Music Commons^™

The Silence: Overture And Two Scenes From An Opera In Two Acts, Eric Jurgens

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The Silence is the story of William Rose, a man who, while searching the world for his missing wife and daughter, is kidnapped and held in a secret Iranian prison. After many years of torture, abuse and a slow descent into insanity, secrets about his family manifest as mysterious and magical occurrences, creating a dangerous tension between the prisoners and guards. Questions begin to arise: Who is actually in charge of this prison? Why haven’t the guards ever met the warden? Why is the prison haunted by mysterious voices? And what exactly would it take to crumble the walls of …

China’S Musical Revolution: From Beijing Opera To Yangbanxi, Yawen Ludden

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This study seeks to investigate the modern derivative of Beijing opera, known as yangbanxi, through macro and micro approaches. The first part of the thesis surveys the development of Beijing opera under the historical context and in its social, political, and cultural perspectives. The second part, taking a microscopic perspective, undertakes an in-depth analysis of the compositions that were solely created by composer Yu Huiyong. First, it assays the application of Yu’s theory to his compositions of various Beijing opera arias. Second, it analyzes Yu’s instrumental music in compositional dimensions such as material, structure, and techniques, considering the larger implications …

The 10,000-Hour Threshold: Interviews With Successful Percussionists, Colin J. Hill

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Musicians are universally reliant on practice to improve and perfect their craft and there is substantial evidence that suggests mastery can only be achieved after 10,000 hours of practice early in life. This dissertation explores the validity of this theory as it pertains to master percussionists and examines their discoveries and recommendations as to how those 10,000 hours should best be spent. Research sources include selected published literature and personal interviews with thirty-six percussionists, conducted between 2010- 2013. The research is summarized in the following six sections: the 10,000-hour threshold; planning a practice session; warming up; learning new music; problem …

An Investigation Of The Benefits Of Improvisation For Classical Musicians, Rebecca S. Kossen

Theses : Honours

For centuries improvisation has been an integral part of European classical music culture. Until the nineteenth century most musicians were composers, improvisers and performers. Today, improvisation is less common in the classical music scene with most classical musicians being either performers or composers and only a minority of them having the ability to improvise. Is improvisation relevant to the classical musician whose main concern is the performance of written repertoire?

Learning how to improvise and practicing improvisation requires a musician to develop particular skills which can be directly applied in the performance and interpretation of precomposed music. This make improvisation …

Concert Recording 2013-10-13a, Tommy Poole, Farren Mayfield

Concert Recordings & Programs

Sonata in e-flat minor / Johann Sebastian Bach -- Tableaux de provence / Paula Maurice -- Sonata for e-flat alto saxophone and piano / Paul Creston -- Concerto alto saxophone and wind ensemble / Ingolf Dahl

Concert Recording 2013-10-23, Oklahoma City University. Faculty Brass Quintet

Concert Recordings & Programs

Solomon, HWV87. The arrival of the queen of Sheba (1748) / G.F. Handel ; arr. Howard Cable -- Ricochet (1993) / Kerry Turner -- Celestial suite (2011). Copemicus, earth vs. sun; Gallieo; Newton; Hubble; Hawking / James E. Stephenson -- Quintet no. 5 (1986) / Thom Ritter George -- Four outings for brass (1975). Moderato, with energy; Blues tempo; Slowly; Vivace / Andre Previn

A Historical Study Of Irvin Cooper: Choral Music Educator And Founder Of The Cambiata Concept, Phillip Holland Stockton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Military officers and psychologists have argued that the human experience of killing in combat is directly related to physical proximity between combatants. With the advent of remote controlled weapons and advanced optics, that argument has proven untrue. This thesis, through analysis of contemporary war literature and film, proposes that a better paradigm for understanding and anticipating the human experience of killing in combat is the view the soldier maintains of him/herself and of the other as similarly human. The contemporary soldier may view both the enemy and him/herself as human, subhuman, or inhuman; this view is closely tied to constructed …

Harmony, Voice Leading, And Drama In Three Sondheim Musicals, Adam M. Hudlow

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study presents an analytical approach to three works by American musical theater composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim: Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Assassins—each of which Sondheim developed largely at the Playwrights Horizons theater in New York. Using an eclectic, neo-Schenkerian approach that draws upon recent work by pop-rock and stage music analysts, it examines the intersection of melodic and harmonic events with dramatic occurrences in the text to determine how Sondheim heightens dramatic narrative within each song analyzed. Sondheim’s work has been a fixture of the upper echelon of the Broadway musical for over half a …

A Performer's Guide To John Corigliano's Mr Tambourine Man - Seven Poems To Text By Bob Dylan, Jovan Zivkovic

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this monograph is to provide a documented score study analysis of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man – Seven Songs to text by Bob Dylan, since up to date there has not been another documented score analysis of the particular piece from a conductor’s standpoint. The monograph aims to contribute to the performance practice, by reviewing the conductor’s preparation process, and by highlighting key performance considerations as they relate to the execution of the piece that took place on October 12th, 2012 at the School of Music at Louisiana State University. The monograph aims to serve as a …

The Effect Of Real-Time Pitch Tracking And Correction On High School Instrumentalists' Tuning Accuracy, Kathryn Elizabeth Strickland

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The main purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of pitch tracking and correction (auto-tuning) on the intonation performed by high school clarinet (n = 30) and trumpet (n = 30) players with at least three years of experience in the large ensemble setting. Participants (N = 60) were assigned to one of three treatment groups, each differentiated by means of intonation evaluation. An aural group (n = 20) used Real Time Pitch Tracking and Correction (RTPTC) software; a visual group (n = 20) used an electronic tuner; and a control group (n = 20) “played in-tune to …

Auditory Imagery And The Poor-Pitch Singer, Peter Q. Pfordresher, Andrea R. Halpern

Faculty Journal Articles

The vocal imitation of pitch by singing requires one to plan laryngeal movements on the basis of anticipated target pitch events. This process may rely on auditory imagery, which has been shown to activate motor planning areas. As such, we hypothesized that poor-pitch singing, although not typically associated with deficient pitch perception, may be associated with deficient auditory imagery. Participants vocally imitated simple pitch sequences by singing, discriminated pitch pairs on the basis of pitch height, and completed an auditory imagery self-report questionnaire (the Bucknell Auditory Imagery Scale). The percentage of trials participants sung in tune correlated significantly with self-reports …

'Can You Sing Or Play Old-Time Music?': The Johnson City Sessions, Ted Olson

ETSU Faculty Works

Excerpt: In a recent interview, musician Wynton Marsalis said, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve suggested to musicians to get The Bristol Sessions—Anglo-American folk music.

In-Depth Analysis And Program Notes For A Selection Of Wind Band Music, Miles Wurster

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This document is an in-depth analysis of five selections for wind band: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, Elliot Del Borgo; Jericho, Jesse Ayers; Sunrise at Angel's Gate, Philip Sparke; Danza Sinfonica, James Barnes and The Engulfed Cathedral, Claude Debussy, transcribed for wind band by Merlin Patterson. These pages contain biographical information on each composer, program notes, formal analysis, musical considerations, and conducting and rehearsal considerations by the author. A detailed diagram of the formal and phrasal structure is included on each piece in the Appendix.

The Compositional Techniques Of Joseph Schwantner Through An Analysis Of From A Dark Millenium, Frank Gonzalez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Being one of the prominent composers of our time, the contributions of Joseph Schwantner to the literature of the wind band are significant. Although primarily known as an orchestral composer, he has contributed four major works to the wind band repertoire, ...and the mountains rising nowhere (1977), From a Dark Millenium (1981), In evening's stillness (1996), and RecoilPercussion Concerto, transcribed by Andrew Boysen (composed 1992, transcribed 1994), and New Morning for the World "Daybreak of World," transcribed by Nikk Pilato (composed 1982, transcribed 2004).

The purpose of this document is to explore Schwantner's unique compositional style as it is …

A Conductor’S Guide To David Del Tredici’S In Wartime, Joe David Moore

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Del Tredici (b. 1937) has gained recognition as a composer for both instrumental and vocal settings. Although his instrumental contributions include solo, chamber, and orchestral works, to date he has only written one composition for wind band. A conductor must devote himself / herself to score study and analysis in order to form an accurate interpretation and to conduct effective rehearsals. A vital part of score study and analysis is familiarity with the composer’s technique and style of writing.

A brief biographical sketch presents Del Tredici’s background, education, honors and awards, academic career, and influences, as …

A Progressive Guide To Commercial Trumpet Playing, Eric R. Murine

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The commercial genre of trumpet playing has been overlooked by educators for years. The goal of this project is to author a book, A Progressive Guide to Commercial Trumpet Playing, to address this issue. Commercial music can be defined as music for the mass consumer audience with the intent to produce monetary profits.

This approach will take a student stylistically from blues through the popular music of the 21st century. The ultimate goal of this book is to fill the pedagogical void in trumpet performance study material, providing a more complete foundation for the trumpet performer. Each chapter will …

What Keeps Us Well? Professional Quality Of Life And Career Sustaining Behaviors Of Music Therapy Professionals, Shane C. Swezey

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Self-care can be seen as not only critical for individual professionals, but also for the growth of the helping professions and the quality of care which clients receive. The purpose of this study was to investigate use of career-sustaining behaviors and the levels of professional quality of life in music therapy professionals. This study investigated research questions regarding use of career sustaining behaviors and levels of professional quality of life, the relationship between these variables, the differences in the use of career sustaining behavior by demographics, and the use of music as a self-care strategy.

An online survey was sent …

0802: Kay Wildman Collection, 1900-2006, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

The Kay Wildman Collection explores the history of music in Huntington, WV. This collection consists of oral histories, photographs, newspaper clippings, and research materials. In most of the oral histories you will find a copy of the interview on a CD and a typed outline of the interview. A diary by Robert Grant, a member of numerous musical groups in Huntington, can also be found in this collection. This diary covers the period of time Grant was a student at Marshall University with some additional entries that go beyond that period of time.

Calypso: Effecting Conflict Transformation Through The Indigenous Calypso Art-Form, Edward M. Phillips

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

The calypso, which forms an integral part of the carnival celebrations of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is a syncretic popular art-form that has its origin in Africa. The art-form, having been influenced and adapted by the experiences of enslaved Africans in the Diaspora, has been fused in the vortex of plantation society. Today, the music of carnival has evolved considerably, with the calypso becoming one of the cornerstones of the carnival celebration. This paper looks at aspects of the subset of political calypsos that offer commentary on the socio-political and/or economic issues in the Republic of Trinidad and …

A Survey Of Christian Cross-Over Songwriting: Core Principles And Potential For Impact, Paul Malhotra

Senior Honors Theses

A cross-over song has been defined as a song written by a Christian artist aimed at a mainstream audience. An understanding of the core principles of cross-over songs and their relevance in contemporary culture is essential for Christian songwriters. Six albums marked by spiritual overtones or undertones, representing a broad spectrum of contemporary cross-over music, were examined. Selected songs were critiqued by analyzing the album of origin, lyrical content, author’s expressed worldview, and level of commercial success. Renaissance art also provided a historical parallel to modern day songwriting. Recommendations were developed for Christian songwriters to craft songs with greater effectiveness …

Music Cultures Of Mechanical Reproduction, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

Popular musics arc best understood as comprising those genres whose styles have evolved in an inextricable relation with their dissemination via the mass media and their marketing and sale on a mass-commodity basis. While much popular-music activity takes place independently of the mass media, other essential aspects of popular-music production and marketing arc inevitably inseparable from technologies of mechanical reproduction, which perforce condition aspects of music culture in general. Hence, just as one could speak of military cultures based around the stirrup, or later the firearm, or agrarian cultures based on the hoe, the ox, or the tractor, so do …

Popular Music Studies And The Problems Of Sound, Society And Method, Eliot Bates

Publications and Research

Building on Philip Tagg’s timely intervention (2011), I investigate four things in relation to three dominant Anglophone popular music studies journals (Popular Music and Society, Popular Music, and the Journal of Popular Music Studies): 1) what interdisciplinarity or multidisciplinarity means within popular music studies, with a particular focus on the sites of research and the place of ethnographic and/or anthropological approaches; 2) the extent to which popular music studies has developed canonic scholarship, and the citation tendencies present within scholarship on both Western and non-Western popular musics; 3) the motivations for two scholarly groups, Dancecult and ASARP, to breakaway from …

Promoting Schema Formation Among Wind Musicians Of Varying Abilities, Laura A. Stambaugh

School of Music: Faculty Publications

Cognitive load theory identifies three types of cognitive load present during learning: intrinsic, extrinsic, and germane. To optimize learning, cognitive load theory recommends optimizing germane load. The purpose of this study was to examine the interactions among intrinsic and germane cognitive loads when practicing a wind instrument. The study will determine which of two practice strategies is most effective for three levels of learners on a woodwind instrument. Forty-five participants were university music majors and minors with either (1) no experience playing a woodwind instrument, (2) limited experience, or (3) a woodwind major or minor. In a repeated-measures design, students …

Free From Jazz: The Jazz And Improvised Music Scene In Vienna After Ossiach (1971-2011), Thomas Albert Zlabinger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Focusing on a diverse and eclectic scene that is under-documented, this dissertation investigates the historical, social, and cultural aspects of jazz and improvised music in Vienna over the last four decades. Through fieldwork, I have observed various characteristics and trends regarding the jazz and improvised music scene in Vienna and have subsequently organized the musicians and their recordings into seven fluid "fields": Traditional-U.S. Performance, Post-Tradition, DJ/Hip-Hop, Volk/Ethnic, Cabaret, Unclassified, and Abroad. One of the most striking aspects of the entire scene is the near-absence of a racialized discourse among musicians and critics and of stereotypical markers of "blackness" in performance. …

Ladakhi Traditional Songs: A Cultural, Musical, And Literary Study, Noe Dinnerstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the place of traditional songs in the Tibetan Buddhist culture of the former Himalayan kingdom of Ladakh. I look at how Buddhism and pre-Buddhist religion informed the texts and performance contexts of traditional songs, and how Ladakhi songs represent cultural self-images through associated musical, textual, and visual tropes. Many songs of the past, both from the old royal house and the rural Buddhist populations, reflect the socio-political structure of Ladakhi society. Some songs reflect a pan-Tibetan identity, connecting the former Namgyal dynasty to both the legendary King Gesar and Nyatri Tsangpo, the historical founder of the Tibetan …

Triadic Music In Twentieth-Century Russia, Christopher Mark Segall

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Twentieth-century Russian music exhibits a diversity of approaches to triadic composition. Triads appear in harmonic contexts that range from tonal to atonal, as well as in referential contexts where triadic music evokes historical styles. Theorists in Russia have approached this repertoire from perspectives that differ from those of their English-speaking counterparts, but because little Russian theory has been reliably translated into English, the work remains largely unknown. This dissertation explores three case studies dealing with the treatment of triads in contrapuntal, functionally harmonic, and atonal contexts respectively, drawing on untranslated (or in one case, poorly translated) writings from twentieth-century Russian …

Twelve-Tone Cartography: Space, Chains, And Intimations Of "Tonal" Form In Anton Webern’S Twelve-Tone Music, Brian Christopher Moseley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation proposes a theory and methodology for creating musical spaces, or maps, to model form in Webern's twelve-tone compositions. These spaces are intended to function as "musical grammars," in the sense proposed by Robert Morris. And therefore, significant time is spent discussing the primary syntactic component of Webern's music, the transformation chain, and its interaction with a variety of associational features, including segmental invariance and pitch(-class) symmetry. Throughout the dissertation, these spaces function as an analytical tools in an exploration of this music's deep engagement with classical formal concepts and designs. This study includes analytical discussions of the Piano …

The New York Chamber Music Society, 1915-1937: A Contribution To Wind Chamber Music And A Reflection Of Concert Life In New York City In The Early 20th Century, Lisa Kozenko

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The New York Chamber Music Society, founded in 1915, was one of New York City's prominent cultural institutions in the early twentieth century. A vital piece of the classical music landscape, the Society played an important role in the city's development as one of the major artistic capitals of the world. The contributions that the organization made to wind chamber music repertoire and its mission to further the performance of chamber music in New York City are remarkable. The legacy of the New York Chamber Music Society is the works that were premiered or played for the first time in …

Two Sides To A Drum: Duality In Trinidad Orisha Music And Culture, Ryan J. Bazinet

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation presents an ethnographic and historical study of music and culture in the Yoruba-derived Trinidad Orisha religion in Trinidad and New York City. Its objectives are: (1) to provide description and documentation of Trinidad Orisha music, an understudied music genre in the African diaspora; (2) to shed light on the historical, cultural, and demographic factors contributing to the development of Trinidad Orisha music by its practitioners; and (3) to provide substance for meaningful comparisons between Trinidad Orisha music and other Yoruba-derived musics.

Based on four years of fieldwork (2008-2012) in Trinidad and in Brooklyn, NY, the study explores Trinidad …

Concert Recording 2013-03-13, Cody Walter, Jason Forte, Kelsey Menze, S. Michael Shuman, Jamie Porche, Amy Frenzel, Alfredo Maruri, David Hutler, Tim Clifford, Brandon Denike, Megan Dobbs, Dallas Tucker, Jessi Camden, Kolby Palmore

Concert Recordings & Programs

Lento / Paul Holmes -- Sonata IV / Handel -- Odelette / Camille Saint Saens -- Beyond these hills / Carl Anton Wirth -- Time for the show / Tyler Swick -- Rant and rave -- Firework / Katy Perry ; [arr.] Tyler Simmons