Composition Commons^™

The Effect Of Post-Production On Storytelling In Narrative And Documentary Filmmaking, Natalie Pace

Senior Honors Theses

Documentaries and narrative films both tell stories in different ways. A common saying states that narrative filmmakers write one movie, shoot another, and edit a third. In postproduction, timelines are rearranged, montages are created, new dialog and voiceovers are written, and the score can alter the mood and meaning entirely. Documentaries can change even more over the course of their creation. Usually, the script of the documentary is not written until the edit, after most of the interviews and B roll have been shot. This paper examines whether documentary post-production makes more or less use of storytelling techniques than does …

Real-Time Audio-Midi Controller, Brian Shino Balberchak

Computer Engineering

Most MIDI controllers used in music production use a regular keyboard to generate the MIDI notes that are sent to the synthesizer. This project aims to provide the user with a different way of generating MIDI data: by playing an instrument of their choice with a passive electronic pickup to generate MIDI notes that correspond with the fundamental frequency of the musical pitch being played. The pitch-detecting algorithm used in this application utilizes a modified form of auto-correlation.

As an embedded systems project that uses signal-processing techniques, the knowledge of topics from the following courses was essential:

EE 211: Op-Amp …

The Sunlight Cycle, Michael Flynn

Masters Theses

The Sunlight Cycle is a work in four movements which evokes certain time periods within a 24-hour day. In order of number, the movements are meant to represent dawn, daytime, twilight, and night, respectively. Each movement transitions seamlessly into the next, with Mvt. 4, “Nocturnal,” transitioning back to the beginning of Mvt. 1, “Matutinal”. This cyclical nature allows for a performance of the cycle to begin with any of the four movements. Theoretically, the work can repeat indefinitely.

Musically, the work develops in three main areas: harmony, rhythm, and timbre. Harmonically, the work is tonal, featuring extended and altered triadic …

Anxiety And Alternative Facts: An Arts-Based Critical Social Improvisation Project, Rebecca Zarate, Nancy Beardall, Talaye Zarafshandardaky, Brooke Rutstein

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

According to Grayson and Meilman (2011) the stakes are too high in current campus culture to not acknowledge the social roots of mental health issues such as anxiety, and concerns of students as related to campus safety. This arts-based, music performance project responded to concerns on campus from recent political and social events. More specifically, it aimed to explore the concept of “alternative facts” and how this idea plays with the collective concepts of truth and falsifications. It explored applications of clinical improvisation and the concept of collective anxiety as a social phenomenon expressed through arts including music, dance, and …

Concerto For Horn And Orchestra And Sofia Gubaidulina's Serialism, Michael Paul Mitchell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This work is in two parts. The first is a composition for horn and orchestra by the author, using a variety of styles that I have learned while at Louisiana State University and inspired by the pieces I have played on the horn. The second part is an analysis of Sofia Gubaidulina’s works that include twelve-tone serial techniques and the devices she uses in them and how her style changed through composing these three pieces, Piano Sonata (1965), Five Etudes for Harp, Double Bass, and Percussion, and Night in Memphis composed in 1968. After these pieces Gubaidulina leaves the …

Transcribing And Editing The Selected Works Of Robert Fleming Through Sibelius Music Software, Annaleise A. Lee

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Transcribing and Editing the Selected Works of Robert Fleming Through Sibelius Music Software

A Content Analysis Of Beginning Guitar, Electric Bass, And String Bass Method Books, Michele Berlin

Masters Theses

Guitar instruction is an integral part of 21st-century best music education practices. This quantitative study compares six beginning guitar method books to beginning electric bass and string bass books. The books in the sample are Essential Elements for Guitar by Will Schmid and Bob Morris, Mel Bay's Modern Guitar Method Grade 1 Expanded Edition, Alfred's Basic Guitar Method by Morty Manus and Ron Manus, FJH Young Beginner Guitar Method Lesson Book 1, Belwin 21st Century Guitar Method 1 (2nd edition) by Aaron Stang, and KJOS Guitar Sessions Book 1: A Comprehensive Method for Individual or Group Study by Kevin Daley. …

2017-2018 New Music Festival, Scott Wheeler, Lisa Leonard

New Music Festival

Twelfth Annual New Music Festival

• Scott Wheeler, Composer-in-Residence
• Lisa Leonard, Director

Friday, January 19, 2018 at 7:30 pm

• Spotlight I: Young Composers

Saturday, January 20, 2018 at 1:00 pm

• Master Class with Scott Wheeler

Sunday, January 21, 2018 at 4:00 pm

• Spotlight II: Scott Wheeler

Commissioned Work

Nightingale: Scenes from a Ballet by Scott Wheeler. The full score is displayed in the Creative Works collection.

In Old Bruges: Two Pieces For Chromatic Carillon, Emmanuel M. Dubois

Emmanuel Dubois Compositions

Op. 15/54: 1 score (iii + 6 pages) ; includes foreword

The two carillon pieces Op. 15/54, "In Old Bruges", are written for a non-transposing chromatic 48-bell instrument, ranging from c3 to c7, where c#3 is omitted, or, in organ notation, ranging from c to c4, where c# is omitted.

Movements:

1. Prelude – Sunday market (Three-part canonic palindrome)
2. Allegretto – Promenade

Compositional Craft And Theory Across Tonal Languages, Liam Butchart

Honors Theses

This paper accompanies Liam Butchart's senior honors voice recital and his composition for the Colby Symphony Orchestra, Genevan Overture. The essay examines how form and cadence, two integral components of compositional craft, have been utilized by composers who either were included in the voice recital or were major influences on the composition. Specifically, the paper analyzes how different composers end their musical sentences similarly and differently through the lens of structurally-relevant cadences.

Red Note New Music Festival Program, 2018, School Of Music,

Red Note New Music Festival

The RED NOTE New Music Festival at Illinois State University is a week-long event which features outstanding performances of contemporary concert music.

Overgrown, Tori C. Ovel

Graduate Thesis Collection

OVERGROWN discusses the music elements found in the thesis composition of the same name.

OVERGROWN was written for soprano solo, flute, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone, baritone saxophone, trumpet, trombone, vibraphone, percussion, cello and double bass. The text was written by Matthew Raymond Smith.

On The Presence Of Christ, William A. Peacock

Graduate Thesis Collection

On the Presence of Christ is a musical work for septet (three strings, three winds, percussion) exploring Christ’s presence throughout all time as described in Scripture, wherein the individual movements are thematically grounded and arranged from ancient past to coming future. “In the Beginning” is based on Genesis 1:1-2 and John 1:1-5; “At the Throne” is based on Revelation 4:2-11; and “With His Saints Forever” is based in Revelation 21:1-5a and 22-23. I use these chosen Scriptures to guide my musical exploration, allowing my reflections and perspectives on them to give this music its substance and form My hope is …

An Analysis And Performance Guide Of Steve Reich’S Mallet Quartet, Francisco S. Perez

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Steve Reich’s music has had a profound effect on the contemporary percussionist’s repertoire. More recently, his Mallet Quartet (2009) has been one of the most performed works in the rising genre of mallet-keyboard quartets, which was featured in Third Coast Percussion’s 2017 Grammy-winning album Third Coast Percussion | Steve Reich. With Mallet Quartet, Reich codified this type of ensemble into the contemporary repertoire of percussion as evidenced through current commissions in progress by groups such as Sō Percussion and Third Coast Percussion.

The purpose of this document is to delineate the trajectory (past and present) of the mallet-keyboard …

John Williams: An Evaluation Of His Impact Upon The Culture Of The Classical Guitar, Michael O'Toole

Doctoral

This thesis examines the career of the Australian guitarist John Williams and his impact upon the culture of the classical guitar. Williams has been a celebrated guitarist for more than six decades and has performed and recorded extensively during that period. He has made a remarkably varied contribution to guitar culture, performing in a wide variety of different styles, highlighting the guitar’s unique strength as a versatile and adaptable instrument. Williams’ career is in marked contrast to that of many of his contemporaries, including his mentor Andrés Segovia. Segovia believed the classical guitar must assert its individuality in order to …

On Myth & Music, Legend & Landscape, Science, Stars, & Story; A Portfolio Of Compositions: An Animist Aesthetic Argument On Symbolist Sound-Synergies, With Musings On Messiaen And The Taoism Of Takemitzu, In The Work Of Mulvany., Eoin Mulvany

Doctoral

The accompanying portfolio contains eight major works for disparate forces: Brú na Sídhe is a work for Large Orchestra; Bog Bodies is a work commissioned for a heterogenous Quintet; Gáeth Ard Úar is a work written for a Solo Bass/Contrabass Clarinet in B-flat; a Piano Trio, SzyzygyS, follows; a work entitled Blackwater is written for Solo Guitar; a diptych, named Sigil, written for a Dectet of Harp and Vibraphone with double String Quartet, follows; then, O Unworn World for a ten part Choral ensemble is presented as a meditation on a poem by Patrick Kavanagh; and, the last of the …

Examining The Irish Art Song: Original Song Settings Of Irish Texts By Irish Composers, 1900-1930., David Scott

Masters

Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, arrangements of Irish airs were popularly performed in Victorian drawing rooms and concert venues in both London and Dublin, the most notable publications being Thomas Moore’s collections of Irish Melodies with harmonisations by John Stephenson. Performances of Irish ballads remained popular with English audiences but the publication of Stanford’s song collection An Irish Idyll in Six Miniatures in 1901 by Boosey and Hawkes in London marks a shift to a different type of Irish song. This was a move away from the typical ‘Irish ballad,’ towards original art song settings of Irish …

My Eyes Due See, Johannes J. Barfield

Theses and Dissertations

My Eyes Due See is a multidimensional examination of the “black experience” in America. The installation is composed of a single-channel video, a music composition that utilizes music samples and live instrumentation, and sculptures made up of car parts and broomsedge grass. Each of these elements arranged in space share a nuanced and complicated view of blackness through the lens of a black man decoding personal history and American history simultaneously. Autonomy is the overarching theme throughout the work as it pertains to race, identity, urban and rural environments, and the relationship between generational trauma and nostalgia.

Lake Pleasant, Ryan Blauvelt

Graduate Thesis Collection

Lake Pleasant, a work for wind ensemble, receives its title from the composer’s memories of visiting a cottage on a small lake that straddles the border of Indiana and Michigan. The primary influence of the piece derives from the howling sound produced by the echoes of traffic noise one hears while standing on the opposite side of the lake in the quiet of night. The recollection of this soundscape takes the musical form of nine clarinets spread throughout the audience accompanied by pairs of flutes, oboes, saxophones, trumpets, and a single piccolo. While the placement of performers in the audience …

Mucp 183-983: Applied Music Composition--A Course Benchmark Portfolio, Gregory Simon

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

MUCP 183-983, Applied Music Composition, is the core of the music composition course curriculum for students at all levels, from freshman to doctoral candidate. Like all applied lesson environments, it is a one-on-one, individualized study that principally involves the instructor giving students feedback on their musical works-in-progress. This time-honored paradigm for teaching composition has produced brilliant artists, but is rife with pitfalls and traps that can tarnish a student’s growth: composition pedagogues can coerce students into writing music like their teachers, or can prescribe a curriculum that makes composition accessible only to students who have already played classical music for …