Music Practice Commons^™

A Selected Analytical Bibliography Of Works For Saxophone By Composers Associated With The Darmstadt International Summer Courses For New Music: 1946-2021, Christopher Mark Delouis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Although the saxophone is one of the most recently invented concert instruments, countless pieces of music have been written for it. This document aims to contribute to the established scholarship that examines and highlights existing saxophone repertoire, by looking specifically at composers associated with the Darmstadt International Summer Courses. Bruce Ronkin’s Londeix Guide to the Saxophone Repertoire 1844-2012 is a standard resource for the 21st century saxophonist to have. It includes some, but not all, compositions for saxophone written before 2012. By looking at this specific set of composers, with many who are alive today, this document is able to …

A Foundation For Collaboration: An Analysis Of Robert Schumann’S Dichterliebe, Op. 48, Kailang Zhan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This paper provides an analysis of Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe offering historical information and insights into each of the sixteen songs. The analysis includes the English translation of the texts and discussion of the form of each song as well as highlights of the special moments of harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic structure in relation to Schumann’s setting of each poem. The analysis provides a foundation for collaborative skills for the singer and pianist for the study and performance of Dichterliebe. In addition, the paper includes brief biographies of Robert Schumann and Heinrich Heine and background information on the poetry and …

The Three Piano Sonatas By José De Almeida Penalva, Heron Alvim Moreira

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This research project discusses the three piano sonatas by José de Almeida Penalva (1924-2002), a priest and composer from the southern region of Brazil, who lived most of his life in the city of Curitiba, in Paraná state.

Along with overall information about the composer’s life and general output, the reader will find brief discussions of Penalva’s keyboard works, along with comprehensive formal analyses of his three piano sonatas.

Sonata no. 1 (1970, chronologically the second to be written) appears in one large movement that reveals two distinct sections. Its language is atonal and its first section displays sonata-allegro form. …

Selected Principles Of Practicing For Security In Performance, Hsing-Yi Tsai

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This research focuses on extending the imagination for the purposes of activating our brain to strengthen memorization of music for a stronger and more secure performance. This research explores the concept of self-awareness in the sense of having a conversation with ourselves in order to understand the primary reasons we pianists spend hours in the practice room. I introduce selected strategies for learning pieces through a meticulous process of memorization which impacts not only new pieces, but also the resurrecting of old repertoire. Along with including the concept of the Memory Palace, I explore different methods of memorizing music to …

Touching Light: A Framework For The Facilitation Of Music-Making In Mixed Reality, Ian Thomas Riley

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Drawing upon the historical development of analog and digital technologies alongside the proliferation of computer-assisted performance practices, this research seeks to develop a framework for integrating Mixed Reality applications to live musical performance, specifically through the creation of a Microsoft HoloLens 2 Mixed Reality application in order to facilitate a live performance of an original musical composition for percussion and real-time Mixed Reality environment. Mixed Reality enables a performer to interact with virtual (holograms, VSTs, etc.) and physical (vibraphone, tuned drums, microphones, etc.) objects simultaneously. Tandem to the development of the conceptual framework was the composition of an original score …

Features Of The Performance Of Compositions By Romantic Composers In Uzbekistan ( On The Example Of Liszt's Creativity), Feruza Mukhamedova

Eurasian music science journal

Romantic art is a high example of lyrical-psychological, vital-truthful embodiment of the inner spiritual world of a person. The attraction to figurative concreteness, the desire to fill the sound of the piano with emotional warmth and intonation expressiveness, the colorful characteristics of different keys, characteristic of romantic composers, are fertile material for performers. It is difficult to count all the romantic composers of different national schools, who differ from each other in their original piano style, imaginative sphere and artistic thinking. Pianists of Uzbekistan, the most frequently performed such works of the romantics, as the piano concertos of F.Chopin, R. …

Influence And Innovation: Beethoven's Impact On The Sonatas For Piano And Cello By Mendelssohn And Chopin, Patrick T. Bellah

Dissertations, 2020-current

The bulk of the scholarship in this paper centers around Beethoven’s five sonatas written for piano and cello and how he established a new normal within the genre. This is evidenced by what are arguably the two most noteworthy sonatas for the same instrumental medium, written by Mendelssohn and Chopin, following Beethoven’s death. I posit that the five sonatas written by Beethoven establish a series of models upon which the latter two works by his successors are based.

Chapters two and three of this document are separated into subsections that detail the plausibility of Beethoven’s influence through circumstantial evidence, musical …

Developing A Systematic Approach For Teaching Beginning Improvisation Using The Concert Percussion Ensemble, Ian Mcclaflin

Dissertations

Typically, when studying percussion at a University, a student is required to be proficient at multiple aspects of percussion (snare drum, mallet keyboards, drum set, hand drumming, etc.) and work through multiple method books and solos on the different instruments. This often leaves little to no room for the study of improvisation on their instrument.

Examined in this study are the following points pertaining to the state of teaching improvisation:

• There is an apparent lack of improvisation in the classroom
• Teachers often feel unprepared in teaching improvisation
• Improvisation is most commonly associated with jazz
• Both teachers and students tend to …

My Mind And Me, Van Powell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

“My Mind and Me” is a three-movement musical work written by Van Powell that was based off of a poem written by his grandmother Joyce Beshears. The piece contains many aspects of classical music such as instrumentation and form yet has more of a modern feel regarding aspects such as harmony and vocal style. The piece is written for a female alto vocal, guitar, two violins, viola, cello, and double bass. The poem that the piece is interpreting gives incite into the disassociation of a woman’s mind and body. While analyzing herself the author comes to terms with her strengths …

Essay Topic: Tempo Rubato In Chopin's Ballade No.4, Op.52: A Study In Performance Practice, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Composing Irishness: Remembrances Of The Irish Past Through The Prism Of The Present In Music By Donnacha Dennehy (B. 1970) And Jennifer Walshe (B. 1974), Timothy Diovanni

Masters

Although modern remembrances in the fields of literature, theatre, poetry, and the visual arts have received considerable scholarly attention in Ireland since the publication of History and Memory in Modern Ireland in 2001, similar activities in an Irish art music context remain unexplored. This thesis addresses this lacuna in examining how the contemporary Irish composers Donnacha Dennehy (b. 1970) and Jennifer Walshe (b. 1974) have remembered, reimagined, and reinvented the past to communicate their positions on Irish history and modern Irish society, as well as to respond to recent historical and curatorial practices. Through a series of five works written …

Mashing Through The Conventions: Convergence Of Popular And Classical Music In The Works Of The Piano Guys, Alina Kiryayeva

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is dedicated to examining the symbiosis between popular music and Western classical music in classical/popular mashups––a new style within the classical crossover genre. The research features the works of The Piano Guys, a contemporary ensemble that combines classical crossover characteristics and the techniques from modern sample-based styles to reconceptualize and reuse classical and popular works. This fusion demonstrates a new approach to presenting multi-genre works, forming a separate musical and cultural niche for this creative practice.

This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter is further divided into two thematic discourses: genre and authorship. The research draws …

Coltrane Plays The Blues: Multi-Level Coherence And Stylistic Tendencies, Lukas Gabric

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As a principal musical figure of the twentieth century, John Coltrane created a legacy that still resonates with listeners. Similarly, the blues may be regarded as one of the most iconic genres of the twentieth century. This dissertation examines Coltrane’s shifting stylistic tendencies to the blues and explores structural relationships with reductive voice leading analysis. As a variation form, the blues poses issues of continuity since every chorus may be regarded as self-sufficient and internally closed. Voice leading analysis provides a powerful explanation for the fact that Coltrane’s blues solos may be perceived as structurally unified. I also develop a …

The Effect Of Vocal Warm-Up On Voice Quality Of Untrained Female Singers In Malaysia, Wei Shean Ter

Student Works (2020-2029)

Professional singers and singing teachers regard vocal warm-up as vital. However, very few studies have evaluated this effect quantitatively. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of the vocal warm-up on the singing voice quality through acoustic parameters of Jitter, Shimmer and harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) and to assess whether scientific evidence supports the warm-up procedure, whether an untrained singer can benefit from singing vocal warm-up exercises in a similar way as a trained singer and whether the vocal warm-up should be encouraged or bypassed. 40 untrained female singers were recorded twice while uttering the vowel /a/, /o/ and /i/ in …

Singing In The Beginning Band Classroom, Sarah J. Moyer

Masters Theses, 2020-current

The purpose of this action research study is to explore the impact vocal activities have on fourth and fifth grade beginning band students and how their perspective might change throughout instruction. The participants' experience with vocal activities in the beginning instrumental classroom will shape their perspective. The following research questions guide this study:

1. In what ways do vocal activities in the beginning instrumental classroom influence student knowledge of repertoire?
2. In what way do vocal activities boost student confidence in the beginning instrumental classroom?
3. What aspects of vocal activities encourage or discourage students from participating in the beginning instrumental classroom?

Data …

“Transports Of Delight”? Reviews Of Clarinet Performance In Paris And London, C. 1770 – C. 1810, Catherine J. Crisp

Performance Practice Review

Reviews of clarinet performance in Paris and London, c. 1770 – c. 1810 make specific reference to 18^th-century performance ideals, as identified by the contemporary writer Charles Burney who described the “principal excellencies of perfect execution”. The performance qualities described by Burney and their inclusion in contemporary reports is particularly valuable in assessing performances featuring the newest woodwind instrument, the clarinet. References to many of these performance qualities combine to form detailed accounts of the sonorities, technical execution and expressive qualities evident in performances given by clarinet players in Paris and London.

This article draws upon a wide …

The Effects Of Song Singing Patterns On The Vocal Singing Achievement Among Primary Level Students, Januarius Catherine Marie

Student Works (2020-2029)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of song singing patterns on the vocal achievement skills of Year 3 and Year 4 students in the primary level of music education. The participants for this study comprised of 60 students (n=60) from Year 3 and Year 4 primary levels for this study. Some students have been subjected to prior singing lessons but do not possess a systemised training in interval recognition, expression and stylistic singing and vocal singing techniques. This study employed a control group design compared to treatment group in a pre-test and post-test exercise to measure …

A Conductor's Guide To Dale Trumbore's How To Go On, Stuart Dameron

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

How To Go On is a thirty-five minute work for a cappella choir composed by Dale Trumbore from 2015 to 2017. Since its premiere, How To Go On has been performed by notable choral ensembles including The Esoterics, the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, The Singers: Minnesota Choral Artists, and Webster University’s Chamber Singers. The work was awarded the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award in 2017.

This dissertation serves as an analysis and conductor’s guide for this work through the fulfillment of several purposes: a detailed and thorough investigation into the background and history behind the …

Corporeal Analysis: The Performing Body As Analytic Site, Laura Cocks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A framework of corporeal analysis posits that the physicality of the performer can be construed as a primary analytical parameter in a work. This dissertation seeks to set up such a method of analysis largely through anecdata and autoethnography with the aim of eliciting a deeper space for additional performer-driven analyses that prioritize the bodily knowledge of performers and their physical understandings of a work. Centering around David Bird’s 2013 work for solo piccolo and “no-less-than twenty-nine spatialized piccolos,” Atolls, three main aspects of corporeal analysis will be explored. These are: performance physicality as expressive connective tissue between flutist …

Lived Experience Of Music Therapists As Musician-Therapists, Kotoe Suzuki

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

The dissertation research explored the lived experiences of music therapists who are performing musicians. A conceptual foundation of music therapists as musicians, a “musician-therapist” who is deeply versed in the unique properties of music can be identified in the literature (Ansdell & Verney, 2008; Nordoff & Robbins, 1973). The objectives of this study were to explore three topics: 1) deeper understandings of music therapists’ musical improvisation both in clinical and nonclinical settings, 2) the connection between music therapists’ personal and professional musical growth, and 3) identity formation. A qualitative method was chosen for this research including reflexive/embodied/interpretative phenomenology, and arts-based …