Composition Commons^™

With Love, ; An Interdisciplinary And Intersectional Look At Why Creativity Is Essential, Theo Starr Gardner

Whittier Scholars Program

My Whittier Scholars Program self-designed major, Teaching Creativity, is a mixture of Art, Literature, and Education classes. My research and praxis classes have been focused on the ‘how?’s and 'why?’s of creativity, so it felt only right that my project should be a constructivist, generative project. The project I have been working on throughout my time at Whittier, and that has just fully come to fruition on April 11th, 2024, was a solo art gallery/open mic event entitled ‘With Love,’. With Love, was conceptually inspired by the research I’ve conducted on creativity and creative arts education over the past few …

Music Therapy Techniques In The Commercial Music Industry, Sarah Heath

Senior Honors Theses

Despite the fact that music is commonly described as free therapy with easily accessible content in the modern age of streaming, most people do not realize that music they already listen to contains many legitimate, psychologically tested therapy. This creative artistic research study examines the role that music therapy processes and techniques play in affecting the form, songwriting and creative processes of the modern music industry. These foundational aspects of songs elicit neurological responses, the emotional effect of which is discussed and incorporated through creative research and implementation through a creative artifact. This study explores songwriting techniques found in various …

Terry Riley's "In C" For Mobile Ensemble, David B. Wetzel, Griffin Moe, George K. Thiruvathukal

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This workshop presents a mobile-friendly Web Audio application for a “technology ensemble play-along” of Terry Riley’s 1964 composition In C. Attendees will join in a reading of In C using available web-enabled devices as musical instruments. We hope to demonstrate an accessible music-technology experience that relies on face-to-face interaction within a shared space. In this all-electronic implementation, no special musical or technical expertise is required.

Accepted for presentation and publication at WAC 2024.

Music Of The Divine: Interweaving Threads Connecting Contemporary Chant-Based Piano Repertoire, Jeremy D. Duck

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

The purpose of this document is to prove chant remains an important source of inspiration among living composers, and, despite the number of piano works already incorporating chant, composers today are still finding unique ways to include chant in their music. To achieve this objective, representative works have been selected for research and analysis for four of the major chant traditions. Connor Chee’s The Navajo Piano, Victoria Bond’s Illuminations on Byzantine Chant, and Hayes Biggs’ E.M. am Flügel: Poem-Étude for Piano Solo, though the chants from which they are inspired are diverse in concept and style, they …

Aum314.1 Music For Non-Linear Narrative Example 2, Sae Institute

Exemplars

HD / Exceeds Specification exemplar for AUM314.1 - Music for Non-Linear Narrative

Aum314.1 Music For Non-Linear Narrative Example 1, Sae Institute

Exemplars

Exceeds Specification exemplar for AUM314.1 - Music for Non-Linear Narrative

Aum314.2 Music For Non-Linear Narrative Example 1, Sae Institute

Exemplars

HD / Exceeds Specification exemplar for AUM314.2: Music for Linear Narrative

Christ Our Passover (Pascha Nostrum), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Work was originally written for the Congregation of the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer (Irving, TX) in 2021, but not completed till 2023. Given in honor of Canon Victoria Heard's Distinguished Service and Retirement in Spring 2023. (9 pages). [Based off of texts from 1 Corinthians and Romans].

Composition Recital Spring Program, Cedarville University

Student Composition Recitals

No abstract provided.

Bike Ride: An Audio/Visual Examination Of Liminal Spaces As A Ritual For Personal Growth, Myles Kelley

Honors College

On March 6th, 2023, I presented a creative thesis titled “Bike Ride” in Minsky Recital Hall. This experience was the culmination of my work beginning in the spring of 2022, and it featured a set of live small ensemble charts (informed largely by Jazz vocabulary) which I set to a collection of film photographs I took on late night walks through campus. In the production and execution of “Bike Ride”, my goal was to examine the emotional power of liminal spaces as they are defined in both Psychology and Photography. The resulting performance, which was re-exhibited in the Collins Center …

Bibliography, Matthew Herman

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Bibliography of music pieces commissioned, performed and published by Matthew Herman.

Bibliography, Jack G. Montgomery Jr.

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Bibliography of publications by Jack Montgomery.

Scores Of Nature (Volume 2), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Scores of Nature (Volume 2) is a collection of experimental notation and scores, which are created through serial, unplanned, and partially planned musical sequences overlaid onto natural scenes, spaces, or objects that the composer has taken photographs of in different places. This sequence is of five sets of images, many of them with curvature or lines that can be redesigned within an imaginative or manipulated musical staff with parallel or intersecting lines, clefs, time signatures, and other elements of a traditional score. In some cases the composer has offered a possible interpretation of the experimental score and notation through traditional …

Scores Of Nature (Volume 1), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

1. Bone & Stone Sonata;

2. Jellyfish & Seaweed Suite;

3. Bonfire Bay Sonata;

Three works of experimental music and notation are included in Scores of Nature (Volume 1), which include pieces written on beaches with fishbone and pebbles, a bonfire and bay in Sointula, and a piece recommended for solo 'cello, where the score is an image of a beached jellyfish in a bedding of seaweed, in which the musician needs to react to the image and play what they are imagining from that image. From the description provided in the score text: "In this piece, Jellyfish & …

Composition Recital Program, Cedarville University

Student Composition Recitals

No abstract provided.

Sound Chapel, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

The idea of "Sound Chapel" liturgies, in the manner of matins or vespers, is that a chapel space is darkened with only the light of a single or several candles available. The organ shall play sustaining notes in various, slow, elongated and sustained ways, at the discretion of the organist. The piece shall create a meditative space with the music being of "piano" (p/pp/ppp) or quieter levels. Various "liturgies" are suggested by the composer below, but may be altered and done ad lib by the performer(s) as the tone or mood of the early morning or early evening "sound chapel" …

Cereal Variations, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

The “Cereal Variations” are short works of experimental notation using different types of cereal or other grains (rice, wheat, bran, and “Honey O’s”), in order to expand the notions of the score. Each piece is very short (10 or fewer measures) and written in C—but this should not restrict performers from transposing or trying pieces in other keys. No tempo or instrumentation is given either, so that performers may use whatever instruments they want. It is encouraged that musicians use anything from percussion to strings and even attempt slow versions of multiple voice choruses. Performers may also want to try …

Festival Of Christmas 30, School Of Fine Arts

Student Concert Performances, Programs, and Posters

This is the poster for the 30th Anniversary of the Festival of Christmas. Performances were held in JPAC on December 2 and 3, 2022.

52 Nanotone Symphonies, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

The 52 Nanotone Symphonies is a work of expanding and contracting nature, which reflects the paradox of size, length, speed, and tone of a work: a symphony is traditionally a massive orchestral work with many interactive parts, while a tone is an elemental form of sound, at the foundational level of music. This work distorts and challenges those categories, allowing for each measure (in 12 + 4 time) to constitute an entire "symphony" of sound in miniature: using a single piano (keyboard or organ) instead of orchestra. Performers are encouraged to play each as slow or fast as they wish. …

Guitarmageddon, School Of Fine Arts

Student Concert Performances, Programs, and Posters

This is the poster for the concert, Guitarmageddon, held at Dr. Jack's on November 15, 2022. The concert features Dr. Johnston, Harrison Shuffield, Austin Murberger, Garrett Taylor, Logan Talley, Ayden Bennett, Collin Clark, Jamie Linton, Meredith Medford, Brynn Clark, Chaney Campbell, and Chloe Wallace.

Atdheu ("Homeland"), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Work written for musical friends Etleva Shemai and Will Kanute. Text written by composer in Albanian.

Straubgetzeichnet: Organ Fantasy, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Organ fantasy written for Christopher Anderson in honor of the publication of his biography of Karl Straube. The title is a portmanteau of the words "Straube" and "Ausgezeichnet" ("excellent") in German, referring to Dr. Anderson's achievement in completing such an extensive work after nearly 15 years of labors.

Project Metamorphosis: Designing A Dynamic Framework For Converting Musical Compositions Into Paintings, Rao Hamza Ali, Grace Fong, Erik Linstead

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

The authors present an automated, rule-based system for converting piano compositions into paintings. Using a color-note association scale presented by Edward Maryon in 1919, which correlates 12-tone scale with 12 hues of the color circle, the authors present a simple approach for extracting colors associated with each note played in a piano composition. The authors also describe the color extraction and art generation process in detail, as well as the process for creating “moving art,” which imitates the progression of a musical piece in real time. They share and discuss artworks generated for four well-known piano compositions.

Composition Recital Program, Cedarville University

Student Composition Recitals

No abstract provided.

Voyages D'Hiver ("Winter Travels"), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Between mid-January and late March 2022, these twenty-four preludes for solo piano were written as an exercise to portray the various changes in the seasons and the world, which is constantly in flux. They reflect travels by the composer, as well as reflections on current events and of cultural and arts events hosted at SMU during March ("the Festival of Form"), which provided insight and reconsideration of sound, time, and space. Many of the pieces are studies in contrast, especially the contrast in volume, tonality, and harmony. The preludes are also inspired by and written for the wonderful community of …

John Williams: Scoring And Interpreting Emotions In Film Music, Hadlee Lane Hubbard

Senior Honors Theses

This research paper examines how John Williams’s film scores convey an emotional narrative to the audience. First, the literature review will discuss pertinent theories on film music and emotions informing the current research. The paper then establishes Williams’s composing style, and centers on his connection to the classical symphonic composers and to the film music of the Golden Age of Hollywood. The research then analyzes how John Williams’s music influences emotions in prominent scenes from several of his films including Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and The Empire Strikes Back. Finally, the paper concludes with a …

Broken Chair Chaconne, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

In March 2022, I was working at my computer when this increasingly rickety chair collapsed beneath me! It was time to get back to responsible eating and get a new chair. But amid the intensive planning and production of The Festival of Form: John Cage and the Infinite Human events, it occurred to me that I could play around with the ideas of music, sound, noise, and silence, and particularly the unconventional experiments of notation and scoring. Shortly after this chair broke, I took a sharpie pen to it and began to notate it like a score, along with some …

ÉTude De Canosa, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Étude written for friend of composer, pianist Raúl Canosa.

Bulkomito Fantasy, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Work for piano four-hands, or two pianos (two pianists). Written for friends of the composer, Anna Bulkina and Francesco Comito, thus the combined title name: "Bulkomito."

Obu Steel Drum Combo In An Outdoor Concert, The Obu Steel Drums, Ryan C. Lewis

Student Concert Performances, Programs, and Posters

This is the promotional poster for the Outdoor Concert Series of the OBU Steel Drum Combo. The concerts were held on April 6 and April 15, 2021, at 5:00, at the OBU Amphitheatre. Ryan Lewis directed.