Audio Arts and Acoustics Commons^™

"You Can't Be Shakespeare And You Can't Be Joyce": Lou Reed, Modernism, And Mass Production, Daniel C. Jacobson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation proposes a reevaluation of the overlooked connections between American popular music and modernist literature’s scope and formal experimentation which arose in the mid-20th century. Because Lou Reed’s ever-changing persona situates his work uncomfortably between high art and pop-culture, modernism and “post-modernity,” literature and music, and ethics and aesthetics, I intend to consider Reed as this dissertation’s empty, refracted center. One that will allow for a critique of several major intellectual movements, both inside and outside the academy, that continue to influence thinking about art, ethics, and material culture. Additionally, I hope to show that the work of a …

The Significance Of Sonic Branding To Strategically Stimulate Consumer Behavior: Content Analysis Of Four Interviews From Jeanna Isham’S “Sound In Marketing” Podcast, Ina Beilina

Student Theses and Dissertations

Purpose:
Sonic branding is not just about composing jingles like McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It.” Sonic branding is an industry that strategically designs a cohesive auditory component of a brand’s corporate identity. This paper examines the psychological impact of music and sound on consumer behavior reviewing studies from the past 40 years and investigates the significance of stimulating auditory perception by infusing sound in consumer experience in the modern 2020s.

Design/methodology/approach:
Qualitative content analysis of audio media was used to test two hypotheses. Four archival oral interview recordings from Jeanna Isham’s podcast “Sound in Marketing” featuring the sonic branding experts …

Isocrates's Place In Postmodern Advertising, Christopher Barkley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study in communication and rhetoric seeks to ascertain constructive applications for distinct advertising practices by examining Isocrates’s work and place in postmodern advertising. The focus uses 5 principles known to Isocrates which are: 1) commonwealths of households, 2) integration of reputation, elegance, substance and style, 3) education and public discourse, 4) phronesis and praxis, and 5) truth and verisimilitude. These 5 principles can form a constructive and practical advertising approach. This study is important. It examines Isocrates through the lens of advertising and extends the research done about him by leading Isocrates scholars who have looked primarily at his …

Operatic Mysticisms: Mountains, Deserts, Waterscapes, Andrew Demczuk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Operatic Mysticisms: Mountains, Deserts, Waterscapes examines the ways we encounter environments as readers/viewers of operas, literature, film, and sound recordings, and how each medium requires different detail-gathering techniques. Respective to the previously mentioned mediums, Sun & Sea (2017), Mount Analogue (1952), El Mar La Mar (2017), and Energy Field (2010) are analyzed by engaging with environmental media studies and invention. Reflecting the nature of each landscape—summits of mountains, aporias of deserts, and mysteries of waterscapes—an elemental approach is taken in investigating how these spaces may be noticed, internalized, recorded, and traversed by both the artist and viewer. …

360 Sounds: Drum Sample Packs With Supporting Video Series And Website, Maddie M. Harmon

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

Drums are the foundation of any piece of music; because of this, it is impossible to create even a decent mix of a song without first taking the time to really mold and sculpt drum sounds. This is a painstaking process that includes extreme attention to detail in every aspect—selecting and placing microphones, tuning the drum kit, guiding the drummer to play in the pocket, adding effects processing, editing the drum tracks into single-hit takes after recording. Oftentimes (especially in the more commonplace lower-budget sessions that often don’t have the finances to spend an adequate amount of time perfecting drum …

Hard Feelings: A Musical Exploration Of Plutchik's Primary Human Emotions, Sarah Killian

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

The purpose of this project was to explore Robert Plutchik’s eight primary human emotions - joy, sadness, trust, disgust, fear, anger, surprise, and anticipation - through three musical lenses: key selection and chord/rhythm choices; lyrics; and production and arrangement choices made for each of the eight demo recordings.

Kemar Hats Head Orientation Directivity, Samuel D. Bellows, Timothy W. Leishman

Directivity

This directivity data set for a KEMAR head head-and-torso simulator (HATS) includes head orientations in 14 directions in 5° steps starting from 0° to 40° and then in 10° steps from 40° to 90°. The full spherical measurements followed at an a = 0.97 m radius with the mouth aperture at the spherical center. The sampling density and distribution followed the AES 5° dual-equiangular sampling standard, omitting the south pole (θ = 180°). Thus, each spherical directivity assessment included 36 polar-angle θ samples and 72 azimuthal-angle ϕ samples. The presented data include 22 1/3-octave bands, ranging from 80 Hz …

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 …

Full Bloom: Diegetic Ui For Musical Phrases In Virtual Reality, Peter Armstrong, Elliot Cole, Peter Ferry, Joe Geigel, Susan Lakin, Richard Swientonioski, Zachary Talis, Jennie Thomas

Frameless

We propose a novel system for communicating musical note pitch and sequence information to users within a virtual reality environment. Our approach utilizes ‘Blooms,’ objects that resemble flowers with various petal arrangements. These formations, when constructed in view of users, act as diegetic, user-parsable encodings of their inputs. Blooms exist within the virtual space as simulated physics objects that collectively serve the role of a user interface.

Music Video Review: "O Superman" - Laurie Anderson, Jacob Thomas (Kiko) F. Yago

Backstage Pass

Laurie Anderson's "O Superman" music video is a commentary about the progression of technology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkfpi2H8tOE

A Line In The Sand Album Review, Robert N. Moore

Backstage Pass

On July 3rd, 2020, American Arson released their first full-length album. A Line In The Sand has a tight and powerful sound while still feeling raw and untamed, thanks to the help of high production standards. The lyrics somehow find a balance between bold, catchy, and beautiful. Their message mainly revolves around the current American socio-political sphere, challenging their listeners to seek compassion and unity instead of giving into apathy and ignorance.

Click the Download button to read the rest of the review!

Ishmael Album Review, Robert N. Moore

Backstage Pass

This is an extensive review of the metal album Ishmael, written, performed, mixed, mastered, and released all by Jared Smith. The album combines religion, intricate guitar riffs, and metal to create an avant-garde piece of art.

Copyright And Copywrong, Noah Granard

Backstage Pass

This paper attempts to offer a critique of the music industry and modern copyright law via analysis/individual case study in order to provide suggestions for possible reform. Topics include: background information and commentary on the status of the public domain, why the current laws/statures hamper creativity, and what steps should be taken next to remedy these issues. In order to both promote new music, while also respecting the intellectual property of artists and groups with existing content, there must be genuine reform at the highest levels; copyright and music industry laws must stem from the basis of supporting artists and …

Producer Interview: Teak Underdue, Kris Jones

Backstage Pass

This interview is with three-time Grammy-nominated music producer Teak Underdue of Hallway Productions. He discusses his background and the path he has taken to become a well respected music creator and producer. The interviewee offers advice for aspiring producers on how to build their reputation and credits in the music industry.

Industry Profile: Tour Manager, Lisa Policaro, Elizabeth Shearrow

Backstage Pass

Lisa Policaro is a Tour Manager from Long Island, New York with over 20 years of experience in the music business. She has worked in all areas of the industry from Interning for Columbia Records to working her way up to being Tour Manager. In this interview, Lisa talks with Elizabeth Shearrow (‘23) about how she got her start in the industry, what qualities students need to have to become a Tour Manager, and how COVID-19 has impacted her career.

Letter From The Editor-In-Chief, Keith Hatschek

Backstage Pass

Outgoing Editor-in-Chief, Keith Hatschek, relates what accomplishments the editors of the journal have achieved, as well as previewing the content from this issue.

Signal To Noise: Harmonic Temperaments And Patterns Of Interference, Dylan A. Marcheschi

Theses and Dissertations

An audio/visual exploration of historical tuning systems. Most contemporary Western audiences will seldom if ever encounter harmony outside of post-Renaissance tuning conventions. This presentation highlights some of those pre-orthodox harmonic relationships which existed throughout most of history. The corresponding paper documents correlates in recent advances of acoustic ecology.

A Feminist History Of The Roland Mc-505, Cameron Davis

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

A Feminist History of the Roland MC-505

Abstract

Roland’s MC 505 is a small portable music production instrument also known as agroovebox that functions as a programmable sixty-four note polyphonic synthesizer and drummachine with twenty-six interchangeable drum kits to use in various combinations. (1) The groovebox is equipped for both audio recording and live performance, both of which are analyzed in this research. The machine has many innovative elements that have carried over into modern music technology as well as some limitations that have since been left behind. This study acts as a historical evaluation of the growth and improvements …

"When I Wore A Younger Man's Clothes": The Nostalgia Topic In The Music Of Billy Joel, Kendall Waters

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

My father and I often listened to Billy Joel together as I grew up, and I eventually formed nostalgic connections to Joel’s music. While music is well known as a conductor of nostalgia, this paper explores the idea that the nostalgia I feel while listening to specific songs in Joel’s catalog is not simply a result of the indexical connections I have built with these tracks. Rather, it is a result of a “nostalgia topic” in Joel’s work. This paper compares the soundtrack and select works from Joel’s catalog to reveal that there is no one gesture, melody, or harmonic …

Sound In Color, Amber Rhodes

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

“Sound in Color” is an interactive audio-visual experience designed to explore the relationship between sound, color, and emotions. Taking place on the Massey Concert Hall stage, the project is inspired by synesthesia and incorporates research on color psychology. Participants are invited to select an emotion and color. As the user hums into a microphone, they hear their emotions expressed through sound in their headphones and watch as the lights on stage respond to their vocal cues.

Living Room Orchestra: Designing Embedded Furniture As A Family Of Electronic Musical Instruments, Matthew Scott Blessing

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Musical Chairs is a project that explores ways to bring more music and sound art into people’s homes in an unobtrusive manner. In a world of embeddable technologies and Internets of Things, the home is getting increasingly “smarter” and not all things are as they once seemed–a refrigerator can tell you the weather, a smart speaker can order a dollhouse. By embedding musicality in everyday home objects, performable sonic beauty can be all around without requiring any dedicated space to hold instruments. One no longer requires a grand piano taking up space in order to host a Salon.

This dissertation …

Advanced Technologies In Music Production And Collaboration, David Besonen

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

My Honors Senior Creative Project was to compose and produce a short album of original music alongside talented musicians here at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) as well as around the world.

Ua1c11/110 Frank Pittman Photo Collection, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Photographs of guitar building workshop.

Symphony Of Nature: "Fall", Davis Cooper

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This honors project is for an analysis paper based on one movement of an original music composition by the author in the realm of environmental sound art. The movement, entitled “Fall” from the Symphony of Nature, consists of hundreds of individual audio recordings of specific animals (such as an American Crow, Carolina Ground Cricket, and Gray Catbird), groups of animals (such as a choir of Ground Crickets, a murder of crows, and so forth), or geophonic sounds (such as a light rain on dry leaves, a several-miles-distant thunderstorm, or mid-to-high range audio spectrum wind). The analysis paper includes the rationale …

Fostering Music Performers In The 21st Century: A Contemporary Professional Perspective Toward A New Curricular Agenda For Graduate Study In Music, Andre Januario

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

What if the core curriculum for graduate students in music performance were designed to prepare students to succeed in the world of the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

This dissertation offers a hypothetical answer: a structured and systematic academic curricular framework for music graduate students of performance of concert music (especially those in terminal degrees, such as doctoral students), along with music instructors, professional music performers, school administrators, and college professors, seeking to prepare such students for achieving and maintaining a music career more in keeping with the current work environment, especially those skills demanded by the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the …

Touching Light: A Framework For The Facilitation Of Music-Making In Mixed Reality, Ian Thomas Riley

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Drawing upon the historical development of analog and digital technologies alongside the proliferation of computer-assisted performance practices, this research seeks to develop a framework for integrating Mixed Reality applications to live musical performance, specifically through the creation of a Microsoft HoloLens 2 Mixed Reality application in order to facilitate a live performance of an original musical composition for percussion and real-time Mixed Reality environment. Mixed Reality enables a performer to interact with virtual (holograms, VSTs, etc.) and physical (vibraphone, tuned drums, microphones, etc.) objects simultaneously. Tandem to the development of the conceptual framework was the composition of an original score …

A Case Study Of Classically Trained Singers In Pop Singing, Norfazrina Mohd Gani

Student Works (2020-2029)

In general, this study was conducted to discuss about a classically trained singers in pop singing among professional singers in Malaysia. Therefore, this study is limited only to classically trained singers in singing modern pop’s genre based on vocal techniques and vocal health. The respondents consisted of 5 Malaysian singers who are well trained classically and have experienced in both education and music industry singing pop songs. As a classically trained singer, this study employed narrative inquiry focusing on their life experience using their vocal techniques that they have mastered and to prove that classically trained singers can deliver pop …

Devine Affliction : The Intersection Of Gender & Music Production, Louise Thompson

Postgraduate

There is a severe and persistent lack of female representation and participation in the field of popular music production. In the 61-year history of the Grammy awards no woman has ever been awarded Producer of the Year, and female nominees are rare. Until Linda Perry’s nomination in 2019, a female had not received a nomination in 15 years.

As a woman, a mother of daughters, a feminist, a songwriter, and a music producer, I feel compelled to provide an alternative inroad for women to be able to participate within the field of music production. As such, my graduate project work …

The Modes Of Intervention In Alvin Lucier’S I Am Sitting In A Room, Daniel Fox

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Alvin Lucier’s I am sitting in a room (1969) is an icon of experimental music and sound art. The sizable literature addressing the aesthetic and philosophical implications of this piece rarely discusses the performance practice beyond what is indicated in the score itself. This is problematic for two reasons: 1) The meaning that is derived from the piece often hinges not just on what sounds are obtained, but on how they are obtained. 2) Over the past 50 years, changes in the performance practice have altered what constitutes the work: magnetic tape was used until 2000 when it was replaced …

The Effect Of Vocal Warm-Up On Voice Quality Of Untrained Female Singers In Malaysia, Wei Shean Ter

Student Works (2020-2029)

Professional singers and singing teachers regard vocal warm-up as vital. However, very few studies have evaluated this effect quantitatively. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of the vocal warm-up on the singing voice quality through acoustic parameters of Jitter, Shimmer and harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) and to assess whether scientific evidence supports the warm-up procedure, whether an untrained singer can benefit from singing vocal warm-up exercises in a similar way as a trained singer and whether the vocal warm-up should be encouraged or bypassed. 40 untrained female singers were recorded twice while uttering the vowel /a/, /o/ and /i/ in …