Composition Commons^™

To Launch A Thousand Ships, Daniel Silva

Theses and Dissertations

Inspired by Madeline Miller’s novel The Song of Achilles (2012), To Launch a Thousand Ships is a four-movement orchestral piece that depicts the story of Achilles and the Trojan War.

Guide To The Doug Lofstrom Music Collection, College Archives & Special Collections

Collection Guides / Finding Aids

A composer and bassist whose scores reflect his involvement in theater, dance, film and symphonic music, Doug Lofstrom also formed The New Quartet, a chamber ensemble which performs original music and arrangements, Trillium, and, most recently, joined the group The Last Word. He was composer-in-residence for the Metropolis Symphony Orchestra and musical director of Chicago's Free Street Theatre before joining the faculty of Columbia College Chicago’s Music Department.

Russell Shenton: “Men Of Steel”, Ryan Kelly , Editor

Applied Music Faculty Publications & Performances

F. Russell Shenton was born in Pottstown, PA in 1894. He worked for a time at Lukens Steel in Coatesville, PA before forging a career in music. He studied music at Millersville State Normal School (now Millersville University, PA) for two years before enlisting in the army during World War I, where he served from 1917-1919 in the 316 Infantry, 79th Division, beginning as a Bugler and completing his service with the rank of Musician 1st Class. He earned a Victory Medal for his service in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Following his discharge, he continued studying music at West Chester State …

Psalm Cycle, Andrew Lenko

West Chester University Master’s Theses

“Psalm Cycle” is a collection of Psalms set to music and inspired by a season of studying the life of David, the primary Psalmist. Each Psalm was picked for its vantage point in David’s life and specific themes, striving for parity. Formally, the work is like a song cycle in that the various movements are connected through their authorship and place in David’s story, while resembling a cantata in that it can be performed in a worship service. As the project took shape, I diverged musically from either form’s constraints and allowed myself to interpret the text with my own …

The Goat: Rescoring A Buster Keaton Classic, Shannon Bradley

West Chester University Master’s Theses

This thesis examines Buster Keaton’s The Goat (1921) and provides insight into the methods used to rescore the music of this classic silent film. After a brief review of Keaton’s life and career, I will discuss each step in the process of understanding this film and determining the best methods of implementing music to enhance the film. This process includes creating detailed spotting notes for each scene, sketching most of the central musical themes using my preferred traditional composition software, Sibelius, and finally transferring this musical information into my preferred digital audio workstation, Logic, in order to sync all aspects …

Architone•Ics: The Music Of Architecture — Music As An Entry Point For Understanding Architectural Design, Deborah J. Oakley, Diego Vega

Creative Collaborations

Architecture and Music share many fundamental concepts in common. German polymath Goethe famously described architecture as “frozen music.” Numerous renowned architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Kahn among others, were also accomplished musicians and wrote of the connections between the two disciplines. A particularly noteworthy example of overlapping and crossing boundaries is the Greco-French composer Iannas Xenakis. Regarded as an influential figure in late 20th century avant-garde music, his first education and occupation, was actually as a structural engineer for famed architect LeCorbusier. He later practiced architecture himself before focusing on music composition, for which he is better known. …

Stylistic Changes In The Music Of Ruth Crawford Seeger, Xinlei Chu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

While the body of Ruth Crawford Seeger’s works is not extensive, her musical legacy cannot be ignored. As a central member of the “ultramoderns,” her work influenced the next generation of American composers such as Elliot Carter. This research document examines the stylistic changes of Crawford’s music throughout her career as a composer. Taking into account the various influences that could have impacted her compositional style over time, three pieces were selected for in-depth analysis from different times in Crawford’s life. The first two pieces analyzed are the first movement of Diaphonic Suite No. 2 and the third movement of …

“I’M Sorry”: An Original Song For Voice And Chordal Accompaniment, Lauren T. Steadman, Nolan Stolz

University of South Carolina Upstate Student Research Journal

Below is an original song written for mezzo-soprano voice and accompaniment. The purpose of this article is to provide information on the songwriting process that I used by discussing the melody, harmony, and lyrics and showing how they were developed and completed.

This article discusses and defines musical terms for musicians and non-musicians alike to show why certain decisions were made. I begin by discussing the lyrics of the song and their meaning. I will reference methods included in J. Perricone’s book Great Songwriting Techniques to discuss how the chords and melodies relate to the lyrics.

The song is notated …

The Psalmodia Project, Saulo Moura

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The Psalmodia Project is a set of twelve compositions based on the text of preselected psalms from the Bible. The book of Psalms, part of the wisdom literature section of the Biblical Canon, is a kaleidoscope of human emotions with a total of 150 poems describing ancient Hebrew stories of faith full of plot nuances easily represented by musical expression. The compositions cover a large variety of musical genres, from Latin jazz to classical music, from small to large ensembles, with an instrumentation that employs sounds from all five different instrumental families: keyboards, strings, percussion (pitched and non-pitched), woodwinds, and …

Constructing A Cultural Bridge: The Compositional Approach And International Impact Of Albert Mangelsdorff’S Now Jazz Ramwong, Michael Desousa

Theses and Dissertations--Music

In the period following World War II, countries such as Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand were under constant intellectual bombardment from global superpowers vying for political influence. West Germany, a newly established ally of Western democracy, was a small part of a global effort to spread this democracy to Asia. Working alongside Joachim-Ernst Berendt and the Goethe Institute, the jazz trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff arranged an album which sought to merge both Western European and Asian music. The album, Now Jazz Ramwong (1964), and accompanying fifty-concert tour helped pioneer a lasting cultural connection between Western Europe and Asia. The methodology behind Now …

Creating An Interpretive Edition Of "Sage And Spirit", Michael Crowley

Publications and Research

This paper reports on a practice-based research project designed to create a critically edited score of Bob Weir’s Sage and Spirit for solo guitar. Since no score exists for the piece, potential performers must first go through the time-consuming process of transcription as a way to learn how it works. This may deter potential performers who are either unfamiliar with the Dead’s music or lack formal training to undertake this preliminary work. This project was designed as an attempt to bridge the gap between what musical information is available through published sources and the concerns of the music’s potential performers. …

Senior Independent Study In Music Composition By Molly Leach, Molly E. Leach

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

A Renaissance: The Absurd Retelling Of Mostly True Events, Erica R. Hitzman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Throughout the following you will be taken on a fantastical retelling of the exhibition A Renaissance, and some of what lead up to it. Through the eyes of various shifting perspectives you will explore the relationships between the artist, her art, and the viewer in the hopes of unveiling how the work plays into feminist theory, its place in the Zeitgeist, and the motivations behind it. Each perspective is formatted differently, to visually mirror the shift in perspective. Presented in the first person and aligned to the right, the account of the artist discusses the process, emotion, and inspiration behind …

Words, Music, Memory: An Exploration Of Four Soprano Song Cycles By Lori Laitman Based On Poetry By Victims Of The Holocaust, Sheena Ramirez

Dissertations, 2020-current

This Doctor of Musical Arts document is an exploration of the four soprano song cycles by Lori Laitman based on text settings from victims of the Holocaust, with a specific focus on the compositional and performance devices that both underpin the power of words to bear witness to lived experience and ensure the process of musical commemoration as an act of historical preservation. Lori Laitman (b. 1955) has composed ten distinct song cycles commemorating victims of the Holocaust, of which four are included in this study – I Never Saw Another Butterfly, In Sleep the World is Yours, The Ocean …

The Temple Of Immensity: For Choir And Electronics, Steven Naylor

Honors Projects

the temple of immensity is a composition for 16-part choir and fixed media electronics composed by Steven Naylor using astronomical data concerning the stars nearest to Earth and their properties. “The temple of immensity” is an archaic and rarely used term, defined as “the universe or the complete overhead expanse of the heavens, especially as conceived as an object of religious reverence.” This piece seeks to convey feelings of wonder and awe for outer space through the setting of an original self-composed poem and through the use of star data to determine musical aspects. The resulting 28-minute composition blends voices …

Concertina For 12 Musicians, Michael Boss

Music Theses and Dissertations

There is ample repertoire that demonstrates bitonality and polytonality. Composers like Bartok used bitonality in his piano piece Mikrokosmos. Within neo-classicalism, Stravinsky used an aggressive and biting bitonality in his most famous work, The Rite of Spring.

But these techniques are not exclusive to the orchestral or chamber music idioms. Jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus was no stranger to executing these schemes within the improvisational work Zoo-Bab-Da-Oo-Ee, a simple blues tune he wrote early in the development of his musical canon. Over the course of the piece, the harmonic tissue becomes thematic. It is common practice within this …

Constructivist Peer Review In Music Theory And Composition Courses: Technologies And Practice, Brendan Mcconville

Journal of the Association for Technology in Music Instruction

This article considers the supporting technologies and practices for effective semi-anonymous peer review in traditional music theory and composition-related courses: orchestration, arranging, and composition. A coordinated approach probes two questions nested within one broad case study: (1) does the use of peer review in music theory and composition-related courses create meaningful, constructivist-inspired learning experiences, and (2) what web technologies can efficiently and effectively accomplish its activities? The article first provides a constructivist theoretical framework; next, it explains the methodologies, technologies, and resulting feedback from using peer review in a three-course study; and finally it provides concluding remarks on the many …

Engaging With The Score: Wadada Leo Smith, Graphic Notation, And The Performer’S Perspective, Kennedy Taylor Dixon

Masters Theses

As a Composer/Performer, my work exists in both realms. This thesis reflects the principle that my experience as a violist influences my compositional process and vice versa. Since identifying under both artistic skill sets, it has become evident that the two areas that exist as a creative and presentational output, thrive off one another’s success.

In June 2019, I had the chance to play Wadada Leo Smith’s String Quartet No. 3: Black Church, The First World Gathering of the Spirit (1995) at the Nief-Norf Summer Festival. This encounter was the first time I interacted with graphically notated scores as a …

Home Quartet, Oliver Bonie

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

"You Are Safe. You Are Calm. You Are In Control.", Carly Erst

Graduate Thesis Collection

"You are safe. You are calm. You are in control." is a piece written out of a state of emotional and physical exhaustion. The piece uses an electronic track comprised of the sounds of distressed children recorded at a daycare and a flex string quintet that plays along with the track. This paper explores the reasoning behind the music, the connections the piece has to the past, and the relevance of the piece now and in the future.