Music Commons^™

Leavers And Movers: Turnover Of Music Teachers In Nebraska, Christian G. Schuerman

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

The purpose of this study was to determine if the rates of music teachers leaving the teaching profession and changing schools were significantly different than those of teachers of other content areas in the state of Nebraska. This study used data from the previous nine years of the Nebraska Department of Education’s Education Directory in order to find results for the entire population. Results indicated that music teachers leave the profession at similar rates as teachers of other content areas, but move schools at significantly higher rates.

Advisor: Robert H. Woody

Singer’S Guide To Hak Jun Yoon’S Selected Art Songs, Sunmin Cha

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Composer Hak Jun Yoon is at the forefront of popularizing Korean art songs through the combination of artistry and mass appeal, positioning him as one of the representative composers of contemporary Korea. Recently, Yoon’s songs gained significant popularity after being featured on the Korean vocal competition TV program “Phantom Singer,” playing a major role in sparking public interest in Korean art songs in general. This document aims to widen that circle to more classical singers by analyzing poetic and musical elements in four of Yoon’s representative songs: “On the Way to You,” “A Flower Blooms Alone,” “Lingering Scent,” and “The …

An Annotated Bibliography Of 45 Select 21st-Century Electroacoustic Pieces For B-Flat Clarinet Suitable For The Undergraduate Clarinetist, Emily Jean Rose

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Electroacoustic literature for the clarinet is bountiful and accessible, though many students do not experience working with this genre until they become a graduate student, if even then. Utilizing a detailed rubric, each of these 45 works in this document are graded according to their accessibility, techniques explored, and overall difficulty to approach to better serve the educator and assist the undergraduate clarinetist in performing this genre of repertoire.

With the accessibility of electronics and electronic equipment coming more readily available to composers and performers at the start of the 21st-century, electroacoustic literature found a sense of deliverance in the …

Native American Choral Music: Strategies For Celebrating And Incorporating Music Of Indigenous People, Mary Ruth Young

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

*Language usage is fluid and evolving, representing past and present people groups. During my discussions with my Indigenous composer colleagues, I've found that they hold varying preferences regarding how they wish to be addressed and the terminology they prefer. Because of this, I use the terms Native, Native American, First Nations, Indigenous, American Indian, and First Peoples interchangeably.*

This document will discuss the historical exclusion of Native American music in the Western art forms, specifically the choral tradition, and provide solutions to incorporate it in modern choral performances. Considering first the wars, disease, displacement, colonization, and missionization, it is no …

Making Czech Art Song Accessible For Novice Singers, Rachel Jane Sweeney Green

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Czech art song is often overlooked by vocal instructors while assigning music for the novice singer. The repertoire of Czech art song is vast, yet seldom used in vocal studios in America. Though some consider the language difficult, when approached in the correct manner it is easy for a novice to sing in Czech. This document advocates for Czech art song to be assigned and selected for the novice singer. Each chapter serves as a tool to understand and navigate Czech repertoire. The last chapter provides five examples of Czech art song selected because they align with the guidelines of …

An Unnecessary Barrier: A Critical History Of Efforts To Define A Core Repertoire For The Wind Band, Trevor Frost

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The wind band saw significant development in its literature, instrumentation, and programming practices throughout the twentieth century. Midway through the twentieth century the identification of a “core” repertoire began to make its way into the forefront of the wind band profession’s priorities, resulting in three significant studies by Acton Eric Ostling Jr. (1978), Jay Warren Gilbert (1993), and Clifford N. Towner (2011). Along with these studies many smaller studies and surveys were being published with this same goal of identifying either a “performance core” or an “intellectual core.” However, with new works of serious artistic merit constantly being written and …

Preparing The Next Generation Of Music Teachers: Illuminating Motivations Of Nebraska Preservice Teacher Mentors, Emily Marie Chapman

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This mixed methods study examined factors influencing practicing educators' decisions to mentor preservice teachers in Nebraska. Guided by Expectancy-Value-Cost Theory, the study utilized a sequential explanatory design, integrating a quantitative survey design and qualitative phenomenological interview. Findings indicated that educators' belief in their mentoring ability or Expectancy-Ability Belief (EAB) significantly predicted their willingness to mentor, with PK-12 music educators exhibiting higher EAB scores than elementary or high school music educators. Qualitative insights highlighted reciprocal benefits of mentoring, such as skill development and professional growth. The impact of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency on mentoring experiences varied among participants. Recommendations included …

Sun, Thunder, Daugava: Accessible Choral Music From The Latvian Choral Tradition, Paul M. Von Kampen

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

I have been fortunate enough to visit Latvia twice, once in 2009 and again in 2023. With connections made through the global outreach arm of the Lutheran Church Missouri–Synod, I was able to incorporate myself into Latvian culture in ways that may not have been possible had I been a standard tourist. I am grateful to have been invited into the homes of Latvian friends, to have studied in the Jāzeps Vītols Music Academy Library, and to have celebrated both the Jāņi midsummer festival in the Latvian countryside and my twenty-second birthday on the shores of the mighty Daugava River. …

Singing While Acting: A Mixed Methods Study Of Classical Singers’ Application Of The Chekhov And Meisner Acting Methods, Amy C. Johnson

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

When considering the minimal acting training incorporated into most voice performance programs, it is understandable why many singers struggle to balance vocal demands with acting demands. Furthermore, the expectations on singers to deliver authentic and nuanced performances are increasing as opera evolves. There is little in-depth understanding of classical singers’ experiences with applying specific acting techniques to their singing. There is also little information about how different acting methods may affect classical singing. This mixed methods collective case study aims to identify the impact of training in a specific acting method on classical singing. The qualitative strand focuses on the …

Project: Gogi, Joshua Allen Joseph Aguiar

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

“Project: Gogi” is a fully playable video game in the style of Japanese Role-Playing games (jrpgs) from the late 1980s through the early 1990s. This project is available for consumption with either Windows PC or Mac systems. This project features an original score, sound design, art, story, and gameplay systems. Three acts serve as the organizational structure, the first “character prologues” features a collection of stories introducing the playable characters and setting to the player. The second is an adventure though a dense unexplored forest culminating in a visit to a wise wizard. The third and final section is a …

Tuning Out: Intersections Of Music And Literature In The Contemporary French-Language Novel, Alexander James Claussen

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The past thirty years have seen a shift in French-language novels as authors move from the self-reflexive formal experimentation of the nouveau roman and its successors toward a literature that is again concerned with plot, character, and above all, the problems of the contemporary world. This “retour au récit” is accompanied by a resurgence of interest in writing the self (through experiments in autofiction), the past (through explorations of collective memory and collective guilt), and the present (through novels that challenge existing social structures and seek to define and develop new collective or national identities).

This dissertation examines the (re)turn …

Inhabiting Numbers: Weaving, Polyphony, And Embodied Mathematics, Kristine Barrett

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Inhabiting Numbers: Polyphony as Woven Sound explores connections between vocal polyphony and textile practices, specifically weaving and spinning. Rather than consider music and weaving as separate from one another, the following paper presents the ways in which they are deeply intertwined and mutually constitutive forms of cultural expression. The technical modes of thinking produced through repetition inherent in both—particularly as practices utilizing complex mathematical structures—produce ways of thinking unique to each. Through practice, I suggest these technical modes of making transit across different materials and mediums—in both explicit and implicit ways. The music created through the interweaving of multiple voices …

Woven Symphony: Exploring The Parallels Between Weaving And Music, Qianwen Yu

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Weaving and music are art forms often perceived as unrelated but actually share deep connections and fascinating similarities. In this presentation, I will first briefly introduce the impact of the 19th-century Jacquard loom on the invention of the Player Piano, a musical technology that evolved into the modern "MIDI" computer audio notation system. Second, I will explore the similarities found in both weaving and musical composition by presenting some of my own media installation art works. These works translate musical scores into woven textures, and vice versa, creating symphonies and revealing new sensory ways to appreciate textiles and music. I …

Music Of The Divine: Interweaving Threads Connecting Contemporary Chant-Based Piano Repertoire, Jeremy D. Duck

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

The purpose of this document is to prove chant remains an important source of inspiration among living composers, and, despite the number of piano works already incorporating chant, composers today are still finding unique ways to include chant in their music. To achieve this objective, representative works have been selected for research and analysis for four of the major chant traditions. Connor Chee’s The Navajo Piano, Victoria Bond’s Illuminations on Byzantine Chant, and Hayes Biggs’ E.M. am Flügel: Poem-Étude for Piano Solo, though the chants from which they are inspired are diverse in concept and style, they …

Music Of The Divine: Interweaving Threads Connecting Contemporary Chant-Based Piano Repertoire, Jeremy Dewayne Duck

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The purpose of this document is to prove chant remains an important source of inspiration among living composers, and, despite the number of piano works already incorporating chant, composers today are still finding unique ways to include chant in their music. To achieve this objective, representative works have been selected for research and analysis for four of the major chant traditions. Connor Chee’s The Navajo Piano, Victoria Bond’s Illuminations on Byzantine Chant, and Hayes Biggs’ E.M. am Flügel: Poem-Étude for Piano Solo, though the chants from which they are inspired are diverse in concept and style, they share many similarities, …

Make War To Make Peace: Themes Of War In Trombone Solo Literature, Ian Rutherford

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

The trombone has a relatively small amount of solo literature, especially for how long it has existed. Many professors only teach and perform an even smaller number of those pieces. Some works are compelling and captivating but rarely performed. The purpose of this document is to explore two lesser-known works that have an exciting connection; they are both works about war. I Was Like Wow for Tenor Trombone and Boombox by Jacob Ter Veldhuis (JacobTV) and Encounters IV for Tenor Trombone and Multi-Percussion by William Kraft are two original works for trombone that explore themes of war.

The pieces were …

New Paradigms In Band Performance: An Analysis Of Three Prototypes, Scott Walker-Parker

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

This document seeks to propose new paradigms in band performance through inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinarity. Initial inspirations were drawn from performance innovations shaped by the new music theater which became popular in the 20^th century. Key concepts which were used throughout the creative, planning, logistic, rehearsal, and performance processes are analyzed in three recitals through prototypes of new paradigms in band performance. These concepts include accessibility and community, nonverbal/multimodal performance and instruction versus time, and nonverbal/multimodal communication.

The document has been organized in a manner which highlights successes and breakdowns of each process so future refinement can be made. …

Blurred Lines: An Analysis Of Karel Husa's Music For Prague, 1968 Using Fuzzy Serialism, Sydney Wilson

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

The wind band work Music for Prague, 1968 by Karel Husa is a well-respected work that has withstood the test of time. Husa, a native of then-Czechoslovakia, composed the piece in less than a year from the United States. The piece serves as a method of expressing his feelings regarding the invasion of his homeland where his family was still residing. Husa accomplished this expression through the use of a nationalistic theme, the Hussite War Song, and his own integration of twelve-tone serialism.

This study looks at pre-existing literature surrounding Husa’s use of serialism, including an analysis by Husa himself. …

Inclusive Music Teacher Education: Valuing Breadth And Diversity Through Authentic Immersive Experiences, Rhonda J. Fuelberth, Robert H. Woody

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

In this report of self-study research, we share the insights we have gained working together at our institution to make undergraduate music teacher education more inclusive of how people naturally do music, focusing on three program features. First, we explain how our program affirms composition as a primary form of musicianship, similar to the status commonly given to performance. Second, we describe a vernacular music making experience in which our music education students learn to play “rock band” instruments, engage in songwriting, and explore being expressive in the styles of music personally favored by themselves and their future students. Third, …

Ruth Duvall Crawford’S Wonderful Career In Music And Evangelism, Dan D. Crawford

Zea E-Books Collection

This book is a study of the career and ministry of Ruth Duvall Crawford (1916–1986), the wife of prominent evangelist Percy Crawford (1902–1960). As pianist for Percy’s evangelistic team and director of music for his various evangelistic enterprises, Ruth put together an ensemble of 40–50 musicians, and produced hundreds of high-quality music programs, geared to Percy’s nationwide radio and television audiences. These programs set a new standard of performance in evangelical circles in the Northeast and Central United States in the 1930s and 40s. In the process of building this musical program, Ruth developed a format and an original style …

Hidden Treasures From The Classical Era: Three Idiomatic And Accessible Settings Of The Mass, Paul Von Kampen

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

How fortunate we are to live in an age where the world of choral literature seemingly continues to expand at an exponential rate. Since the advent of the Internet, it has never been easier to deliver compositions, performances, and research to a global audience. Opportunities to program new, undiscovered, or underperformed pieces are so vast that conductors could easily feel the effects of information overload. In his 2004 book The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, Barry Schwartz details the dilemma of having an abundance of choice in situations that originally had very few. Attempting to buy jeans, the …

Native American Boarding School Bands And Their Bandmasters. Project File 4: Biographical Sketches Of Important Bandmasters, Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

This is the fourth of five on-line text files in which I assemble my research notes about boys’ bands and their bandmasters at the US government’s Native American off-reservation inter-tribal boarding schools. It is material that covers a span of about fifty years from the 1880s to the 1930s. I principally have put into some kind of order a mass of data that draws upon online digital newspapers and genealogy databases. What follows here is not a finished, polished document. Everything on offer is still work in progress, inconsistent in formatting and with missing data and the occasional typographical error. …

Native American Boarding School Bands And Their Bandmasters. Project File 5: Native Americans On The Chautauqua Circuits: The Role Of Thurlow Lieurance And Lincoln’S University School Of Music, Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

This is the fifth of five on-line text files in which I assemble my research notes about boys’ bands and their bandmasters at the US government’s Native American off-reservation inter-tribal boarding schools. The present document began as an off-shoot from that project into local history concerning the School of Music associated with the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, NE around 1915-1925 and its role in preparing Native American young adults to appear on Circuit Chautauqua programs. They were often graduates of boarding school band programs, and the Haskell school band, in particular, made major Circuit Chautauqua tours with Native American …

Native American Boarding School Bands And Their Bandmasters: Project File 1: General Topics, Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

To establish a context for the Native American boarding school bands, we start with an important generalization. In the great Victorian era of bands, most were amateur, adult, white, male, community- or workplace-based recreational ensembles. With few exceptions, bands in the 19th century were not ensembles of children or women or family members, and they did not have a home in public primary or secondary schools. With roots in the military band tradition, civilian bands were mostly social organizations for adult males---grown men---"discoursing sweet music" as a kind of fraternal club with voluntary civic functions. Adult amateur men’s bands peppered …

Native American Boarding School Bands And Their Bandmasters. Project File 3: The Principal Schools And Their Bands, Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

This document sketches the histories of the boys’ bands and their bandmasters at eight of the most prominent of the US Government’s off-reservation inter-tribal Native American boarding schools. It is material that covers a span of about fifty years from the 1880s to the 1930s. I principally have put into some kind of order a mass of data that draws upon online digital newspapers and genealogy databases. What follows here is not a finished, polished document. Everything on offer is still work in progress, complete with missing data and the occasional typographical error. The author welcomes queries, additions, and corrections, …

Native American Boarding School Bands And Their Bandmasters. Project File 2: Bands At The Omaha Indian Congresses, 1898 & 1899, Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

This is the second of five on-line text files in which I assemble my research notes about boys’ bands and their bandmasters at the US government’s Native American off-reservation inter-tribal boarding schools. In general, it is material that covers a span of about fifty years from the 1880s to the 1930s, though the present document concentrates on the Omaha expositions of 1898 and 1899. I principally have put into some kind of order a mass of data that draws upon online digital newspapers and genealogy databases. What follows here is not a finished, polished document. Everything on offer is still …

Rediscovering Argentine Repertoire Written In The 1930s: A Performative Study Of Concert Piano Works By Lita Spena And Celia Torrá, Florencia Zuloaga

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

A survey of the piano repertoire written during the decade of 1930 in Argentina reveals the rising number of several works written by women composers. For the first time, the years that followed the inauguration of the National Conservatory of Music and Theater in 1924 witnessed a professionalization of women in the field of music composition, and two figures made great strides in this regard. Celia Torrá and Lita Spena stood out among the first female composition students at the National Conservatory and some of the first to succeed as professional composers. Furthermore, they were among the first women to …

Perceptual And Conceptual Structures In Thea Musgrave's Green, Isabel Bohrer

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

Green, by Thea Musgrave, traces the interaction between two contrasting musical ideas. The opening of the piece presents the first idea: a lyrical section that highlights the importance of the pitch class E within the idea. This is interrupted by the second, discordant, idea which initially presents as a low F tremolo. Throughout the first half of the work, these ideas interact. The second half of the work further explores the melodies developed from the more discordant ideas, completely omitting the lyrical theme.

Within this piece there is a framework based upon the use of octatonic collections and modified …

The Romantic Style In The Piano Works Of Manuel M. Ponce, Oscar Vazquez Medrano

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

Manuel M. Ponce is one of the most recognized Mexican composers of the twentieth century. He is known for his contributions to the guitar and piano literature, but more importantly, for his efforts to introduce musical nationalism in a world where Romantic opera and salon music dominated Mexico’s music scene.

This document has an introduction, six chapters, a conclusion, a bibliography, and three appendixes. The introduction includes pertinent background on Ponce’s music and the types of research dedicated to him, as well as the stylistic division of his music by Ponce scholars.

Chapter one explains the historical context in Mexico …

A Comparison Of Nebraska Urban, Rural, And Reservation Schools' Readiness To Achieve Nebraska State Music Standards, Amber E. Knight

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

Every person has a unique perspective through which the concept of music education is filtered, and for good reason: music classrooms and programs across the United States are very different. Programs are dissimilar in everything from tangible items, such as facilities and available teaching materials, to foundational frameworks, including curriculum and program philosophy. Local geographical and cultural contexts contribute to the dissimilarity of music programs across the United States, and even those within the same region or state. The purpose of this study was to examine the commonalities and differences in school climate and access to resources among urban, rural, …