Music Practice Commons^™

Orthography, Jeremy Gill

Music & Musical Performance

The myth of Pope Gregory I taking melodic dictation from a magical singing bird is the imaginative starting point of Western musicʼs love-hate relationship with the music notation systems it later developed. This essay traces that development through Thomas Tallis and J. S. Bach to the dichotomous modern examples of Brian Ferneyhough and Arvo Pärt. In it, I suggest that Western musicʼs eventual development hinged upon that earliest desire to document and codify melodies, answering Gregoryʼs contemporary Isidore of Seville, who lamented that “unless sounds are held by the memory of man, they perish, because they cannot be written down.”

Sculpting Time: A Performance Guide To Four Fragments Of Time By Marcus Siqueira, Luis Felipe Vargas Magdaleno De Moraes

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This dissertation investigates the musical and phenomenological aspects of Four Fragments of Time by Marcus Siqueira (b. 1974) and provides a performance guide for this work. Furthermore, this dissertation analyzes previous guitar works by the composer, seeking to understand Siqueira’s compositional idiosyncrasies and to provide context for the interpretation of Four Fragments of Time. This dissertation includes a biography of the composer, an analysis of the compositional process of Four Fragments of Time, an analysis of the recurrent idiomatic procedures in Siqueira’s guitar works, and an overview of the collaborative process between the composer and the author. Additionally, an analysis …

An Examination Of Maria Schneider’S Big Band Artistry Through The Lens Of Wind Band Arranging, Amy Birdsong

Dissertations, 2020-current

Within the world of instrumental music there tends to be strict adherence to styles and genres that have historically been connected to a standard collection of instruments. Wind ensembles are expected to perform contemporary art music, orchestral transcriptions, or military marches, with little expectation of individual creative interpretation. Jazz ensembles, or “big bands,” are expected to perform styles of music such as “swing,” which cannot be properly notated using western notation, while also being rigidly glued to reduced instrument choices, repetitive chord cycles and standard song forms. While wind ensemble performers are confined to read and perform all aspects of …

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

The Wind Band Music Of Steven Reineke: A Study Of Three Of His Musical Compositions, His Characteristic Sound, And The Inspiration Behind His Works, Eric Stark

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this project proposal is to examine the music of Steven Reineke. The study will investigate and discuss the background information of three pieces and find common compositional elements used by Mr. Reineke. The study will also include rehearsal and performance considerations of each work. Form graphs and conducting analysis will be included. Other information presented in this study will educate the reader about the life of Mr. Reineke. The goal of this thesis is to help band instructors with rehearsal guides and performance instructions for Heaven’s Light, The Witch and the Saint, and Pilatus: Mountain of Dragons …

Why Not Be Free: The Black Worldmaking Praxis, Research Method, & Manifesto For Developing Music Interventions Against Stress In Black Youth, Armond Epps Dorsey

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Why Not Be Free? is an interdisciplinary exploration of music intervention development demonstrating the application of my integrated research and artistic practices through an outlined antiracist method for designing music to reduce stress in Black college youth and a manifesto detailing the compositional process. I draw from Black feminist and womanist thought, music cognition, and public health literature to outline a framework for designing music interventions to reduce stress among Black populations: the Music Medicine Critical Race Praxis. I situate my work among Black speculative artists reimagining experiences in everyday Black life as well as music intervention researchers integrating …

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 …

Scordator: A Digital Map Of All Scordature, Paulo Vaz De Carvalho, Rui Penha

The 21st Century Guitar

Scordatura is often used in stringed instruments to overcome constraints posed by their tuning. Finding the right scordatura for a particular situation may be a time-consuming task, especially for non-guitarist composers. In this contribution, we present a web application designed to show a tuning chart for any chordophone equipped with a maximum of eight strings, each tunable to a pitch in the range of a full keyboard. The application also provides visualization of the available positions for live MIDI notes within a given scordatura.

Composing Idiomatic Music For Guitar Using Distant Reading Strategies, Giovanni Albini, Matilde Oppizzi

The 21st Century Guitar

The composition of new music for guitar can involve two issues: 1) composers that have no experience with the instrument might not be able to compose a score that is idiomatic, accommodating and highlighting the unique characteristics and features of the conventional guitar techniques; and 2) composer-guitarists might repeat clichés that can origin from their performance habits. In this respect, the aim of this paper is to answer the following questions: can distant reading methods help in defining strategies for composing new idiomatic music for guitar? If so, how they can be defined and implemented? Distant reading methods allow to …

Largo Teso: The Seven Studies For Guitar By Maurizio Pisati, Maurizio Pisati, Elena Càsoli

The 21st Century Guitar

In this contribution, composer and interpreter talk about the Seven Studies from their respective points of view. Maurizio Pisati explains how he developed a new guitar, departing from a single study and arriving at the overall formal conception through timbres, techniques and articulations; and how the soloistic studies led him to a guitarled ensemble piece. Elena Càsoli deals with issues such as the score's indications and the instrumental techniques.

The Morphological And Audiative Interconnectedness Of Sound: Equivalence In A Multidimensional Soundscape, Martin Vishnick

The 21st Century Guitar

This paper draws on the authorʼs recent theoretical and practical research into the morphology of sound and audiation. In particular, it explores the notion of equivalence in a multidimensional soundscape. Correlations between the interconnectedness of sound-based morphologies emanating from extended guitar techniques and comprehending internal auditory imagination when sound is not physically present will be assessed. To express an all-encompassing mental and visual image of apprehending the value of sound from a morphological and audiative perspective, three-dimensional topological diagrams will be evaluated ‒ a development of previous two-dimensional visualisations. In regard to morphologies, topics of interest are spectromorphology, spatiomorphology, spectral …

Guitars With Ambisonic Spatial Performance (Gasp): An Immersive Guitar System, Duncan Werner, Emma Fitzmaurice, Bruce Wiggins, Matthew Hart

The 21st Century Guitar

The GASP project investigates the design and realisation of an Immersive Guitar System. It brings together a range of sound processing and spatialising technologies and applies them to a specific musical instrument ‒ the Electric Guitar. GASP is an ongoing innovative audio project, fusing the musical with the technical, combining the processing of each stringʼs output (which we called timbralisation) with spatial sound. It is also an artistic musical project, where space becomes a performance parameter, providing new experimental immersive sound production techniques for the guitarist and music producer. Several ways of reimagining the electric guitar as an immersive sounding …

Proceedings Of The 21st Century Guitar Conference 2019 & 2021

The 21st Century Guitar

This volumeʼs contributions grew from 20 of the 94 scheduled keynotes, lectures and lecture-recitals of the first and second editions of The 21st Guitar Conference. Five items stem from the inaugural edition (2019, 44 contributions) and 15 from the second edition (2021, 50 contributions).1 This conference is unique in that it is centered on contemporary guitar research, performance and pedagogy.2 Previously, guitar research had gained increased visibility thanks to the International Guitar Research Centre, launched in 2014 (Stephen Goss, President), which regularly (co-)organizes conferences on guitar research; and Soundboard Scholar, launched in 2015 (Jonathan Leathwood, Editor) ‒ currently the only …

I Felt Unfettered And Alive: A Musical Narrative Inquiry Into Identity Through Commissioning And Performing New Music For Solo Classical Guitar, Libby Myers

The 21st Century Guitar

This paper discusses how commissioning new music served as a means of musical narrative inquiry into the performance of the authorʼs identity. Traditionally, musicology has centred on the identities of composers; their lives, working practices and philosophies. Meanwhile, the identities of performers have remained inaudible. Challenging this conventional narrative, the commission project foregrounds experiences of identity and subjectivity of the author as performer-researcher. This paper introduces the innovative methodology of musical narrative inquiry used in this project, in which lived narratives of identity are told and re-told in collaboration with the composer to explore what it means to be, or …

Give The Drummer Some: A Dive Into Drum Breaks And Drum Break Production, Kyle Kaldhusdal

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This paper traces the history of hip-hop culture through the evolution of the drum break, the original context of drum breaks in funk and soul music, their influence on DJ culture, and the subsequent impact of drum breaks on music and music production. It follows the development of breakbeat compilations in the 1970s and 1980s, parallel to the development of turntablism and sampling techniques. It also examines in detail how copyright litigation in the 1990s shaped the development of sample-based music genres and created a niche market for originally-recorded drum breaks over the subsequent decades.

The History And Development Of Solo Tuba Repertoire, Vasilios Tidwell

Honors Theses

The tuba's solo repertoire increased in quantity and quality as a result of developments in the instrument’s design and usage. Following the invention of the tuba in 1835, instrument makers experimented with design concepts to maximize the versatility and potential of the bass brass voice. Composers explored the various uses of the instrument, eventually making the tuba part of the standard orchestral instrumentation by the mid-nineteenth century. Following the instrument's acceptance into bands and orchestras, the first solo works for tuba emerged in the late nineteenth century.

Evolving from novelty pieces accompanied by wind or brass bands, tuba solo music …

Music Production And The Creative Process Through The Lens Of Neurodivergence, Blake Fry

University Honors Theses

This thesis explores the creative process behind the composing and production of three pieces of music through the lens of neurodivergence. It covers and synthesizes the material of three relevant books and applies their concepts toward retrospectively analyzing the experiences behind each piece of music. The goal is to make meaningful progress toward better understanding my personal creative process, the challenges that arise, and how best to resolve them. For these reasons this project should prove enlightening to any neurodivergent creatives or anyone struggling with creativity.

Franz Schubert, Overture In The Italian Style D. 591, Transcribed For Band By Randall Snyder, Randall Snyder

Randall Snyder Compositions

In 1817, in response to the Italian craze sweeping Vienna, the 20yr Schubert wrote two Overtures “in the Italian Style”. In particular, the second of these, D.591, captures the spirit of Rossini. It begins with a gently portentous slow introduction. After a brief pause, the tempo increases with a sprightly melody, its dotted rhythms echoing Rossini. Another theme is introduced before the eruption of one of those famous slow-building, repetitive “Rossini crescendos.” A repeat of this music leads tp a faster tempo and the Overture’s exciting conclusion.

duration: c. 7 minutes

Instrumentation: Flute 1, Flute 2, Oboe, Bassoon, Clarinet in …

Two Essays On Contemporary Music, Bálint András Varga

Music & Musical Performance

Bálint András Varga (1941–2019) was an advocate for and a keen critic of contemporary music, first on radio, and later as an acquisitions editor for both Editio Hungarica and Universal-Edition. He interviewed many musical figures and planned to interview visual artists before he died. His interlocutors were impressed with Varga’s insightful questions and frequently answered them much more comprehensively than they would ones from standard journalists. These two essays were intended to be published in Varga’s third book, From Boulanger to Stockhausen: Interviews and a Memoir. The first, “What to Listen for in Music,” refers to Aaron Copland’s book …

Liquid Tab, Nathan Hulet

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Guitar transcription is a complex task requiring significant time, skill, and musical knowledge to achieve accurate results. Since most music is recorded and processed digitally, it would seem like many tools to digitally analyze and transcribe the audio would be available. However, the problem of automatic transcription presents many more difficulties than are initially evident. There are multiple ways to play a guitar, many diverse styles of playing, and every guitar sounds different. These problems become even more difficult considering the varying qualities of recordings and levels of background noise.

Machine learning has proven itself to be a flexible tool …

Seamus Jennings Solo Transcription Project, Seamus Jennings

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

No abstract provided.

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 …

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.

Contributors To Issue 2, Music & Musical Performance: An International Journal Digitalcommons.Fiu.Edu/Mmp

Music & Musical Performance

No abstract provided.

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 …

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 …

Production As Analysis In Commercial Music Recordings, Simeon P. Church

Composition/Recording Projects

Since the 1960s, scholarship of popular music in the fields of musicology and music theory has blossomed (Kajanová 2013). The inclusion of the social sciences and humanities in music analysis has allowed for new methodologies in commercial music analysis. Although new methodologies have been developed around popular song analysis, they are notably absent in the field of music production (Blake 2012, 1). In this thesis, I will assert that music production is an under-explored facet of commercial music that offers abundant opportunities for analysis.

Don't Lose Your Keys: Exploring The Transition From Harpsichord To Piano, Justice Post

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This paper explores keyboard technology in music from the Baroque era to today. Central focus is on the initial dominance of the harpsichord in Western music and how this shifted to the piano. Using this context of evolving instrumentation, the paper considers how this coincided with changing styles of music composition. Finally, the paper considers the question of how a keyboardist of today should handle music written in eras before the piano existed, and whether it is appropriate to perform harpsichord music using a modern piano.