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Music Theory Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Music Theory

Bluegrass: A Voicing, Cade Botts Aug 2023

Bluegrass: A Voicing, Cade Botts

Masters Theses

In 2010, Fred Bartenstein’s detailed the voice stackings found in bluegrass in his article “Bluegrass Voicings.” [1]This paper will go beyond this discussion of the arrangement of voices to an examination of the harmonic voicing styles found in bluegrass music. Stamps-Braxter’s 1937 arrangement of “Farther Along”[2] and transcriptions of recordings by bluegrass legends Bill Monroe, Stanley Brothers, Reno & Smiley, the Osborne Brothers, Dolly Parton, and the Grascals will be used as a case study to look at multiple chord voicings. Based on the analyses of these transcriptions, a list of “voice leading conventions” for bluegrass compositions will …


Experimenting With Colors In Music: Making And Breaking Rules In The Butterfly Effect, Chloe King May 2023

Experimenting With Colors In Music: Making And Breaking Rules In The Butterfly Effect, Chloe King

Honors Theses

The following thesis is a culmination of four years of academic and musical development as a percussionist at the University of Mississippi. It offers a discussion and analysis of my original composition, The Butterfly Effect (2021-2023), exploring the compositional process from preliminary sketches to the finalized score. It also discusses the inspiration for composing an original work, the use of different music theory techniques relevant to an analysis of the work, and comparisons to relevant compositions throughout the history of Western music. The Butterfly Effect experiments with compositional techniques that often depart from established rules of harmony and counterpoint, a …


A Composer's Perspective On The Clarinet Concerto, Sarah Marze Apr 2023

A Composer's Perspective On The Clarinet Concerto, Sarah Marze

Honors Scholar Theses

While seminal literature on concerto form analysis and compositions for clarinet and orchestra has been conducted, this undergraduate thesis is an exploration from a young composer’s perspective. My priority was discovering the breadth of what the clarinet concerto has to offer in order to learn how to place my own work as a composer into historical, cultural and aesthetic contexts.
First, I present an abridged history of the clarinet concerto. Despite this musical form being hundreds of years old, concerto composition is still relevant today because it is a display of balance; the best concerti are delicate balancing acts of …


One Bite At A Time: Writing In The Theory Classroom, Jennifer Shafer England Mar 2023

One Bite At A Time: Writing In The Theory Classroom, Jennifer Shafer England

Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy

Prose writing in the music theory classroom is often a daunting task for both instructors and students. For instructors, the very thought of the heavy grading load associated with writing assignments combined with the difficulty that we know students encounter when writing about music (especially if students’ general written communication skills are still developing) can be overwhelming, even if we personally believe that our students would benefit from engaging in written communication about music. For many students, communication in written form is a skill that they are still developing, and writing about music only adds an additional challenge—especially when they …


Rachmaninoff The Harmonist: The "Rachmaninoff Sixth" And Its Analysis In His Music, Jay Forsythe Jan 2023

Rachmaninoff The Harmonist: The "Rachmaninoff Sixth" And Its Analysis In His Music, Jay Forsythe

Honors Program Theses

The music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), Russia’s great pianist, conductor, and composer, has often been maligned by critics and musicologists alike for its reluctance to follow the avant-garde of the music world into that great adventure of experiments in atonality and non-common-practice technique of the early twentieth century. Although the composer’s works are beloved by audiences worldwide, they have often faced complex critical reception for the composer’s supposed conservatism and relative lack of expressive palette. Francis Maes, author of A History of Russian Music, lamented that “he lacked the exuberant imagination and subtle aestheticism of [Tchaikovsky],” and wrote that Rachmaninoff’s …


Rhythmic Theory Pedagogy, Ways Of Knowing, And Experiential Learning, Ben Duinker Jan 2023

Rhythmic Theory Pedagogy, Ways Of Knowing, And Experiential Learning, Ben Duinker

Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy

This article proposes an approach to rhythmic theory pedagogy that foregrounds the intersection of performance, creation, and analysis. Daphne Leong’s recent work on this intersection uses the German verbs wissen (knowing that), können (knowing how), and kennen (knowing of) to describe the different kinds of knowledge generated and utilized by theorists and performers. I use Leong’s theory to identify a mismatch, or gap, between what undergraduate students learn about rhythm in the theory classroom and what their practical needs are as music majors—a plurality of whom specialize in performance. As a means of remedying this mismatch, I use David Kolb’s …


Volume 37, Various Authors Jan 2023

Volume 37, Various Authors

Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy

Volume 37 of the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy.


The Percussionist's Guide To Music Theory Fundamentals, Mckenna M. Lee Jan 2023

The Percussionist's Guide To Music Theory Fundamentals, Mckenna M. Lee

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The research priorities that I have established as a theorist, percussionist, and an instructor of both, have led me to a master's thesis project combining music theory practices within the study and performance of percussion repertoire. As the graduate assistant of the percussion department at West Virginia University, I have been teaching applied orchestral percussion lessons and leading percussion ensembles. In my experience, a number of first-year percussionists in the studio at WVU have had a limited background with reading definite pitches on the staff, and struggle with sight-reading and pitch identification, therefore making their Written I and Aural I …