Music Commons^™

Nielsen's Arcadia: The Case Of The Flute Concerto, Ryan M. Ross

CoE Publications

In this essay I suggest that there are distinct patterns pertaining to the Flute Concerto involving the idea of ‘Arcadia’ as it contrasts an idyllic past with a troubled present. In my analysis, I argue that his positioning of simple themes with relation to their surroundings in the concerto’s two movements suggests a process-driven search for an Arcadian ideal. As such, and far from simply being merely an interesting work with several beautiful moments, the concerto is an important access point both for further understanding Nielsen’s creative approach to form and his late-period preoccupation with the idea of simplicity

Preferences Of And Attitudes Toward Treble Choral Ensembles, Jill M. Wilson

Research & Issues in Music Education

In choral ensembles, a pursuit where females far outnumber males, concern exists that females are being devalued. Attitudes of female choral singers may be negatively affected by the gender imbalance that exists in mixed choirs and by the placement of the mixed choir as the most select ensemble in a program. The purpose of this research was to determine student and choral educator perceptions of and attitudes toward treble clef choral ensembles.

Results support the existence of a stigma toward treble clef choirs as second-place ensembles. A majority of students who were surveyed and interviewed chose the mixed choir as …

How Participants Envision Community Music In Welsh Men’S Choirs, Debbie Rohwer, Mark Rohwer

Research & Issues in Music Education

The purpose of this study was to describe choristers’ perceptions of Welsh men’s choir participation. Four choirs were observed in concert and rehearsal settings across Wales. Focus group interviews were conducted with between 4 and 10 members in each of the 4 choral settings for a total of 24 total interview respondents. The interviewees had a spread of years of male choir participation, from 4 months to 47 years, and a spread of ages, with members ranging in age from 32 to 89. The interview questions were designed to be flexible, yet focused. An interview guide was organized with a …

Composition Instruction And Cognitive Performance: Results Of A Pilot Study, Jennifer Bugos, Edward Jacobs

Research & Issues in Music Education

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a composition program, Composers in Public Schools (CiPS), on cognitive skills essential for academic success. The underlying hypothesis is that composition instruction will promote creative expression and increase performance on music-specific skills such as music reading, as well as foster general analytical/aural skill development associated with vocabulary, arithmetic, and processing speed abilities. Two sixth-grade classes assigned to the experimental (n = 15) and control (n = 13) groups completed a series of standardized neuropsychological and cognitive assessments pre and post-instruction. Results of a Repeated Measures ANOVA (Group …

Himie Voxman: His Contributions To Music Education, Bruce Gleason

Research & Issues in Music Education

Himie Voxman is a name few instrumental teachers and students of the past fifty years would fail to recognize. His method books and arrangements are in school districts and private studios across the United States, serving as a testimony to his influence as a teacher, scholar, editor and arranger. His life and career as a prominent U.S. music educator is certainly worthy of the attention of anyone with an interest in the history of American music education.

Spirituality And Synagogue Music: A Case Study Of Two Synagogue Music Ensembles, Carol Shansky

Research & Issues in Music Education

Participation in community music ensembles is an important and popular form of music education—with members of ensembles that perform within religious services having the opportunity of experiencing a possible extra dimension of a spiritual experience. Thus the intent of this study was to survey adult choir and band members at Temple Emeth in Teaneck, New Jersey, USA in terms of connections between music performance, educational experiences and spirituality. Thoughts and reflections of the participants as well as those of the clergy and choir director were gained through qualitative, open-ended interviews. Overall, it was found that participating in a synagogue musical …

Review Of Menc Handbook Of Research On Music Learning (Vols. 1 & 2), Oxford University Press, 2011, Edited By Richard Colwell And Peter Webster., Nathan Buonviri

Research & Issues in Music Education

Music educators and researchers regularly seek new ideas and current information about effective teaching and learning at all levels of instruction. The vast quantity of completed studies, and the time required to review, edit, and publish them, often puts readers at a disadvantage when trying to collect and organize current, relevant literature on a given topic. The MENC Handbook of Research on Music Learning provides excellent syntheses of the most recent research on multiple topics with “a laserlike focus on what is at present known about learning [italics added for emphasis] in music” (p. v).

This handbook provides a thorough, …

Notes From The Editor, Bruce Gleason

Research & Issues in Music Education

I’m having difficulty believing that I’m writing notes for the tenth anniversary issue of Research and Issues in Music Education.  What began as an experiment a dozen plus years ago seems to have caught on, and I’m grateful for our editorial board, web managers, contributors and to our readership—all of whom have made this possible. It’s been quite a decade and I’m looking forward to seeing where the next one takes us.

Dragon Rhyme By Chen Yi, Russell G. Mccutcheon

Sunderman Conservatory of Music Faculty Publications

Russell McCutcheon, Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Bands in the Sunderman Conservatory of Music, published an analysis of "Dragon Rhyme", a major new composition for wind band, by composer Chen Yi in Teaching Music Through Performance in Band, Volume 9.

Investigating Young Children's Music-Making Behavior: A Developmental Theory, Paul G. Morehouse

CGU Theses & Dissertations

We have many developmental theories contributing to our understanding of children as they meander steadfastly toward maturation. Yet, none have reported on how young children interpret the qualitative meaning and importance of their own music-making experiences. Music created by average, not prodigious, young children is perceived by adults as “play” music rather than “real” music. But do young children take the same view as adults? When Piaget speaks of the young child’s qualitatively unique view and experience of the world (Ginsberg & Opper, 1988), can we assume that his statement encompasses young children’s predispositions related to music-making?

Music is understood …

A Survey Of The Sacred Choral–Orchestral Works Of Sir Henry Walford Davies (1869–1941), Martin C. Cook

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

In the closing years of the 19th Century, when Charles Villiers Stanford, Hubert Parry and Edward Elgar were at the height of their fame and influence in British musical society Henry Walford Davies emerged as one of the most promising talents of the day, receiving commissions from the provincial music festivals of Great Britain, which were a rite of passage for emerging composers.

Between 1904 and 1929 Davies produced eleven sacred choral-orchestral works for these festivals and one further work, which were received favorably in their day but are now almost forgotten. There are five large multi movement works: The …

"Spectacular Opacities": The Hyers Sisters' Performances Of Respectability And Resistance, Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

This essay analyzes the Hyers Sisters, a Reconstruction-era African American sister act, and their radical efforts to transcend social limits of gender, class, and race in their early concert careers and three major productions, Out of Bondage and Peculiar Sam, or The Underground Railroad, two slavery-to-freedom epics, and Urlina, the African Princess, the first known African American play set in Africa. At a time when serious, realistic roles and romantic plotlines featuring black actors were nearly nonexistent due to the country’s appetite for stereotypical caricatures, the Hyers Sisters used gender passing to perform opposite one another as heterosexual lovers in …

New Tools In Improvised Music Performance., Seán Mac Erlaine

Articles

This paper looks at the synthesis of computer technology and instrumental practice in improvised music performance. The emerging field of performers who use real-time signal processing as a technological extension of their instrument is discussed. How do new tools affect musical practice? Does the use of computers impose an associated aesthetic?

A number of key players are scrutinised including Evan Parker, La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Jon Hassell, Miles Davis, Pauline Oliveros, David Behrman. The research provides a historical context to these practices and explores how pre- and post-digital technologies have shaped their work.

This article identifies an innovative and …

Music For Mercer's: The Mercer's Hospital Music Collection And Charity Music In Eighteenth-Century Dublin., Tríona O'Hanlon

Dissertations

This thesis examines and analyses the contents of the Mercer’s Hospital Music Collection. The collection includes fifty manuscript and seven printed volumes of
music containing works by Handel, Greene, Boyce, Purcell, Corelli, Humfrey, Avison, Barsanti, Stanley and Festing. Selected works were performed at the Mercer’s Hospital benefit concerts, established in April 1736 to provide important financial support to the
hospital, which opened on Stephen Street, Dublin in 1734. Mercer’s was the first voluntary Dublin hospital to initiate a series of benefit concerts. The Mercer’s benefit concerts attracted the participation of a wide range of Dublin-based performers, both singers and instrumentalists. …

Oíche Nollag, Solomon Fenton-Miller

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

“Oíche Nollag” is an original composition for orchestra of approximately 6 minutes and 10 seconds in length. It is based on a traditional Irish jig tune of the same name, meaning “Christmas Eve” in Irish Gaelic. The piece is through-composed and follows a basic ternary form (fast-slow-fast). The folk tune is easily recognizable in its initial form but becomes transformed through a series of continuous variations. These variations increase in complexity and energy before reaching a high point and transitioning into a slower, middle section with the brass. The music gains energy again with the addition of the winds and …

Politics, Improvisation, And Musicking In Frederic Rzewski's "Which Side Are You On?" From North American Ballads, Andrea A. La Rose

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Discussions of the role of politics in Frederic Rzewski's music generally stop at surface elements: the title of the work, the use of a particular song, and guesses as to what left-leaning audience the piece is directed at. Similarly, discussion of the role of improvisation in Rzewski's work begins and ends simply at the mention of its existence. Using transcription and analysis of improvisations from recordings of "Which Side Are You On?" from North American Ballads combined with ideas about modeling from Christian Asplund, musicking from Christopher Small, dialogue from David Bohm, and Rzewski's own writings about music, I demonstrate …

A Church Musician's Resource Guide To The Available Resources From The Choral Public Domain Library For The Liturgical Year A, Michael John Trotta

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) represents a free resource to the church musician, and yet, as a user-edited database, has its limitations. This monograph provides a measure of quality control of the broad database presenting a usable resource guide for the church musician faced with the selection and presentation of liturgically suitable choral works every Sunday. Previous guides have been either so general that they make it difficult to locate music or so specific that they highlight individual publishers or composers. This document provides a methodology for selection and classification of freely reproducible choral literature appropriate for the various …

Applicability Of Periodization To Orchestral Audition Preparation On Trombone: A Case Study, Christopher Evan Green

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The process of auditioning can seem daunting because of the high standards of performance required to win. Brass players have a finite amount of time they can practice each day because of the small muscles of the embouchure. Despite the vast amount of information available on preparing for a brass orchestral audition, little has been written on how to organize a practice schedule leading up to the audition. An analysis of literature in the major brass journals confirm which strategies have been considered to be most important when preparing for an audition, but an important component from the world for …

A Performer's Guide To Stephen Paulus' Mad Book, Shadow Book: Songs Of Michael Morley, Jin Hin Yap

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Stephen Paulus is a prolific American composer of the twenty-first century. Together with his primary collaborator Michael Dennis Browne, an English born, American poet, he has produced numerous compositions ranging from choral works to operatic. This document introduces Paulus’ early song cycle for tenor "Mad Book, Shadow Book: Songs of Michael Morley" (“Michael Morley Creaked,” “Falling Asleep in the Afternoon,” “I Feel Good Running,” “Morley’s Root Song,” “Calm, Calm,” and “Et in Arcadia, Morley”). Included is biographical and stylistic information about the composer and the poet, general information about the song cycle, and a performer’s guide to the songs, followed …

Preparing A World Premiere: A Conductor's Analysis Of Ronaldo Cadeu's "Crime And Punishment: One Act Ballet", Raul Gomez Rojas

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This paper is a conductor’s analysis of Ronaldo Cadeu’s recently completed orchestral score for his ballet Crime and Punishment, with a focus on its preparation for a first public performance. The research explores preparing a piece of music for its world premiere from several angles: the musical process in the form of score study, the extra-musical process involved in the production of the event and the culmination of both in rehearsals and performance with the orchestra. Detailed score analysis reveals that Crime and Punishment is a masterfully crafted piece of music that successfully conveys the essence of Dostoyevsky’s text. Cadeu’s …

Rebekah & Aliya, Mark Hirsch

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Rebekah & Aliya is a multimedia ballet for two dancers, ten musicians, and film based on a story of love, timelessness, and transcendence. Drawing inspiration from literary themes of Jorge Luis Borges as well as composers of the Renaissance and Avant-garde alike, this collaboration with choreographer Madeline Bunke is a four-scene work, alternating between film and live dance, with live music throughout.

Cornell University Verdi Study Day 2013: Overview, David B. Rosen, Francesco Izzo, Alessandra Campana, Mary Ann Smart

Verdi Forum

Includes abstracts by Francesco Izzo ("'Quel vecchio': Some Thoughts on Old Age and Aging in Verdi"), Alessandra Campana ("Otello, Falstaff, and the Scene of Spectatorship"), David B. Rosen ("How Verdi's Minor-Mode Set Pieces End -- i, I, or X? -- and Why"), and Mary Ann Smart ("Art and Revolution Italian Style: Ambivalence and Absolutism in Verdi's Early Operas")

Verdi Biography Via Film, Charlotte Greenspan

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

Review: "Verdi's 'Il Trovatore': The Quintessential Italian Melodramma" By Martin Chusid, David Lawton

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

Die Zauberflöte: A European Singspiel, Zachary Bryant

Theses and Dissertations

Through modern-day globalization, the cultures of the world are shared on a daily basis and are integrated into the lives of nearly every person. This reality seems to go unnoticed by most, but the fact remains that many individuals and their societies have formed a cultural identity from the combination of many foreign influences. Such a multicultural identity can be seen particularly in music. Composers, artists, and performers alike frequently seek to incorporate separate elements of style in their own identity. One of the earliest examples of this tradition is the German Singspiel. Through the synthesis of foreign and native …

Learning From Plot And Characters In Musical Theatre, Lindsay Grant

Theses and Dissertations

Musical theatre, from the 1920s to the present, acts as a conscience for the American people and attempts, through the plot and characters, to convey concepts from which all should learn.

Red Note New Music Festival Program, 2012, School Of Music

Red Note New Music Festival

The RED NOTE New Music Festival at Illinois State University is a week-long event which features outstanding performances of contemporary concert music.

Johannes Brahms' Liebeslieder Walzer Op. 52 And Hector Berlioz' "Hungarian March" From La Damnation De Faust, Sarah Todd

Masters Theses

Johannes Brahms, known for his love of serious music and archaic forms, was indelibly influenced by residence in lively Vienna. During his Vienna years he composed some of his most "popular" works, both in terms of style and reception, among these the Liebeslieder Walzer Op. 52. These masterful "love song waltzes" are settings of folk poems from Georg Daumer' s Polydora. Brahms skill in songwriting lies in his subtlety. Not bound to overt text painting, the composer uses rhythmic and textural clues along with characteristically rich harmonic language to musically reflect the love, longing, and loss found in Daumer' s …

Bach On Marimba : A Case Study Using The Violin Sonata In A Minor (Bwv 1003), James Chong

Theses : Honours

Transcribing works from the violin repertoire for marimba presents a series of technical issues, which must be addressed before the work can be successfully performed on marimba. This dissertation focuses on addressing the main issues that arise in this transcription process, using Bach’s A minor violin sonata (BWV 1003) as a case study. The main areas of investigation are (i) articulation, (ii) arpeggiation, (iii) possibilities for harmonic expansion, and (iv) sustain. Within each of these four topics, discussion is made into a selection of techniques available to the marimbist in the search for a performance style that is both historically …

Carl Orff’S Carmina Burana: A Conceptual And Ethical Analysis, Zachery Krueger

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper addresses the moral and ethical implications of Carl Orff’s masterpiece Carmina Burana. I begin with a brief introduction, framing the paper and providing some general background about the piece’s importance. I then delve into discussions about the original writers of the Carmina text as well as some possible philosophical influence that these writers could have had on Orff. Next I present some information on Nazi Germany (in which Orff lived) including the philosophical basis of their cultural policy and some historical theories that explain the phenomenon of Nazi eugenics. I include a summary of my research regarding Orff’s …