Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Texas Exceptionalism And Texas Style Fiddling: Fiddle Contests, Patriarchs, And Musical Markers, Emilie Catlett

Music Theses and Dissertations

The phrase “Texas Fiddle Player” indicates a unique musical identity within the Greater North American Fiddling community. Beyond fiddle tunes, fiddling culture involves technical diversity, interpersonal relationships, various performance contexts, teaching and learning, and the stories making up a community’s collective memory. The Texas Fiddle Player identity is the result of a process of connecting these aspects of fiddling culture to symbols and narratives that evoke a specific kind of “Texan-ness.” This process is a form of musical Texas Exceptionalism, in that it asserts a belief that Texas Fiddle Players are somehow different from their American fiddling peers. This manifests …

Elsewhere: In Defense Of Daydreaming, Alex Braden

MFA in Visual Art

Much like music, organic life is an absurd, improbable, and serendipitous instance. I set circular, electric, acoustic, and magnetic forces in motion and allow them to coalesce freely in the hopes of synthesizing unexpected moments of beauty, connection, and harmony.

Three Settings Of "Cruda Amarilli:" Examining Melismatic Cadences And Word Repetitions That Convey Meaning, Peter Richardson

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis was to do a comparative analysis between three settings of “Cruda Amarilli:” one by Monteverdi in 1605, and two by D’India in 1606 and 1609, and to interpret my findings. I focused on each composers use of melismatic cadences and word repetitions in each setting.

Fatale, Fragile, And Furiosa: Redefining Female Tropes For A New Generation Of Feminism In Jeanne Shaffer's Three Faces Of Woman For Clarinet And Piano, Olivia Harrison

Music Undergraduate Honors Theses

Among the discipline of music, the representation of women in music professions and the artform itself reveals great disparities between gender identities. In spite of this, musician and composer Jeanne Shaffer approaches the ongoing fight for women’s representation and equity in music. Shaffer’s piece “Three Faces of Woman” for clarinet and piano (1995) depicts three delineations of femininity that women are reduced to. Influenced by cultural minimalization of women, Shaffer’s piece uses different compositional genres as vehicles to illustrate these ever-present stereotypes and the unyielding need to combat them. The first movement presents the trope of the Femme Fatale; the …

Chopin’S Piano Sonata No. 3 In B Minor Op. 58: A Structural Analysis, Maverick Harrold

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 3 in b minor Op. 58 is an incredibly important composition to the world of music. This work will uncover many of the unique facets and features of this piece as well as discover the beautiful intricacies of each of the four movements. By learning about this sonata, the reader will gain an understanding of the importance of musical structure and musical form and will gain insight into the ways of Chopin’s compositional style and of romantic piano music as a whole.

The Reconciliation Of Theology And Mythology In Philosophical Defenses Of Music In Early Modern London, Leanna York

Graduate Thesis Collection

Since Antiquity, elements of Greek mythology and Hebraic history have intersected in many forms of literary and visual art. Renaissance philosophers, moved by skepticism, struggled to reconcile the historical and theological contradictions of these ancient sources, and scholars of European history Arthur Ferguson and Jean Seznec recognize resulting trends of mythological interpretation among authors of diverse disciplines. My research investigates ways in which London university professors John Taverner, John Case and an anonymous Oxford author utilized these interpretive methods in their music treatises of the early modern period and discusses the intersection of Protestant theology and Greek mythology in these …

The Color Of Sound: An Insight On Chromesthesia, Lupe Rodriguez

Honors Capstones

Many people can see with their eyes, but there are some people who can see through sound. Chromesthesia is when sound involuntarily evokes an experience of color through shapes and movement. The goal of this project is to show what this experience is like and give people an opportunity to experience it in a way themselves.

The Color of Sound Website Prototype

From Story To Song: Exploring The Storytelling Potential Of Instrumental Music, Celine Darr

Honors Projects

For this project, I have composed a piece of program music with the aim of capturing scenes from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" through music. The project seeks to answer questions regarding the elements that make instrumental music "programmatic", or able to portray a story.

Humor In Western European Instrumental Music: How Humor Works, Its Usage Over Time, And Accessible Teaching Strategies, Hunter K. Thompson

Senior Theses

This research’s purpose was to examine the perception of humor, both generally and musically, and to provide an overview of how humor has been incorporated into Western European instrumental music from the Medieval Age to the 20th century. In order to evaluate this, the researcher conducted a listening survey to gauge how well college music majors perceive humor in instrumental music. The survey consisted of eleven total listening excerpts approved by the Music History faculty at the University of South Carolina School of Music. Nine excerpts were coded humorous, and two excerpts were coded non-humorous for control. There was a …

The Narrative Composer: Hector Berlioz’S Impact On The Evolution Of Film Scoring In The Twenty-First Century, Enrique Alberti

Honors Program Theses

Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, whose literary and musical works have an undeniable effect on the history of Western music. Specifically, Berlioz’s most famous orchestral work, the Symphonie Fantastique, transformed how music could be utilized in an orchestral setting because it was the first programmatic symphony, which is a symphony with music set to a written narrative. The Symphonie would inspire German composer Richard Wagner to create what is now recognized as the leitmotif, a musical phrase used to identify an idea. In modern Hollywood film music, Wagner is credited with establishing the techniques that have become staples …

Natural Sympathies: An Examination Of Music Interpreting Literature In Jane Eyre, William Currer Suggs

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of the Arts of Bard College.