneid (O socii and two settings of “Dulces exuviae”); and one unique, enigmatic outlier (Flete oculi). These pieces are rarely …
Utilizing Computer Programming To Analyze Post-Tonal Music: A Segmentation And Contour Analysis Of Twentieth-Century Music For Solo Flute, Kate Sekula
Doctoral Dissertations
Two concepts will be synthesized in this dissertation: 1) the creation of accessible computer applications for melodic segmentation and contour reduction and 2) the application of segmentation and contour reduction to analyze twentieth-century post-tonal works for unaccompanied flute. Two analytical methodologies have been chosen: James Tenney and Larry Polanski's Gestalt segmentation theory and Robert Schultz's refinement of Robert Morris's contour reduction algorithm. The investigation also utilizes Robert Schultz's concept of diachronic-transformational analysis in conjunction with contour reduction. While both segmentation and contour reduction are invaluable analytical tools, they are meticulous and time-consuming processes. Computer implementation of these algorithmic procedures produces …
Action And Instrument Specificity In Musicians, Christopher Logan
Action And Instrument Specificity In Musicians, Christopher Logan
Doctoral Dissertations
The purpose of this research was to test the hypothesis that the visual perception of musical stimuli activates the motor system of expert musicians in ways specific to their primary instrument. In two experiments, trombonists, non-trombonist musicians, and non-musicians were asked to decide if the second note of a two-note visually presented sequence was higher or lower than the first. Participants responded by moving a joystick forward or backward to indicate a higher or lower response (Experiment 1) or by pressing buttons on a computer keyboard to indicate their response (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, response times for trombonists were …
Embodied Rhythm Interventions For Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders (Asds), Sudha M. Srinivasan
Embodied Rhythm Interventions For Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders (Asds), Sudha M. Srinivasan
Doctoral Dissertations
The current randomized controlled trial compared the effects of novel, embodied, rhythm interventions - music and robotic - with those of a standard-of-care, stationary, academic intervention on the social communication, behavioral, and motor skills of 36 children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) between 5 and 12 years of age. Children were matched on age, level of functioning, and services received prior to randomization. The study lasted for 10 weeks with the pretest and posttest sessions conducted during the first and last weeks of the study. Training was provided in the intermediate 8 weeks, with 2 sessions provided each week. Between-group …
Alban Berg’S Sieben Frühe Lieder: An Analysis Of Musical Structures And Selected Performances, Lisa A. Lynch
Alban Berg’S Sieben Frühe Lieder: An Analysis Of Musical Structures And Selected Performances, Lisa A. Lynch
Doctoral Dissertations
Alban Berg’s Sieben frühe Lieder, composed between 1905-08, lie on the border between late 19th-century Romanticism and early atonality, resulting in their particularly lyrical and yet distinctly modern character. This dissertation looks in detail at the songs with an emphasis on the relevance of a musical analysis to performers. Part I provides an overview of the historical context surrounding the Sieben frühe Lieder, including Berg’s studies with Schoenberg, stylistic features, biographical details, and analytic approaches to Berg’s work. The primary focus of the dissertation, Part II, is a study of each individual song. Each analysis begins …
Wölferl's Own Howl: Musical Characterization In The Rollengedichte Of Hugo Wolf, John C. Pierce
Wölferl's Own Howl: Musical Characterization In The Rollengedichte Of Hugo Wolf, John C. Pierce
Doctoral Dissertations
By the end of the nineteenth century, the era of the German Lied as a significant artistic expression had begun to draw to a close in favor of larger forms. In the late 1880s, Austrian composer Hugo Wolf reclaimed the Lied, and in his hands the genre enjoyed a last great flowering. Today, Wolf is known almost exclusively for his songs, in contrast to his predecessors and contemporaries. What sets him apart from the others most importantly is his process regarding the setting of text, of transmuting poetry into music. The main purpose of this dissertation is to explore this …