Music Commons^™

Unsuk Chin’S Hyper-Sheng: Sonic And Structural Development In Šu For Sheng And Orchestra, Hyun-Kyung Lee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Korean composer Unsuk Chin (b. 1961) is constantly exploring new sonic experiences in her works; her concerto Šu for Sheng and Orchestra (2009) is drawing considerable attention, as it is Chin’s first piece written for an Asian instrument. This study begins with a simple inquiry How does Chin combine an Asian instrument (sheng) with the Western orchestra? To answer this question, this research examines Chin’s treatment of the sheng and the development of the orchestra in partnership with the solo instrument, focusing on the creation of what she terms a “hyper-sheng:” the solo sheng and the orchestra collaboratively producing …

7 Preludes For "Music Can Sleep" For Pierrot Ensemble, Matthew Sandahl

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The material was culled from sketches for four distinct abandoned projects, one of which was titled ‘Music can sleep.’ Eventually I became less interested in seeing a particular idea to fruition and more concerned with selecting and arranging from an archive of unfinished fragments. The principle criteria for selection included psychological potency and the music’s capacity to convey the mood of the moment in which they were written.

i. fragment for maria 9/7/20
ii. curtain 5/31/20
iii. premonition / toy no. 1 11/1/19
iv. dream 11/6/19
v. punchline 8/11/21
vi. song / toy no. 2 5/21/20
vii. sprite 5/12/20

“The Theory Is Not Yet Music”: An Analysis Of Pierre Schaeffer’S Etude Aux Allures, Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Throughout his career, Pierre Schaeffer composed several sound works to test and inspire his evolving musical theories. By composing with edited sound recordings, rather than traditional musical instruments, he hoped to discover new ways of creating musical structures based on sound parameters other than pitch. This study is an analysis of Schaeffer’s sound work Etude aux allures. This Etude examines the musical potential of the sound parameter allure, which is Schaeffer’s term for the pulsed modulation of pitch, volume, or other sound parameters. Without the existence of a standardized analytical methodology, the Etude is viewed from several perspectives. First, a …

Clarinet And Shadow, Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Clarinet and Shadow is a musical composition for clarinet and electronics. In the piece, live electronics pitch shift the sound of the clarinet to create harmonies and add the sound of an artificial instrument. The electronics are the clarinet's shadow: unreal, always there, and tied to its movement.

Rupturismes: Art Sonor A Mallorca, Un Poc De Context, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Antoni Caimari (1943-2021), com sap tothom, no era un músic com els altres; i tampoc no ho volia ser. Encapçalava els títols de les seves obres musicals amb les inicials EB o «esbós» (com altres compositors les inicien amb Op.) per donar una idea que no tenien res a veure amb les composicions tancades i immanents dels mestres del passat. Aquests EBs no tenien partitura perquè, com va dir Llorenç Barber, un altre compositor donat als aforismes, estaven alliberats de la tirania de la «partiturocràcia».

A Comparison Of Uniaxial Compressive Response And Inelastic Deformation Mechanisms In Freeze Cast Alumina-Epoxy Composites Without And With Rigid Confinement, Tareq Aljuhari

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Cellular ceramics have an array of improved mechanical properties that make them incredibly desired for different applications such as armor systems, aircraft structures, automobiles bumpers, and biomedical implants. It is also desirable that porous architecture could be shaped into bulk complicated shapes and easy to scale-up with low manufacturing cost. Despite several efficient techniques to fabricate cellular ceramics, some limitations are preventing us from meeting the high demand of the after mentioned applications. For that, freeze casting, also called ice-templating, is technique of solidifying an aqueous ceramic suspension under the effect of unidirectional temperature gradient. In this study, Ice-templated porous …

Listen To The River: Dolores, Ophelia, And Female Resistance In Opera, Daniel Aaron Barnidge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The music of female characters in the great masterpieces of opera often demonstrates resistance to and undermines the abuse they have historically received in opera plots. The Mexican folktale that my opera, The Tragedy of La Llorona, draws inspiration from plays on many of the same tropes historically found in female characters in opera including madness, sexuality, and lack of agency. This led to research into the portrayal of women in opera as part of my pre-compositional process and my desire to access this tale free from the traditional 'marianismo' and 'machismo' narratives it is associated with and which …

Oneira: New Music & Animation, Jennifer Bellor, Christine A. Banna

Creative Collaborations

UNLV Composer Dr. Jennifer Bellor collaborated with Christine Banna, animator from the Rochester Institute of Animation to create ONEIRA, a sci-fi animation music video Christine Banna created to pair with Jennifer Bellor’s composition, Oneira. Written for the electronic MalletKAT, vibraphone, and two marimbas, and recorded by the percussion quartet, Clocks in Motion, this 11-minute work is inspired by virtual worlds and dreaming. This track is also featured on Bellor’s most recent album, also titled ONEIRA, which was released by Aerocade Music August 19, 2022.

Bellor first created the music, imagining that this composition will be paired with …

Saxophone Odyssey

DePaul Magazine

DePaul alumnus Jon Irabagon charts his own course in the jazz world between hard-bop tradition and improvisational exploration as a performer, composer and producer.

Straubgetzeichnet: Organ Fantasy, Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Organ fantasy written for Christopher Anderson in honor of the publication of his biography of Karl Straube. The title is a portmanteau of the words "Straube" and "Ausgezeichnet" ("excellent") in German, referring to Dr. Anderson's achievement in completing such an extensive work after nearly 15 years of labors.

A Theory Of Text Setting Contour: A Proposed Theory That Places Text At The Structural Foreground Of The Analysis Of Vocal Music, Grace K. Weaver

Music ETDs

How can contour theory be used to analyze a composer’s setting of a poem? Can this approach provide insights that lead to an interpretation of the composer’s setting of the text? This study presents a new contour theory on text setting by examining two different settings of the same text. This theory examines one aspect of the music, the vocal line, and plots syllable’s locations in two dimensions of music: pitch space and duration. Using these data points, one can suggest an interpretation of the poem. Through the application of this theory to Fanny Hensel and Franz Schubert’s setting of …

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 …

Rima, Gregory J. Menillo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Instrumental work for violin and piano based on a sestina by Dante Alighieri; written to commemorate the poet on the 700th anniversary of his death. Commissioned by Elena Augilar Kosta for Eriko Sato and David Oei. This piece received its premier by Curtis Macomber and Steven Beck on May 20, 2022 in Elebash Hall at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Non-Tonal Pitch Hierarchies And Dramatic Narratives In Oliver Knussen’S Variations, Op. 24, Joseph Prestamo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Musical analysts have often commented on the lingering echoes of tonality present within the otherwise non-centered (and remarkably complex) harmonic world of Oliver Knussen’s music. Using his piece Variations, Op. 24 as a model, this project hypothesizes that the compositional techniques Knussen employs serve to create non-tonal pitch hierarchies. Although Knussen does not use functional tonal harmony in this piece, he finds a variety of ways to elevate the pitch A to a place of prominence, both on the musical surface and in the background structural operations. These techniques naturally result in pitch spaces that are rich with tonal and …

Archetype, Story, And Myth Within Bulgarian Folklore And Black American Music, Wes C. Georgiev

University Honors Theses

The confluence of several disciplines is explored through the investigation of archetypes, stories, folklore, and myths within the realm of music composition. This research aims to draw fresh conclusions which contend with some of the meanings of being a human. All research is done in conjunction with the creation of a new body of compositions written and arranged for piano, upright bass, and drum set. The academic objective of these pieces is to combine many of the salient characteristics of Bulgarian Folk music with those of Black American music. The supporting research in this essay examines centuries of migration, conflict, …

Creating Musical Scores Inspired By The Intersection Of Human Speech And Music Through Model-Based Cross Synthesis, William Alexander Thompson Iv

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research addresses the development of machine learning techniques used to create musical scores and performances that are inspired by the intersection of speech and music. Machine learning models are created from MIDI files that are transcribed from datasets of musical audio recordings and human speech audio recordings. Through the creation of succinct models, model based cross synthesis is possible. Models trained on musical MIDI data are asked to replicate MIDI data that approximate human speech. Alternatively, models that have been trained on MIDI data that approximate speech are asked to replicate musical MIDI data. The product of these developed …

Project Metamorphosis: Designing A Dynamic Framework For Converting Musical Compositions Into Paintings, Rao Hamza Ali, Grace Fong, Erik Linstead

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

The authors present an automated, rule-based system for converting piano compositions into paintings. Using a color-note association scale presented by Edward Maryon in 1919, which correlates 12-tone scale with 12 hues of the color circle, the authors present a simple approach for extracting colors associated with each note played in a piano composition. The authors also describe the color extraction and art generation process in detail, as well as the process for creating “moving art,” which imitates the progression of a musical piece in real time. They share and discuss artworks generated for four well-known piano compositions.

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 …

Energy Portraits For Flute, Clarinet In B-Flat, Violin, Cello, Piano, And Percussion, Luis Solis

Music Theses and Dissertations

Energy Portraits is a 25-minute work for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion based on the nine Enneagram personality types. The Enneagram system delves into underlying motivations and thought patterns of different people rather than only external behaviors, so this piece incorporates the typical overall energy of each number as a miniature portrait. The movements are not in the same order as the nine types from the Enneagram but are reordered and renamed for musical reasons. This allows the listeners who are not familiarized with the Enneagram to still understand the theme and energy of each movement.

Flourish is …

Outcast: A Compositional Interpretation Of Lgbtqia+ Members' Self Love Stories In Social Participation, Victor G. Garcia

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

In history, it has been known to the world that the LGBT community has been facing challenges in this society, and where struggles occur, love must prevail. To numerically determine these 4 qualifying people, a behavioral survey was released for them to answer. The interpretation process was done by arranging the ideas from the interview transcription, planning the song themes ahead of time, and using creative figurative languages. After creating the songs, another survey was sent to the four participants for evaluation and subjective criticisms. Results show that all participants have agreed that the songs created can positively influence the …

White Dashes: A Research And Music Compilation On How Songwriters Harness And Understand The Concept Of Writing Based On Foreign Experiences., Stephanie Ann D. Lavoie

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

Music is part of more than we realize, without music in movies, advertisements, video games, films, and many other types of media, it would change how we immerse ourselves in these other worlds. This research focuses on writing music based on foreign experiences, meaning working with others and meeting their needs while maintaining creative liberty. A survey was conducted where songwriters and composers answered questions about differences between writing based on personal and foreign experiences, along with their opinions on how to write music for others. After the survey, interviews were conducted with some of those who answered the google …

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 …

A Poet's Voice: Music In Service To Poetry: Elements Of Text Painting In Juliana Hall's Song Cycle "How Do I Love Thee?", Hayley Z. Coughin

Dissertations, 2020-current

American composer Juliana Hall has established a reputation as one of the leading composers of contemporary American art songs, having composed over 60 song cycles, totaling over 300 works for the voice. Hall’s song cycle How Do I Love Thee? expresses a narrative arc told through five selections from Victorian-era poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese. The poems selected include Sonnet 3: “Unlike,” Sonnet 43: “How Do I Love Thee?,” Sonnet 37: “Pardon,” Sonnet 21: “Say Over,” and Sonnet 41: “Thank You.” Hall’s cycle describes the relationship between the lover and the object of their love, including …

Using Geologic Principles And Data To Create A Symphony For Wind Ensemble, Thomas J. Davis

2022 Symposium

Geology and geologic processes have featured in many pieces of classical music such as Alan Hovhaness’ symphonic works after Mt. St. Helens and Glacier Peak but these pieces are impressionistic and only take general inspiration from the geology of their subjects. This paper describes the creation of Tectonics (2021) a piece which incorporates and describes many geologic principles and processes, such as mantle convection, through the musical form of cannon, the formation of fold and thrust belts whose cross sections are directly visually recreated in the score, and the physical dynamics of earthquake waves demonstrated through variations of pitch and …

Production As Analysis In Commercial Music Recordings, Simeon P. Church

Composition/Recording Projects

Since the 1960s, scholarship of popular music in the fields of musicology and music theory has blossomed (Kajanová 2013). The inclusion of the social sciences and humanities in music analysis has allowed for new methodologies in commercial music analysis. Although new methodologies have been developed around popular song analysis, they are notably absent in the field of music production (Blake 2012, 1). In this thesis, I will assert that music production is an under-explored facet of commercial music that offers abundant opportunities for analysis.

Life, Man, Diane Wong

Theses and Dissertations

This piece paints the picture of what life felt like from the composer’s vantage point, specifically at the time when the composition was conceived. The first section employs the first sixteen pitches present in the harmonic series as an embodiment of the pure nature of sound – vibration, physics, and acoustics. The middle section shows a dynamic that pulls in two directions, one going sharper and sharper ascending through the circle of fifths and the other going flatter and flatter descending, all the while a steady pedal point in the center of the axis nonchalantly ticks like clockwork. As this …

Reborn: The Documentation And Processes Of A Fusion Project, Natalie Merrill

Composition/Recording Projects

Many musicians aim to create something new, fresh, unprecedented, unpredictable. They seek uniqueness, attempting to create a sound that will be traced back to their work as music history progresses. As they work to find their distinct voices, musicians spend years trying to find their right sound, hoping it will leave a legacy of music tied to their original creativity. Composition, when based on various musical influences, is an incredible tool for the musician because it can bring together styles – and more importantly, people and cultures – from all over the world. The chapters of this paper tell the …

Exploring The Chromatic Harmony And Tonal Organization Of Casey Crescenzo, Nicholas Veine

Student Theses

Much of western music harmony study considers repertoire only from the classical canon and so-called "jazz standards." While this pursuit is noble, much more can be gleaned from musical theoretical study expanding the repertoire into progressive rock. "Prog" has pioneered the modern usage of chromatic harmony, especially 4ths-based movement, and subdominant harmony, as well as the natural expansion of the ideas of chromatic mediants and transformational theory. This paper specifically highlights the usages of these extended harmonic techniques in the music of Casey Crescenzo, primary writer/composer for the rock band: The Dear Hunter.

Telling Stories: An Analysis Of Speech-Melody Compositions And An Original Speech-Melody Composition For Wind Ensemble, Kevin Cheek

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the compositional technique of speech melody and provides a brief historical overview of speech in music. This thesis also examines recent works (2005-2014) that have sourced their melodies from the spoken word and in turn creates an original composition for wind ensemble consisting of melodies sourced from recordings of members of United States military forces speaking about their lived experiences. In conjunction with the analytical and compositional aspects of this thesis, I also conducted an interview with Dutch composer Jacob ter Veldhuis (Jacob TV). i

The Game: A Contemporary Opera In One Act, Kailey Erwin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My opera entitled “the game: a contemporary opera in one act” began as a project in my undergraduate composition lessons. My vision for this opera is to make it accessible and easily performed by singers with minimal “operatic training.” This is an opera for developing singers, and a great introduction to the style of opera without long, draining arias, or complicated ensembles. This opera was performed on April 2nd, 2022 in Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall as a partial fulfillment for my degree requirements. Long-term, I envision The Game performed by singers in high school, undergraduates, or even community theaters. …