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Full-Text Articles in Music Practice
Play Makes Perfect: An Exploration Of Game And Play Elements In Composition And Performance, Gabrielle Chou
Play Makes Perfect: An Exploration Of Game And Play Elements In Composition And Performance, Gabrielle Chou
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This dissertation aims to explore the intersection of play and games in Western classical music and define a new category of pieces, “ludic pieces,” which contain play structures and game mechanics within their composition. Starting with surveying perspectives in ludology and ludomusicology, including those by Roger Caillois, Johan Huizinga, Jesper Juul, Katie Salen, and Eric Zimmerman, I will examine various definitions of a “game” and what its qualifying aspects are. I will then turn to music and consider pieces that interact with play and games without containing game structures, including examples of musical humor and pieces which evoke the imagery …
Corporeal Analysis: The Performing Body As Analytic Site, Laura Cocks
Corporeal Analysis: The Performing Body As Analytic Site, Laura Cocks
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
A framework of corporeal analysis posits that the physicality of the performer can be construed as a primary analytical parameter in a work. This dissertation seeks to set up such a method of analysis largely through anecdata and autoethnography with the aim of eliciting a deeper space for additional performer-driven analyses that prioritize the bodily knowledge of performers and their physical understandings of a work. Centering around David Bird’s 2013 work for solo piccolo and “no-less-than twenty-nine spatialized piccolos,” Atolls, three main aspects of corporeal analysis will be explored. These are: performance physicality as expressive connective tissue between flutist …
Meaning Beyond Words: A Musical Analysis Of Afro-Cuban Batá Drumming, Javier Diaz
Meaning Beyond Words: A Musical Analysis Of Afro-Cuban Batá Drumming, Javier Diaz
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This dissertation consists of a musical analysis of Afro-Cuban batá drumming. Current scholarship focuses on ethnographic research, descriptive analysis, transcriptions, and studies on the language encoding capabilities of batá. However, this artistically sophisticated tradition demands a more in-depth study of its musical manufacture. Drawing from experience as a ritual batá player and as an oricha priest, I have completed the current study by following three primary analytical modalities: (1) sonic landscape, which encompasses: sound vocabulary, form, individual drum parts, and balance of musical elements; (2) timbral design, how the different batá sounds articulate meaningful and functionally distinguishable structures; (3) the …
Searching For Sounds: Instrumental Agency And Modularity In Electroacoustic Improvisation, Stephen (Red) Wierenga
Searching For Sounds: Instrumental Agency And Modularity In Electroacoustic Improvisation, Stephen (Red) Wierenga
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
In their radical departure from conventional instrumental technique and standardized instruments themselves, the practices of electroacoustic improvisation present a particular challenge to prevalent Western concepts of musical instruments. These concepts—which generally treat instruments as fixed objects—are ill-equipped to account for the ways in which electroacoustic improvisers foreground the agency of their instruments and abandon the quest for “mastery” typical especially of classical attitudes. Additionally, electroacoustic improvisers often approach instruments not as singular, self-contained, and static in their materiality, but rather as modular instrumentaria capable of myriad states and ever in flux, similarly problematizing conventional conceptions that view the physical constitutions …