Digital Commons Network^™

Diverse Experiences And Complex Identities: A Resource Archive Of Artists’ And Educators’ Works, Vivian Maria Poey, Berta Rosa Berriz, Amanda Claudia Wager

Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice

This concluding article builds on the ideas developed throughout this special issue by providing a wide range of resources to enrich arts-based work within the field of literacy development with families and communities of emergent bilinguals. We include a bank of resources that may serve as the beginning of an archive. Coming from three different fields, with varying professional experiences, the sources we find helpful intersect and diverge. To honor this range of possibilities, we have taken an expansive approach that includes poets, visual and performing artists, arts and cultural organizations, literary associations, language learning standards and anti-bias and critical …

Local Embeddedness Matters: A Study Of Hip-Hop Artists' Interaction With Their Local Community, Castel Vette Sweet

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation study is an exploration of hip hop and rap artists’ embeddedness in local communities, and their interpretation of the connectedness between their work and their communities. I explore the influence of place and space in the identity development of artists, and how artist use those identities to guide their interactions with their local community. I also investigate the significance of artists’ interactions and relationship in the cultivation of social and cultural capital. In contrast to previous scholarship emphasising the negative influence rap and hip-hop artists have on their communities, I utilize in-depth interviews with artists to examine the …

Autonomania: Music And Music Education From Mars, Thomas A. Regelski

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Traditional aesthetic theory has posited an account of music, and the other arts, as autonomous of social meanings, relevance, and conditions. In the case of music, “absolute music” is sequestered from social and other roots that bring music into being in the first place. The typical claim, thus, is that classical music is music for its own sake, divorced from the many and highly evident social dimensions that it serves. It ignores all other genres of music, most of which are more appreciated than can be accounted for by the theory of autonomania. This aesthetic theory of music, one of …

Flash Study Analysis And The Music Learning Profiles Project, Radio Cremata, Bryan Powell, Joseph Michael Pignato, Gareth Dylan Smith

John J. Cali School of Music Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper introduces the Music Learning Profiles Project, and its methodological approach, flash study analysis. Flash study analysis is a method that draws heavily on extant qualitative approaches to education research, to develop broad understandings of music learning in diverse contexts. The Music Learning Profiles Project (MLPP) is an international collaboration to collect and curate a large number of flash studies exploring musicking and music learning in a variety of contexts that fall outside traditional school music education. In this paper the authors present context, rationale, and methods for the project, along with indicative preliminary findings. The project aims to …

T Bone Burnett, The American South, And The Ethic Of A Contemporary Cultural Renaissance, Heath J. Carpenter

Student Theses and Dissertations

With the success of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, T Bone Burnett spent his cultural capital on repurposing traditional American music in subsequently successful soundtracks and artistic productions, providing a spark for a 21st century cultural movement that moves beyond music. This study aims to position Burnett has a cultural catalyst by grounding his work, and those abiding by a similar ethic, in the American South. In the process, I examine what Burnett’s soundtracks and select artistic productions communicate about contemporary Southern cultures and identities, while negotiating the ever-enigmatic generational issues of identity and authenticity. By extending the …

Pandemonium: An Evolution Of Steel Pans And Its Place In Music Education, Morgan Whitney Esarey

Senior Theses

This thesis is aimed at researching the development, benefits, and drawbacks of steel drums, also known as steel pans and even more commonly known amongst Trinidadians as “pans.” Steel pans are relatively new instruments having come about in the last century. They are recognized instruments with immense cultural identity on the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago. Steel bands have been well established in the United States and around the globe with the help of various pan players who have cultivated an interest in these instruments. Their popularity appears to be infectious. Using research conducted from previous studies as well …

Movements, Music, And Meaning: A Comparative Analysis Of Cultural Narratives In Vietnam Era And Post-9/11 Anti-War Music, Jonathan Nathaniel Redman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the presence of widely circulating cultural narratives in the lyrics of approximately eighty anti-war songs from the Vietnam and post-9/11 eras. Unlike prior movements and music research, this thesis privileges culture over movements and views movements as cultural antennae both picking up on trends and cultural narratives, and broadcasting their own altered cultural meanings back into the “cultural airways.” It sees music as a cultural medium which acquires cultural meanings from its surroundings, alters those meanings, synthesizes new ones, and perpetuates old ones. Drawing on comparative and narrative analysis approaches informed by grounded theory techniques, this thesis …

2nd Place Contest Entry: From A Chat In The Parlor To Viral Music Videos: An Analysis Of Music As A Social Occasion, Emma F. Plotnik

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

This is Emma Plotnik's submission for the 2016 Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize, which won second place. She wrote about the impact of salons on the musical world in past centuries, and created a modern virtual salon of her own.

Emma is a senior at Chapman University, majoring in Music with a minor in Law, Justice, and Social Control. Her faculty mentor is Dr. Jessica Sternfeld.

Music Uses And Gratifications Among Youth, Karen De La Rosa Herrera

Theses

This study identified the uses and gratifications of music genres and communication needs among young adults. An online survey of young adults in the College of Liberal Arts at Rochester Institute of Technology was conducted. Seven communication factors were found to correlate with listening to 21 different music genres. A sense of identity was significantly related to alternative, indie, jazz, and new age music. Behavior was related to dance, easy listening, hip hop/rap, new age, pop, and world music. Interaction with others was related to easy listening and pop music. Knowledge was related to alternative, dance, easy listening, hip hop/rap, …

Nothing Happens Here: Songs About Perth, Jon Stratton, Adam Trainer

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This essay examines Perth as portrayed through the lyrics of popular songs written by people who grew up in the city. These lyrics tend to reproduce the dominant myths about the city: that it is isolated, that it is self-satisfied, that little happens there. Perth became the focus of song lyrics during the late 1970s time of punk with titles such as 'Arsehole of the Universe' and 'Perth Is a Culture Shock'. Even the Eurogliders' 1984 hit, 'Heaven Must Be There', is based on a rejection of life in Perth. However, Perth was also home to Dave Warner, whose songs …

Modulation Of Behavior In Communicating Emotion, Martin Gardiner

Animal Sentience

King discusses many examples where two animals, as they bond, behave in ways we interpret as expressing love for one another. If one of the bonded animals then dies, signs of loving are replaced by signs we interpret as expressing grief by the animal who remains. I propose a pathway for emotional communication between an animal and an observer that can have a central role in these and other observations by King and in our overall ability to interpret observed behavior in relation to emotion. This pathway provides evidence of emotion in an observed animal by communicating evidence of emotion’s …

B-Boy And Buuz: A Study Of Mongolian Hip-Hop Culture, Quinn Graham Wallace

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

When walking down the streets of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, passersby will find countless material traits of hip-hop culture surrounding them, including snapback hats, skateboards, and tattoos. A powerful combination of urban growth, democracy, and a booming market economy has invited and stimulated contemporary forms of hip-hop, creating an active but unorganized Mongolian hip-hop sub-culture and community. In this explorative and analytical paper, I examine what Mongolian hiphop artists express about present-day Mongolia through hip-hop mediums and why they are a unique critical voice. While there are several facets of hip-hop, I focus on three modes of traditional hip-hop culture: oral (rapping), …

Thedor Kullak's "Scenes From Childhood," Op. 62, And Op. 81: A Pedagogical Guide, Jennifer Lynn Kottke

Theses

Theodor Kullak (September 12, 1818 - March 1, 1882) composed "Scenes from Childhood," Op. 62 and Op. 81 for young piano students. This thesis is a guide for teaching these pieces to intermediate piano students. Following Kullak's biography, aspects of note-reading, fingering, rhythm, technique, and musicality are discussed and illustrated in specific examples from the music.

Bailamos Juntos: Salsa En Los E.E.U.U. Y El Mundo, Betty Tran

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

This composition traces the history of Cuban-American cultural identity formation through the lens of music and dance. As the author explains, Cuban immigrants cultivated a rich music and dance culture in New York City by creating a series of Latin and Afro-Cuban music genres and dances that brought diverse groups of people together. As a Vietnamese-American woman, Tran sees several connections between her family’s Vietnamese heritage and the cultural histories of Cubans who came to the United States as refugees seeking asylum from political oppression. As a first-generation college student, Tran believes it is important to share this composition as …

Performing Blackness In A Mulatto Society: Negotiating Racial Identity Through Music In The Dominican Republic, Angelina Maria Tallaj-García

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation analyzes Dominican racial and ethnic identity through an examination of music and music cultures. Previous studies of Dominican identity have focused primarily on the racialized invention of the Dominican nation as white, or non-black, often centering on the building of Dominican identity in (sometimes violent) opposition to the Haitian nation and to Haitian racial identity. I argue that although Dominicans have not developed an explicit verbal discourse of black affirmation, blackness (albeit a contextually contingent articulation) is embedded in popular conceptions of dominicanidad ("Dominicanness") and is enacted through music. My dissertation explores ways in which popular notions of …

Indie Rock And Mainstream Pop Are Thematically, Instrumentally, And Structurally Analogous, Sean D. Pritchard

UROP Posters

Millennials have inconsistently defined indie rock since it was thrust onto the mainstream in 2004 with the breakout success of Modest Mouse’s Float On, Franz Ferdinand’s Take Me Out, and Zach Braff’s Garden State. Indie rock is not defined by its sound, thereby disqualifying it as a pure genre. Indie rock is defined by its aesthetic qualities: anti-mainstream appeal, style, promotion, etc. Indie rock is flexibly defined person to person as they perceive it. Consumers define indie rock by its themes being implicitly anti-mainstream and a less-produced sound while producers define indie rock by a musician’s creative control over the …

Opera Education In The Upper Elementary Music Classroom, Carmen Louise Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Adults are increasingly becoming uninvolved with the arts and it is therefore important to cultivate a new audience, beginning with a well-rounded musical education for elementary-age children. Opera can easily be implemented as a part of a well-rounded musical education and can be taught in conjunction with multiple subjects. Anecdotal evidence suggests that children are exposed to negative stereotypes about opera without receiving proper education on the subject and are thus more likely to not be interested in opera as they grow older. A short survey was sent to fourth and fifth grade music teachers around the state of Mississippi …

And I Heard 'Em Say: Listening To The Black Prophetic, Cameron J. Cook

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis aims to explore how conceptions of the black prophetic tradition, as discussed by thinkers Cornel West and George Shulman, might be expanded into the realm of African American musical traditions and genres. I argue that musical genres like the blues and hip-hop function as an affective discourse that aesthetically, politically and religiously function as sites of resistance to white supremacy and provide alternate pathways to liberation as compared to more canonical instantiations of the black prophetic. In particular I provide close readings of performances and art by Nina Simone and Kanye West.

Musicking New Orleans Street Musicians: A Methodology For Writing About Music, Savannah Cadi Rose Ganster

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project argues for the use of performative writing as a methodology for writing about musical performances. An analysis of recent scholarship on music and musical performances written by performance studies scholars supports the use of performative writing in texts that address musical performances. In order to further this methodological claim, this study uses performative writing to document both historical and present day accounts of musical performances of street musicians in New Orleans. Utilizing Foucault’s theories on and Roach’s model of genealogy, Bruner’s notion of reflexive ethnography, and Small’s concept of musicking, I theorize, on a meta-methodological level, that performative …

The Essentialism Of Music In Human Life And Its Roots In Nature, Katricia D. F. Stewart

Senior Theses

The connections between our emotions, music, and the natural world have only been examined in dualities, rather than as an interwoven triangle of elements that are innate and stem from our evolutionary history as a species. Our emotions are profoundly tied to musical sounds, while we also have a deeply rooted emotional connection with nature. The music of the natural world provided the foundation for crucial aspects of our human evolution, making our connections with both music and nature innate. Composers, musicians, poets, and storytellers have recognized this for centuries, exploiting these inherent connections in order to convey emotion and …

The Blues Continuum: New York Calls - Naples Responds, Alessandro Buffa

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

My dissertation traces a form of call and response between New York City and Naples in the 1970s and 1980s. It foregrounds the importance of the `blues' in the traffic of sound, images and oppositional ideas between these two cities located on the same geographical parallel. The blues here is understood as a musical style and feeling, as well as an affect of trauma, loss, memory and an intimate relationship that artists and activists established with their city spaces in the age of the so called " urban crisis." It proposes a " blutopia," based on utopian/dystopian tensions that promote …

(In)Famous Cover Tunes Of 2014, Simon Orpana

The Goose

A cartoon and commentary by Simon Orpana.

The Power Of Plur: Edmc As A Reflection Of A New Generation, Nichole Lorenz

Communication Studies

With such a broad amount of musical expression and cultural appeal, EDM has quickly become a captivating phenomenon in the United States in recent years. There is a significant trend going on with EDM culture and what it represents for youth today. For this reason, I want to dig further into the growing phenomenon of EDMC (Electronic Dance Music Culture) in the United States. I want to better understand what is going on beneath the surface façade of costumes and drug use. Why does this culture appeal to so many young people? In addition, I seek to find out whether …

Gettin' Weird Together: The Performance Of Identity And Community Through Cultural Artifacts Of Electronic Dance Music Culture, Andrew Matthew Wagner

Theses and Dissertations

The growing popularity of Electronic Dance Music (EDM) on nearly every continent has given rise to the transition of EDM music from underground raves to large scale, multiple-day music festivals. Attendance at EDM events, whether at concerts or festivals, is primarily dominated by today's youth generation. The number of youth attending these events continues to grow as elements of EDM are being mixed into other mainstream music genres. This increase in the popularity of EDM has been an area of research interest in the past decades for a variety of disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, marketing, and tourism. The present …

Rave Culture- A Tale Of Two Scenes, Christopher Mohr

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

This article compares two iterations of rave culture through the perspective on scenes as outlined by Geoff Stahl in his essay "'It's Like Canada Reduced': Setting the Scene in Montreal." By applying both communication and sociopolitical theory to the comparison of the original rave scene to that of today's, a vivid understanding of how scenes and subcultures construct themselves- both within and around the cultural environments from which they are born- will become apparent.

School Of Rock: The Curricular Dimensions Of An All-Ages Venue, Lesley Nora Siegel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Schools are only one of many sites for pedagogy and curricula. Youth encounter educative experiences at many sites and in many forms. For many youth, the all-ages music scene is their most meaningful classroom with the music and the ethos of the movement serving as their teachers and other young punks their classmates.

This study examined the learning experiences and the dimensions of received curricula at an established all-ages music venue in a large urban city. The Vera Project in Seattle, Washington was the subject of this qualitative study, which utilized the methodology of educational connoisseurship and criticism to describe …

Communing With Nature, The Ancestors And The Neighbors: Ancient Ceramic Musical Instruments From Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico, Guy David Hepp, Sarah B. Barber, Arthur A. Joyce

Anthropology Faculty Publications

The Mesoamerican Formative period (1600 BCE–CE 250) saw the establishment of sedentism, dietary transformations and the development of ceramic technologies for subsistence, artistic representation and the region’s earliest preserved musical instruments. These instruments include aerophones such as whistles, ocarinas and flutes. In this paper, we describe sixty-three ceramic aerophones from mostly Formative period contexts in coastal Oaxaca, Mexico. We situate our analysis in the broader contexts of research on music and iconography in Mesoamerican archaeology, as well as of the anthropology of sensory perception. Through a consideration of archaeological context, artifact form and technical properties, we conclude that music was …

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Veteran Gamer: The Canonization And Commodification Of Nostalgia In Anamanaguchi's 8-Bit Video Game Soundtrack, Megan Mckittrick

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

While there are many contemporary 8-bit-inspired video game scores, the article points to the original soundtrack for the 2010 Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World: The Game (Ubisoft, 2010) as an example of game music canon formation, arguing that Anamanaguchi designs their music to hail gamers who share their sense of nostalgia, referred to as veteran, aging, or mature gamers. Anamanaguchi not only canonizes 8-bit music by hailing veteran gamers; they commodify it, as well. Recognizing the market for this style of music, they employ what Christina Baade and Paul Aitken have described as the nostalgia aesthetic to sell their music …

Hearing The Cry In Black Diasporic And Latina/O Poetics, Rachel E. Ellis Neyra

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Hearing the Cry in Black Diasporic and Latina/o Poetics" Rachel Ellis Neyra expands upon Edouard Glissant's notion of "the cry of the Plantation" and shows how to listen for it in literary arrangement of Derek Walcott, Piri Thomas, Pedro Pietri, Ralph Ellison, Miguel Algarín, and James Baldwin. Ellis Neyra also reads musical lyrics by Oscar D'León and Billie Holiday and the melodic nuances of salsa, jazz, the blues, and bomba for how they sound out what she calls the New World Cry, a mnemonic figure of the Plantation of the Americas and a metaphor for how estrangement …

Bidi Bidi Bom Bom: The Audiotopias Of Selena Across The Americas, Janet Muniz

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

Using Josh Kun’s Audiotopia as a framework, this paper will explore the role of Selena’s music as audiotopias, the concept that music functions like a possible utopia for immigrant communities on both sides of the United States and Mexico border in imagining an ideal borderless America. Music serves as a disruption to the oppressive reality of immigrant communities and makes the struggles of marginalized communities audible for those who have been traditionally silenced. This paper will fill in gaps in existing literature of Selena's remembrance by applying Kun’s audiotopia theory for an understanding of the places her music takes …