Ethnomusicology Commons^™

Texas Exceptionalism And Texas Style Fiddling: Fiddle Contests, Patriarchs, And Musical Markers, Emilie Catlett

Music Theses and Dissertations

The phrase “Texas Fiddle Player” indicates a unique musical identity within the Greater North American Fiddling community. Beyond fiddle tunes, fiddling culture involves technical diversity, interpersonal relationships, various performance contexts, teaching and learning, and the stories making up a community’s collective memory. The Texas Fiddle Player identity is the result of a process of connecting these aspects of fiddling culture to symbols and narratives that evoke a specific kind of “Texan-ness.” This process is a form of musical Texas Exceptionalism, in that it asserts a belief that Texas Fiddle Players are somehow different from their American fiddling peers. This manifests …

Singing Planets Don't Sing; They Speak, Joanna R. Lauer

Musical Offerings

Ancient Greek philosophers conceived a theory called Music of the Spheres. This ancient theory progressed for almost one thousand years before finally proving itself untrustworthy. However, this examination uncovers an overlooked fact: the large amount of natural order in sound and music existing before the creation of man. Scripture reveals that God is a God of order, and an extensive amount of natural order is found in the universe. Evidence points to God being the creator of the universe. Specific examples of such evidence are the inherent order of sound laid out in pitches, interval ratios, the overtone series, the …

A Herderian Perspective On Finland, Sibelius, And The Kalevala, Philip R. Cataldo

Musical Offerings

Situated amidst the revolutionary spirits of 19^th-century Europe, Finnish nationalists sought to bring an end to roughly half a millennium of foreign rule for their land and their people. According to the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, a community must have a common language and a common history in order to constitute a nation. At this time, Finland had neither. Although Herder’s political philosophy is considered crucial to understanding the nationalist movements that took place in Europe during this period, Finland’s peculiar success in attaining and sustaining independence has until this point remained unexplained relative to a Herderian …

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.

Bring It On Home: A Decolonial Analysis Of Musical Instruments In The Penn Museum, Pierre Li Peters

Anthropology Senior Theses

In conversations focused on decolonizing institutional spaces like ethnographic museums, repatriation remains a contentious goal. Whether museums are willing to change their ethics and practices to relinquish these spoils is one issue, but poor documentation continues to severely hinder efforts of returning objects to source communities. As such, this project reflects on musical instruments in ethnographic archives and their unique representations of cultural heritage, using an ‘ukulele (29-58-122) from the Penn Museum’s collections as a case study. Investigating the provenance of this instrument and connecting it with the cultural significance of its construction (design, use, etc.) will create valuable discussions …

Five Thousand Years Of Egyptian Double-Pipes And Musical Cultural Influences, Samuel T. Holtkamp

ATU Research Symposium

Ancient Egypt was one of the earliest of human societies to pursue the development of music, and many of the musical concepts they pioneered over five-thousand years ago are still in use. Along with the preservation of musical ideas, certain ancient Egyptian instruments have also stood the test of time, through both preservation and evolution. However, the development of these instruments from their ancient to modern forms is sparsely discussed. Along with this, virtually no research explores the evolution of these instrument forms from a chronological context. This paper seeks to investigate and chronologize forms of the ancient Egyptian double-pipe, …

Silent Music And Sacred Sounds Of The Hoysaḷas: Visual And Aural Sensory Experiences In Jain And Hindu Temples, Vani Vignesh

Jain Studies

This project examines affective responses to temple spaces and investigates how visual and aural sensory stimulations can amplify people’s experiences in Jain and Hindu temples through ethnographic research and qualitative interviews. It involves the study of the traditional Indian methods of designing and planning temples to understand their place in contemporary South Indian devotion. This project focuses on two twelfth century temples built by the Hoysaḷa dynasty in the South Indian state of Karnāṭaka—the Jain Pārśvanātha basadi (temple) at Haḷēbīḍu and the Hindu Vaiṣṇava Chennakēśava temple at Bēlūru—to show that their location, design, and structure were planned to cater to …

Fellowship Application Sample, Ryan Ebright

ICS Fellow Applications

No abstract provided.

Making American Opera After Einstein, Ryan Ebright Dr.

ICS Fellow Lectures

In the wake of the avant-garde opera Einstein on the Beach in 1976, opera in the United States experienced a renaissance, one which has continued to the present. My book project, Making American Opera after Einstein, centers on contemporary attempts to remake opera in an American image. In it, I detail how American opera—as a genre, a sphere of cultural institutions, an expression of national identity—has transformed significantly over the past four decades. Whereas many composers embrace operatic convention, tailoring their operas to audiences through adaptations of cherished American stories, others attempt to test the genre’s aesthetic boundaries. By exploring …

Listening To The World: A Brief Survey Of World Music, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

A short and engaging introduction to music around the world.

Listen to the world. Explore music from around the globe. Acquaint yourself with a variety of international music styles and traditions. Investigate issues in popular music from both a social perspective (such as race, religion, language, economics, gender, diaspora, and politics), as well as an intrinsically musical position (beat, pitch, meter, rhythm, form, timbre, texture). Learn about how music reinforces values and negotiates tradition with innovation; how rural and urban contexts inform musical experiences; how soundscapes shape identity. Learn how to collect sounds and ask questions: what is this instrument’s …

Ol Woman Blong Wota (The Women Of The Water), Sandy Sur, Ashley Burgess, Maeve Mckenna, Catherine Grant

World Music Textbook

The women of Leweton have been performing Water Music for international audiences since the founding of the Leweton Cultural Village in 2008, and have been practising this tradition for as long as they remember. The women performers who feature in this film are Denilla Frazer, Melinda Frazer, Jerolyn Frazer, Beverley Frazer, Cecilia Tingris, Cicilia Wari, Marie Sur, Sonrin Sur, Trisha Sur, and Margaret Tingris.

The Japanese Shakuhachi: Comparing The Ancient Tuning With The Modern One, Nick Bellando, Bruno Deschênes

Music & Musical Performance

The difference between traditional and modern shakuhachi construction and tuning is significant in that it represents a paradigm shift in the psychological aim and embodied techniques employed in association with the instrument. Beginning in Edo-era Japan as an ostensibly religious instrument, the shakuhachi was at first played with a similar technique to its predecessor, the hitoyogiri, using the breath to modify pitch and giving priority to tone color. Coming into the modern era, the shakuhachi came to be used increasingly as a modern musical instrument; the resulting higher priority of pitch-precision brought about changes in construction and playing techniques …

Does Gender Matter? Gendered Relations In The Recording Studios, Diane Wong

Theses and Dissertations

Only 8.6% of all recording engineers currently employed in the United States are women. To understand the influence of a woman’s gender in their recording career, this study presents their experiences from multiple angles – the recording studio business, women engineers’ obstacles, the recording education pipeline, and diversity and inclusion in the industry.

Revolutionary Songs From Myanmar: Reconsidering Scholarly Perspectives On Protest Music, Heather Maclachlan

Music Faculty Publications

Since the February 1, 2021 military coup in Myanmar, Burmese musicians have been creating and circulating anti- coup songs. This article describes a representative sample of these songs, explaining how the lyrics reference important tropes in Burmese life and history. Further, the article argues that these anti-coup songs, while they can be understood as protest music, do not fit precisely into categories previously delineated for protest songs. Nor do these songs provide a neat answer to the question that scholars so often pose of protest music, to wit: do these songs work to persuade listeners to take an anti-authoritarian position? …

Unconventional Wisdom In Resonating Echoes Of The Past: A Memoir On The Life And Music Of Royal Hartigan, Joseph Elias Boulos

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Unconventional Wisdom in Resonating Echoes of the Past:

A Memoir on the Life and Music of royal hartigan

Joseph Elias Boulos

Detailed fieldwork achieved by people in the discipline of social/humanistic studies, specifically ethnomusicologists, in any form: book, biography, documentary, etc., have contributed to the strengthening the understanding of any group of people, community, or culture. This research project is a co-authored memoir grounded in oral history and collaborative ethnography on, and with, Dr. royal hartigan. The purpose of this ethnographic research is to fill in the lack of information readily available on royal, from his sole perspective, and to …

Musikah V’Ḥalil, “Music And The Flute”: The Use Of Jewish Prayer In Flute And Piano Music, Kathryn Rudnik

Dissertations, 2020-current

Music has been a part of Jewish life since Biblical times and remains an integral part of the culture. Within Jewish music, instruments have also played an important role historically. The flute has been traced through Judaism back to Biblical times; however, it has lost prominence in modern synagogue and religious services. As Western music has developed into the twenty-first century, composers, both Jewish and Gentile, have been exposed to the music of the Jewish communities, some of whom have utilized it in their own compositions. Compositions based on Jewish prayer melodies have brought up the question of whether the …

Etcètera Ii: Notes Sobre Música, Art I Literatura (2020-2022), Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

A compilation of essays on music, the arts, and literature previously published in Bellver, the arts section of Diario de Mallorca (2020-2022). This is the second part of ETCETERA.

The Double Silence: Reflections On Music And Musicians, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

A translation of EL DOBLE SILENCI, published in Catalan in 2003. The book is a compilation of essays originally published in Diario de Mallorca (2000-2003).

An Acute Sense Of Place: The Songs Of Norman Blake, Thomas Jutz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

American flat-picking guitarist, singer and songwriter Norman Blake holds legendary status among guitar players, bluegrass, and folk musicians.

The aim of this research is to analyze the interaction of sense of place in Norman Blake’s songwriting. This research will explore the techniques Blake uses to create that acute sense of place. Elements of literary criticism, cultural geography, ethnomusicology, and sense of place studies, as well as historical background information on Northern Alabama and North Georgia will be employed to show how this particular region of Southeastern Appalachia has informed Blake’s songwriting.

The research questions that I aim to answer are …

Joyful, Joyful! The Musical Significance Of Beethoven's Ninth, Allison N. Zieg

Musical Offerings

Almost everyone is familiar with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and the famous four note motif that represents fate knocking at the door. His Third Symphony, or “The Heroic Symphony” that was originally written for Napoleon Bonaparte, enjoyed great success and helped shape the future of classical music. However, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony which contains the well-known tune “Ode to Joy” most drastically impacted classical music’s future. Beethoven was a master at taking simple ideas and combining them with past musical traditions to create something extravagant and new. This is most evident in his Ninth Symphony. In this work, Beethoven did something that …