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 …

Noted With Honor: Intersections Between Theology, Music Therapy, Psychotherapy, And Original Music Compositions For Hospice Patients, Stanton Nelson

Doctor of Pastoral Music Projects and Theses

This thesis investigates the intersections between theology, music therapy, and psychotherapy when creating a music composition that honors a hospice patient’s walk of faith. A pioneer organization inspiring this thesis is Swan Songs in Austin, Texas, where musical moments are created for the patient and family. However, its model is primarily based on collating previously composed pieces for recitals without a personalized honoring of the patient’s witness of faith. Noted with Honor is an emerging non-profit organization that creates an original work that reflects upon the testimony of the patient and forms a new narrative towards the end of one’s …

Composition Recital Program, Cedarville University

Student Composition Recitals

No abstract provided.

Same As It Ever Was: An Exploration And Demonstration Of Techniques For Repurposing And Modernizing Advanced Musical Vocabulary In Mainstream Commercial Music, Aidan Scrivens

Composition/Recording Projects

In the market for tertiary level commercial music education, educators find themselves pulled between students' commercial stylistic interests and the seemingly incommensurable genres better suited to exploring advanced theoretical concepts and vocabulary. This divide can lead to a motivational deficiency in a student that, in turn, can hinder their development and render their collegiate experience less worth the expense. In the interest of combating this potential motivational deficiency, this recording project and accompanying paper explores and demonstrates the process of modernizing and recontextualizing material found in these less commercially mainstream genres. By adapting vocabulary and approaches learned from the transcription …

The Planets, Reimagined: Translating Science Into Music, Kaitlyn Wincup

Honors Projects

Inspired by Gustav Holst’s The Planets, this project analyzed the qualitative properties of the planets in our Solar System and translated them into a composition, created by Connor Gibbs, to represent an overall aural depiction of each planet. Where Holst created an astrological depiction of each of the planets, this piece is an astronomical depiction that broadens the perspectives of its listeners.

Wordmuse, John M. Nelson

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Wordmuse is an application that allows users to enter a song and a list of keywords to create a new song. Built on Spotify's API, this project showcases the fusion of music composition and artificial intelligence. This paper also discusses the motivation, design, and creation of Wordmuse.

Escape Beneath: An Original Game Score Inspired By An Analysis Of Garry Schyman's Music, Daniel Cooper

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Video-game music has grown into a vast array of different styles, sounds, and applications. As a newer field of music, game scoring has begun to receive high acclaim. Garry Schyman has become one of the most successful composers within the video-game industry. His music has received many awards and nominations throughout the years. Despite this, research and analysis into his compositions and techniques are almost non-existent. This thesis studies his techniques within the video-game scores for BioShock, BioShock 2, BioShock Infinite, Middle Earth Shadow of War, and Torn; and then applies them into an original …

The Musical Implementation Of Additive Synthesis, Quinn Ingrassia

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This paper on the musical implementation of additive synthesis seeks to explore and divulge what exactly is additive synthesis and what makes it distinct from other types of synthesis. A part of it is dedicated to making clear and palatable case for additive synthesis and is followed by a discussion of how and why various artists have implemented additive synthesis into their music, and how to recreate their techniques.

Medieval Methods: Guido D’Arezzo’S Innovative Approaches To Music Education, Lydia C. Kee

Musical Offerings

Music education has been influenced by many people throughout history, but arguably none of them have done so as much as the monk, Guido D’Arezzo. His teaching methods have been embraced and developed by music educators throughout the centuries. For example, it is recorded that Guido was the first to use the five-line staff as we use it today. This was especially groundbreaking in a world of rote memorization. Today it is used globally in music education. The roots of solfege are also found in Guido’s writings; his syllables have been adapted by Zoltan Kodály. Not only that, but John …

Phantasticus: An Exploration Of The Sound World Of 17th Century Italian Instrumental Music, Ian Jones

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

The Baroque period is home to some of the most prolific composers known today: Handel, Vivaldi, Bach all fill the standard repertoire of many instrumentalists today. However, who came before, and why should we care? Prior to these notable composers of the High Baroque, the 17th century marked an era of immense musical discovery. The early 1600s was a time of exploration and excitement within the realms of music making and musical thought. Claudio Monteverdi was a pivotal figure in the development of the early Baroque world, and with that, new styles of music emerged, noted as stil concertato …

Copland And Bernstein: How The American Left Responds To Mccarthyism Through Music: An Annotated Bibliography, Rachel Clausing

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein were not only two of the most influential American composers but were also important cultural figures in left-wing American politics throughout their lifetimes. As public figures with sometimes communist sympathies, they fell victim to McCarthyism’s Red Scare tactics like so many others did, facing scrutiny from the US government. The Cold War era, marked by a contradictory combination of a cultural push for family values and consumerism with the overarching fear of foreign infiltration and nuclear annihilation, led to a feeling of anxiety and mistrust. In this paper, I examine the ways in which Copland’s …

Digital Evolution: How The Development Of Digital Audio Technologies Have Changed The Way Video Game Composers Create Music, Mason Cooke

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

This work provides annotations for a collection of sources relevant to the topic above.

The Significance Of Sonic Branding To Strategically Stimulate Consumer Behavior: Content Analysis Of Four Interviews From Jeanna Isham’S “Sound In Marketing” Podcast, Ina Beilina

Student Theses and Dissertations

Purpose:
Sonic branding is not just about composing jingles like McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It.” Sonic branding is an industry that strategically designs a cohesive auditory component of a brand’s corporate identity. This paper examines the psychological impact of music and sound on consumer behavior reviewing studies from the past 40 years and investigates the significance of stimulating auditory perception by infusing sound in consumer experience in the modern 2020s.

Design/methodology/approach:
Qualitative content analysis of audio media was used to test two hypotheses. Four archival oral interview recordings from Jeanna Isham’s podcast “Sound in Marketing” featuring the sonic branding experts …

Energy Portraits For Flute, Clarinet In B-Flat, Violin, Cello, Piano, And Percussion, Luis Solis

Music Theses and Dissertations

Energy Portraits is a 25-minute work for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion based on the nine Enneagram personality types. The Enneagram system delves into underlying motivations and thought patterns of different people rather than only external behaviors, so this piece incorporates the typical overall energy of each number as a miniature portrait. The movements are not in the same order as the nine types from the Enneagram but are reordered and renamed for musical reasons. This allows the listeners who are not familiarized with the Enneagram to still understand the theme and energy of each movement.

Flourish is …

Outcast: A Compositional Interpretation Of Lgbtqia+ Members' Self Love Stories In Social Participation, Victor G. Garcia

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

In history, it has been known to the world that the LGBT community has been facing challenges in this society, and where struggles occur, love must prevail. To numerically determine these 4 qualifying people, a behavioral survey was released for them to answer. The interpretation process was done by arranging the ideas from the interview transcription, planning the song themes ahead of time, and using creative figurative languages. After creating the songs, another survey was sent to the four participants for evaluation and subjective criticisms. Results show that all participants have agreed that the songs created can positively influence the …

A Poet's Voice: Music In Service To Poetry: Elements Of Text Painting In Juliana Hall's Song Cycle "How Do I Love Thee?", Hayley Z. Coughin

Dissertations, 2020-current

American composer Juliana Hall has established a reputation as one of the leading composers of contemporary American art songs, having composed over 60 song cycles, totaling over 300 works for the voice. Hall’s song cycle How Do I Love Thee? expresses a narrative arc told through five selections from Victorian-era poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese. The poems selected include Sonnet 3: “Unlike,” Sonnet 43: “How Do I Love Thee?,” Sonnet 37: “Pardon,” Sonnet 21: “Say Over,” and Sonnet 41: “Thank You.” Hall’s cycle describes the relationship between the lover and the object of their love, including …

Reborn: The Documentation And Processes Of A Fusion Project, Natalie Merrill

Composition/Recording Projects

Many musicians aim to create something new, fresh, unprecedented, unpredictable. They seek uniqueness, attempting to create a sound that will be traced back to their work as music history progresses. As they work to find their distinct voices, musicians spend years trying to find their right sound, hoping it will leave a legacy of music tied to their original creativity. Composition, when based on various musical influences, is an incredible tool for the musician because it can bring together styles – and more importantly, people and cultures – from all over the world. The chapters of this paper tell the …

The Last Straw For Mixed Ensemble And Electronis., Nicholas Hall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Last Straw was composed for mixed ensemble and electronics. The main idea behind this piece is twofold: a) the treatment of the pitches, articulations, and dynamics shared between instruments and how they propagate out of phase closely resembles what I would have programed on various standalone synthesizer, and b) the processing itself is treated how I would manipulate various parameters on said synthesizers to achieve different sonic modulations. All instruments are amplified through a 4.1 sound system (4 loudspeakers and subwoofer) which is setup in a circle (see the performance layout page viii). Through processing via Max/MSP, the sound …

On The Subject Of Loneliness., Isaac Raymond Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Loneliness has been experienced since ancient times, but all were made acutely aware of the need for social interaction during the long periods of lockdown during 2020 and 2021. on the subject of loneliness draws inspiration from a variety of texts which examine the complex effects of loneliness from emotional, scientific, and spiritual viewpoints. Redactions and rearrangements of these texts form a new narrative which does not always follow a linear form or work toward a clear goal. The speaker’s internal dialogue formed from the disparate texts reflects the impact of loneliness on the music itself; only in retrospect do …

Grrrls, Grrrls, Grrrls: Incorporating Feminist Theory Into Punk Rock Composition, Bryan M. Waring

Composition/Recording Projects

This project argues that one can make rock music with anti-sexist values by incorporating feminist criticism and gendered performance into the composition of punk rock music. To test this thesis, the history of feminism and its implementation within musical discourse were examined. Using feminist music theory as a lens for observation, several songs from female artists and mix-gender bands within the punk genre were analyzed. This was done in order to find similarities in compositional practices and to explore punk rock’s symbolic representations of gender. Areas covered were the expression of jouissance by the proto-punks, the use of détournement by …

Jeremy Lee In A Student Composers Recital, Jeremy Lee

Honors Thesis

This recital and collection of original sheet music represent the culminating work for senior Music major (Contemporary Styles and Practices concentration) Jeremy Lee at Loyola Marymount University. The program features a selection of musical compositions that encapsulate different styles, genres, and unique compositional devices. Pieces also utilize a variety of arrangements and mediums, including compositions for multiple instruments and for film. Program notes for the included selections describe the historical influences and/or the personal stories and inspirations behind each piece. Performed live on April 21^st, 2022, in Murphy Recital Hall.

The Sounds Of Home: A Composition Portfolio, Paul Gabriel L. Cosme

Music Honors Projects

What does home sound like? I have spent most of my recent life outside my homeland, the Philippines, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, and this question of what home is has become a persistent thought, if not, a necessary inquiry. This composition portfolio attempts to answer that question in three varying pieces. The first, The Sounds of Home, is a string quartet in three movements where each one tells a personal story by invoking Filipino folk and indigenous themes. The second, Commuting in Manila, is a wind septet that sonically emulates the commuting experience in Manila from the …

A Synthesis Of Contemporary Music Composition Pedagogy Practices For The Undergraduate And Graduate Level Sequences, And An Exploration Of Time, Sound, And Space: An Aleatoric Event Score In Collaboration With The Lsu Museum Of Art, Jeremi Wayne Edwards

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two parts. The first part consists of a synthesis of contemporary music composition pedagogy practices for the undergraduate and graduate level sequences. A conversation of the study of music composition pedagogy is used to investigate current pedagogical practices in music composition and present those findings as a resource guide for new and future teachers. The second part presents an Exploration of Time, Sound, and Space, an Aleatoric Event Score Collaboration with the LSU Museum of Art. This event score is a product of the development of this dissertation commenced with a straightforward question; can we experience/consume …

Colors Of Love: A Story Ballet, Spencer Roberts

Music Theses and Dissertations

Colors of Love is a two-act ballet scored for chamber orchestra. The work is influenced by both jazz and classical musical styles, representing two distinct sound worlds that work together to create the whole. The instrumentation and the melodic content of the score reflects the cultural, racial, emotional, and physical turmoil that plagues society; the goal of this thesis is to bring these issues to light through the juxtaposition of jazz and classical music.

Fungal Chapel, Gabrielle Joy Cerberville

Masters Theses

FUNGAL CHAPEL is an interactive installation exploring the ties between people and place through the deconstructed visual language of Judeo-Christian religious iconography. Comprising five sculptures; BELFRY, OFFERTORY, BAPTISMAL, DOORWAY, and ALTAR, visitors are encouraged to interact on multiple levels of physical touch and consciousness, including pouring water, self-expression through writing, interacting with sonified fungal biodata, meditation, and offering and receiving gifts. Most of the objects in the chapel are “sounding sculptures” hooked up to contact microphones with added effects, and can be manipulated to produce a variety of musical sounds. Through the process of semi-guided ritual as an individual moves …

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 …

To Launch A Thousand Ships, Daniel Silva

Theses and Dissertations

Inspired by Madeline Miller’s novel The Song of Achilles (2012), To Launch a Thousand Ships is a four-movement orchestral piece that depicts the story of Achilles and the Trojan War.

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 …

“I’M Sorry”: An Original Song For Voice And Chordal Accompaniment, Lauren T. Steadman, Nolan Stolz

University of South Carolina Upstate Student Research Journal

Below is an original song written for mezzo-soprano voice and accompaniment. The purpose of this article is to provide information on the songwriting process that I used by discussing the melody, harmony, and lyrics and showing how they were developed and completed.

This article discusses and defines musical terms for musicians and non-musicians alike to show why certain decisions were made. I begin by discussing the lyrics of the song and their meaning. I will reference methods included in J. Perricone’s book Great Songwriting Techniques to discuss how the chords and melodies relate to the lyrics.

The song is notated …

A New Way To Make Music: Processing Digital Audio In Virtual Reality, Gavin E. Payne

Senior Projects Spring 2022

The work of this project attempts to provide new methods of creating music with technology. The product, Fields, is a functional piece of virtual reality software, providing users an immersive and interactive set of tools used to build and design instruments in a modular manner. Each virtual tool is analogous to musical hardware such as guitar pedals, synthesizers, or samplers, and can be thought of as an effect or instrument on its own. Specific configurations of these virtual audio effects can then be played to produce music, and then even saved by the user to load up and play with …