Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Sequential Method: An Analysis Of Robert Jesselson’S Cello Pedagogy, Kalim D. Alvarez Campos

Theses and Dissertations

Dr. Robert Jesselson has made significant professional contributions as a cello performer and music educator. His pedagogical approaches are innovative in helping students overcome technical problems, building good work habits, instilling self- discipline, addressing kinesthetic issues, and improving practice techniques. His Sequential Method involves a systematic and logical progression of technical exercises, scale systems, etudes and repertoire. It is unique in its applications for teaching and learning left and right hand techniques, building a progression of etudes which address technical and musical issues and working through the cello repertoire in an organized and meaningful manner that is appropriate to the …

Best Practices For Standards-Based Assessment In The Secondary Choral Music Setting, Tasha Twesme

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

BEST PRACTICES FOR STANDARDS-BASED ASSSESMENT IN

THE SECONDARY CHORAL MUSIC SETTING

by

Tasha Twesme

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2016

Under the Supervision of Associate Professor Sheila J. Feay-Shaw

This qualitative study of secondary choral music teachers addressed the successes and difficulties of current assessment practices in music education. The purpose of this study was to identify best assessment practices for a secondary choral classroom within a standards-based grading system. In order to understand the process of assessment development and implementation, a mixed-model approach to the research was used including a survey and semi-structured interviews. The survey was intended to …

Electronics And The Music Of Miles Davis, Darren E. Shekailo

Theses and Dissertations

Miles Davis produced a wealth of music relying on the use of electronic instruments and new technology. With their adoption, the famous trumpeter began his “electric” period. Examining the electric period of Davis’s career helps us trace the profound impact of electronic instruments and technological advances on his music.

Melting Crayons, Ho Lam Tang

Theses and Dissertations

Melting Crayons was inspired by a conversation with a clarinetist and a good friend, Jena Nahnsen, last summer in Italy. As we were waiting for our friend to finish her shopping for souvenirs next to Ponte Vecchio, Jena and I had a conversation about combining visual colors and music.

A few months go by, and Melting Crayons is created. A collection of melodies is generated using the six-digit crayon color code based on the fundamental E-flat. Using Mango Tango #e77200 as an example, the color code is a combination of letters and numbers. Letters reference for pitch, with my choice …

Two Suites For Solo Instruments, Matthew O. Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

TWO SUITES FOR SOLO INSTRUMENTS:

MA Thesis

Matthew O. Thomas, Composer

This Thesis contains two Suites for Solo Instruments: Suite Médiévale for guitar and Seven Recital Studies for Intermediate Grade for piano solo. The recital studies were conceived as a way to fill a void in music literature for beginning advanced pianists; those students not quite ready for the large works of the masters, but are seeking challenging repertoire beyond the formulaic lesson and recital books. Each of the seven is an example of a different style, form, or theoretical concept. Notes for the performer have been included with recommendations …

Guitar Suite, Stephanie Boyer

Theses and Dissertations

Guitar Suite is a two movement piece composed for solo guitar. In addition to the guitar suite, an orchestral arrangement of its second movement, "Dance of the Fields," concludes this thesis, presenting the same melody in various textures.

The Syncretic Art And History Of Vietnamese Vọng Cổ Music, Clair Hoang Khuong Nguyen

Theses and Dissertations

This study illustrates the origins and concept of Vietnamese vọng cổ music, its scalar modes, and its form. It touches upon related musical features such as notation, rhythm, and cadences. Altogether, these aspects contribute defining stylistic tendencies specific to vọng cổ musicians of Vietnam and the Vietnamese diaspora.

Operabbit, Mariel C. Mayz

Theses and Dissertations

OPERAbbit takes place in an unknown country with unnamed characters who are struggling for basic necessities amongst a political, social, and economic crisis. Questions of loyalty, trust, and nationalism are brought to the foreground as our Protagonist receives an unconventional government hand-out: a bunny. This fictional story— written by the composer and her brother— is met with humor and the liveliness of Latin American culture. The underlying truth, however, is more tragic. Many countries in Latin America have faced deep political, economic, or societal problems throughout their histories. None, however, have faced them all simultaneously as the country of Venezuela …

A Mission At 311, Nan Li

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis intends to look at how the aftermath of Holocaust has a tremendous life-changing impact on the children of Holocaust survivors, and to explore how these people has carried these misfortunes and burden to be resilient and joyful in their everyday lives.

Making Sounds, Patrick Costello

Theses and Dissertations

Using collaboration and performance as tools, I situate my personal story, my body, and my skills and interests within a contemporary landscape that is intersectional, full of partialities, and rooted in evolving ecologies.

Turn Of The Century British Musical Comedy In An American Performance Library, Victoria Peters

Theses and Dissertations

The genre label 'musical comedy' gained its stride in the 1920s, but the term emerged as early as the 1870s. These early musical comedies are often overlooked in the historical discussion of musical theater, due to a lack of integration between the storyline and musical numbers. With the help of the Tams-Witmark collection, housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mills Music Library, this paper examines how two of these early musical comedies, composed by England’s Ivan Caryll and Sidney Jones, were exported and used by touring theater companies in The United States. These flexible musical comedies complicate the kinds of …

Pauline Oliveros And The Quest For Musical Utopia, Hannah Christina Mclaughlin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses music's role in utopian community-building by using a case study of a specific composer, Pauline Oliveros, who believed her work could provide a positive "pathway to the future" resembling other utopian visions. The questions of utopian intent, potential, and method are explored through an analysis of Oliveros's untraditional scores, as well as an exploration of Oliveros's writings and secondary accounts from members of the Deep Listening community. This document explores Oliveros's utopian beliefs and practices and outlines important aspects of her utopian vision as they relate to three major utopian models: the traditional "end-state" model, the anarchical …

Long Vacation In Bk, Doll Chao

Theses and Dissertations

The diary of a transcontinental search for self and place, a journey through obtuse politics, cultural oppression, and loneliness - this film is the document of a lost generation of Taiwanese youth and its conflict with China, swirling in a transpacific gyre of sound, image, and text.

Women In Music: Letting A Long Story Be Long Contemplating Women’S Sonic, Musical, And Spiritual Experiences In Prehistory, Deborah J. Saidel

Theses and Dissertations

Situated within deep history, this study explores the auditory and spiritual lives of Paleolithic women. It considers their personal agency in mediating the spiritual power of sound and how doing so contributes to a multifaceted musicality. The theoretical framework involves a wide spectrum of topics, from ways of rethinking the writing of history and reckoning with time, to sound studies and the study of acoustics in ancient sites, to a critical examination through a feminist lens of normative disciplinary scholarship in anthropology and archaeology, religious studies, and musicology. I explore potential audio-visual-lithic relationships for their implications for deepening an understanding …

My Eyes Due See, Johannes J. Barfield

Theses and Dissertations

My Eyes Due See is a multidimensional examination of the “black experience” in America. The installation is composed of a single-channel video, a music composition that utilizes music samples and live instrumentation, and sculptures made up of car parts and broomsedge grass. Each of these elements arranged in space share a nuanced and complicated view of blackness through the lens of a black man decoding personal history and American history simultaneously. Autonomy is the overarching theme throughout the work as it pertains to race, identity, urban and rural environments, and the relationship between generational trauma and nostalgia.

Parents’ Observations Of Their Young Children’S Music Behaviors During Music Classes After Completing The Children’S Music Behavior Inventory, Julia Beck

Theses and Dissertations

With the intent of understanding perceptions of early childhood music development, the purpose of this research was to examine parents’ observations of their young children during music classes after completing the Children’s Music Behavior Inventory (Valerio & Reynolds, 2015). My guiding research question was: How do knowledge of CMBI and viewing informal music class video recordings influence parents’ perceptions and understanding of their three-year-old children’s music behaviors and development during a two-month period?

Participants included five parents of three-year-old children in the 3B classroom at Bright Horizons, a preschool located in Columbia, South Carolina. During the data collection process, I …

The Link Between Meditation And Effective Practice: Increasing The Pace Of The Acquisition Of Skill In Musical Practice, Caleb Cole

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to explore the idea of effective practice as being meditative in nature. Effective practice and meditation are both viewed independently, and elements of both are discussed. Meditation, in the literature, is viewed in different lights and is defined in many ways. This makes it difficult to nail down a single definition of meditation. The process itself is debated and several different categorizations are offered. Some research shows Unwanted Effects (UE) to meditation, but these concerns are not widespread. Meditation appears to be a healthy practice that may have health benefits. Effective practice is viewed next; Grit, deliberate …

Analyzing And Comparing Selected Works For Violin And Piano By Chen Gang, Chen Guoquan And Bright Sheng, Liangjun Zou

Theses and Dissertations

Cross-cultural musical synthesis plays an important role in the creation of musical progress in the twentieth century. This dissertation is a study on the development of the use of Chinese folk elements in Western-style compositions by Chinese composers. Through analyses of different compositions by traditional Chinese composers, Chen Gang and Chen GuoQuan, as well as Chinese-born American composer Bright Sheng, the aesthetic variations produced by the synthesis of Western and Eastern music is examined.

Chapter One focuses on the development of Chinese violin music promoted by the efforts of several generations of composers. Chapter Two presents the background information of …

Guided Music Play Between 2-Year-Old Children And A Music Play Facilitator: A Case Study, Kathleen Kaye Arrasmith

Theses and Dissertations

With the intention of increasing social music interaction understanding, the purpose of this study was to investigate guided music play between 2-year-old children and a music play facilitator. The guiding research questions were (a) What play behaviors and roles emerged when the 2-year-old children and I, a music play facilitator, engaged in guided music play? (b) What music emerged when the 2-year-old children and I, a music play facilitator, engaged in guided music play? I purposefully sampled six 2-year-old participants and their two classroom teachers and a music play assistant as passive participant observers, as well as an early childhood …

Tertian Relationships In Three Choral Selections By Dan Forrest: A Conductor’S Analysis, Lindsey Cope

Theses and Dissertations

Dan Forrest is a composer who has gained attention in the choral world. His compositions like Venite Adoremus, Abide, and arrangements like A Mighty Fortress is Our God exhibit representative characteristics of his compositional voice. This document will serve choral conductors as a resource for understanding the compositional aspects of Forrest’s music and application for rehearsing his music. By examining three of his compositions of contrasting styles, this study will illuminate a variety of his compositional traits and examine their use in the three selections. Tertian relationships are pervasive in Forrest’s music in the formal designs, harmonic structure, and key …

A Theoretical And Stylistic Analysis Of Paul Ben-Haim’S Five Pieces For Piano, Op. 34 And Piano Sonata, Op. 49, Rachel Bletstein

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to provide a theoretical and stylistic analysis of Paul Ben-Haim’s Five Pieces for Piano, Op. 34 and Piano Sonata, Op. 49. The study consists of an analysis of form, meter, rhythm, harmony, melody, keyboard usage, and stylistic elements.

The study helps to educate musicians about Ben-Haim’s music and conveys how the works are representative of compositional practices that combine Middle Eastern and Western elements. This study also introduces two major works of Ben-Haim’s, including Five Pieces for Piano, Op. 34, and Piano Sonata, Op. 49. This study promotes one of the most significant Israeli …

The Effects Of Learning By Rote With La-Based Minor Solmization On Memory Retention For Pre-College Piano Students, Duong Khuc

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to measure the accuracy and memorized outcome of subjects’ performance who learned a piano piece by rote using la-based minor solmization compared to subjects who learned the identical piece using an intervallic reading approach with identified landmark notes. Ten pre-college piano students above nine years of age at the intermediate level and above participated in this quantitative quasi-experimental study. Five subjects, n=5, received the independent treatment (rote with la-based minor solmization), and the other five subjects, n=5, received the dependent treatment (intervallic reading approach with identified landmark notes). During the timespan of a three-week …

Diction For Mandarin/Chinese Singers: A Methodology To Achieve Resonant Tone And Vowel Unification In Western Choral Music, Chien-Yi Li

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding vowel production is vital in order to develop a rich choral tone based on unified vowels, appropriate resonance, and freely produced singing. Likewise, correct articulation of consonants produces understandable text. Enunciating the texts of Western choral repertoire is often challenging for Mandarin singers, and learning English pronunciation requires a significant amount of rehearsal time. Further, amateur and developing singers in Mandarin-speaking countries often employ a bright sound and lowered soft palate when singing, in common with their native speaking position. Therefore, voice placement, resonance, and vowel modification must be carefully addressed and improved upon when they are singing Western …

Laminated Paint, Travis R. Austin

Theses and Dissertations

Though we may not perceive it, we are surrounded by material-in-flux. Inert materials degrade and the events that comprise our natural and social environments causally thread into a duration that unifies us in our incomprehension. Sounds reveal ever-present vibrations of the landscape: expressions of the flexuous ground on which we stand.

Accessibility Of Visuals In The Music Classroom Focusing On Students With Disabilities, Students In Poverty, And Culturally Diverse Students, Katherine A. Holbrook

Theses and Dissertations

This research focuses on visual aid accessibility for students with disabilities, students from poverty, and culturally diverse students. Each of these facets are explored, defined, and reflected on in regard to how visual aids could be more accessible for each community of students. Posters have been developed based on this research to practically apply the findings to visuals that could be used in a music classroom. When considering the accessibility for students with disabilities, it is crucial to review legislation such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1990, 2004, 2013) which mandates services to children with disabilities throughout the …

Experimental Music In Higher Education: Toward A Pedagogy Of Creativity, Philip Melancthon Snyder V

Theses and Dissertations

Experimental music is rarely taught in higher education music programs but it could nevertheless be useful for providing students a methodology through which to develop creativity. This document seeks to find common ground between the seemingly disparate worlds of classical music and experimental music in pursuit of revealing the usefulness of experimental music practice for musicians trained in the classical tradition. In seeming contrast to classical music, experimental music values include process, indeterminacy, and non-subjectivity. This document shows that these aspects, despite seeming exclusive to experimental music, are in fact integral to all music. This document will also discuss writings …

The Tie That Binds: The History, Conductors, And Music Of The Mystic Area Ecumenical Choir Festival, Mark Daniel Merritt

Theses and Dissertations

The Mystic Area Ecumenical Choir Festival, which began in 1968, is now in its 50th year. The festival is sponsored each year by the Mystic Area Ecumenical Council. The festival combines multi-generational choirs from numerous churches in and around the coastal villages of Noank and Mystic in Connecticut. Numerous nationally recognized choral directors, composers, and clinicians have been invited to guest conduct the choirs of the festival. For festival milestones, new choral pieces are commissioned.

This research project explores the history of church choirs in New England, beginning with mandated singing of metrical psalms, the singing schools which started in …

The Attitudes And Perceptions Of Undergraduate Non-Keyboard Music Majors Toward The Usage Of Functional Keyboard Harmony In The Group Piano Curriculum At The University Of South Carolina School Of Music, Katherine A. Chandler

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes and perceptions of undergraduate non-keyboard music majors toward functional keyboard harmony in the group piano curriculum at the University of South Carolina School of Music. Sixty-five (65) undergraduate music majors who were enrolled in music degrees in the spring 2018 semester at the University of South Carolina School of Music completed the survey, for an 82% completion rate. The questionnaire had six primary focuses: (1) demographic data and general information of undergraduate non-keyboard music students, (2) students‟ previous music education experiences, (3) students‟ previous harmony education experiences and perceived comprehension …

Serial Techniques In Works For Unaccompanied Trumpet, William Anonie

Theses and Dissertations

Of the many compositions for unaccompanied trumpet, some of the most interesting are those that employ twelve-tone serialism. This study provides analyses of these works, including Robert Henderson’s Variation Movements, Charles Whittenberg’s Polyphony, Hans Werner Henze’s Sonatina, and Stanley Friedman’s Solus. Performance implications related to the twelve-tone analysis are examined for each piece. Where multiple editions of a piece exist, they are compared with each other and with the analysis to guide the performer in choosing an edition.

Seventeen Waltzes For Piano By Leo Ornstein: A Stylistic Analysis, Jared Jones

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this document is to provide a stylistic analysis of Seventeen Waltzes for Piano by Leo Ornstein by examining the music in the analytical areas of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, texture, and keyboard layout–along with suggestions concerning pedal usage. These seventeen individual works were compiled and catalogued by the composer’s son, Severo Ornstein. The collection (S.400-S.416) is found to be a significant contribution to 20th-century piano literature by a lesser-known but nonetheless great Russian-Jewish-American composer and pianist, Leo Ornstein. The Seventeen Waltzes for Piano are a unique realization of the composer’s improvisatory writing style, mastery of large forms, …