Music Practice Commons^™

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 …

A Study Of The Steel Pan: A Guide To Two Tenor Pan Etudes, Lilith Manes

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project will be a presentation of the research, processes, and results of composing two etudes for the tenor steelpan. The difficulty and applications of the accompanying etudes vary, but they are primarily intended for high school students or intermediate pannists. The purpose of this research project is twofold: to provide a brief description of the history of the steelpan and its integration into the United States education system in order to illustrate the need for original compositions and to serve as a guide to the teaching process of each composition provided. This paper will also give a detailed explanation …

An Approach To Jazz Improvisation For Intermediate Saxophonists, Justin Evangelist

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project is an organization of the author’s thoughts on teaching jazz improvisational concepts to saxophonists at a beginning to intermediate level of playing ability. Firstly, it discusses the skills students should acquire before studying jazz improvisation. It will focus primarily on building good practice habits through the development of desirable jazz tone and technique. Additionally, this project will offer explanations for understanding how jazz standards are constructed in terms of form and how they are performed. Lastly, this project will introduce several basic concepts the student can use to construct improvised melodies, such as modal scales, blues scales, seventh …

The Art And Science Of Becoming A Successful Studio Teacher, Teresa A. Bellamy

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

For most professional musicians, it is important to possess the skills necessary to be a studio teacher. While it is crucial to be confident in the actual pedagogical technique required of an instrumental teacher, it is imperative that music teachers also have a thorough knowledge of proper business and marketing tools. In this project, a close examination of the methods used to acquire and use such skills has been made. The research for this project was done in the form of interviews. Four professional music teachers were interviewed on the above topics.

An Exploration Of The French And American Schools Of Classical Saxophone, Sarah E. Miracle

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project is an exploration of the relatively short history of the classical saxophone genre. It will focus mainly on the styles created by Marcel Mule, the second professor of saxophone at the Paris Conservatory, and Larry Teal, the first full-time professor of saxophone in America. Mule and Teal’s contrasting ideas of playing and teaching created distinct French and American schools of classical saxophone playing. This project explores the similarities and differences between these two schools of thought, and places them each in historical and cultural contexts. In addition, it traces the subsequent lineage of prominent saxophone performers and pedagogues, …

Understanding And Implementing Extended Saxophone Techniques, Tyler R. Bokman

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Contemporary classical music often pushes the boundaries of how instruments should be played and what kinds of sounds they should produce. A great deal of contemporary music requires the player to utilize playing techniques that may seem very strange and difficult to those who are unfamiliar with them. These unusual practices, known as extended techniques, can include playing in extreme ranges, manipulating pitches in particular ways, and applying abnormal articulations. While once seen as a sort of novelty, these extended techniques are becoming increasingly essential to the contemporary musician. This is especially true of the saxophonist.

While nearly every other …