Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Songs For Strings, Jayla Kai Smith

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Songs for Strings is a series of songs by Jayla Kai arranged for string quartet and performed with quartet and vocals.

Creative Practice For Classical String Players With Live Looping, Caleb Yang

Student Theses

In recent years, string pedagogy discussions have highlighted the greater need for creative practice as classical string players. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, string methods have shifted towards a limited scope of improvisatory techniques, parallelling the decline of improvisation in Western classical music performance practices. This thesis explores live looping as a practice tool to facilitate learning concepts and help string players develop musicianship skills including improvisation, participate in non-classical genres, and explore their creative voices. Examining the results of string educators that incorporate live looping into their own teaching reveals the tool’s effectiveness in bridging curricula …

The Contrabass Tuned In Fifths: Towards An Understanding Of Past And Present Applications., Stephen T. Bright

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines the historical and contemporary practices of the contrabass tuned in fifths. Two descriptions of the tuning appear in the late eighteenth century: the three-string tuning, A2, D2, G1 (ADG), and its four-string counterpart, A2, D2, G1, C1 (ADGC). The ADG tuning was officially taught in the Conservatoire de Paris’s contrabass class from 1827 until 1832, when it was superseded by the four-string G2, D2, A1, E1 (GDAE) tuning in fourths for two major reasons: first, the additional whole-tone between open strings compelled contrabassists to shift more frequently; second the tuning’s limited depth (G1) forced contrabassists to use …

Things I Never Told You, Ayanna Battle

Senior Projects Fall 2022

I had a very interesting experience studying composition at Bard. The year that I was supposed to moderate into composition was the year that COVID hit; and because of COVID, I spent the next two of my four years at Bard studying remotely, 15 hours away in Atlanta, Ga. Though I was still able to study composition with Joan Tower through weekly virtual meetings, I never experienced the “rites of passage” that a typical young composer experiences. I never had to search for musicians to play my pieces for a moderation concert; I never had to analyze the different schedules …

Investigating The Marketing Language Among Online Retailers Of Violin Strings To Determine The Implied Aesthetic, Kira Kay Browning

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The aim of this research is to determine if language in the advertising of violin strings is acting as an exclusionary tool in favor of a Western art music “sound” produced by “classical” violinists. It posits that the marketing of strings to violinists is a topic laden with unacknowledged biases and values of musicians within Western art music. The aesthetic values attached to playing Western art music for the violin in the United States are passed on through pedagogic practice and acculturation of language. Product descriptions for strings in the United States employ language which adheres to these cultural values …

"You Are Safe. You Are Calm. You Are In Control.", Carly Erst

Graduate Thesis Collection

"You are safe. You are calm. You are in control." is a piece written out of a state of emotional and physical exhaustion. The piece uses an electronic track comprised of the sounds of distressed children recorded at a daycare and a flex string quintet that plays along with the track. This paper explores the reasoning behind the music, the connections the piece has to the past, and the relevance of the piece now and in the future.

Home Quartet, Oliver Bonie

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Teacher's Companion For The Emerging Electric Orchestra, Rachael Greenman

Recital Papers

Historically orchestral string instruments have been defined as classical instruments. As a result in primary and secondary school programs students have been relegated to playing music by Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. Those programs and that world is rapidly evolving. A broad range of new electric string instruments and technologies are being introduced into the classroom and everything from pop to rock to show tunes are being played engaging students in new and exciting ways. The challenge for teachers and administrators is how to start such a program in their school. This thesis explores the unique challenges and opportunities that this …

A Pedagogical Analysis Of Select Etudes From Jakob Dont’S 24 Etudes And Caprices, Op. 35, Daniella Greene

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The study of etudes is essential for all musicians to learn and practice the technical challenges of their instrument in a practical way. There is a large selection of etudes for the violin, created and collected by numerous composers targeted for all levels of playing. This document will focus on a select number of etudes from the first half of “24 Etudes and Caprices, Opus 35,” by Jakob Dont. The analysis of the etudes will include descriptions of the technical challenges in the left and right hands, recommended practice sequences, and variations on the etude to further challenge the student …

Philosophy Of Music Education, Mary Elizabeth Barba

Honors Theses and Capstones

A philosophy of music education refers to the value of music, the value of teaching music, and how to practically utilize those values in the music classroom. This thesis explores the philosophies of Emile Jacques-Dalcroze, Carl Orff, Zoltan Kodaly, Bennett Reimer, and David Elliott, and suggests practical applications or their philosophies in the orchestral classroom, especially in the context of ear training and improvisation. From these philosophies, the author develops their own personal philosophy of music education, most broadly defined by the claim that music is key to experiencing and understanding feelingful experiences.

Characteristics And Accessibility Of Loaner Programs Used By Missouri String Teachers, Juliana Marie Georgiades

MSU Graduate Theses

The purposes of my study were (a) to describe string instrument loaner programs and associated administrative practices in socioeconomically diverse schools and (b) to analyze the accessibility of string education with respect to school size and socioeconomic status. The research involved the responses to an electronic survey completed by 42 Missouri K-12 string teachers who taught at 119 schools spanning 20 school districts. Findings suggest that lower income schools were more likely to have students using school-owned instruments as their only instrument, more likely to not use loaner instruments that were shared between schools, and more likely to lack the …

The Variety Show: Why Classical String Musicians Are Exploring A Multistyle Approach To Teaching, Kelly C. Wiedemann

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The Variety Show: Why Classical String Musicians are

Exploring a Multistyle Approach to Music

Kelly C. Wiedemann

This case study examines the experiences of five classically trained string teachers who now include alternative styles in their teaching. The research questions are: (1) What factors inspire a classically trained string educator to begin teaching alternative styles to their students? (2) Why is it important to keep classical music in string pedagogy? (3) How have these teachers, their peers, students, and community reacted to multistylism? The interviews revealed four major points of motivation: Opportunities for developing creativity and finding a personal voice …

The String Quartets Of Bela Bartok : An Analysis, Arthur. Corra

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

What is generally referred to by the public-at-large as “modernism” is thought (by it) to be based upon the denial and contradiction of the fundamental principles of musical art. But it would be a grave error to assume from this that the present age differs in the attitude toward modernism very considerably from any other, except perhaps in degree. The general intellectual or artistic niveau of any period whatsoever is almost inevitably a low one, apart from a few outstanding figures -- rarely exceeding two or three in any single generation -- who impart most of the significance to it. …