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From A Chat In The Parlor To Viral Music Videos: An Analysis Of Music As A Social Occasion, Emma Plotnik

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Imagine an intimate room filled with people playing cards and casually chatting, while one of Chopin’s piano sonatas plays elegantly in the background. This scenario is characteristic of the atmosphere surrounding Classical and Romantic European salons. Salons served as havens of musical discourse from the Baroque era to the early twentieth century. However, with the advancement of technology from the mid-twentieth century to the present, there has been a decline, or, arguably, even a cessation of salon life.

The aim of this project was to recreate the salon environment through the generation of the online discussion forum, "Music Soirée." To …

Diva Diversity: National Vocal Schools And Qualities, Emma Plotnik

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Hearing the term “opera singer” for many triggers an image of a German dramatic soprano bearing viking horns and powerfully bursting into a high C. Yet, what is it that perpetuates this stereotype that German singers possess weighty instruments with dark timbres? Why are classically trained North American vocal students told by their teachers to sing lightly and delicately when performing French mélodie, and not any other genre?

Research in vocal pedagogy has demonstrated that singers from particular regions have been typified by their vocal qualities in terms of size and color. These qualities by nation mainly stem from contrasting …

Tracing Josef Suk’S Stylistic Development In His Piano Works: A Composer’S Personal Journey From Romanticism To Czech Modernism, Jana K. Manning

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

The purpose of this document is to trace the stylistic development in the piano works of the Czech composer, violinist, and pedagogue, Josef Suk (1874-1935). Suk’s piano music is largely unknown in the United States and, unfortunately, neglected in his homeland. Because the majority of research about Josef Suk is in the Czech language, this work is intended to be the first English language document pertaining to Suk’s piano works. The three chapters synthesize information from both primary and secondary sources, including the composer’s first biography, collection of his letters and speeches, musical scores, dissertations, thematic catalogue of his works, …

Jazz And Puerto Rican Traditional Music: A New Generation Of Musical Exploration, Pedro Lavezzari

Masters Theses

Many musical styles around the world have been born from struggle and search for cultural identity. The same idea applies to Jazz and the Afro-Caribbean music created within the African diaspora and influenced by Latin and European styles in the United States. More recently, the meaning of diaspora has been used to refer to a group of people and some aspects of their culture (Rivera 2010, 104). For older and newer generations of Puerto Rican musicians two traditions have intersected to create a modern form of expression that reaffirms Puerto Rico’s musical creativity and contemporary tendency. In 1989 Warren Pinckney …

Report On Ams, Kenneth M. Cotich, Holly Gardinier

Faculty Papers and Conference Presentations with CGU Graduate Co-authors

This presentation summarizes and evaluates the American Musicological Society's website as a reference tool for music scholars. Evaluation methods used come from Laurie Sampsel (2012) and Holly Gardinier (2015).

Singing The Sermon: Where Musicology Meets Homiletics, Emmett G. Price Iii

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

From the beginning of the Christian Church, singing and preaching have served as major tools of communication. In fact, they remain the most utilized methods of articulating and explicating personal and communal theologies across the diverse and expansive expressions of Christianity.

From the life, ministry, and legacy of Jesus Christ through the teachings of the Apostle Paul, the roles and functions of singing and preaching are well known but not well studied as a unit. From the foundational writings of the early Church Fathers through the various theses of the reformers, the acts of singing and preaching have been studied …

A Jamaican Voice: The Choral Music Of Noel Dexter, Desmond A. Moulton

Dissertations

As we approach the twenty-first century, the world generally is moving away from the dominance of the European aesthetic towards a world music that owes much to the musical resources of the African-American tradition. Jamaica’s social and philosophical music belong mainly to that tradition, which includes the use of rhythms, and timbral and melodic resources that exist independently of harmony. Already in this century, Jamaicans have created two totally new music - Nyabinghi, which performs a philosophical function and Reggae, which performs a social function. The choral music of Noel Dexter is important because it is uniquely Jamaican/Caribbean in its …

'More Divine Than Human': Early Tudor Plainchant And Polyphony Of The Lenten Compline Office In The Use Of Salisbury, 1485-1558, Mark Wayland Ardrey-Graves

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Codified at Salisbury Cathedral in southern England during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Use of Salisbury, or Sarum Use, was an influential model of church structure and liturgy across England until the middle of the sixteenth century. Within this model, certain distinctive features are observable, including patterns of ritual observance in such liturgies as the Office of Compline, prayed at the end of the day. This study examines the structure of the Sarum Compline Office, and the phenomenon of polyphonic music created for its observance, during the forty-day penitential season of Lent. This thesis specifically explores ways in which …

I Want To Be In That Number: A Song Profile Of "When The Saints Go Marching In", Gregory H. Jacks

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

“When the Saints Go Marching In” has never been subject to a sustained study of its origins, disseminations, and current manifestations. A study like this, focused on a song’s perceptions via various viewpoints through time, is typically referred to as a song profile; a form of reception history specifically concentrated on a single musical composition. “When the Saints Go Marching In,” also known as “Saints” or “The Saints,” is an African-American spiritual typically listed as a traditional in most songbooks without a composer.[1] I have laid out this paper into four sections, one for each period of the song’s …

The Intersections Of Music, Love, And Worship, Jacob C. Wessel

Senior Honors Theses

When a right understanding of the doctrine of love infiltrates the art of music in the event of corporate worship, an opportunity arises for a unique synergism of knowledge, emotion and relationships. These qualities are paramount in the doctrine of love and practice of corporate worship, and they are especially encouraged by the powers of music. An exploration of these three aspects of love—knowledge, emotion and relationships—is here provided with special attention to the opportunity music and worship provide for intersections between them.

P-28 Musical Borrowing In Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas: Piazzolla, Desyatnikov, Vivaldi, Wayanne Watson

Honors Scholars & Undergraduate Research Poster Symposium Programs

Leonid Desyatnikov arranged Astor Piazzolla’s Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas for violin and string orchestra, interspersing quotations from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons throughout the new work. My score-based analysis of the arrangement investigates Desyatnikov’s borrowing techniques by locating the Vivaldi quotations, examining Desyatnikov’s alterations to their original content and context, and determining whether the quotations’ identities are maintained or transformed. My research shows that, generally, Desyatnikov minimizes drastic alterations to content, but usually makes changes to context. Overall, this leads to transformation of the quotations’ identities. By examining these compositional procedures, my analysis provides a more nuanced exploration of musical dominance and …

The Irish Experience: Identity And Authenticity In Irish Traditional Music, Elizabeth Graber

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Over the last century, Irish traditional music, or “trad,” has become a global phenomenon that has flourished in communities from the United States of America to Japan. A musician need not be Irish in heritage to play and do justice to Irish traditional music or to feel a strong emotional connection to it; yet ethnic ties, real and imagined, constitute a powerful reason to play. The music is inextricably linked with the poetically-titled Emerald Isle even if its musicians are not. In this project, I explore and analyze the many facets of perception of and participation in Irish traditional music, …

Buddhism As Performing Art: Visualizing Music In The Tibetan Sacred Ritual Music Liturgies, Jeffrey W. Cupchik

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The eleventh-century Tibetan female ascetic, Machik Labdrön (1055-1153), developed a Vajrayāna (Tantric) Buddhist meditation method called Chöd (Tib. gCod, Eng. “to cut”) and associated ritual practices as a means of eliminating “self-grasping,” which is defined as the mistaken instinct of regarding one’s “self” and all phenomena as intrinsically, or independently, existent. Her musical-meditation method became renowned across Central Asia during her lifetime, and Chödritual practices and liturgies have been transmitted from teacher to disciple in unbroken lineages until today. The ritual is now well known globally, with Tibetan Lamas, nuns, and empowered exponents teaching widely, across a transnational …

The Scottish Pipe Band In North America: Tradition, Transformation, And Transnational Identity, Erin F. Walker

Theses and Dissertations--Music

For Scots and non-Scots alike, the sounds of the bagpipes and the pipe band serve as a cultural metaphor for Scottish identity: the skirl of the pipes, the crisp sound of the snare drums, and the unique lilt of the music conjure an imagined Scotland of fierce, kilted clansmen and rugged, picturesque Highland scenery. This nearly global association appears to have been constructed on a series of transformations of cultural practices within Scotland itself, as well as throughout greater Britain and the lands of the Scottish diaspora, that began with the early “kiltophiles” in the late eighteenth century. …

Musical Borrowing In Las Cuatro Estaciones Portenas: Piazzolla, Desyatnikov, Vivaldi, Wayanne Watson

Honors Theses

Leonid Desyatnikov arranged Astor Piazzolla's Las Cuatro Estaciones Portenas for violin and string orchestra, interspersing quotations from Vivaldi's Four Seasons throughout the new work. My score-based analysis of the arrangement investigates Desyatnikov's borrowing practice and connects his compositional techniques to musicological meanings. In addition to identifying levels of contrast value between the quotation and the surrounding arrangement, I examine alterations to the original content and context of the quotations and determine whether Desyatnikov maintains or transforms the quotations' identities. I combine identity and contrast value into an interpretive model of musical interaction, providing a more nuanced exploration of musical dominance.

Deconstructing Chaos: The Role Of Pitch Hierarchy In Music Perception, Gabrielle Stetz

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

During the early twentieth century, art music composers pushed Western tonality to the limits and eventually abandoned tonality altogether, creating a system that treated every pitch equally. This atonal system broke down all keys and harmonic progressions that are cornerstones of Western musical pitch hierarchy. Through an extensive review of current literature, this research aims to show that the concept of hierarchy, present in tonal but not atonal music, is central to music perception. This presentation will explore the role hierarchy in music perception through several means: examining the physical nature of sound on a mathematical basis, determining innate structures …

Singing With A Sanxian: A Study Of The Principal Instrument In Bai Musical Tradition , Christian Stanbrook

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Bai people, a minority group in the People’s Republic of China numbering at least 1.8 million, are heavily concentrated in Yunnan Province’s Dali Autonomous Prefecture. Music has historically been a significant part of Bai culture, as Bai musicians across the region enjoy performing Baizu diao, or popular Bai folk tunes, in the form of singing or on various instruments. These diao, or melodies, often describe the lifestyle of Bai people and the region in which they live in and are commonly performed on a threestringed member of the lute family called a sanxian. This study uncovers both the history …

Albanian Traditional Music: A General Overview, Spiro J. Shetuni

Provost’s Spotlight on Scholarship Series

Shetuni, a native of Albania, says that the music, still an obscure subject, reflects a musical environment of both the Balkans and the Mediterranean world and is “not simply a heritage of the past, but above all, a vibrant contemporary art.” His presentation will examine the distinct musical culture of Albania, both monophonic and polyphonic, by delineating its four main musical dialects—Gheg, Tosk, Lab and Urban—along with its origins, styles and features.

Syntagma Musicum Ii: De Organographia, Parts Iii – V With Index, Michael Praetorius, Quentin Faulkner Trans. & Ed.

Zea E-Books Collection

Michael Praetorius (1571–1621) achieved distinction as a practicing musician: as organist and Kapellmeister at Wolfenbüttel, Dresden and Magdeburg, and (in his later years) by incessant travel to fulfill commissions at various central German courts. Amid his travels Praetorius found time to publish an impressive series of collections of musical compositions, in all more than a thousand works. Praetorius’s three-volume Syntagma musicum (Musical Encyclopedia) belongs to the last years of his life. Volume I, Musicae artis analecta (1614/15, in Latin), treats principles and practices of religious music, from a decidedly Lutheran perspective. Volume II, De organographia (1619, in German) deals with …

Antonio T. De Nicolás: Poet Of Eternal Return, Christopher Key Chapple

Research Resources

This book includes essays in honor of Professor Antonio de Nicolas.

A Song Through Time: Tiger Rag And The Twentieth Century, Thomas Grady Hartsock

Music

Tiger Rag is one of the first recorded jazz works.This project investigates the initial creation of the work and follows it through five different artists in the twentieth century to explain how this piece of music has grown in it's hundred years of life.

In Search Of The Original "Skewball", Seán Ó Cadhla

Articles

The well-known horseracing ballad ‘Skewball’ has been widely documented in oral tradition on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as on numerous English broadside printings. It recounts the tale of a mid-eighteenth-century horserace held at The Curragh of Kildare, in which a heavily-backed mare is comprehensively beaten by a relatively unknown skewbald gelding leaving the mare’s owner — along with much of the assembled onlookers — significantly out of pocket. The ballad became widely popularised in North America where it was first published in a song book in 1826 (Benton 1826:3-4). It was later subsumed into African-American song tradition, …

A New Kind Of National: Modified String Quartet Practices In Post-Soviet Eurasia, Adam Taylor Lenz

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the practices of string quartet modification implemented by three post-Soviet Eurasian composers: Franghiz Ali-Zadeh (Azerbaijan), Vache Sharafyan (Armenia), and Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky (Uzbekistan). After an introduction to the geography of the region and the biographies of the composers, their works containing modified string quartet configurations are examined within three distinct modification practices. These practices consist of the addition of outside instruments, the addition of electronic components, and the alteration of performance practice. The evaluation of these techniques is carried out through musical analysis and examination of cultural context. After each work has been examined, the body of works …

Don Januario, Gustavo Leone

Department of Fine & Performing Arts: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Don Januario is a traditional song from Bolivia. It was collected by musicians from the ensemble Florilegium, and published on their CD, Música de las Misiones y de la Plata (Sucre). This is an original version of the song and a series of variations in the style of the local baroque.

Django's Caravan: The Journey Of The Gypsy King, Patrick Ray Monson

Music

The life and musical contribution of Django Reinhardt including musical and visual examples.

The Introduction Of The Black Conductor, Akeila Thomas

Undergraduate Research Conference

The conductor has become a position of great influence and necessity to the performing ensemble due to innovations in performance between the Baroque and mid to late Romantic periods. With such prominence given to the title, one such conductor has gained very little mention throughout the course of music's history. African-American musicians have played such a catalytic role in the shape and progression of Western music.

Across The Red Steppe: Exploring Mongolian Music In China And Exporting It From Within, Thalea C. Davis

Masters Theses

Mongolian music culture as it exists in China is a unique entity unto itself as it features a base of traditional Mongolian practice and also includes aspects of Chinese music and culture. As the world becomes more interconnected and as China continues to display a markedly Han society to the world at large, Mongolian musicians and Mongolian-music enthusiasts in China maintain and evolve their musical culture in a nebulous middle-ground between Mongolian and Han-Chinese culture. How Mongolian music culture in China came to be and its ultimate function in global society are the key questions being investigated in this thesis. …

Hispanismo En Seis Cuerdas, Roberto Hermosillo

Global Tides

This article is a survey on the role that the guitar plays in the Spanish-speaking countries of the world. The guitar, introduced by Spaniards in Spanish America, reflects the culture of every country that has adopted the instrument as part of their culture. Such reflection can be observed by finding traces of cultures of some countries such as Spain, Mexico, Argentina, and Cuba in the guitar music of each of those nations. The guitar, as a cultural icon, can also be observed in other forms of art from such places such as literature and painting. Finally, the article gives a …

The Performance And Perception Of Social Identities In Country-Rap Music, Rachel Grandstrand

Honors Papers

Within the United States, few genres incite as vehement of a reaction as Country and Hip-Hop music, and both of these genres have faced a history of marginalization by the mainstream media corporations and by the broader population of the US. The reason for this marginalization often stems from the racial and class associations of the communities that produce this music, and the relationship between these genres and the broader population is well documented. What remains under-discussed is the relationship between these two communities. This study explores this relationship through an analysis of Country-Rap music, a sub-genre of Country music …

China’S Musical Revolution: From Beijing Opera To Yangbanxi, Yawen Ludden

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This study seeks to investigate the modern derivative of Beijing opera, known as yangbanxi, through macro and micro approaches. The first part of the thesis surveys the development of Beijing opera under the historical context and in its social, political, and cultural perspectives. The second part, taking a microscopic perspective, undertakes an in-depth analysis of the compositions that were solely created by composer Yu Huiyong. First, it assays the application of Yu’s theory to his compositions of various Beijing opera arias. Second, it analyzes Yu’s instrumental music in compositional dimensions such as material, structure, and techniques, considering the larger implications …