Composition Commons^™

Cello In Film And Television Music, Annastasia M. Yoshida

Composition/Recording Projects

Throughout the ages, the cello has had a specific role in symphonies, operas, musicals, and pop concerts. In the last century, one of the fastest-growing music practices has been soundtracks to film and television shows. String instruments and specifically the cello hold an integral role within this type of music. In this project I present a study on the use of the cello in film and television show music, using eight representative soundtrack cues. In this project, I seek to do an extensive study of the use of cello within film and TV show music. I have chosen a selection …

Operatic Mysticisms: Mountains, Deserts, Waterscapes, Andrew Demczuk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Operatic Mysticisms: Mountains, Deserts, Waterscapes examines the ways we encounter environments as readers/viewers of operas, literature, film, and sound recordings, and how each medium requires different detail-gathering techniques. Respective to the previously mentioned mediums, Sun & Sea (2017), Mount Analogue (1952), El Mar La Mar (2017), and Energy Field (2010) are analyzed by engaging with environmental media studies and invention. Reflecting the nature of each landscape—summits of mountains, aporias of deserts, and mysteries of waterscapes—an elemental approach is taken in investigating how these spaces may be noticed, internalized, recorded, and traversed by both the artist and viewer. …

Do Androids Dream Of Improvisation?, Aidan J. Samp

Senior Projects Spring 2022

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

Signal To Noise: Harmonic Temperaments And Patterns Of Interference, Dylan A. Marcheschi

Theses and Dissertations

An audio/visual exploration of historical tuning systems. Most contemporary Western audiences will seldom if ever encounter harmony outside of post-Renaissance tuning conventions. This presentation highlights some of those pre-orthodox harmonic relationships which existed throughout most of history. The corresponding paper documents correlates in recent advances of acoustic ecology.

The Modes Of Intervention In Alvin Lucier’S I Am Sitting In A Room, Daniel Fox

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Alvin Lucier’s I am sitting in a room (1969) is an icon of experimental music and sound art. The sizable literature addressing the aesthetic and philosophical implications of this piece rarely discusses the performance practice beyond what is indicated in the score itself. This is problematic for two reasons: 1) The meaning that is derived from the piece often hinges not just on what sounds are obtained, but on how they are obtained. 2) Over the past 50 years, changes in the performance practice have altered what constitutes the work: magnetic tape was used until 2000 when it was replaced …

Murder Music: Horror Film Soundtracks Throughout History, Vincent G. Aragon

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Horror films often rely heavily on their music to create a tense and frightening experience for their audience, and it is the composer's job to write a score that satisfies that requirement. Throughout film history, the methods composers utilize to achieve that goal differ across time due to various factors including available technology, allotted budget, and the norms and expectations of films at the time. This capstone paper explores the different approaches composers employed in writing horror soundtracks from the early 20th century to the modern-day, noting any significant shifts and common themes found in the music of popular horror …

Compositional Modeling: A Classical Imitative Pedagogy For The Modern Era, Robert Harris Jeter

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Students of composition develop two skills simultaneously: craft and creativity. Since students are more naturally inclined to focus on one of these skills over the other, finding the proper balance is an educational challenge. An effective pedagogical system for composition cultivates both of these necessary skills.

Imitation was a preferred pedagogical approach during the Classical period. In his 1848 book School of Practical Composition, Carl Czerny instructs his readers to apply the extensive rules of composition by strictly following a compositional model. Although this methodology lost favor during the nineteenth century, the imitative techniques presented by Czerny are flexible enough …

Pedagogy Of Video-Game Scoring For Collegiate Application And An Original Score For The Nintendo Switch Title, Renaine, Mason Lieberman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Video-game scoring as an academic subject is quite new. There are limited opportunities for college-level students to study this field, and even fewer that are offered remotely via online sources. My goal for this thesis was to craft educational modules, courses, or other academically-based resources, that would develop a student’s musical skills, professional instincts, and educational groundings in the game audio world. These courses could then serve as an academic model for the development of other classes. After conducting research informed by my professional background as a composer in the video game industry (with a particular focus on my experiences …

Epic Beginnings: A Symphonic Work And Aaron Copland (The American Stravinsky) Versus Igor Stravinsky, Terrell O. Jones

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT

The first part of my dissertation is the original music written for this dissertation, which consists of tonal music that describes my life’s journey. I wanted to write something dark, melodic, and very energetic that described my struggles and shows the road I have taken. It exhibits everything that I have learned from my time here at the university. One of the many things that makes my passion so strong is the desire to express myself through music written for ensembles and used in films. The piece is entitled “Epic Beginnings.” Originally, it was named “The Last Dance,” a …

Gender, Politics, Market Segmentation, And Taste: Adult Contemporary Radio At The End Of The Twentieth Century, Saesha Senger

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This dissertation explores issues of gender politics, market segmentation, and taste through an examination of the contributions of several artists who have achieved Adult Contemporary (AC) chart success. The scope of the project is limited to a period when many artists who figured prominently in both the broader mainstream of American popular music and the more specific Adult Contemporary category were most commercially viable: from the mid-1980s through the 1990s. My contention is that, as gender politics and gendered social norms continued to change in the United States at this time, Adult Contemporary – the chart, the format, and the …

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.

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.

Shuksan Story: An Original Soundtrack Composition, Jonathan (Jonathan Mahan) Ross

WWU Graduate School Collection

This thesis centers around a composition written to score a documentary called “Shuksan Story,” a film documentary about the revitalization of Shuksan Middle School in Bellingham, WA. To satisfy the needs of the documentary, the composition includes four sections, including a set all in the same key signature, a set featuring the main theme, stand-alone pieces, and brief “stingers”. The project also includes recordings of all compositions: performed, mixed and finalized by the composer. The intention is that the filmmaker will edit these pieces into the completed project. This paper outlines the historical context of Shuksan Middle School and its …

It’S A Strange Place: The Narrative Film Music Of Danny Elfman, Chad Sell

Selected Honors Theses

The role of film music should function as part of the narrative, collaborating with all other filmic aspects such as color editing, scriptwriting, acting, and directing to convey a narrative that engages and affects the audience. Over the course of history, film music has functioned in a variety of ways, from live bands to draw in theatregoers to the contemporary discussion of diegetic and non-diegetic music in film. Composer Danny Elfman emerges from an unusual background in rock n’ roll, but, despite initial criticism and skepticism, has proven to be a seminal film composer whose scores demonstrate an intimate connection …

Relevant Versus Extraneous Music In Multimedia Instruction: A Study Of The Coherence Principle, Jonathan Gunnell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the inclusion of nonessential music in an instructional multimedia presentation affected learners’ ability to recall information in retention, cued-retention, and transfer cognitive measures. This study tested the coherence principle of multimedia learning which holds that the addition of nonessential content that is not relevant to the instruction is detrimental to learning. This study tested this principle by analyzing differences across three groups; a control group which included no additional music, a group including bland music selected at random, and a group including music that has been intentionally designed to align with …

Trying To Fit In With The Weird Parts Of The Internet: Online Subcultures And Content Creation, Isak Fedeler Knivsland

Honors Program Theses

Creating my thesis project has been quite a journey - perhaps a longer and more tedious journey than I anticipated, but rewarding nonetheless. Starting this project in the fall, I simply had the goal of making cool music, producing videos to accompany it, and getting some people to watch it. This is much easier said than done, however.

In my head, this was to be a pretty straightforward project. I had made electronic music before and had been improving at it. I had edited some videos, though not for a few years. And I had experimented with marketing content. The …

The Copyright Board And Tribunals Process: Users In The Balance, Louis J. D'Alton

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The wholesale adoption of copyright collective management as public policy tool has had an extraordinary impact on the information landscape. The unfettered expansion of collective rights organizations throughout the 20^th century has resulted in increased social costs and a burgeoning bureaucracy surrounding the collective use of rights.

This thesis considers the role of copyright tribunals within that process, and more importantly within a critical historical frame. While some work has been done with respect to copyright tribunals and their role in the policy process, none of it has considered the tribunals within a critical frame. This thesis considers those …

The Production Of Sticky Notes And Bible Quotes: Godly Answers For Sticky Situations A Children’S Musical As Directed By Julie Brinkman, Julie Elizabeth Brinkman

Honors College

This thesis reflects upon a director’s experience while directing her first production: Sticky Notes and Bible Quotes: Godly Answers for Sticky Situations by Dennis and Nan Allen. This children’s musical was produced in cooperation with Wylie United Methodist Church of Abilene, TX. Over forty children, with the help of ten adult volunteers, shared the importance of memorizing scripture and looking to God’s Word in times of trouble through song, skits, and the recitation of scripture. While reflecting upon the production process after each rehearsal, the director makes connections between her experiences as director, the content of her music education undergraduate …

Crotale Sample Library, Ryan Waczek

Music

This report will discuss the process of creating a digital sample based library for musical applications. Topics such as recording, microphone placement, and mixing will be addressed; as well as elements of design in Adobe Photoshop, and computer scripting in the language of the computer program Komplete 5 by Native Instruments. The instrument sampled is the crotales, an orchestral, melodic percussion instrument.

A Composed Space, Adam S. Hogan

Graduate School of Art Theses

My practice is invested in expanding our conscious scope—revealing phenomena and observations, and presenting the information to the viewer through auxiliary channels. Using the language of minimalism, cinema, and abstraction I create technologically sophisticated systems to produce spaces of contemplation (a meditative space challenging the ephemeral relationships between our sensorial perceptions, space, and time).

Material, space, and technology become instruments for composition manifesting as silent experimental cinema (created and controlled sonically). My work seeks to illuminate our conscious scope through the succession of frames.

Frankenstein: Man Or Monster?, Leigh P. Mackintosh

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Since its first publication in 1818, Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein has left a lasting impression upon the world speaking to a multitude of audiences including artists, scientists, philosophers, and society as a whole. Considering the impact of Frankenstein through its evolution as a cultural myth in various plays and films, this thesis will provide a way to gauge the relevance of Shelley’s story as an adaptation. Only by knowing what has been done in the past and how the materials have been used by other playwrights and screenwriters can one understand how to handle them as an original work. The …

Balkan As A Metaphor In The Film Composition Of Goran Bregovic, Nela Trifkovic

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The focus of this paper is the film composition of composer Goran Bregovic (born 1950) and the country of his birth Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia has undergone many major political changes over the past century and its ethno-political history over the past fifteen years could be considered as one of the most turbulent of our time. The aim of this thesis is to uncover the conceptual principles behind Bregovic’s unique approach to soundtrack music in order to create appropriate musical analogies in film composition. Bregovic’s musical career in the iconic Yugoslav rock band Bijelo dugme (White Button), his interest in the traditional …