Digital Commons Network^™

“For The Orchestra Musicians: Conducting On The Beat Is Effective Or Too Late?”, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

There are a lot of conductors, and every conductor is different. There are as many conducting techniques as well. But one of the most famous approaches in conducting an ensemble, whether a wind ensemble, orchestra, or chorus, is to deliver the beat and expecting the ensemble for an immediate ‘attack’ of the note. An instant reciprocation and reaction at the same exact time as the ‘ictus’ of the conductor. Basically, doing it exactly together. The other notion is that the conductor beating should be beating ahead of time (almost a beat ahead) to give the ensemble some time to prepare …

Enter Hallownest: How The Music Assists The Narrative In Hollow Knight, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

Annotated bibliography exploring sources on how music communicates story within the context of video games.

Addressing Negative Conditions In A Voice Studio: How Could Mindfulness Be Used As A Pedagogical Method Of Voice Teaching In The Context Of The Master-Apprentice Relationship?, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

The proposed research paper will evaluate the negative aspects of the master-apprentice model in voice studios. The master-apprentice relationship has been a traditional style of teaching since the bel canto school of Italy in the 16^th century and continues to be a foundation of voice teaching today. However, with the development of education and technology, vocal instruction/pedagogy has evolved tremendously. Offering new approaches and philosophies of teaching in the field of music. The teaching of mindfulness in the voice studio has become a popular topic in music education. Along with awareness, mindful practice has given students the opportunity to …

Qui Té Por Dels ‘Rosalía Studies’? Guia De Perplexos, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Molt a principis dels anys noranta del segle XX, quan jo començava a veure la possibilitat de doctorar-me, la musicologia era, si se’m permet una caricatura, una disciplina de capellans i arxivers. A l’Estat Espanyol, per exemple, la carrera oficial encara no existia, si bé hi havia estudis i tesis a algunes escoles de doctorat de filologia o història de l’art. El mot «musicologia», de fet, ni tan sols era acceptat o pràcticament acabava d’entrar en alguns diccionaris prescriptius. Sense estudis reglats, els aspirants a musicòlegs emulaven la feina, la metodologia i les temàtiques dels seus mestres.

Music: Seeking Pleasure, Emotional Language, Ritualized Communication, Jillian N. Gerlach

Interdivisional Studies Summer Fellows

The impetus for my project was how I view listening to music as a spiritual or religious experience. Listening to music, instead of practicing religion, satisfies my inclination toward spirituality. In the introduction to my paper, I outlined how music exists in my life. I thought it was valuable to provide my unique experience to give context to my research. I created a diagram that delineates how I interact with music and the benefits I derive from listening to music. During this self-reflection, I realized listening to music functions like a ritual for me. I noticed my individual ritualized listening …

'Space Is The Place:' Afrofuturism In Black Popular Music, Tamyka Jordon-Conlin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on developing a theory of Afrofuturist music. Afrofuturism is an umbrella term used to describe Black cultural productions that reflect on the African diasporic culture of the past while imagining potential futures, often while appropriating imagery of technology and science-fiction tropes. With the intent of redefining notions of blackness, Afrofuturist artists create alternative historical narratives and speculative future projections. These productions create space that allows the Afrofuturist to discorporately negotiate the limits of Black subjectivity. Poet, activist, and avant-garde musician Sun Ra is credited as the progenitor of Afrofuturism, and his model has since been adapted by …

“800 Years We Have Been Down”: Rebel Songs And The Retrospective Reach Of The Irish Republican Narrative, Seán Ó Cadhla

Articles

From the glamorous, cross-dressing “Rebel, Rebel” of David Bowie, to the righteous Trenchtown “Soul Rebel” of Bob Marley and The Wailers, both varied and various musical articulations of cultural and socio-political rebellion have long enjoyed a ubiquitous presence across multiple soundscapes. As a musicological delineator in Ireland, however, ‘rebel’ conveys a specifically political dynamic due to its consistent deployment as an all-encompassing descriptor for songs detailing events and personalities from the Irish national struggle. This paper sets out to examine the specific musical delineator of “rebel song” from both musicological and politico-ideological perspectives with a view to interrogating its appropriateness …

2nd Funk Symposium: Selected Proceedings, 2021, Sharon Davis Gratto

Content Presented at the First and Second Dayton Funk Symposia

This is a printed proceedings of symposium presentations by authors who elected to submit them. They are available free for download, but printed volumes are available for $6 plus tax and shipping.

Lliçons Magistrals, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

No seria pianista. Jo no arribaria mai a ser pianista. L’epifania va començar a cristal·litzar poc després d’haver arribat a Salzburg el 1982 amb intencions d’estudiar-hi piano. Com el narrador de la novel·la de Thomas Bernhard Der Untergeher (si es vol, el fracassat o el mediocre), jo havia quedat psicològicament gelat per la presència d’alguns dels millors pianistes del món. En poc temps, i sense capacitat de digerir-ho —tenia vint anys escassos—, havia vist i sentit en viu Alfred Brendel, Maurizio Pollini, Claudio Arrau i Bruno Leonardo Gelber, entre altres.

Homage To Eleanora: A Musical Journey Through The Billie Holiday Songbook, Keith A. Dames

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Billie Holiday was a singer, songwriter, vocalist, bandleader and composer in the fields of music, black culture and more specifically the genre of jazz. The primary focus of this study is Billie Holiday’s discography, music, and compositions as treated in relation to the black culture of production. This study will explore a secondary content analysis of Billie Holiday’s music, musicianship, musicality and compositional skills within the American jazz mainstream, broader jazz audience and world at large. This project will take an analytical look at the structure and form of the compositions of Billie Holiday. Billie Holiday is credited with composing …

Three Etudes For Marimba And Pandeiro: Contemporary Marimba Music As A New Setting For The Brazilian Pandeiro, Eduardo Marques Do Prado

Doctoral Projects

The history of frame drums and idiophones has thousands of years. The modern versions of the pandeiro and the marimba are relatively new to those families of instruments. While the marimba found its niche in contemporary music, the pandeiro has been mostly used in Brazilian traditional music. The current project brings those two instruments together, allowing the pandeiro to express its versatility. Executing the intricate rhythms, uneven patterns, and alternating time signatures from within the Three Etudes for Marimba and Pandeiro is an example of what can be done with this amazing frame drum. These three pieces provide the pandeiro …

'Ahora Estamos Más Unidos': Claiming Resilience In The Musical And Visual Aftermath Of The El Paso Mass Shooting, Eduardo Garcia

Music ETDs

The El Paso Wal-Mart Mass Shooting on August 3, 2019, prompted swift response from the local community to create artistic spaces of remembrance. This study examines the musical (mariachi and corrido) and visual (altares, murals, and memorials) manifestations present at makeshift and formal memorials for the victims. I analyze how members of the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez borderland situated their artistic work in the aftermath of the shooting. I argue that these artists responded to the attack with symbolic acts of resilience rooted in cultural and collective memory, embodiment of trauma, and the lived experience of corporeal …

Jesus Woodlą́Ą́Jí Sin: Sounding A Self-Determined Navajo Christian Church, Renata Yazzie

Music ETDs

Jesus Woodlą́ą́jí’ Sin: Navajo Hymns of Faith, the first and only extensive Navajo hymnal, was published in 1979. This hymnal contains 365 hymns for congregational singing, translated into the Navajo language. The Navajo Hymnal Committee, responsible for the seven years of intensive translation work, formed in 1972 under the direction of Reverend Dr. Paul Redhouse (1925-2019), an ordained Navajo minister within the Christian Reformed Church. Redhouse wholeheartedly believed that Navajo people had the right to worship in their own language and argued that pre-issued English hymnals by outside church leaders were not suitable for obvious reasons—a language barrier. Through …

King Behind Colonial Curtains: Kasilag And The Making Of Filipino National Culture, Paul Gabriel L. Cosme

International Studies Honors Projects

Filipino National Artist Lucrecia “King” Kasilag sought to preserve folk cultures and melded these with her Western training to produce works—scholarly, pedagogical, and compositional—that shaped national music and culture. This thesis is a critical biography that combines perspectives from postcolonial studies, political economy, and musicology to highlight forces that shaped Kasilag’s life while illustrating her successes and shortcomings on national culture. Through this biography, I argue, Filipino national culture must originate from intersectional struggles and negotiation among elites and masses; that this culture is about both resistance and acceptance—a national culture that is syncretic and quintessentially dynamic.

La Ricarda, Mestres Quadreny I L'Experimentalisme Musical Català Dels Anys Seixanta: De Com L’Arquitectura Va Esdevenir Música I La Música, Arquitectura, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Eren uns temps magnífics per a la creació: els concerts semblaven obres de teatre i les obres de teatre, concerts. Els músics feien d’actors i aquests havien de fer de músics. I la distinció entre el públic i els intèrprets també es diluïa, si és que no s’eliminava del tot. Els semiòlegs —o són semiòtics?— havien explicat que en tot acte comunicatiu hi havia un emissor, un missatge i un receptor; i precisament d’això es tractava, d’eliminar aquestes distincions. Ah, i en molts casos, tampoc no hi havia escenari, ni sala de concerts.

From Rumi To The Whirling Dervishes: Music, Poetry And Mysticism In The Ottoman Empire, Walter Feldman

Music & Performance in Muslim Contexts

Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, whose life and mystical poetry provided the inspiration for the Mevlevi Sufi order, is one of the world's best-known poets.

Yet the centuries-long musical tradition cultivated by the Mevleviye remains much less known. In this deeply researched book, renowned scholar Walter Feldman traces the historical development of Mevlevi music and brings to light the remarkable musical and mystical aesthetics of the Mevlevi ayin – the instrumental and vocal accompaniment to the sublime ceremony of the 'Whirling' Dervishes.

This accessible introduction to the relationship between music and the performative elements of Sufi practice presents the biographies of the …

Intro To Jazz, Jon De Lucia

Open Educational Resources

OER Based Syllabus for MUS 145 Intro to Jazz course at City College. Covers the history and development of jazz along with basic music fundamental vocabulary.

Program: 2021 Dayton Funk Symposium And Line Dance Party, University Of Dayton

Content Presented at the First and Second Dayton Funk Symposia

Program includes a welcome from Sharon Davis Gratto, Graul Chair in Arts and Languages; a schedule of presentations; and biographies of presenters, performers, and panelists.

Vatican Ii, Liberation Theology, And Vernacular Masses For The Family Of God In Central America, Bernard J. Gordillo

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) instituted reforms in the Catholic Church that included changes in language and music employed in the liturgy, inspiring a proliferation of sung vernacular masses throughout Latin America. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research undertaken in Nicaragua and the United States, this article examines three Central American vernacular masses—Misa típica panameña de San Miguelito (1967), Misa popular nicaragüense (1969), and Misa campesina nicaragüense (1975). Each mass emanated from communities founded as part of the transnational Familia de Dios (Family of God) movement, which established programs of religious education, leadership training, and community building among impoverished …

Sankyoku Magazine And The Invention Of The Shakuhachi As Religious Instrument In Early 20th-Century Japan, Matt Gillan

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The early 20^th century was a period in which understandings of music, religion, and the nation-state underwent rapid change in Japan. In this article I examine Japanese cultural discourse from the first decades of the 20^th century in which the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute, was frequently portrayed as a religious instrument. In some cases, this discourse referenced pre-20^th century historical affiliations of the shakuhachi with the Fuke-sect, an organization that was loosely affiliated to Rinzai Zen Buddhism. But the article also explores how religio-musical discourse surrounding the shakuhachi intersected with developments in modern Japanese religious life, …

Travelin' To The Promised Land: Symbolism Of The Jordan River In African Spiritual, English Hymn, And American Folksong Selections, Hope V. Dornfeld

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

These program notes originally accompanied a performance of three vocal pieces: Deep River, On Jordan's Stormy Banks, and Poor Wayfaring Stranger. The notes analyze the role of the Jordan river in each piece, focusing on their historical context, first performances, and issues of authorship. As part of a performing arts research project, the program notes also address the method of expression and creative process that went into preparing the performance of these pieces.

The songs included in this presentation all speak to the journey from earth to heaven. In each piece, the Jordan River is found to symbolize a …

Tanavors, Irada Ganieva

Eurasian music science journal

Tanavor is a unique phenomenon in the cuiture of Uzbek people. Tanavor in the minds of the people is a philosophical category that incorporates history, originality, social, emotional, national-specific features. This creation is an example of the oral and professional creativity of Uzbek people, it can be attributed to high samples of musical folklore, which declared currently at the end of nineteenth century, and which continues to evolve to this day in music, in danse.

Higher Ground: Rev. Dr. William Barber Ii And The Political Content Of Prophetic Form, Braxton D. Shelley

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This essay argues that Rev. Dr. William J. Barber’s message on “Higher Ground,” a speech delivered at a massive 2014 protest rally, reveals his intentional problematization of distinctions between the sacred and the secular. As Barber’s articulation of what Ashon Crawley calls “Blackpentecostal breath” spill over the boundaries posited by conventional categories—they are too ecstatic to be ordinary speeches, and too political to be traditional sermons—these plural expressions identify themselves as sounds that come from another world. If both content and form are understood as thought, it becomes apparent that these prophetic utterances critique the oppression wrought by contemporary social …

“Beer & Hymns” And Community: Religious Identity And Participatory Sing-Alongs, Andrew Mall

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

As a series of loosely-organized events, “Beer & Hymns” started at the Greenbelt Festival in England in 2006 and migrated to the Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina in 2012. Local Beer & Hymns gatherings meet at bars, breweries, clubs, and pubs across the U.K., the U.S., and around the world. Most are not affiliated with a church or Christian denomination, instead relying on the energy of independent local organizers. Some attendees are regular churchgoers, other are not, but all find community in these sing-alongs—congregational singing, that is, outside of traditional congregational contexts. Beer & Hymns is exactly what it …

Sacred Music In Colonial Era Hispaniola: The Evangelization Of The Taino People, Tito J. Gutierrez

Student Theses

During the 15th-18th centuries, the major European religious orders; the Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, and Jeronymites, journeyed to the newly colonized American territories in an attempt to convert the multitudes of natives peoples living there. Along with prayer books, crucifixes, and religious images, these missionaries brought sacred European music to American shores in an attempt to attract the native people to the Catholic faith.The use of music as a tool for conversion of native people in places such as Mexico, South America, California, and the South West United States, have been well researched and documented. However, the research of the spiritual …

Listening To The Internet: Cultural Discourses, Vicente FernáNdez, And Hearing Youtube Comments, Alex Miguel Medina

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Here’s a story: It’s well after midnight. I sit there, at my laptop, tequila in hand.Like a good machista(if I could ever become one), I don’t drink my tequila with much in it: a single ice cube, a squirt of lime, and a dash of tajín. I can feel my cheeks warming up as the alcohol kicks in. I remember what my mom told me about tequilaonce, “you feel it in your chest.” Rancheramusic isn’t for sober listening—for sober ears—you feel it in your chest. No charro(Mexican cowboy)would sing “Por Tu Maldito Amor” sober. Like any goodMexican, I too contemplate …

Palestinian Evangelical Christian Music In Bethlehem, Israel/Palestine, Abby Smith

Senior Honors Theses

Often the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is portrayed as Jewish vs. Muslim, Hebrew vs. Arab. There is little room in the international dialogue for minorities such as Arab Christians. Though Palestinians have a rich culture of Arabic musical and poetic heritage, they are unable to produce their own new songs. In this study I interviewed three members of Immanuel Evangelical Church on their experiences and opinions on local Christian worship. The findings show that Palestinian Christians may feel unable to write worship music because of a prevalent feeling of inadequacy and a lack of musical training. I propose several …

O Tonalismo Como Força Colonizadora Na África, Kofi Agawu, José H. Padovani

Publications and Research

Resumo do tradutor: No ensaio, Kofi Agawu aborda a relação entre o tonalismo – entendido como “sistema hierarquicamente organizado de relações entre alturas” – e a música africana. A partir de diferentes exemplos e em diálogo com contribuições dos estudos decoloniais e da etnomusicologia, Agawu desenvolve uma interpretação crítica que busca compreender como aspectos da imaginação musical africana responderam à violência colonial imposta a partir de uma linguagem harmônica estrangeira. Após três momentos, em que busca respectivamente expor (1) aspectos do tonalismo na música africana da atualidade, (2) aspectos do pensamento tonal africano pré-colonial e (3) elaborações composicionais de criadores …

The Arranging Techniques Of Leon “Smooth” Edwards And Their Application To Calypso-Styled Classical Music Arrangements For Steel Orchestra, Michelle A. Rudder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The steelpan was invented in the 1930s in Trinidad and Tobago. It has evolved over the past eighty years. Although steelbands are now found across the globe and at all levels of music education, academic research regarding the music of the steelpan and its composers and arrangers is scarce. This paper examines six works for steelband by Leon “Smooth” Edwards, a prominent arranger of indigenous steelband music for the Panorama competition in Trinidad and Tobago. Music scores for four of the works have been notated for the first time. The paper documents Edwards’ variation development techniques, voicing, and orchestration. The …

Sound Healing, Devina L. Pulido

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Most people would imply that music is used for solely entertainment, artistic expression, celebration, ceremony, or communication. Whether we are musically inclined or not, music is the one thing that genuinely connects humans from all cultures and corners of the earth. Another application of music is sound healing, a therapeutic practice that utilizes different signals and vibrations to improve the physical and emotional health of individuals, groups, and cultures. This can entail listening to various musical experiences (such as a concert), singing along to a favorite song or chant, dancing to the beats of other music, meditating, or playing an …