Music Practice Commons^™

Integrating Sensor Technology Into Artistic Practice: A Critical Examination Of The Role Of The Performer, Marcella Barz

Doctoral

This research questions how interactive music technology might enable creativity in performers. The format is a semi-autoethnographic narrative that follows the performer’s artistic process of preparing nine compositions for performance; these works are for bass clarinet or clarinet and live processing (created with Ableton Live, Max for Live, and the SABRe multi-sensor and remote).

In order to conduct this research, I remixed two existing bass clarinet works, collaborated with two composers on six new works, and composed my own piece. I maintained a reflective journal for four and a half years that documented the process of preparing these compositions for …

Composing Irishness: Remembrances Of The Irish Past Through The Prism Of The Present In Music By Donnacha Dennehy (B. 1970) And Jennifer Walshe (B. 1974), Timothy Diovanni

Masters

Although modern remembrances in the fields of literature, theatre, poetry, and the visual arts have received considerable scholarly attention in Ireland since the publication of History and Memory in Modern Ireland in 2001, similar activities in an Irish art music context remain unexplored. This thesis addresses this lacuna in examining how the contemporary Irish composers Donnacha Dennehy (b. 1970) and Jennifer Walshe (b. 1974) have remembered, reimagined, and reinvented the past to communicate their positions on Irish history and modern Irish society, as well as to respond to recent historical and curatorial practices. Through a series of five works written …

J.K. Mertz’S Bardenklänge: A Context For The Emergence Of The Character Piece Genre Within The Repertoire For Solo Guitar, Brinsley Doran

Masters

Having experience a large increase in concert activity in recent years, one would assume that the works of J.K. Mertz (1806–1856) would haveexperience the same level of attention within academic circles, however research is still limited. As a result, this thesissetsout to understand in what areas do Mertz's works differ fromother guitar works in the first half of the nineteenth century—specifically Mertz's set of character piecesfound in hisBardenklänge, op. 13. This thesiswill address shifts in culture, aesthetics and the increasing interest in the ‘Folk’c.1800–1850 that led to the composition of Mertz’s Bardenklänge. Published in 1847, these works are unique in …

Finding A Voice – Exploration Of Modes And Timbres : A Portfolio Of Ten Original Compositions With Accompanying Commentaries, Ekapon Muenyam

Doctoral

This thesis marks the culmination of four years’ work, as part of my PhD study in composition. The portfolio consists of ten pieces, lasting in total approximately 2 hours and 10 minutes, and a commentary comprising an analysis of each of the works. The main emphasis has been on the development of an individual style, informed by the exploration of twentieth and twenty-first century compositional techniques, instrumental timbres, stylistic genres, forms, scale derivations and the wider aesthetic of contemporary music. The portfolio includes works for solo instruments, ensemble and orchestra. One of the main areas of research has been to …

The Art Of Collaboration - An Interdisciplinary Practice-Led Research Initiative, Paul Roe

Conference papers

No abstract provided.

Tunetracker: Tensions In The Surveillance Of Traditional Music, Bryan Duggan, Norman M. Su

Conference papers

We describe the design and deployment of the first system ever to dynamically track and publish records of folk music playing. TuneTracker is a software system that has been, at time of writing, deployed at a pub in Dublin, Ireland for five months. It captures, stores, and posts the names of tunes played in Irish traditional music sessions on a public website. This paper makes two contributions: (1) drawing from a two year ethnographic study of trad musicians, it details the design and development of a system to track and publish traditional musicians’ practices while respecting the ethos of tradition, …

Woodwind Extension Through The Systematic Use Of Microtonality And Electronic Manipulation Of The Instrument, Seán Mac Erlaine

Conference papers

This research questions how the expressive range of the saxophone / bass clarinet can be extended in new ways by employing both a systematic use of microtonality and electronic manipulation of the instrument.

The use of digital signal processing (DSP) is well advanced among certain music practitioners, most notably electric guitarists, extending that instrument’s expressive powers considerably. Woodwind instrumentalists have a huge unexplored potential to engage with new technologies, furthering the range, polyphonic voicings, loops, reverbs and general signal manipulation.

The marraige of these two disciplines with conventional woodwind practice greatly deepens the expressive range of the instrument while offering …