Music Commons^™

Preparing And Performing A Trumpet Recital, Jesse Gibens

Honors Theses

The pieces are examined based on historical context and explained based on the practice notes that I journaled and reflected upon by comparing and contrasting standard recordings of each work. This thesis is divided into nine sections that explore the pieces that are performed, as well as the instruments used to perform them. The thesis also explores my repertoire choices based on instrumentation, style, composer, and genre, as well as how to deal with the challenges of approaching a diverse program. Historical information has been taken from articles, books, and other scholarly writings produced by experts within their fields of …

Balance And Motivic Unity In The Finale Of Robert Schumann's Piano Sonata, Op. 11, Robert B. Carlson

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Robert Schumann’s first piano sonata, op. 11, is of great importance within his compositional output, but it is faced with undue neglect in performance and in-depth analytical study. Though he has been criticized for his inability to handle large forms, this sonata exemplifies a thorough sense of design, unity, and intricacy in his writing. There exists a considerable dearth of analysis that focuses specifically on the voice-leading structure of this sonata. Such an approach would shed light on the way Schumann engages with larger structures.

The first three movements of this work set a precedent of organic self-awareness in the …

The Performer As Analyst In The Piano Sonata Opus 12 By Jean Sibelius, Jesse Tingle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines and models the process of analysis as a means for performers, particularly pianists, to engage with the large-scale organizational features of musical works, using the Piano Sonata, Opus 12 by Jean Sibelius as a case study. The unique character and structure of each of the three movements suggests an equally wide range of approaches to analysis, including studies in sonata form, construction of a musical narrative based on external source material, and the use of concepts from Sonata Theory to explain the logic of a highly unconventional tonal and thematic design. The analyses are interwoven with a …

Survey And Analysis Of Undergraduate Music Education Percussion Methods Courses In Relation To The Practical Needs Of Secondary Music Educators In American Public Schools, Bryan C. Pickering

Dissertations, 2020-current

The majority of Bachelor’s degrees in Music Education require students to enroll in a series of instrumental methods or techniques courses. These courses cover fundamental techniques and pedagogical approaches that prepare students for their future careers as music educators. Due to the percussion instrument family having a large scope of material that needs to be covered, it is commonly perceived by those who teach the classes, that Percussion Methods classes within an undergraduate Music Education degree operate on time frames that make equal coverage of all instruments and topics a pedagogical challenge within a standard academic semester.

The purpose of …

University Music Engagement: A Mixed Methods Examination Of University Student Music Participation And Institutional Responsibility For Expanded Opportunities, Daniel B. Warren

Masters Theses, 2020-current

School music participation in the United States has continued to decline over the past 70 years, the effects of which can be seen on university campuses across the country. This decline has become a commonly understood trend among those observing the state of K-12 public schools, and universities have been largely overlooked as a place for students to continue—or, even less often, begin—to explore musical interests and opportunities. What are possible explanations for this decline? Do universities themselves have an obligation to provide or expand music lessons, ensembles, and musical resources for students as part of the university experience?

In …

Detours In Music - Podcast, Laura F. Ruple

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

The podcast, Detours in Music, aims to inspire, spark interest, and educate its audience of all ages and music levels about a life in music. Each episode includes an interview with someone involved in music at the professional level. The interviews focus on the person's story and the paths and detours their lives have taken them on, leading them to where they are today. The project has been well received, with episodes downloaded on four continents, and a consistent following of listeners. The podcast is intended to help its listeners connect with music faculty members at JMU, gain new perspectives …

Demonstrable Effect Of Vocal Changes On Singing Voices Of Post-Menopausal Women, Haley K. Griffith

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

There is little research concerning the impacts of menopause on the female singing voice, and few research studies examine any treatment methods or exercises to help sustain vocal quality throughout and after menopause. To determine areas in which more detailed studies could be completed, I completed a thorough literature review of current research studies that investigate relationships between menopause and the voice. Many studies examined vocal symptoms of menopause, such as a lowered fundamental frequency (F0) and decreased vocal quality. However, there exists no formally researched or published vocal exercises that help to mitigate these menopausal voice symptoms.

In response, …

Shared Dramatic Pacing In Jake Heggie's Three Decembers, Cynthia Wohlschlager

Dissertations, 2020-current

Jake Heggie collaborated with Terrence McNally and Gene Sheer to infuse 21st-century topics into the chamber opera Three Decembers. This document traces the development of the Madeline Mitchell motif, followed by illuminating the concept of shared dramatic pacing through the use of score identifiers. Fueled by research into Heggie's compositional process, via personal interviews with the composer, it defines an effective method for character development, as well as provides suggestions for the successful preparation of a Jake Heggie opera. For this document, the concept of shared dramatic pacing refers to the time on stage during a performance that is …

Recording A Solo Instrumental Album: A Methodology And Representative Album, John Nye

Dissertations, 2020-current

Contests and Collaborations is a trumpet album consisting of solo and collaborative works for trumpet. The album is aimed towards demonstrating diverse performance abilities in a variety of musical styles. The methodology for recording a solo instrumental album is discussed in detail and includes topics such as selecting repertoire, recruiting collaborative artists, hiring a recording engineer, selecting a producer, choosing a recording venue, allocating rehearsal and recording time, and royalties and licensing. Contests and Collaborations, along with the accompanying methodology, serves as a resource for other musicians by detailing various considerations and procedures involved in recording an album.

The Integration Of The Interactive Teaching Method (Itm) Of The Alexander Technique In Vocal Pedagogy, Susan D. Gouthro

Dissertations, 2020-current

Abstract

The work of F.M. Alexander (1869-1955) has become renowned in the realm of bodywork. Instrumental in furthering Alexander’s teachings is the work of Donald Weed, American Alexander Technique (AT) teacher and developer of the Interactive Teaching Method (ITM), his unique method for delivering the Alexander Technique and training teachers.

This study investigates how certified ITM instructors apply the ITM principles into their music teaching pedagogy, with a specific focus on applied voice lessons. Six practitioner interviews, as well as multiple class interviews with Weed were conducted from July 5– 9, 2019, in Darmstadt, Germany during a five-day ITM Workshop. …

Identity, Activism, And Rap In The Filipino American Diaspora, Scott Cooper

Master's Theses

For close to two decades, an established network of Filipino American rap artists have developed on the West Coast of the United States. These artists share musical narratives exploring their working-class immigrant experiences as well as the impact of colonization in the Philippines. Outside of music, these artists often engage in community organizing and activism, but few scholars have explored hip hop's effect within these spaces. Recently, a younger generation of Filipino American youth actively make use of hip hop in community organizations and activist groups. This paper will specifically examine how the identity of 1.5 and second generation Filipino …

Exploring A Qualitative Approach To Arts Advocacy And Evaluation, Lycette C. Belisle

Undergraduate Theses

The quantitative impact of the arts has become an increasingly important factor in determining the overall value of a project, and is often used to determine acceptance of submissions, public recognition and funding disbursement. This project evaluates current understandings of how the arts function within society, popular methods for determining the value of the arts and explores how qualitative reasoning can be utilized to communicate the value of supporting artistic endeavors. While placing a numerical value on the arts based on data collection can be important, this project will aim to evaluate the implications of relying so heavily on facts …

Sounding The Nile: River Politics, Environment And Nubian Musical Expression, Regan L. Homeyer

Music ETDs

ABSTRACT

In the mid 1960s, almost 100,000 Egyptian Nubians, people Indigenous to the Nile River Valley, were removed from their ancestral homeland due to the creation of the Aswan High Dam. In the years surrounding their displacement, Nubian musicians in Cairo and villages in new settlement areas gathered traditional Nubian songs and composed new songs to form a distinctive Nubian musical repertoire. This thesis addresses contemporary Nubian musical performance and the role of these reclaimed and newly-written songs in maintaining and revitalizing not only Nubian languages and culture, but especially senses of self in relation to place and, above all, …

Holy Cross Choirs Newsletter (Spring 2020), Choir, College Of The Holy Cross

Holy Cross Choirs Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Music And Six-Minute Walk-Distance- One Step At A Time: Commentary On “Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation Increases 6-Minute Walk Distance In Individuals With Copd: A Repeated Measures Study, Annie Heiderscheit, Sikandar Khan, Babar Khan, Linda Chlan

Faculty Authored Articles

The article by Hernandez and colleagues published in this edition of Heart & Lung, reports on original research exploring the use of rhythmic auditory stimulation (RAS) to increase the 6-minute distance walk with individuals diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The authors provide clear rationale regarding the use of music to stimulate movement, increase exercise tolerance, and to distract participants from the perception of dyspnea. Through this report, we offer further insights specifically focused on the RAS process, including vital considerations when implementing a music-based intervention in clinical practice settings.

Ritualized Performance And Community Identity: A Historical Examination Of Drum Corps Competition In The United States, Denise Odello

Music Publications

What structures bind musical communities that reach over distances? This article examines the musical community of youth drum corps in the United States and, in particular, the changing performance practices at competitions over time and how those changes influence the identity of the community. Drum corps is a community that exists over increasingly greater distances, yet the identity of this musical community is strong. An important site for discovering this communal identity is in competitive performance. Drum corps performances are strictly regulated because of this competitive context, and the values seen in those competitive regulations reflect the identity of the …

Nature And The Spirit: Tri Hita Karana, Sacred Artistic Practices, And Musical Ecology In Bali, Hao Huang, Joti Rockwell

EnviroLab Asia

Bali is notable for the degree to which music, dance, and visual art permeate everyday life--a result of historically rooted and continuously evolving religious philosophies and rituals. With this context in mind, we wondered what role the arts play, and can play, in addressing environmental concerns.

A Survey Of Modern Companion Pieces Outlining Specific Compositional Similarities Between Ralph Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem And Mack Wilberg's Requiem Aeternam And Let Peace Then Still The Strife, Joel Dunlap

Dissertations

Companion compositions can best be described as musical works composed to specifically coordinate in conjunction with a preexisting musical work. For the sole purpose and intention of complementing or coalescing with another work, the two companion compositions could share similar subject matter, choral/vocal or orchestral themes, and motifs, length, text treatment, context. Evidence in this survey will expound upon various examples of companion compositions from prominent modern-day composers.

The primary objective of this research is to study specific compositional characteristics, correlations, and relationships between Mack Wilberg’s two original compositions – Requiem aeternam and Let peace then still the strife with …

Nadia Boulanger’S Fantaisie Variée Pour Piano Et Orchestre A Study Of A Significant Unpublished Piece, Sarah Elias

Dissertations

The research consists of a brief historical and biographical overview of Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), a main focus of a thematic and motivic analysis of her work Fantaisie variée pour piano et orchestre, along with touching upon the influences of Fauré, Debussy, Widor, Reger, and Franck on its composition, and a mention of the process of obtaining the Fantaisie from the Centre international Nadia et Lili Boulanger. Boulanger produced works in a variety of genres, including: a fugue; more than thirty songs for voice and piano; two completed works for solo piano; three works for organ; several chamber works; three works …

A Performance Guide To Keith Gates's Song Cycle, The Barren One, Analynn Sober

Dissertations

Keith Gates’s song cycle, The Barren One is based on Federico Garcia Lorca’s play Yerma. Originally, Gates had planned to write an opera based on Yerma, but after a religious awakening, he decided to abandon the project. Instead, he took the music originally written for the opera and combined it with songs using Lorca’s poetry to create a song cycle. The knowledge of Gates’s operatic intentions as well as knowledge about the play should be considered when performing this work. This is because the song cycle is a miniature version of the opera and should be performed as …

An Analysis And Stylistic Comparison Of Five Works For Unaccompanied Tuba By John Stevens, Tracy Bedgood

Dissertations

In this dissertation, the five unaccompanied works for tuba by John Stevens are examined. The first half of this project is the analysis. The compositions are introduced with their collected background material, which includes the date of composition, programmatic elements (if any), and the circumstances under which the pieces were written. As each piece is analyzed, examples are provided that reveal the primary form and motivic content. Following the analyses, there is a discussion of style that covers musical language, devices, and a comparison of these elements among the pieces featured in the document. In the final section of the …

Analysis Of A Research-Based Show Choir Competition Adjudication Rubric: Reliability And User Perceptions, Ladona Tyson

Dissertations

A weighted rubric, created in a prior pilot study, used for adjudicating nine show choir competitions was statistically analyzed to determine reliability. A survey and ten interviews with adjudicators were examined to ascertain user perceptions. Results from an intraclass correlation coefficient indicate that the Tyson Rubric has excellent inter-rater reliability. Survey respondents indicated that the Tyson Rubric provides a step towards standardization in the genre of show choir, though improvements were suggested. Interviews were transcribed and coded, revealing themes of bias in show choir adjudication, the need for standardization in the genre, and the need for improved adjudication training. The …

A Performance Guide To Wallace Stevens' Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird As Set By Louise Talma, Meredith Melvin Johnson

Dissertations

This dissertation presents a two-fold discourse, first to provide a contextual source for singers interested in 20^th century composer Louise Talma, and second to provide an analytical guide to Talma’s adaption of Wallace Stevens’ poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird for voice, oboe, and piano. Though Talma’s composition never became renowned, it is both a commendable achievement and a highly sophisticated work, interweaving musical creativity with the extra-musical stimuli borne from the personal experiences of the composer.

The body of the document will feature four main chapters. The first chapter will introduce composer Louise Talma, the second …

Negative Harmony: The Shadow Of Harmonic Polarity On Contemporary Composition Techniques, Debora Haller

Composition/Recording Projects

If we are to blame any composer for the puzzling question ‘What is Negative Harmony?’ that caused a worldwide itch on the creative minds of many young composers in this century, it would be Jacob Collier, who introduced the world with prodigious, colorful harmonies upon releasing his first album “In My Room” in 2016. Provided with brief answers during interviews with June Lee that explained the concept of tones and chords being mirrored on an axis center in the opposite direction, the surface of Negative Harmony was exposed but led to even more confusion. Prompted by even more questions, the …

The Eye And The Ear: A Study Of The Connections Between Music And The Visual Arts In The Italian Baroque, Mckay Perry

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

The seventeenth centaury is one of the most widely studied periods in the arts. Music, drama, architecture, and the visual arts flourished around Europe. In Italy especially, the seventeenth century was a time of innovation and flourishing of the arts, thanks to patronage of the papacy in Rome, powerful families funding the arts in cities such as Florence, and increased economic activity in cities such as Venice. Music and the visual arts in particular flourished during this period: from seventeenth century Italy emerged the genre of opera, the sculptures of Bernini, and countless other timeless works of art. Though scholarship …

The Language Of Expression: Solo Violin Through The Ages, Kimberly Rendahl

Recital Papers

The following paper centers around defining technical and expressive commonalities while also exploring the respective features of interpretation that distinguish the Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Major, Opus 30, No. 3 by Ludwig van Beethoven, Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004 by Johann Sebastian Bach, and the Moderato Nobile movement from Violin Concerto in D Major, Opus 35 by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. These works exhibit the full range of the violin’s expressive capabilities in music from markedly different style periods. The following chapters include an evaluation of expressive aspects found in each work, and the ways …

The Amalgamation Of Popular Music And Dance: An Exploration Of The Human Impact, Caroline Kasay

Recital Papers

The undeniable relationship between song and dance begins in the early stages of life, and it persists throughout time in bringing communities of people together. As Susan E. Pashman states in her article When the Music Moves You: Revisiting the Classics in the Company of Neuroscience, “music promotes a sense of oneness, a feeling that drives social bonding from an early age... In a dance club, then, it is both the music and the dance movements of others that draw an individual onto the dance floor.” (2014, 23). This emotional correlation, or “sense of oneness” that Pashman details repeats itself …

What You See Is What You Get: Integrating Visual Performance Methodology Into Vocal Pedagogy, Bakara Nkenge-Hinds

Student Theses

In many ways, singing is an aural event. Since much of the instrument cannot be seen in a normal setting, voice teachers and voice admirers must rely on their ears to evaluate what they hear. However, singing is also a visual event. In the context of voice studios, teachers need to train students to not only achieve a healthy singing technique but also to convey a message to the audience. Each performer must ask herself, “what do I need to do as a performer to show the music?” In the article Sight Over Sound in the Judgment of Music Performance, …

Exploring Literature Through Music: A Graduate Recital Of Nineteenth-And Twentieth- Century Vocal Literature, Emily Kivi

Recital Papers

As demonstrated in the four pieces chosen for this program, Strauss’s art songs are useful learning tools for a singer’s introduction to the technical demands required to learn and perform in his operas.

Whence Comes The Lady Percussionist? The Changing Role Of Females In Professional Percussion Positions In The United States, 2011-2020, Cassidy Cheyenne Calloway

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Women percussionists have historically been the minority in professional percussion roles. After a discussion of women’s roles as drummers in ancient history, this document reviews the role of women percussionists in the rapidly evolving field of percussion. The purpose of this study was to see if there has been an increase in female percussionists in professional positions since Meghan Aube’s 2011 study, Women in Percussion: The Emergence of Women as Professional Percussionists in the United States, 1930-Present. Because female percussionists have been subject to gender stereotyping of instruments and gender discrimination, this study also aimed to discover if any progress …