Music Commons^™

The War Never Ends: A Composition For Large Jazz Ensemble In Three Movements, Derek James Molacek

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

“The War Never Ends” is a three-movement programmatic suite for large jazz ensemble plus additional instruments, dedicated to the military service personnel who suffer from Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder. The piece is comprised of three movements:I.“The Call to Serve”; II. “The Call to War”; and III. “The Call for Peace.” Each movement tells a different part of a story of a person who has signed up for military service.

“The Call to Serve” serves as the beginning to our service member’s journey; from recruitment, to training, to assignment. “The Call to War” illustrates deployment: Specifically, deployment to the Middle-East. This …

Tonal Procedures In Lowell Liebermann's Concerto For Piccolo And Orchestra, Kathryn Laura Rice

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

This thesis seeks to impart how Lowell Liebermann incorporates common practice tonal elements into his twentieth-century Concerto for Piccolo. This will be shown through a detailed analysis of the three-movement work highlighting how the composer uses characteristics of common practice tonality as compiled by Joseph Straus in the third edition of his text, Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory. This document is organized into five sections. The first explains background information on the concerto as well as presents the parameters to be used for the analysis. The second through fourth sections provide an analysis of each movement in chronological order, detailing how …

A Musical Analysis Of The Improvisational Style Of Tommy Turrentine, Jesse N. Mcbee

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

Tommy Turrentine was a jazz trumpet player active in both Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and New York City. While he is highly respected among jazz musicians, particular those who developed a personal relationship with him in New York City, he seems to have been overshadowed by many of his contemporaries. Additionally, he has a limited discography, with only one recording as a leader. Despite this, he performed with numerous notable musicians throughout his career, including Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Abbey Lincoln, Stanley Turrentine, and Max Roach. These collaborations solidify his role as a significant musician in the lineage of jazz trumpeters.

This …

Original Clarinet Quartet Works Of Mike Curtis And Josh Spaulding: An Analysis And Performance Guide, Jennifer Reeves

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

The clarinet quartet genre is a popular chamber ensemble for the instrument and is one that has little to no history available discussing its origins and development. Following a brief theoretical history of the clarinet quartet genre, the works of two 21st century composers are explored throughout the remainder of the document. Mike Curtis and Josh Spaulding’s compositions for clarinet quartet are extraordinary examples of the works that exist for this chamber ensemble.

A biography and compositional background is supplied for each composer, followed by individual chapters discussing the composers’ original works for clarinet quartet that utilize the instrumentation of …

Silence Emerging From Birds, Rebecca Macijeski

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation represents the culmination of five years of creative activity in poetry. Included within this document are three main components: 1.) a critical introduction to my book-length manuscript of original poems complete to satisfy the requirements of creative writing within the English Department; 2.) a description of my creative activity reflected in that book-length manuscript, and; 3.) a sample of previously published original poems from the manuscript. I will describe each of these components in greater detail below.

The critical introduction to the creative work seeks to explore and examine various aesthetic and theoretical influences on my poems. The …

Practical And Philosophical Reflections Regarding Aural Skills Assessment, Stanley V. Kleppinger

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

Assessment in aural skills courses is a tricky intersection of instructors’ expectations, students’ skills in audiation, students’ perceptions and anxieties regarding assessment and performance, and the peculiarities of evaluative instruments. After several years in my teaching position at a large university, I became increasingly dissatisfied with assessment in the second-year aural skills program I coordinate. In short, I was displeased both with the nature of the student activities we evaluated and with the ways in which success on those activities was measured. Students’ and instructors’ frustrations convinced me of the need to make assessment more obviously relevant, less intimidating to …

The Influence Of Jazz Elements In Don Freund's Sky Scrapings For Alto Saxophone And Piano, Wade Howles

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

Jazz influence surfaces within traditional repertoire for the saxophone more often than other instruments. This is due to the saxophone’s close association with the jazz idiom. Of particular interest is the use of jazz elements in Don Freund’s Sky Scrapings for alto saxophone and piano. Often, while studying a jazz-influenced work, students and professors alike may not recognize the importance of these elements appropriately. Because of this, their performance loses a portion of the stylistic nuance the composer intended while writing the work. This lack of recognition and loss of stylistic nuance is commonly due to a lack of …

Curious, Collaborative Creativity: Applying Student-Centered Principles To Performing Ensembles, Danni Gilbert

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

This article explores a comprehensive, student-centered alternative to traditional ensemble instruction with the goal of promoting better opportunities for musical independence and lifelong musicianship. Developed by Caron Collins from the Crane School of Music at the State University of New York–Potsdam, the Curious, Collaborative Creativity (CCC) concept fosters student-centered learning and the promotion of 21st-century skills by encouraging students to select, arrange, and compose the repertoire to be studied; to work together in teams to equally contribute to the learning/understanding of music; and to share their work through informances to engage and enlighten community members. Examples from a current ensemble …

An Introduction To Serbian Piano Music: Musical And Cultural Influences On Three Selected Composers, Jelena Djukic

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

Serbia is a country that has survived many political and religious conflicts. Perhaps the best way to describe Serbian culture and tradition would be a country whose inhabitants struggled for many years, yet managed to incorporate the best elements of its conquerors’ cultures. Serbian musical identity is an amalgam of local and international influences and styles.

Different foreign authorities occupied this country for centuries. The Danube River was the main border of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, located in the north, and the Turkish Ottoman Empire, situated south of the Danube. The Austro-Hungarian influences on Serbian music are most evident in piano …

Echoes Of The Past: Stylistic And Compositional Influences In The Music Of Sergei Bortkiewicz, Jeremiah A. Johnson

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

Despite the wide array of his compositional output in the first half of the twentieth

century, the late Romantic composer, Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877-1952), remains relatively

unknown. Bortkiewicz was born and raised near Kharkov, Ukraine, but considered

himself Russian. Bortkiewicz studied in St. Petersburg and Leipzig, lived in Berlin, and

later returned to Kharkov during World War I. During the Russian Revolution, he fled to

Istanbul as a refugee. Eventually, he returned to Berlin and then to Vienna, where he

would remain during World War II and for the rest of his life. Substantial modern-day

recording efforts have rekindled interest in …

Chronology And Itinerary Of The Career Of J. Tim Brymn Materials For A Biography, Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

James Timothy Brymn (1873-1945), a composer, conductor, and arranger, was one of the cohort of top African American dance band and theatre orchestra leaders active in Chicago and New York who became Army bandleaders in WWI. In the first decade of the 20th century, he was acknowledged as a pre-eminent master of ragtime and one of the premiere song writers of America. Brymn was the author of one of the first published blues (1912), the author of some of the first published tangos (in 1913 and 1914), the author of one of the first published jazz numbers (1917), and the …

A Chronology And Itinerary Of The Career Of N. Clark Smith: Materials For A Biography, Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

Great recent correction and clarification to the biography of N. Clark Smith has been made in four publications by Marian M. Ohman---three detailed and resourcefully-researched articles and an encyclopedia entry: Ohman (2003), Ohman (2004), Ohman (2008), and Ohman (2009). This document does not attempt to reproduce all of the information she has published. The primary contribution here is in new details that can be pulled from on-line, searchable newspapers and genealogy databases, with an emphasis on the early years and on the chronology of his compositions.

N. CLARK SMITH (1866-1935) Musician: violinist, cornettist, tenor singer, pianist; band master, choral conductor, …

A Chronology And Itinerary Of The Career Of Eugene Mikell: Materials For A Biography, Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

Francis Eugene ("Gene") Mikell (1880-1932) Instrumentalist and recitalist (violinist, cornettist, saxophonist), conductor, composer, educator (including instruction in voice, piano, violin, guitar, mandolin, banjo, cornet, saxophone, clarinet; school and community bands and chorusses). Compositions for band, orchestra, voice. Arrangements of popular songs and tunes for band. And a photograph exists of Mikell with a curious string instrument he invented---a kind of soap box cello.

Mikell attended Avery, Tuskegee, the New York Conservatory, and Orangeburg, so he probably came from a relatively educated and successful family background. This supposition is only reinforced by his subsequent career in education. He taught at: Tuskegee …

Chronology And Itinerary Of The Career Of Ernest Hogan: Materials For A Biography, Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

Hogan, "The Unbleached American" in the moniker he adopted, was a comedian, singer, dancer, actor, composer, lyricist, and author. Hogan is right up at the top among the greatest figures in African American musical theater of his generation, including Billy Johnson (1858-1916), Billy McClain (1866-1950), Bob Cole (1868-1911), George Walker (1872-1911), and Bert Williams (1874-1922).

In his lifetime, he was called "the father of ragtime" or "the father of ragtime music," and recognized as the originator of this kind of music. He was "the 'king' of negro comedians" (Indianapolis Freeman, August 31, 1901, p. 5). He was "the greatest comedy …

Black Us Army Bands And Their Bandmasters In World War I (Version Of 07/29/2016), Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

This essay sketches the story of the bands and bandmasters of the twenty seven new black army regiments which served in the U.S. Army in World War I. The new bands underwent rapid mobilization and demobilization over 1917-1919. They were for the most part unconnected by personnel or traditions to the long-established bands of the four black regular U.S. Army regiments that preceded them and that continued to serve outside Europe during and after the Great War. Pressed to find sufficient numbers of willing and able black band leaders for the new regiments, the army turned to schools and the …

Revitalizing Music Teacher Preparation With Selected “Essential Conditions”, Danni Gilbert

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

The widespread adoption of technology makes it necessary to extend technological resources to the classroom to best prepare students for long-term success. While technology can improve many facets of learning and teaching, music educators have generally been hesitant to incorporate technology to its full potential. Partnerships with professional organizations, such as the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), can help music educators best reach students and achieve cultural relevancy in the digital age. Restructuring music education to integrate what ISTE calls “Essential Conditions” of learning with technology, such as student-centered learning, equitable access, and engaged communities, begins with undergraduate …

Chronology And Itinerary Of The Career Of Will Vodery: Materials For A Biography, Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

WILL VODERY (October 8, 1884 to November 18, 1951) Arranger and orchestrator, composer, conductor; club owner. Celebrated most as a legendary orchestrator and arranger (including a credit as the first black arranger in Hollywood), then next as a bandleader and trainer of choirs, and then as a composer. (Tellingly, he was not a member of ASCAP.) Vodery mostly worked in musical theatre, but he was also a conductor, composer, and arranger of instrumental dance music. Worked with everyone. A protege of Will Marion Cook and Bert Williams. Cook and Vodery were mentors to Ellington. Vodery was mentor to Gershwin and …

Pilot Study To Assess Breathing During Sight-Read Stringed Instrument Performance, Collin T. Erickson, Clark Potter, Gregory Bashford

UCARE: Research Products

For many musicians, one common occurrence during a performance is the presence of stage fright. Stage fright, though not always expressed can influence the confidence and self-esteem of a performer, and thus can affect the quality of the performance. Every day musicians are affected by stage fright, and there has been no exact solution as to how to lessen the feeling of anxiety musicians feel before performing. No data has been collected to find the correlation between the regularity of breathing and the level of stage fright that a person feels during their performance. A way to quantify regularity of …

Uncanny Conversations: Depictions Of The Supernatural In Dialogue Lieder Of The Nineteenth Century, Delane J. Boyd

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

This thesis seeks to communicate the ways in which supernatural beings were musically depicted in dialogue Lieder of the Romantic era. Through analyses of a selection of nineteenth-century German art songs featuring both human and non-human participants within the textual conversations, this study endeavors to identify musical techniques composers used to distinguish between supernatural and mortal speech in songs presented as dialogues while composed for a solo singer. The document is organized into three sections. The first establishes a historical framework for the supernatural dialogue Lied through discussion of the context of German Romanticism, the roots of the prevalence of …

A Little Bit More The Same Than Yesterday: A Mixed Methods Exploration Of Choir Member Empathy And Attitudes Toward Individuals With Disabilities, Lynda A. Laird

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the effect of self- reported contact with individuals with disabilities on choir member empathy and attitudes toward individuals with disabilities. Further, this study investigated effects of an inclusive choral music experience on empathy and attitudes toward individuals with disabilities. Finally, the study explored expectations, experiences, perceptions, and beliefs of six individuals who participated in an inclusive choral music experience.

Phase I (n=207) addressed the effect of level of contact with individuals with disabilities on choral members’ empathy and attitudes toward people with disabilities, and relationships between empathy and attitudes. A …

This Machine Kills Fascists: Music, Speech And War, Robert J. Crisler

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Theses

This thesis examines the history and persuasive power of rhetoric through the mass medium of popular music from Woody Guthrie to the modern era. It focuses on the Vietnam War era as a particularly significant and prolific era of topical (“protest”) music. Through interviews with media observers, historians and veterans of the Vietnam war, it seeks to understand the relevance of rhetorical speech in music within an overall mass media context, both within that era and extending to the present day. Through contemporaneous accounts of the intent of the songwriters and artists, an understanding is gained of the intent to …

Symphony No. 2: Sights In Sound, Robert J. Luebbert

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

Symphony No. 2: Sights in Sound is an original composition for full chorus, string orchestra, woodwind quintet, eight-part percussion ensemble, and piano. Each of the work’s twelve movements utilizes a different combination of instruments, provides a distinct programmatic or cultural setting, and can be easily performed individually, outside of the full symphonic context. Despite this, the symphony as a whole is well bonded through various traditional elements and unifying themes. The titles of the movements are as follows: I. Phenomena of the Sky, II. Arirang, III. Colors of the Sea, IV. Amongst the Trees, V. Crossroads, VI. Dancing Leaves, VII. …

A Study Of The Improvisational Style Of Theodore "Fats" Navarro, 1949–1950, Russell C. Zimmer

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

This study analyzes improvisatory techniques of Theodore “Fats” Navarro (1923-1950). Live improvised solos of the trumpeter from 1949-1950 were examined to better understand the improvisational style through the analysis of transcribed solos. Chapter one gives a brief overview of Navarro’s brief professional career and why he was chosen as the subject of this study. Chapter two sets out the methodology for this study and reviews related literature to the study of Fats Navarro. Chapter three provides a brief background of each performance from which the transcriptions were selected. Chapter four identifies those aspects of his improvisation that occur often harmonically, …

Quantification Of Time Varying Directivity Of Musical Instruments, Madeline A. Davidson

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Static directivity patterns of musical instruments have been mapped somewhat extensively, but little research has been done in analyzing the directivity patterns of musical instruments over time as they play. Directivity patterns can be affected by variables such as instrument, frequency, dynamics, and style. This thesis proposes a set of quantification methods of time varying directivity, all derived from the maximum Directivity Index analyzed at consecutive short-duration time windows comprising the musical excerpt. The instrumental recordings used in this paper are taken in an anechoic chamber using either a 5, 13, or 32 multichannel setup. From the values of maximum …

Leroi Moore: A Biography, Bob Fuson Ii

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

Few artists thrive at the crossroads of musicality, originality, and popularity. Musicians and critics often laud the first two and neglect the latter. Any imbalance in ratios between them that tips toward popularity is balanced by diminishing the creative elements.

Saxophonist LeRoi Moore (1961-2008) of the Dave Matthews Band was one artist who balanced all three. While his musical output was prodigious very little is known about him. He was a reclusive figure onstage and in public, shunning interviews and at times literally the spotlight, despite being a founding member of one of the most commercially successful bands of the …

The Framework For 21st Century Learning: A First-Rate Foundation For Music Education Assessment And Teacher Evaluation, Ashley Danielle Gilbert

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

Federal laws and funding initiatives, such as the No Child Left Behind Act and the Race to the Top campaign, have created an increasing incentive for schools nationwide to document student progress, standardize assessment practices, and evaluate teachers according to student success. In response, the Common Core State Standards, a popular yet controversial policy, has emerged. Implemented at the state level, these standards focus heavily on the areas of English language arts and mathematics, subjects not traditionally incorporated to a great extent in music classrooms. In order for music to maintain a role as an essential subject in the school …

“Where Words Fail, Music Speaks”: The Experience Of Adapting Literature To Music, Laney J. Fowle

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Adaptation is a relatively new yet growing academic field consisting mainly of research on the modification of book into film. This study endeavors to expand the discourse on adaptation to the modal transformation of literary works to music. By using this specific adaptive type to examine the process and functionality of adapted works, I was able to address several key aspects of modern adaptation, including the hot-button issue of fidelity to an established source text, the role of adaptor as co-author, and the ability of solitary artistic modes to augment each other when combined. The resulting personal attempts at adaptation …

An Underestimated Master: A Critical Analysis Of Carl Czerny's Eleven Piano Sonatas And His Contribution To The Genre, Levi Keith Larson

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

Carl Czerny is unquestionably a well-known figure in the history of nineteenth-century pianism. He was a pupil of the great Beethoven, and later taught young Franz Liszt, thereby initiating a pedagogical lineage that continues to this day. Czerny’s pedagogical material is still relevant to contemporary piano education, and many of his treatises are valuable resources for understanding Classical and early Romantic musical culture. Although Czerny is known for being an accomplished piano teacher, he was also a highly prolific composer. His oeuvre totals 861 opus numbers, many of which contain multiple pieces. Czerny also penned a variety of compositions that …

Tracing Josef Suk’S Stylistic Development In His Piano Works: A Composer’S Personal Journey From Romanticism To Czech Modernism, Jana K. Manning

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

The purpose of this document is to trace the stylistic development in the piano works of the Czech composer, violinist, and pedagogue, Josef Suk (1874-1935). Suk’s piano music is largely unknown in the United States and, unfortunately, neglected in his homeland. Because the majority of research about Josef Suk is in the Czech language, this work is intended to be the first English language document pertaining to Suk’s piano works. The three chapters synthesize information from both primary and secondary sources, including the composer’s first biography, collection of his letters and speeches, musical scores, dissertations, thematic catalogue of his works, …

A Performance Guide For The Unaccompanied Cello Compositions By Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Elizabeth A. Grunin

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

The purpose of this study is to discuss the influences, structure, characteristics, and techniques of performance, encountered in the solo works for cello, composed by Mieczysław Weinberg. To do this it is necessary to learn about the rich life experiences and the musical training Weinberg received: specifically, his Jewish heritage and the escape of the Nazis, his traditional training in composition, exposure to foreign cultures, the influences of his environment in post-World War II Soviet Union, and finally his close and personal friendship with Dmitri Shostakovich. This project analyzes the solo works to understand their construction and to observe external …