Music Commons^™

Preserving A Liturgical Identity: The Liturgical And Musical Heritage Of Roman Catholic Apostolic Women Religious In The United States Of America, Andrew G. Jennings

Doctor of Pastoral Music Projects and Theses

This thesis examines the liturgical and musical heritage of Roman Catholic apostolic women religious in the United States and argues that their contributions represent a significant yet understudied dimension of American Catholic life. As many communities face declining numbers, the preservation of their liturgical and musical traditions becomes increasingly urgent. Using an interdisciplinary methodology that combines historical research, liturgical theology, pneumatology, phenomenology, narrative inquiry, and qualitative interviews, the study explores how women religious have shaped and preserved communal identity through liturgy, music, and apostolic ministry.

The research traces the historical development of apostolic women religious from their emergence in the …

You’Re Gonna Be Popular: A Semiotic Exploration Of Meaningful Tools Used To Promote Popular Music Artists, Maya Raye Kurth

Masters Theses

I have been to dozens of concerts, but after experiencing The Era’s Tour I became a Swiftie so quickly and passionately that I was looking for comparable concerts and fan experiences and found very few. It made me wonder how and why this fan experience stuck with me and what made it so special. With that question in mind, I started this project with the question of how successful indie music is marketed.

To answer this question, I used semiotics as the driving theory behind this study. Semiotics allowed me to establish a binary between organic and manufactured and allowed …

Beyonce´, The Womanist Entertainer: Womanism, Anti-Racism And Cultural Pride In Beyonce´ Knowles Carter’S Music, Nena Carpenter

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This research explores the latter portion of Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s career and her distinguishing herself as a womanist/feminist icon. Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has been regarded as a popular music icon since her days as the lead singer in the R&B group Destiny's Child. The group’s music, including songs like "Say My Name" and "Independent Women", have often been recognized by cultural critics as empowerment anthems for women and girls. When Beyoncé performed at the Video Music Awards in 2014, the sample of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 2013 Ted Talk on feminism in her song "Flawless" precipitated a more focused discourse about the authenticity …

Music And Mecha: An Analysis Of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, Jackson Grey Baker

Research Honors

Music within anime is a topic that has only recently gained traction in terms of academic study in the west. Consequently, there is not a particularly great body of literature yet. Much work has been done regarding the music that introduces the anime and accompanies the closing credits of the show, as these songs often become very popular, sometimes even outside of the anime sphere. But the soundtrack to the show itself is also very important. Within the show there is a large amount of music that connects to the plot, themes, characters, moods and more which greatly affect the …

Music And Language Arts Integration And Its Impact On Reading Comprehension: A Social Action Research Study, Felisha L. Coady

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This action research study examines the interconnectedness of music and language arts, specifically focusing on reading comprehension. In this study, a program called Music Connections was developed and used as a pilot to improve reading comprehension skills in primary education. The targeted population of the Music Connections program was 30 third-grade students in an inner-city school in Ohio. After six weeks of reteaching concepts through the Music Connections program, students were given a second interim with these concepts to show results and mastery. Data from this study showed that students who participated in the Music Connections program (Group A) grew …

Do You See What I Hear?: The Effects Of Musical Harmony On Cultural Perception And Recognition, Marvin Martin Williams

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study explores whether listeners can identify the differences in harmonic progressions in a musical composition, and, if so, whether those differences can elicit a cultural or social perception of the origins of the music. By investigating how audiences respond to variations in harmony, specifically traditional versus altered harmonic treatments, the research offers a framework for music producers, educators, healthcare providers, and other cultural gatekeepers to better understand and engage with audiences on an empathetic and meaningful level. The underlying hypothesis posits that harmony in music does more than evoke emotion but may inform a cultural interpretation, thus presenting an …

Digital Griots Playing Lottery Tickets: A Study Of Hip Hop And Social Transformation In Ghana's #Fixthecountry Movement, Jaime M. Kowlessar

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

On June 28, 2021, activist Ibrahim Mohammed (Macho Kaaka) was murdered in Ejura, Ghana, after using social media to criticize government failures. When protesters demanding justice were shot by security forces, politically engaged Ghanaian hip hop artists refused silence, contributing to Ghana’s #FixTheCountry movement—the nation’s largest youth mobilization in a generation. Yet scholarly debates about how hip hop contributes to social change remain unresolved, divided between those celebrating its activist potential and those critiquing its limitations. This dissertation introduces the lottery ticket theory as an alternative framework for understanding cultural activism’s relationship to political transformation. Rather than asking whether hip …

Serenade No.2, James C. Mechem

West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects

Serenade No.2 is a seventeen minute composition for Wind Symphony, dedicated to each

of my mentors in classical composition during the past 10 years: John Carbon, Brian Norcross,

Samuel Andreyev, Jay Chadwick, Adam Silverman, Robert Maggio, Ari Sussman, and Mark

Rimple. Through this composition, my goal was to both pay homage to the individuals that

helped shape my artistic voice, and to additionally connote each movement with evocative

oceanic imagery, specifically through the title of each movement in the composition. I included

this latter detail in reference to a vacation that I went on in August of 2025 to Atlantic …

Undergraduate Voice Students’ Understanding Of The Vocalize And Its Purpose, Natalie H. Bazemore

Honors College Theses

This research discusses undergraduate voice students' understanding of vocalizes and their purpose. To discuss this subject, a vocalize has been defined along with its purpose analyzed. By discovering what methods voice teachers are using to prescribe vocalizes tells us how they are educating their singers on developing technical singing skills. This research was collected through a survey conducted in Qualtrics and was shared via social media voice teacher forums and collegiate music settings. This 5-10 minute long survey included participants that are either undergraduate voice students or undergraduate voice teachers. The teachers and students completed different surveys, both asking about …

Towards The Acoustic Characterisation Of Ngilgi Cave's Amphitheatre Chamber In Western Australia, Mary Rapp, Manuj Yadav, John Bassett

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Ngilgi Cave, Western Australia’s first show cave and a site of Wardandi custodianship for tens of thousands of years, has long been celebrated for its “remarkable acoustics”. This reputation is anchored in the early twentieth-century anecdote of Dame Nellie Melba singing in its Amphitheatre chamber. This paper presents a quantitative acoustic characterisation of that chamber using in situ measurements within a nominal 2500 m3 interconnected limestone volume with dense speleothem surfaces. Room acoustic parameters were measured as per ISO 3382–1 across four receiver positions spanning 1–15 m from the source. Spatially-averaged mid-frequency Reverberation Time was 1.2 s, Early Decay Time …

Music Learning And School-Aged Children’S And Adolescents’ Wellbeing: A Scoping Review, Jason Goopy, Stephanie L.R. Macarthur

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

There is compelling evidence that music can support young people’s wellbeing, particularly through music listening to and making. In this article we report a systematic review of music learning and wellbeing literature to offer a new perspective on learning music as a wellbeing strategy. In this review, we investigated (a) what definitions and theories of wellbeing have been used; (b) what methodologies have been employed, particularly measurement tools; (c) what learning contexts and participant demographics have been examined; and (d) what is known about music learning and the wellbeing of school-aged children and adolescents. This review was conducted using the …

Exploring Hybrid Chinese-Western Compositional Practices Based On Chinese And Western Film Soundtracks, Jie Hong Yang

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis explores the development of a hybrid Chinese-Western compositional practice for film scoring, combining a written dissertation (Volume I) with a folio of 80 minutes of original orchestral music (Volume II). Drawing on analyses of Tan Dun’s Crouching Tiger Cello Concerto (2000) and John Powell’s film score for How to Train Your Dragon (2010), the research investigates how Chinese (minzu yinyue) musical elements and Western scoring techniques can be integrated to create a culturally hybrid approach. The project unfolds in two phases: the first focuses on incorporating Chinese musical characteristics into Western frameworks, resulting in 40 minutes …

Winter Term Choir Tour To London And Paris, Bryon Black Ii

Music Faculty publications

This program explores the universal longing for home—a place of belonging, safety and peace. Spanning choral traditions from England, France, Estonia, Mexico, South Africa and the United States, the music reflects how hope, faith and shared humanity shape our understanding of where we belong. Across cultures and centuries, these works reveal music’s power to foster connection and community, even far from familiar ground. We hope this program invites listeners to consider home not only as a physical place, but as a space where we are known, connected and held.

Book Review: Inside Chinese Theater: Community And Artistry In Nineteenth-Century California And Beyond By Nancy Yunwha Rao, Jiyoon Auo

Asia Pacific Perspectives

No abstract provided.

A Practice-Led Exploration Into The Melodic And Rhythmic Techniques Of Kenny Kirkland, Reuben Cope

Theses : Honours

Kenneth David Kirkland (Kenny Kirkland) was one of the most in demand and influential jazz pianists of the late twentieth century. Highly regarded among peers and critics, Kirkland worked extensively with numerous jazz luminaries and was best known for his work with both Wynton and Branford Marsalis, as well as with the pop star Sting.

This study aims to advance my ability as an improviser to access and utilise the melodic and rhythmic techniques featured within the improvisations of Kenny Kirkland. This aim was guided by observed limitations in my ability to shape the arc of my improvisations to push …

A Creative Exploration Of Bud Powell's Bebop Vocabulary For Modern Jazz Harmony, Flavio Colonetti

Theses : Honours

This thesis presents a practice-led research (PLR) exploration of adapting Bud Powell's bebop improvisational language for contemporary jazz performance. Through transcription and analysis of Powell's right-hand melodic material, this study employs an iterative framework to identify and transform several core stylistic traits. The initial investigation, focused on creatively transforming two extended melodic phrases, demonstrated success in traditional functional harmonic contexts but revealed a limitation when applied to the more modern, vertical chord progressions.

This prompted a methodological shift to a more modular system, whereby a catalogue of 26 short "Vocabulary Seeds" (VS) drawn from across Powell's discography was created. As …

Musicking In The Greek Diaspora Of Perth, Western Australia, Alix Simatos

Theses : Honours

This research investigates music making among second- and third-generation Greek Australians in the diaspora community of Perth, Western Australia. It explores how musical practices serve as a medium for expressing and negotiating Greek identity, with particular attention to how multiculturalism is embodied through music education, performance and communal exchange. Fieldwork was conducted in Perth between July and September 2025, using a methodology that included semi-structured interviews, participant observation and experiential learning through musical events. The findings highlight music’s significance in sustaining cultural heritage and shaping identity within diaspora communities. Key themes include the influence of physical and digital media on …

Hydesville Goose Prairie: Early Pioneers And The Making Of A Town, Jack Mchenry, Paula Gundlach Mchenry, Janet Corbett Mattson

Trade & Scholarly Monographs

This book is laid out as a timeline beginning when Hydesville was first being settled. Included are not only happenings in the area, but also events that were occurring outside the area that would have affect-ed or been of interest to Humboldt County residents. Great care has been taken to preserve the history of the area, to learn who the families were, their reason for coming to the area, and from where they originated. This book was compiled through the effort and interviews of the entire community. The McHenrys began collecting Hydesville history some sixty years ago. Jack McHenry wrote …

Safe And Sound, Madeleine Allen

Music and Health Case Studies

No abstract provided.

A Study Of Le Tombeau Du Couperin By Maurice Ravel, Carolyn M. Totaro, Reece Logan

SPARK Symposium Presentations

A Study of Le Tombeau du Couperin by Maurice Ravel discussing its origin, orchestration, and significance.