Music Theory Commons^™

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 …

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 …

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 …

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.

Mater Dolorum Settings By Georg Reutter The Younger And Gregor Werner, As Reflected In Music By Joseph Haydn, Janet K. Page

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

Mater dolorum, a text by Heinrich Rademin (1674–1731), is a German-language oratorio intended for performance before a model of the Holy Sepulcher on Good Friday. Such works, amalgamating court sepolcro and popular traditions, were performed in churches throughout Central Europe during Holy Week. Mater dolorum, one of the most popular texts, was set by three of Haydn’s older contemporaries: Georg Reutter Jr. (1726), Gregor Werner (ca. 1733), and Georg Christoph Wagenseil (ca. 1739). In this essay, I consider how these settings, and the attitudes displayed in them, intersected with Haydn’s world and could have influenced him, especially in his …

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 …

A “Rosary” Symphony? The Impact Of Haydn’S Religious Faith On His Symphonies, Henry Stratmann

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

Despite expressing a strong religious faith throughout his life, Haydn’s secular music far outnumbers his sacred works. Certain symphonies, however, include either allusions to religious themes or project what can be interpreted as a devotional mood. Specifically, some unusually long symphonic slow movements during Haydn’s “Sturm und Drang” period may be orchestral depictions of a meditative, contemplative, prayerful state of mind. They likely reflect the particular practices of Roman Catholic belief and worship that were a pervasive part of the culture in which Haydn lived his entire life and also part of his personal belief system. The Adagio assai of …

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 Tradition Of Illusion: Guitar Arrangement As A Post-Canonical Patchwork, Katalin Koltai

Soundboard Scholar

This paper proposes an underpinning terminology for scholarly discussions of contemporary arrangement practices in the field of classical guitar performance. The introduction provides some historical foundations for the topic, aiming to present the roots of different approaches and methods in the work of important guitar arrangers. The paper continues by contextualizing arrangement processes within linguistics and language philosophy, discussing the topic of translation, and giving an overview of relevant terminologies. The centre of the paper is the theoretical investigation of arrangement and the identification of translating acts related to musical space, instrumental choreography, texture, timbre, or a combination of those, …

Musical Semiotics In Kate Soper’S Ipsa Dixit (2010–2016), Scott A. Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes the six parts of Kate Soper’s Ipsa Dixit (2010–2016). While individual parts have received some music theoretical attention, this is the first analysis of the entire Pulitzer Prize-nominated work. Ambiguity and contingency are major themes of Ipsa Dixit, and by treating each part independently and in combination, I hope to honor Ipsa’s contingent status as a unified work comprised of six complete works. Soper’s libretto unifies an assemblage of texts with adaptations of Aristotle to investigate the intersections of language and music with authority, veracity, and (un)intelligibility.

I theorize that Soper’s “philosophy-opera” dramatizes the formation of …

Singing Petrarch In The Cinquecento: Embodied Reading And The Italian Madrigal, Thomas A. Hedrick Iii

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines how composers of sixteenth-century Italian madrigals highlighted poetic line rhythm, repeated vowel sounds (or assonance), and word repetition in figures of speech—all elements of the verse that have been previously overlooked by scholars, who have traditionally focused on musical depictions of the text’s semantics. The analysis in chapters 2, 3, and 4 shows that composers used a consistent set of techniques from the madrigals of Arcadelt to those of Monteverdi, and musical examples draw from large collection of madrigals on Petrarch sonnets. The analytical methodology is built on the premise that Cinquecento encounters with poetry can be …

Timbres Oubliés: The Forgotten Sounds Of Loeffler's Octet, Graeme Steele Johnson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Modern musicians play a lot of old music and a lot of new music, but not so much “new old music.” This study—with its accompanying critical edition score, world-premiere recording and first present-day performances—represents, at long last, the deliverance of one such work from the ashes of history to the ears of the present: Charles Martin Loeffler’s forgotten Octet for Two Clarinets, Harp, Two Violins, Viola, Cello and Double Bass, a piece that was left unpublished, unrecorded and unheard since 1897.

This paper documents my efforts to finally reintroduce the Octet to the repertoire. By cross-referencing the autograph manuscript score …

A Multilevel Approach To The Analysis And Visualization Of Timbral Brightness In Post-Tonal Music, Stephen Spencer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation develops a method for the analysis and visualization of timbral brightness in post-tonal music. Brightness, a salient timbral attribute correlated with the prominence of high frequencies in the sound spectrum, is crucial for distinguishing sounds and discerning how they fit together in music. The dissertation employs a multilevel analytical approach, measuring differences in brightness at multiple “textural levels” and temporal scales. The analytical utility of the approach is demonstrated through four case studies, each one closely examining the score and audio of a piece of instrumental music written in the first quarter of the twentieth century.

Chapter …

Kajian Konseptual Silabel Ritme Gandang Minangkabau, Aryuda Fakhleri Fallen, Yudi Sukmayadi, Tati Narawati

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This article tryes to initiate the concept of Minangkabau rhythm syllables, which is a method in music learning related to audiation in rhythm learning, the urgency in this study explores the basic elements of the audiation system that can be applied to music learning related to rhythm syllables based on local approaches, taking into account previous concepts that have been popular in recent schools. In West Sumatra, the concepts of syllable rhythm such as Zoltan Kodaly, Kannokol, American Style Syllables, and Edwin Gordon are not so popular, but environments such as schools and art studios have their own ways of …

Mus101.2 Write A Song Example 1, Sae University College

Exemplars

This project was a collaborative songwriting project.

Becoming Musical: Towards A Typology Of Non-Musical Sounds In Recorded Popular Music, Jacob David Mccooey

Theses and Dissertations

There are many instances in popular music in which traditionally non-musical sounds are used musically. There is currently no research on the types and functions of non-musical sounds used musically (NMSUMs). I have collected and organized a collection of example tracks that contain these NMSUMs and analyzed their functions to determine a typology of these sounds. The analysis of the NMSUMs focused on intertextuality, intratextuality, form, texture, and how the sounds relate to traditional, musical sampling. Throughout the course of the analysis, several trends were distinguished amongst the many tracks gathered, and these trends form the basis of the typology.