Music Theory Commons^™

Scale Choices, Modal Harmony, And The Interpretation Of Slash Chord Notation For “Naima” By John Coltrane, Josiah Boornazian

The IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research

This analysis of Naima is intended to provide useful conceptual tools for those who are interested in analyzing the harmonic language of modal jazz. The goals: to demonstrate the value of thinking about jazz harmony using slash chords, to suggest specific scale choice options to fit each chord in “Naima,” and to offer an explanation of how jazz composers can use modal harmony to create a sense of harmonic tension, release, and motion. Such an approach can provide a useful framework which will open new vistas of harmonic and melodic vocabulary for jazz composers, performers, and educators.

Audiotactile Music Theory And Jazz Education: Historical And Pedagogical Perspectives, Stéphane Audard

The IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research

The Audiotactile Music Theory offers new perspectives for considering the issues associated with the institutionalization of jazz education and the gradual transition from informal transmission situations to formalized curricula. The aim of this article is to show how certain central the concepts of the ‘Audiotactile Music Theory’ can be used in a dual historical and pedagogical perspective, to overcome certain dichotomies that structure discourses on jazz teaching at different times: written/oral, formal/informal and art/popular music. The Audiotactile Music Theory also allows us to question the place of jazz in music teaching institutions today, and our own pedagogical practice.

Twin Sons Of Different Mothers: Harmonic Convergence In Jazz And Classical Music, Kurt Ellenberger

The IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research

Jazz and classical music are two of the most celebrated genres of “art music.” Their origins could not be more disparate. The two genres are, on the surface, very different from one another. Yet, the humanity and creativity that shines through across time and space speak to something else at play: an unfathomably deep connection that defies the temporal, geographical, racial, and cultural differences, revealing instead the shared human spirit that is manifested in these powerful artistic expressions.

The Shape(S) Of Jazz To Come. Jazz Studies, Interpretation, Theory And Education Research Project, Ricardo Pinheiro

The IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research

Jazz Studies: interpretation, theory and education is a research project developed at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, Polytechnic University of Lisbon, that involved the collaboration between the Jazz and Composition Departments. The focus of the project coordinated by Ricardo Pinheiro (with the collaboration of Carlos Caires and Carlos Marecos) was to rethink artistic research outputs in the field of jazz studies, questioning the hegemony of the current musicological paradigm (Cook, 2014; Pinheiro and Caires 2019; Pinheiro, Caires and Neto 2024), and to explore the broad academic, scientific and artistic scope that this field can provide.

European Jazz Does Not Exist, Wouter Turkenburg

The IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research

Marion Dunkel and Josiah Boornazian have critically analyzed and evaluated important questions such as: What is jazz, and what it is not? How have its histories been written in the past? What are the various approaches in jazz historiography? Both authors provide useful suggestions to move past the confusing, standard teleological presentation of jazz history, and the methods used in the construction of jazz historiographies. I argue that jazz history must function as a dynamic and life-long applicable tool assisting the jazz musician in the decisions to be taken in musical, social, and cultural interactions.

Toxic Jazz Narratives - Dispelling The Illusory Relationship Between Suffering And Creativity, Rob Foster

The IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research

The trope of the suffering artist is a persistent theme in discussions about jazz, often overshadowing the music itself. The focus on the negative aspects of an artist's biography can inadvertently shape students' perceptions, leading them to associate artistic greatness with personal turmoil rather than with the technical and expressive aspects of the music. The emphasis on tragic life stories in introductory jazz courses can detract from a holistic understanding of the genre. Jazz should be explored as a rich tapestry of musical innovation, cultural expression, and collaborative effort, rather than through the lens of individual suffering. Highlighting the achievements …

Minority In Baroque Trumpet Repertoire: Minor-Key Literature For Baroque Trumpet, Wing Heng Victor Yuen

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The repertoire for trumpet in the Baroque era is overwhelmingly in major keys for obvious reasons. As natural trumpet is limited by design to play the notes of the harmonic series, most players have little access to sonorities outside the major scale and arpeggios within the series without the help of technical innovations such as the slide, and much later, vent-holes. Baroque trumpet makers built valveless natural trumpets, which are limited by design to play the notes of the harmonic series. Since the fundamental physics limit the musical notes available to the natural trumpet, minor key is not an essentially …

J.A.C. Redford’S Variations On The Incarnation: Looking Back And Forward With Piano Theme And Variations, Nathaniel Brown

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This senior thesis consists of a lecture recital and research regarding the development of the theme and variations form in piano literature. It will trace the way the types of pieces that use theme and variations have developed from era to era and composer to composer. The culminating lecture recital will present my research on the topic and will end with a performance of J.A.C. Redford’s Variations on the Incarnation, one of the most recently published theme and variations pieces for solo piano. Redford’s piece was commissioned by Dr. Paul Barnes.

The composers and pieces featured in this project …

Transformer-Based Symbolic Music Generation, Ben Buentello

Master’s Theses

This thesis investigates the capacity of transformer-based architectures to learn generalized musical patterns through symbolic generation. To support this exploration, a complete music generation pipeline was developed, beginning with the construction and classification of a large-scale dataset of over 170,000 MIDI files. The dataset was processed using rule-based heuristics and custom neural classifiers to separate tracks by musical function and contour. A novel tokenization scheme, MINTii, was introduced to encode musical information compactly through interval-based representations, reducing redundancy and promoting generalization. Using this infrastructure, a transformer model was trained to generate single-track melodic sequences. Its performance was evaluated through both …

Learning Paradigms For Rhythm Detection And Generation Using Mathematical Models, Biophysical And Artificial Neural Networks, Prianka Bose

Dissertations

Humans possess an inherent ability to recognize evenly-spaced rhythms, known as isochronous rhythms, owing to the brain's predisposition to entrain to external auditory stimuli with regular temporal intervals. The central focus of this research is to understand how the brain learns and retains rhythmic time intervals in the context of music. This dissertation studies rhythm detection and generation through mathematical models, biophysical networks, and artificial neural networks, addressing both isochronous and non-isochronous patterns.

A primary focus of the thesis is on isochronous rhythms. In particular, given a perturbation to an isochronous rhythm such as a tempo change or phase shift …

Spiral Historiography. A Balanced Alternative To Teaching Jazz History, Josiah Boornazian

The IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research

Jazz history is often presented in collegiate textbooks and classrooms as a linear, teleological, and chronological progression from one style to another. Some scholars have recently reacted against this pattern and have instead focused heavily on viewing jazz history through the lens of one or a few narrow perspectives such as race, economics, politics, gender, or similar topics. This paper argues that both of these approaches, taken separately, are flawed, and that therefore a more effective methodology might be to integrate the two by utilizing the abstract concept of a spiral. A spiral is a shape that, in three spatial …

Introduction By Kurt Ellenberger And Wouter Turkenburg, Kurt Ellenberger, Wouter Turkenburg

The IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research

Introduction Volume 2 of the IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research with an overview of the articles.

Old Becoming New Again: A Form-Function And Narrative Analysis Of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ 'Fantasia On A Theme Of Thomas Tallis', Aileen E. Sager

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ralph Vaughan Williams, a leading figure in the early twentieth-century movement to preserve traditional English music, composed Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis as a tribute to his love of Tudor music and English folksong. The piece is based on a psalm setting by Thomas Tallis, known as the Third Mode Melody, which features the Phrygian mode. Vaughan Williams discovered this theme while researching for the new English Hymnal. A brief history of the Tallis theme, along with an exploration of Vaughan Williams' education and early endeavors as a composer, are critical to understanding the Fantasia's historical …

Inattentional Deafness And Musical Training: Effects Of Perceptual Load On Tonal And Verbal Auditory Suppression, Annelise Coffey

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Inattentional deafness (ID) is a cognitive phenomenon of which we have relatively little understanding. The current study attempted to address this by considering current cognitive theories of thought and examined how musical training affects incidence rates of inattentional deafness. This study utilized a cognitive task and auditory stimuli previously designed to elicit inattentional deafness and measured musical training by administering the Goldsmith’s Musical Sophistication Index. Participants were instructed to engage in a high-load cognitive task, providing a condition in which inattentional deafness is likely to occur. During the task, a brief pure tone was presented simultaneously with the visual task …

Sing A New Song: Analyzing A Cappella Arrangements Of Contemporary Worship Music, Ashley S. Cox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Music is indispensable to Christian worship services, and pop/rock-influenced contemporary worship music (CWM) serves an important role in modern worship. This thesis explores strategies for arranging CWM for a cappella settings by comparing the originals with two a cappella arrangements: one intended for group performance and the other for congregational worship. This will be accomplished through examining the following five songs: “Hymn of Heaven,” “Raise a Hallelujah,” “Build Your Kingdom Here,” “Psalm 34 (Taste and See),” and “Battle Belongs.” Analysis of elements such as form, texture, harmony, and rhythm reveals many arranging techniques. The songs are categorized by the level …

Analysis Of The K-Pop Song "Attention" By Newjeans, David W. Maturo, Grace Sun

SPARK Symposium Presentations

In my Theory IV class, I was given the opportunity to explore music beyond the topics and units within the syllabus. Out of genuine curiosity, I chose to dive into one of my favorite songs: “Attention” by NewJeans. While K-pop has long been an innovative force in music, the fourth generation has taken the genre to new heights by pushing boundaries and exploring fresh, unexpected directions, further reshaping what is considered "K-pop." Many artists, like Parannoul with their exploration of indie and alt-rock, aespa and LE SSERAFIM with their cyberpunk aesthetics and industrial pop/EDM sounds, and other rising acts, are …

Understanding Music Copyright Through Legal Analysis And Music Theory, Gillian Radcliffe

Master of Studies in Law Research Papers Repository

This paper focuses on the intersection of law and music. Specifically, the intersection between music copyright law and music theory, and the role of musicologists and music theorists in copyright infringement cases. In particular, the influence they have on court decisions when acting as expert witnesses, or forensic musicologists. Recent decisions regarding copyright infringement in popular music have been strongly influenced by testimony from these forensic musicologists due to the imbalance of musical understanding between the expert and the court.

Forensic musicology is a form of “public music theory,” an approach used by academics in the music theory field when …

How Schubert’S 9th Symphony (“The Great”) Serves As A Turning Point For The Orchestral Trombone, Tim Mccord

Bakerman Student Research Awards

No abstract provided.

Reassessing Haydn’S Sacred Music: Abstracts Of Published Conference Papers, Michael E. Ruhling

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

No abstract provided.

The Context And Early Reception Of Haydn’S Stabat Mater, Dexter Edge

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

Haydn spent his formative musical years in Vienna, a city with a strong Marian cult that was expressed musically through such works in German as Heinrich Rademin’s Mater dolorum (set by Werner, Reutter the Younger, and Wagenseil), and by innumerable settings of the Latin sequence Stabat mater. In Vienna, musical settings of the Stabat mater were traditionally performed not only on the feast of Septem Dolorum B. V. M., but also on Saturdays in Lent and during Holy Week. In fact, we now know that Haydn sang a cappella settings of the Stabat mater by Palestrina and Reutter …