Music Commons^™

No Stone Unturned: Defining The Role Of A Worship Assistant, Brittany Mcgilberry

Masters Theses

This paper will encompass information and the philosophy of the role of a worship assistant in ministry regarding the vision of the church, the use of appropriate equipment, and effective rehearsal strategies.

Musical Genre Identification And Differentiation Of Rock, R&B/Hip-Hop, And Christian Songs Through Harmonic Analysis, Nolan A. Foxworth

Selected Honors Theses

This thesis attempts to identify and distinguish musical genre through harmonic analysis. The genres of Rock, R&B/Hip-Hop, and Christian have been selected for this study. The top ten songs from each genre (as listed by Billboard’s Year End Charts) are analyzed and contrasted with those of other genres in an attempt to prove that harmonic analysis alone is sufficient to identify the genre of an unknown song. Heavy in analysis, this thesis will find structure in music and use that structure to more deeply appreciate not only the study of genre, but of music itself.

The Suzuki Method: Influences Of Shinichi Suzuki On Japanese Music Education, Moriah L. Richards

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis will study the history of Japanese music education philosophies and pedagogy techniques. Specific focus has been given to the music education methods and philosophies of renowned Japanese music educator, Shinichi Suzuki. Suzuki’s views on the learning processes of children have greatly impacted the field of music education. Suzuki held the belief that the language acquisition process and the learning processes of children were intricately connected. He spent years applying his research to the field of music education. His resulting pedagogy techniques are now known as the Suzuki Method. The Suzuki Method, which has been adapted in various ways …

The Art Of Borrowing: Intertextuality In The French Motet Of The Late Middle Ages, Eleanor Price 17

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Kendrick Lamar And Hip-Hop As A Medium For Social Change, Diego A. Rocha

Student Publications

This paper provides a context and then analysis of Kendrick Lamar's albums as they relate to advocating and affecting social change. The purpose is to show through example how hip-hop (and music in general) can act as an avenue towards creating positive change for oppressed peoples.

Music Theory For Student Composers: A Course Designed For Engagement By Using Both A Flipped Classroom And Praxial Philosophy, Michelle Nagy

Masters Theses

In a world filled with innovation, technology and hands-on learning, the subject of music theory in the high school classroom has stayed relatively the same for the past fifty years for the student composer. By using the same tried-and-true methods, teachers are introducing concepts through lectures, while students reinforce concepts on their own during their homework assignments. Music examples are given on a regular basis and they are usually played on the piano by the professor or through recording. These methods, while effective, are not meeting the needs of today’s tech savvy and hands-on generation. While students are engaging with …

Liturgical Singing In The Lutheran Mass In Early Modern Sweden And Its Implications For Clerical Ritual Performance And Lay Literacy, Mattias O. Lundberg

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This article postulates and analyses three distinct modes of performativity in Early Modern ecclesiastical music in Sweden, each linked to a specific repertoire of melodies, and each de facto (and sometimes also de jure) monopolized by the Church of Sweden. It is proposed that recognition and analysis of these three modes may provide further understanding of the interaction between singing, reading and speaking during the period under discussion. This sheds new light on what has in literacy research been termed “religious reading”, giving rise in some instances to a corresponding type of “religious singing” in a narrower sense: one …

Glimpses Into The Music And Worship Life Of A Victorian Colonial Cathedral: The Anglican Cathedral Of St Michael And St George In 1900 (Grahamstown, South Africa), Andrew-John Bethke

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This article documents one year (1900) in the musical life of a colonial Anglican cathedral in Grahamstown (Cape Colony, South Africa), during the British colonial period. The source material for the music-lists is drawn mainly from the Saturday editions of two local newspapers: Grocott’s Penny Mail and the Grahamstown Journal. The author analyses the musical trends of the cathedral by exploring the content of the cathedral’s musical repertoire and relating it to the choir’s size and competency; commenting on the preference for certain composers and what this might imply about local musical taste; examining the precentor’s hymn choices and …

P13. Wagner's Use Of The Formal Lament For King Mark In Tristan Und Isolde, Julie Anne Nord

Western Research Forum

Background: The composer Richard Wagner often expressed his distaste for “number” operas and other contrived forms used in the Italianate works of his forerunners and contemporaries. In place of these operatic conventions, Wagner drew upon the Tragedy of Ancient Greece to propose a “total artwork” (Gesamtkunstwerk)) with no contrived breaks for conventional form. Despite, or perhaps because of, his aversion toward operatic formal conventions, Wagner turned to one such form for his music for King Mark in Tristan und Isolde.

Methods: This poster demonstrates Wagner’s use of lament tropes from the poetry of Greek Tragedy and from …

P24. The Birds And The Beats: Perception Of A Beat In An Avian Model, Brendon Samuels

Western Research Forum

Background: Beat perception is a complex cognitive skill that enables humans to “feel” the beat in music, and is an essential component of synchronization of behavior and dance. The mechanisms in the human brain that facilitate beat perception are not entirely understood, and have only been studied thus far using non-invasive techniques. Some animals, such as songbirds, also seem to be able to detect a beat in rhythms, though this has never been formally tested independent of motor synchronization.

Methods: An operant experiment is used to assess if European starlings, a type of songbird, are capable of categorizing …

About This Issue, Michael E. Ruhling

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

No abstract provided.

Strangers In A Strange Land: Spanish Chant Manuscript Leaves In The Permanent Collection Of The University Of Northern Iowa Gallery Of Art, Alison Altstatt

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

This essay introduces three large manuscript leaves held in the Permanent Art Collection of the University of Northern Iowa. These folio-sized leaves originated in large Spanish choir books (or cantorales) from the late sixteenth through the early eighteenth century that held the texts and music of Gregorian Chant used in the Roman Catholic liturgy. These leaves are ‘strangers’ in the sense that their origin is unknown, stripped as they are of their material context in the book and their historical context in the institutions and rituals for which they were made. They are in a ‘strange land’ in that …

Theatre In Worship: A Curriculum For Teaching Theatre In The Local Church Music Ministry, Brandon Cox

Masters Theses

Music has been a part of church worship for many ages, and no doubt, music education programs can produce leaders within the church who are capable and effective within music ministry. Even so, many are expected to not just lead worship and music, but to develop a program and direct seasonal productions. Many worship leaders have been trained through music programs, but may not have extensive experience in theatre. Typically, part of a worship leader’s weekly duties entail preparing orders of worship, music rehearsals, staff meetings, visiting members of the congregation, studying, reading, writing music, communicating with the pastor, scheduling …

Neumann Lecture On Music: Listening To Pain, Department Of Music, University Of Richmond

Music Department Concert Programs

No abstract provided.

Developing A Natural And Relaxed Approach To String Playing - Part 2, Tomás Cotik

School of Music + Theater Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland State University professor Dr Tomas Cotik gives an introduction to kinesthetic feelings and demonstrates techniques and exercises

Developing A Natural And Relaxed Approach To String Playing - Part 1, Tomás Cotik

School of Music + Theater Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland State University professor Dr Tomas Cotik gives an introduction to kinesthetic feelings and demonstrates techniques and exercises.

Grains Without Territory: Voicing Alexander Garsden’S [Ja] Maser And The De-Centralized Vocal Subject, Jessica Aszodi

Directions of New Music

The singing subject is both site-of and author-of her practice. This practice-based, artistic research unpacks the entangled process of making new music, conscious that the performer-author is the site where embodied problem solving takes place. The principal focus of the paper is the author’s realization of Alexander Garsden’s [ja] Maser, for voice and electronics, created by recording and reconstituting vocal elements using traditional compositional and performative methods as well as studio recording and granular synthesis. The author approaches the realization of this new work as an experimental practice in dialogue with theoretical frames that inform and situate the research. …

The Analysis Of Musical Dramaturgy In Mozart's Die Entführung Aus Dem Serail, Danielle J. Bastone

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

It has long been recognized that the music of Mozart’s Singspiels bears more dramatic weight than that of most eighteenth-century German comic operas. Yet this view arises from a body of scholarship that heavily privileges Die Zauberflöte at the expense of Mozart’s other German-language operatic works, including Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782), which constituted Mozart’s first big statement in Vienna and became easily the most popular of his operas during his lifetime. This is an analytical study of Mozart’s Entführung that examines form, phrase rhythm, and text-setting as agents of musical dramaturgy throughout the score. More specifically, it demonstrates …

A Study Of Nikolai Medtner's Compositional Technique: Form And Narrative In Tales, Oliver H. Markson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation delves into the compositional approach of Russian-born composer Nikolai Medtner. A discussion of Medtner’s own words on composition from his book The Muse and Fashion: Being a Defence of the Foundations of the Art of Music is followed by original analyses of four Tales. Focus is placed on the composer’s philosophy regarding the relationship between form and narrative, in association with his expressed warnings of the dangers behind shifting compositional dominance from pure music to extra-musical narrative. The analyses are followed by a discussion of the vital importance of Medtner’s music and writings for future generations of composers. …

Max Kowalski's Japanischer Frühling: A Song Collection From The Period Of The Jewish Cultural Alliance In Nazi Germany, Nils Neubert

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The topic of this dissertation is the song composer Max Kowalski (1882-1956) and his song collection Japanischer Frühling (1934-1938). This dissertation presents a critical edition of this previously unpublished song collection, which sets adaptations of Japanese poetry by the German poet Hans Bethge (1876-1946). Aside from the edition and critical report, the dissertation includes chapters on the literature (Chapter One); the composer’s biography (Chapter Two); his output and reception (Chapter Three); Hans Bethge’s adaptations of the Japanese poetry that form the basis of the collection (Chapter Four); the genesis, performance history, and reception of the song collection (Chapter Five); and …

Heinrich Schenker’S Early Approach To Form, 1895–1921: Implications For His Late Work And Its Reception, Jason A. Hooper

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation constructs Heinrich Schenker’s early approach to form and traces its development as his organic theory of transformational voice leading emerged in the early 1920s. Schenker’s late approach to form is then briefly reconsidered from this newfound perspective.

Chapter 1 defines the nineteenth-century Formenlehre tradition established by A. B. Marx and passed down to Anton Bruckner through his studies in model composition, leading to Schenker himself. Chapter 2 presents Schenker’s early approach to form in a generative fashion, demonstrating how a single motive can grow into a large thematic group unified by a single key area or an economy …

The French Enlightenment And Two Men: Napoleon Bonaparte And Beethoven, Kate Pisarczyk, Zach Hall, Nelle Conley

2017 Festschrift: Beethoven's <em>Symphony No. 3, Op. 55</em>

Many of the philosophies developed during the French Enlightenment circulated around nature and human emotions. These philosophies were written by men, such as Diderot, in the Encyclopedia. Both Napoleon Bonaparte and Ludwig van Beethoven were able to exemplify the French Enlightenment through their representations of self-determination and expertise at their crafts; however, both men experienced pitfalls that greatly affected their careers. Napoleon’s was so detrimental to his career that he was exiled to a small island; whereas, Beethoven took the negativity surrounding the Heiligenstadt Testament and used these feelings to write the Eroica. This symphony was able to exemplify …

The Psychology Of Beethoven And The Eroica Symphony, Sean P. Harty, Rebekah K. Gohl, Dana J. Burhorn, Joshua S. Morano

2017 Festschrift: Beethoven's <em>Symphony No. 3, Op. 55</em>

As a concert pianist and chapel organist, Beethoven rose to a fame in Vienna which allowed him patrons and friends who would support his compositions. One such patron was Count Waldstein, who claimed that Beethoven would inherit the spirit of Mozart in his famous prediction of Beethoven’s success. To study composition Beethoven turned to two prominent Viennese composers: Haydn and Salieri. As his fame grew, his health decreased until he was diagnosed with deafness and moved to Heiligenstadt. Here Beethoven wrote a letter to his brothers called the Heiligenstadt Testament, which was never sent but expressed his troubled mental …

Beethoven's Eroica Sketchbooks: From Scribbles To Symphony, Victoria R. Kleeman, Katelyn Thurlby, Caitlin A. Thom, Monica Gil

2017 Festschrift: Beethoven's <em>Symphony No. 3, Op. 55</em>

This paper will help readers to gain new insights on Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Op. 55, also known as Eroica, by exploring the sketches related to this symphony. The background of the piece is discussed, and the sketches have been compared to the completed symphony. Beethoven’s sketching process was dramatically different from other composers of his time, and his sketches included even more musical material than was eventually included in the symphony.

Benefactors, Bonds, And Beholders: The Beliefs And Reality Behind Beethoven’S Behavior, Olivia M. Weismann, Abigail L. Smith, Moira R. Dunn, Kathryn E. Krajewski

2017 Festschrift: Beethoven's <em>Symphony No. 3, Op. 55</em>

This paper will explore the relationships which Beethoven had during the years he composed and premiered his Eroica Symphony. Some of the individuals who will be discussed in this paper include Prince Lobkowitz, Ferdinand Ries, and Franz Wegeler. After learning about the nature of these relationships, the reader should begin to realize that Beethoven’s notoriously irrational or ill-tempered behavior was only one facet of his life.

Song Reconsidered: Words And Music, Music And Poetry, Lawrence Kramer

Art History and Music Faculty Publications

This revised version of an essay first published in 1984 sustains the impetus of the original to upend the traditional understanding of song, in particular of art song, as a harmonious fusion of words and music. Song in general, and art songs or Lieder in particular with their generically mandated dependence on preexisting poetic texts, produces a much wider range of text-music relationships than mere fusion, many of them riddled with tension, cross-purposes, and even outright antagonism. Among song genres, the Lied stands out historically for giving prominence to the diversity of these relationships, starting in the early nineteenth century. …

“Young Men Of Erin, Our Dead Are Calling”: Death, Immortality And The Otherworld In Modern Irish Republican Ballads, Seán Ó Cadhla

Articles

Irish physical-force Republicanism has long been noted for its tendency to promote the tropes of martyrdom and immortality as core tenets of its ideological belief system. This essay sets out to examine the genre of Republican death ballads so as to identify how such essentialist concepts are represented and promoted within the attendant song tradition. Particular attention will be paid to works that deploy overtly supernatural tropes in order to articulate the key Republican concept of heroic immortality. The present research will demonstrate the consistency with which such narrative devices have been retained within the Republican song tradition into the …

Investigating Twenty-Five Volumes Of The Flutist Quarterly: A Content Analysis, Maile Delores Mills

Online Theses and Dissertations

This study examines scholarly articles in twenty-five volumes of The Flutist Quarterly, which is published by the National Flute Association. Articles were specifically examined for emerging categories, and frequency and percentages of each was noted. In addition, major trends that have occurred within the periodical over the past twenty-five years were examined. Using a content analysis, N = 391 articles were coded to fit into ten prominent categories: artist profile, career-related, composition, health, historical, instrument, interview, pedagogy, performance practice, and other. Results indicated that "Artist Profile" (21.99%, n = 86), "Interview" (18.93%, n = 74), and "Historical" (16.11%, n …

A Study Of Acculturation In Chinese-Mongolian Er’Rentai Folk Opera, Luyin Shao

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Er’rentai, or Mongolian dance and song duets, is a genre of folk opera in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. Er’rentai performances can be categorized into two styles—the “western-style” and the “eastern-style.” The aim of this thesis is to explore the acculturation in Chinese-Mongolian er’rentai genre in the following ways. First, I address the historical background of the western-style er’rentai. Then, I draw on fieldwork with Huo Banzhu, a famous er’rentai musician, to introduce contemporary state of er’rentai's development. Finally, I employ musical analysis to demonstrate the borrowings of Mongolian music and culture in the formation and transmission …

The Relationship Between Lowell Mason And The Boston Handel And Haydn Society, 1815-1827, Todd R. Jones

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The relationship between Lowell Mason (1792–1872) and the Boston Handel and Haydn Society (est. 1815) has long been recognized as a crucial development in the history of American music. In 1821, Mason and the HHS contracted to publish a collection of church music that Mason had edited. While living in Savannah, GA, Mason had imported several recent British collections that adapted for church tunes works by Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Ignaz Pleyel. His study with German émigré Frederick L. Abel allowed him to harmonize older tunes in standard counterpoint. In the historiography of American …