Music Commons^™

Emil Heerbrugger's Grand Grecian Military March In Facsimile, Robert Ferguson

Soundboard Scholar

Ferguson discusses Emil Heerbrugger's Grand Grecian Military March, composed for one or two guitars and published in the 1830s. It is parlor music for the amateur and displays the traits of so much of that repertoire: foursquare phrasing, strict diatonicism, tonic-dominant harmony, and simple rhythm. The tambour technique was a staple of nineteenth-century martial music on guitar, typically used to evoke drums, and Heerbrugger marks it as such in his score. The composer recommends executing the effect percussively with the right-hand middle finger.

The Microtonal Guitars Of Harry Partch, John Schneider

Soundboard Scholar

Known as an "American Maverick," Harry Partch (1901–1974) was surely one of the United States's most colorful composers. His dissatisfaction with the scales and instruments of Western music inspired him to design and build an orchestra of over two dozen handcrafted "microtonal" instruments that were tuned to his notorious "monophonic" scale of forty-three tones per octave. Between 1934 and 1952, Partch created four different adapted guitars, using them in fifteen compositions ranging from solo song cycles (Barstow, December 1942, U.S. Highball, Three Intrusions) to chamber music, dances, and four of his five major …

An Uncatalogued Piece By Fernando Sor?, Ricardo Aleixo

Soundboard Scholar

This article discusses a page of music manuscript, shelf no. MD-C-90 (4), preserved in a royal monastery situated in Madrid: the Convent of the Descalzas Reales. It contains three works for guitar, including two attributed to the Catalan composer and guitarist Fernando Sor (1778–1839). The first, entitled Minué de Sors, is known as Sor's Op. 23, No. 6, while the second short composition, Alemanda desors [sic], is not yet officially attributed to Sor. While recent research has revealed that Salvador Castro de Gistau (ca. 1770–?), a publisher originally from Madrid, issued this same piece in his Op. …

Editorial: Guitar Research Resources—An Update, Thomas Heck

Soundboard Scholar

In early May, 2015, there was a biennial gathering of guitar history enthusiasts and scholars at the town of Hemmenhofen, Germany, on Lake Constance. One of the sessions was a round table with the title, "Old and New Sources and Horizons for Historical Research on the Guitar." It was designed to stimulate audience participation and certainly succeeded. Brief papers were offered by three scholars in attendance. Here, Heck identifies eight points of progress, each of which can be considered good news for those who work in the field of guitar history.

The Guitar As An "Open-Air" Instrument In The Early Romantic Era, Panagiotis Poulopoulos

Soundboard Scholar

In the first decades of the nineteenth century, playing music outdoors became a popular trend in Europe and North America. This largely reflected the Romantic ideal of coming closer to nature, whose allure played a significant role in contemporary education, literature, art, fashion, and music. By investigating a wide variety of written and pictorial sources, as well as surviving instruments in museum collections, this article discusses the development of the guitar as an “open-air” instrument as epitomised by the invention of guitar variants for use “on the go”. Moreover, the article sheds new light on the guitar’s connections to other …

Fernando Sor On The Move In The Early 1820s, Erik Stenstadvold

Soundboard Scholar

This article adds to our knowledge of Sor’s final months in London in 1822 and his subsequent Paris sojourn before he went to Russia in 1823. Central to Sor’s activity during this period was his involvement in the ballet Cendrillon, for which he wrote the music. Hitherto unknown reviews of the premiere at the King’s Theatre on March 26, 1822, show that both the ballet and the music were consistently well received by the London critics. This success led to action being taken to have the ballet staged at the Paris Opéra, and in the fall that same year …

Classical Guitar Music In Printed Collections: A New Index And A Model For Indexing Instrumental Music In Score Collections, Ellwood Colahan

University Libraries: Faculty Scholarship

Classical Guitar Music in Printed Collections is a new, open-access, online index to the contents of published score collections for classical guitar. Its interlinked, alphabetized lists allow one to find a composition by title or composer, to discover what score collections include that piece, to see what other works are included in each collection identified, and to locate a copy in a library collection. Accuracy of identification is guaranteed by incipit images of each work. The article discusses how this index differs from existing bibliographies of the classical guitar literature, its structure and design, and technical details of its publication.

Interrogating Music-Historical Narratives Through Ralph Vaughan Williams's Five Mystical Songs, Marilyn L. Brock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although Ralph Vaughan Williams has remained an influential and well-liked composer throughout most decades since his death, the amount and specificity of scholarly writing about his work has been meager, and only during recent decades has it increased. One reason that Vaughan Williams has consistently been ignored is his use of "Romantic" harmonies during the twentieth century. This style complicates periodization of his work. By exploring other facets of his work and using alternative methods -- such as studies of the music's relationship to sociocultural movements, English music history, and history of genre -- for understanding his music, a greater …

Bitches Unleashed: Women In Rio's Funk Movement, Performances Of Heterosexual Femininity, And Possibilities Of Resistance, Raquel Moreira

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Rio de Janeiro's funk movement is one of Brazil's most important contemporary cultural and musical expressions. Emerged in the 1970s, Rio's funk was consolidated in the favelas during the 1980s, establishing an ambiguous and tense relationship with local government and media: at times, being legitimized as a cultural form, but also being frequently criminalized. The music is a hybrid combination of diverse Afro rhythms and a heavy bass line, and it is performed in aggressive ways, as well as with mockery and sensuality. Women in Rio's funk, the funkeiras, joined the movement in the late 1990s performing about sex, relationships, …

Thuggin' With The Oldies: Successful Professionals Who Continue To Listen To Gangsta Rap And The Professional Identity Conflict That Arises, Tarhonda Thomas Mckee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The rise of explicit rap music in the 1990's brought with it a challenge that has not been seen until today: what becomes of listeners who, once past their adolescent years, become responsible, successful adults yet choose to keep explicit rap music in their lives? This thesis examined that question to find that some high-achieving adults continue to listen to the controversial form of music, while simultaneously separating themselves from the images associated with the music. Furthermore, their musical tastes can present a conflict with their professional images which may cause them to conceal their preference for explicit rap music, …

Affective-Domain Occurrences Reported By Undergraduate Non-Music-Major Students In A Keyboard-Centered Course Incorporating The Nine National Standards For Music Education And A Methodology Based On Constructivist Principles: Patterns That Might Suggest Hypotheses About Cause-And-Effect Relationships, Gergana S. Argirova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this study, data about occurrences in the affective domain of non-music-major subjects taking a keyboard-centered course that incorporates the nine National Standards for music education along with a methodology based on constructivist principles were collected. The problem of this study was to identify any patterns in those data that might suggest hypotheses about cause-and-effect relationships that might be tested later in quantitative studies with experimental design.

The instruction consisted of a keyboard-centered music education curriculum that encompassed the U.S. nine National Standards for music education along with a teaching methodology based on constructivist principles. This study was conducted in …

If There's No "Fat Lady," When Is The Opera Over? An Exploration Of Changing Physical Image Standards In Present-Day Opera, Emily L. Stephenson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Though present-day American society generally assumes opera is one of the few remaining entertainment fields where talent matters more than physical appearance, as the 2004 firing of Deborah Voigt demonstrates, present-day opera singers are increasingly being held to stricter image standards. In 2004, Covent Garden dismissed Voigt from their production of Ariadne auf Naxos, in which Voigt was supposed to reprise her critically acclaimed interpretation of the title role. According to Voigt, Covent Garden's casting director Peter Katona felt that she was too large to fit into the black dress the new production required of the character. Voigt's removal …

Redefining Classical Music Literacy: A Study Of Classical Orchestras, Museum Anthropology, And Game Design Theory, Kimberly M. Zahler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current state of declining audiences for the performing arts in the United States is cause for concern for those musicians and ensembles interested in the continuation of the art forms. The previous model of using audience numbers as the sole or primary measure of an orchestra's success is no longer sufficient in an era of participatory design and interactive experiences. Through observation and analysis of the culture of classical music, this study focuses on the emerging visions of participatory culture and the ways in which museum anthropology and game design theory can be used to redefine classical music literacy …

Composing Music In Constrained Search Environments, Jeffrey Keene

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Composing music with computers in constrained search environments adds complexities and problems not present in the traditional problem domain of generative music. The traditional and well researched mechanisms of Markov chains, genetic algorithms and data driven rule based systems do not directly map to a problem domain in which pitch choice and rhythm choice are likely to be highly limited.

We therefore explore several possible solutions to generating rhythms in extremely constrained environments with the goal of generating music that adheres to user specified constraints and is aesthetically pleasing.

Mercy Mercy Me (The Media Ecology): Technology, Agency, And "Cleavage" Of The Musical Text, Arthur J. Bamford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores changes that occurred in popular music during the 1960s and early 1970s through case studies involving three significant albums released in 1971 and 1972: Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, Sly and the Family Stone's There's a Riot Goin' On, and Stevie Wonder's Talking Book. These albums deserve attention particularly because, as this thesis argues, existing research on the cultural significance of popular music has focused largely on the periods before or after the 1970s and research on music-making technologies has focused largely on white artists or groups from the late 1960s. Addressing this blind …

Metric Conflict In The Brandenburg Concertos Of J. S. Bach, Ellwood P. Colahan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper presents a comprehensive metric analysis of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, with particular emphasis on the issues of metric conflict. The analytic methodology is based on the work of Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, while the analytic notation used is based partly on that of Lerdahl and Jackendoff and partly on that of Jonathan Kramer, with some original modifications.

The paper discusses the factors generating metric conflict, along with its distribution, correlation with other structural parameters, and functional effects. The relationship between metric conflict and fluctuations in the depth of metric hierarchy is examined in detail. Some cases of metric …

Juegos Filarmónicos, Thomas Schmitt, Six-Course Guitar, Ellwood Colahan

Soundboard Scholar

No abstract provided.