Music Commons^™

Regional Geography And Tuning Systems Of Traditional Georgian Folk Music, Alex Kutubidze

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The project focuses on the traditional folk music of Georgia, mapping the geographical distribution of singing traditions across the country’s historical regions. Because vocal traditions and stylistic features of Georgian folk music vary significantly across historical regions, the project highlights these differences for the audience, which might be interested in learning Georgian folk music, seeking a basic understanding of its structure, or planning to visit the country for cultural or educational purposes related to folk music.  In addition, this work examines the tonal organization of Georgian traditional music, drawing on recent ethnomusicological research. It engages with ongoing scholarly discussions regarding …

Juventino Rosas, Sobre Las Olas, And Their Place In Defining Mexican Music In The Porfirian Nineteenth Century, Catherine J. Langevin-Falcon

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the life and music of Juventino Rosas (1868–1894), the Mexican composer whose most enduring work is Sobre las olas (1888), a Viennese-style waltz. I ask the question: Why was Sobre las olas so well-known and why does it remain beloved with audiences around the world, even today, while Rosas is hardly known outside his native Mexico? I considered historical, social and cultural factors, as well as musical events of the day, that may have had bearing on the question. I describe the broad outlines of Rosas's life and the challenges he faced as an indigenous person, composer …

Hear & Now: Culturally Responsive Music Education Through Digital Audio Workstations & Musique Concrète, Benjamin T. Connolly

Pitzer Senior Theses

Hear & Now: Culturally Responsive Music Education Through Digital Audio Workstations & Musique Concrète is a two-part ethnomusicological study of how the capacities and affordability of modern electronic instruments could be utilized within school curricula as an affordable alternative to traditional music classes. I explore the musique concrète movement from mid-20th century France, aiming my examination towards the movement’s emphasis on the materiality of sound production and utilization of modern technology during the composition process. From there, the paper transitions into a study on the affordances of contemporary music technologies through a series of interviews with electronic composers, tracing the …

Interpretable Repertoire Search For Computer Supported Aural Skills Teaching: A Searchable Sia Based Digital Companion, Peter G. Fielding

Bailey School of Music Faculty Publications

Aural skills teaching depends heavily on repertoire selection, yet many large print and heritage song collections remain difficult to search in pedagogically meaningful ways. Teachers may need melodies with limited pitch collections for early solfège, modal examples for comparative listening, or repertory with controlled chromatic complexity, but such features are rarely indexed in printed sources. This paper proposes a computer-supported response to that problem: a searchable, rights-aware digital companion built around tonic-centered successive interval arrays (SIAs). SIAs provide an interpretable representation of pitch space by encoding the cyclic step pattern among the pitch classes present in a melody after tonic …

Cantate Fratres: Forming And Sustaining Traditional Catholic Music, Liturgy And Culture In The Institute Of Christ The King Sovereign Priest, Reyers P. Brusoe

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest is an understudied member of the Traditional Catholic and Latin Mass Communities whose unique approach to Catholic liturgy, culture, and formation offers a sustainable model for the Catholic Church's longevity and renewal. This study is the first of its kind, combining the theoretical positions of affect theory, ecomusicology/musical sustainability, and the musicology of religion to explore and explain the success of this growing classical community. This dissertation examines Church documents, theological literature, and multidisciplinary academic sources as a foundation for the study.             In studying the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, …

The Matusiflute: Exploring Intercultural Collaboration Through Timbral Dízi Emulation Within An Australian-Chinese Orchestral Performance Setting, Gabriel Mcmahon

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research investigates how the Matusiflute can potentially promote intercultural Sino Western collaboration within solo, chamber and orchestral settings by consciously applying technical and stylistic codes attributed to the dízi (traverse Chinese bamboo flute). Using an autoethnographic approach, I reflect on my engagement with the dízi, its morphology, timbre and stylistic interpretation, and how my pedagogical flute context impacted this approach. These learnings were then applied to the Matusiflute through two premiere performances of a commissioned intercultural work by Nicholas Ng, The Secret of the Golden Flower (2024) for Matusiflute and Chinese Orchestra. The latter being performed in a solo …

Philsongs: A Study Of Campfire Music Performed At Scouting America’S Philmont Scout Ranch (2014 To 2021), Ellyn Rager

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This dissertation focuses on Philmont Scout Ranch, a national Scouting America high adventure base in New Mexico and the largest youth camp in the world, arguing that music at Philmont serves as a cultural force that fosters an intensive communal bond among staff and campers by blending participatory and presentational music-making practices, while producing and reinforcing memories of Philmont through interpretive performances that negotiate the place’s historical narratives. Using surveys, interviews, and Thomas Turino’s framework of participatory and presentational music-making to interpret the author’s 100 hours of field recordings, this study examines aspects of Philmont’s musical habits between 2014 and …

More Than A Man: An Ethnomusicological Survey Of The Folklore Of John Henry And Resource Guide For “More Than A Man” By Shanyse Strickland, Clayton R. Heath

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

“John Henry” exists as an enduring folk legend in the United States of America, representing the confluence of the Reconstruction Era, the economic utility of Appalachia and the Westward expansion of industry which left it behind. Though based on historical events, Henry’s fictional representation has diverted and evolved in music and other media from its inception in the oral tradition to the modern age. Through this progression, shared symbols have circulated, gathering embedded meanings and associating the folklore with specific communities. Henry’s representational identity has been signaled with the creation and distribution of each version of his story, both complicating …

Book Review: Inside Chinese Theater: Community And Artistry In Nineteenth-Century California And Beyond By Nancy Yunwha Rao, Jiyoon Auo

Asia Pacific Perspectives

No abstract provided.

New Music And New Instruments: The Development Of The Electric Bass Guitar, Braxton Algood

Student Scholar Symposium

The sound of the modern electric bass has become ubiquitous in music across multiple genres. With the emergence of jazz music in the 1930s, upright bassists like Jimmy Blanton sought to create a sonic space that exploited the resonance in the low register of the traditional double bass, but was more rhythmic and percussive than the instrument’s traditional role. This desire for a percussive string instrument that had the sound of the upright bass—and might also be more portable—led to the creation of Leo Fender’s first electric bass guitar in 1951. By the end of the 1950s, the electric bass …

Post-Tonal Pedagogy In The Music Of György Ligeti, Easton Ball

Student Scholar Symposium

Post-tonal piano literature remains unpopular with many modern performers due to a perceived lack of technical approachability. As a result, a wealth of post-tonal keyboard music passes into obscurity, never reaching modern audiences. Despite the preconception that post-tonal music lacks formal and harmonic structure, one can assign order to elements within these compositions both for purposes of improving pedagogy and engendering familiarity with the literature. My research aims to demonstrate one process of elucidating the relative accessibility of post-tonal literature for keyboard by means of an analysis of a selection of György Ligeti’s Études pour piano. Because this material often …

Objects Of Power: Female Instrumentalists In Medieval To Early Modern Europe, Emma Scherrer

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Women are difficult to locate in traditional histories of western music, especially performers and particularly instrumentalists. The relationship between a female performer, the instrument she played, and her audience was especially fraught, constituting a complicated web of gendered relations and power dynamics. An examination of the contexts in which women played instruments in medieval to early modern Europe elucidates how women in these societies interacted with music and musical institutions. While women were generally excluded from musical institutions and discouraged from playing most musical instruments, many women nevertheless chose to take up an instrument outside of professional contexts. From the …

The Politics Of Musical Time: Expanding Songs And Shrinking Markets In Bengali Devotional Performance, Jaime Jones

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

A book review is presented for The Politics of Musical Time: Expanding Songs and Shrinking Markets in Bengali Devotional Performance, authored by Eben Graves, by Jaime Jones.

Byzantine Theories Of Scale And Arab-Byzantine Chant Practices: A Comparative Analysis Proposing A New Resolution To The Theoretical System Of Chrysanthos Of Madytos, Rosy Azar

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

In 2015, Amine Beyhom published a book on Byzantine chant, in which he summarised all the existing theories, paying particular attention to the problematic reform of the Byzantine chant theory in 1881, and guiding the reader through the steps that led to that reform. Driven by the first ever comparison between Byzantine and Arabic modes that he had found in Mīkhāʾīl Mashāqa’s epistle, Beyhom first studied Chrysanthos of Madytos’ insight. He documented this research in detail and followed it with a practical comparison to demonstrate if theory is indeed applied or it acts only as prescriptive guide. He recorded and …

Schemata Of Barbershop Tags, Brian A. Cromer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the genre of barbershop tags, brief musical compositions in the barbershop style. After the introduction in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 describes the barbershop style and outlines a modified roman numeral system that reflects barbershop norms. Chapter 3 analyzes the 125 entries of the Classic Book of Tags based on two features: the harmonic point of interest (HPI) and the penultimate chord. Patterns emerging from these two criteria include eleven primary schemata along with a few secondary schemata accounting for the harmonic design for a majority of tags. Chapter 4 analyzes two barbershop arrangements: “Come Fly With Me” …

Heroes By The Score, Owen J. Eastman

Honors Projects

Historians have increasingly examined how media other than yellow journalism helped manufacture consent for American imperialism during the Spanish-American War, yet commercial sheet music—despite its ubiquity at the time—remains overlooked. This study addresses that gap by analyzing fifty pieces of sheet music published around the period, employing a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative, qualitative, and comparative media analysis. The corpus reveals four dominant themes: memorializing the sinking of the Maine; Cuban “liberation” rhetoric that often referenced American ownership or influence over the island; military hero worship that personalized and justified expansion; and messages of national unity that permitted overseas territorial …

Ethnomusicologically Augmented French Diction Course, Jake Larcqua

Doctoral Scholarly Projects & Capstones

Modern diction pedagogy in university vocal performance education largely depends on a combination of International Phonetic Alphabet transcription study and the application of those systems to Western-Classical vocal repertoire. However, recent research in related fields suggests we may be able to expand our diction teaching methods to better meet the needs of our students. Using a combination of second-language pedagogic principles, folksong structure, self-efficacy concepts, modeling structures, and ethnomusicological perspectives on classroom culture, I have drafted a French diction course that should improve not only students’ performance within university vocal music education, but also students’ confidence in their ability to …

Community Approaches To Digitally Documenting And Sharing Conjunto Music In The South Texas Borderlands, René Antonio Ballesteros

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the rich tradition of conjunto music within the South Texas borderlands, examining how integrating community engagement and digital humanities methodologies can effectively enhance the documentation, conservation, and presentation of this place-based expressive culture. Recognizing existing archival gaps, the research employed community-engaged programming to gather and preserve valuable cultural data. A key methodology outcome involved creating digital maps utilizing place-based data related to conjunto music sites and activities, subsequently integrating these maps into an ArcGIS Online story map for public online access. The findings demonstrate the significant potential of community collaboration and digital humanities tools in amplifying cultural …

Black On Black Sounds: Music, Migration, And The ‘Nu-K Blak’ Identity Formation In Early 21st Century Britain, Monique Charles

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Examining literature on the under researched areas of Afrobeats and African migration to Britain, this article identifies significant internal shifts in the ethnic diversity of Black Britain —i.e., from Caribbean (predominantly Jamaican) to West African (Nigerian, Ghanaian) (ONS 2011). Interpreting literature and applying to the British context, it highlights how Afrobeats reshapes Blackness in Britain, particularly the incorporation of desirable Africanness through Afrobeats music. It argues that demographic and musical shifts in Britain result in a renegotiation of the Caribbean and US dominant 20th century Black Britishness — ‘UK Blak’ identity (as identified by Bradley 2013, Gilroy 1993 & Palmer …

Learning How To Practice Takes Practice, Micah Killion, Robert Duke

John J. Cali School of Music Scholarship and Creative Works

Effective music learning depends on effective music practice. Although time spent with teachers is an important component of young musicians’ development, time spent alone practicing is perhaps even more consequential. Researchers and teachers have offered many prescriptions about effective music practice, yet observations of young musicians’ actual practice reveal that their behavior in the practice room is often quite unlike what teachers envision. The most important aspects of effective practice are the thinking, perceiving, and decision-making that serve to organize how musicians spend their time. We discuss how to help students focus their attention in ways that lead to the …

Timbre — A Transcendent Paradox?, Eugenia Siegel Conte

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Timbre, as ethnomusicologist Cornelia Fales writes, is “paradoxical” precisely because it is one of the most exacting processes in which the human body may sense and comprehend the source of a sound even as that comprehended sound is impossible to describe outside of metaphor or comparison. As one of the more recognizable qualities of sound but the most difficult to describe, timbre allows us to consider physical/emotional (affective) experiences of sound as a key aspect of faith and meditation. In this article, I examine physical-affective intersections of faith and meditation that often are key to praxes of worship, and show …

Singing A Wide Heart: Timbre And Sung Prayer In Senegal’S Layène Community, Margaret L. Rowley

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Layène sung prayer (called sikkar) is embedded within the religious practices of the Layène community, a minority Sufi order in Dakar, Senegal. This article explores the functions of Layène sung prayer, focusing especially on its loud, vibrational timbre. Both men and women vocalists in call-and-response sing loudly, using wide vibrato and electronic amplification to ensure that the sikkar reaches the inhabitants—both human and non-human—in the surrounding community. This article demonstrates that the distinctive timbre of Layène sung prayer serves the spiritual functions of binding the community together in spiritual and social cohesion, increasing individual and collective generosity, and demarcating …

Live Wires: The Angelus Temple And The Timbre Of Power, Catherine Provenzano

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This article is a media history and contemporary case study of The Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, founded by Aimee Semple McPherson in 1923. My analysis of the Angelus insists upon the centrality of a hyperaudible paradigm of worship that uses media to maximize the legibility of a Christian message, and, more than this, imagines that media itself as a living soul in need of redemption. Many contemporary megachurches employ savvy applications of sound and sound transmission as instruments of belonging as well as action, and these rely on high-budget investments in church infrastructure, software and personnel. I argue that …

Performing "Manly" Worship Music: Gender And Timbre At Mars Hill Church, Maren Haynes Marchesini

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Ten years ago, Mars Hill boasted fifteen campuses and 15,000 members. Amid mounting allegations of abuse and mismanagement leveled against founding pastor Mark Driscoll, the church famously collapsed, closing its doors at the end of 2014. Driscoll had built Mars Hill’s core brand around his opposition to the perceived feminization of the Christian mainstream, and appointing himself the “leader of a heterosexual male backlash” in the church and broader culture. While Driscoll’s muscular Christianity stands in a wide historical stream, Mars Hill long led the charge in establishing a youth-oriented, hipster brand of hypermasculine Calvinism. And while rhetoric and theology …

From The Heaviest, Dirtiest Depths To The Washy Ambient Clouds: Guitar Timbre In/As Schismogenesis In North American Christianity, Joshua K. Busman, Nathan Myrick

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This essay argues that within the socio-cultural context of North American Christianity, the timbral qualities of electric guitar, with its long lineage as a site of cultural values conflict and identity negotiation, serves a theological function in the emerging and cohering sonority of digital worship. Using as comparative case studies the timbral qualities of delay and ambience as promoted and sold by Worship Tutorials as representing normative sonic values for these Christians, on the one hand, and the dialectic and schismatic deployment of distortion by the band My Epic on the other, we suggest that these timbral qualities become important …

Sounds Like 'Saudade': Eschatological Echoes In Brazilian 'Gospel' Music, Fernando Berwig Silva

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This paper analyzes the song “Saudade” by the Brazilian gospel singer Stella Laura. In the song, I argue that Stella Laura uses Brazilian timbral markers from the Sertanejo and Gospel Brazilian music genres to articulate a unique perspective on eschatology, one that is based on the affective structure of the Lusophone word ‘saudade.’ Furthermore, I contend that the song, rooted in the Brazilian nostalgic sertanejo music tradition, leans on stylistic and timbral tools to communicate the idea of saudade from heaven. Beyond lyrics that feature theological notions of origin, identity, and nostalgia, Stella Laura’s song employs timbral, poetic, …

Good Vibrations: Folk Circles As Communication Environments, Missy Alexander

Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association

For over 25 years, I have participated in the creation of music and community through what are commonly called folk circles. Typically run as monthly gatherings, participants who range from complete beginners to seasoned pros, join together and share their favorite songs. These environments have clearly defined rules for participation (although rarely stated overtly), a strong ethos of mutual support, and frequently function as a path to friendships for people new to a community. This essay examines the folk circle as a communication environment and posits an explanation of why it is impervious to digital invasions.

La Rumba Criolla Al Estilo De Emilio Sierra, Desde El Contexto Académico Y Creativo, Adalberto Pardo Rodríguez, Jair Herrera Bohórquez

Ciencias Sociales, Humanidades y Ciencias Políticas

La rumba criolla es un género musical identitario del departamento de Cundinamarca, cuyo precursor más destacado es el maestro Emilio Sierra Baquero, quien a través de sus composiciones puso a rumbiar al país en los años cuarenta, legado que aún sigue vigente. Este libro representa el estilo compositivo e interpretativo característico del maestro y su orquesta, incorporando arreglos, grabaciones y composiciones que permiten exaltar ese legado cultural y patrimonial reflejado en esta música, resultado de un proceso de investigación y análisis realizado por docentes investigadores del programa de Música de la Universidad de Cundinamarca. Se rinde homenaje al compositor Emilio …

Dragon Guitars And Sexy Zombies: Tracing The Meta-Motion Of The Naga Motif In Northeast Thailand, Aaron Michael Stanley

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Abstract

This thesis traces the evolving symbolism of the Naga motif (a mythic water serpent) in Northeast Thailand through a framework I call meta-motion, which maps symbolic persistence of this cultural signifier and boundary marker across four cultural horizons—animist (Z), Hindu–Khmer (B), Buddhist (A), and modern/global (C). Like electrons in quantum super position, symbolic motifs circulate as overlapping “waves” of potential meaning and are concretized into cultural “particles” only when recruited for specific ritual, commercial, or political purposes. I add a bookend extension to Chang’s Hindu-Buddhist (B/A) typology with the addition of Horizons Z and C in order to make …

Voice Of My People: An Expression Of Welcome And Liturgical Justice For Afrodiasporic People In North American Catholicism, Marvand Roger Holland Ii

Doctor of Pastoral Music Projects and Theses

Music has always been central to the lives of Black people. The Black religious experience is even more profound when expressed through music. It is therefore no happenstance that music is of great import as pertains to the spiritual lives of Black people, including Black Catholics. Faith is expressed through culture. It is through culture that the faith is realized and known. In this, is the essence of inculturation.

Anscar Chupungco states that if not inculturated, the liturgy of the local Church will remain at the periphery of people’s cultural experience. For this reason, it is imperative that Afrodiasporic music …