Music Commons^™

Symphony In Three Marches, Nels D. Daily

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

This symphony is in three movements and lasts about 25 minutes. The form of the music for each movement has been influenced by the marches of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Edward Elgar, John Philip Sousa, and Dimtri Shostakovich.

The first movement is in a march form related to the music of John Philip Sousa: 1st strain, 2nd strain, trio, dogfight, trio dogfight, trio. This form has been adapted to merge with sonata form. Broad fanfares play a central role in the formal outline. They introduce formal sections similar to Beethoven's slow introduction in the first movement of the "Pathetique" sonata acting …

Integrating Composition In Music Education For Grades 2-5: An Interdisciplinary Study, Natalie Frances Griffin

Theses and Dissertations

Composition is a vital aspect of music and music education. However, it is scarcely taught in elementary music classrooms. Can composition be taught to elementary students and will it be an enjoyable activity for them? Can instructors use compositions as a form of assessment? This research seeks to answer these questions through an original research study. Elementary students in grades 2-5 were taught composition and wrote two songs for the piano. These songs along with survey responses revealed that students are able to write compositions for the piano, that they want to learn more about song writing, and that each …

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.

Musical Rhetoric And Sonic Composing Processes, Kyle D. Stedman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project is a study of musical rhetoric and music composition processes. It asks the questions, "How does the nature of music as sound-in-time affect its rhetorical functions, production, and delivery?" and "How do composers approach the task of communicating with audiences through instrumental music?" I answer these questions by turning to the history of musical rhetoric as practiced in the field of musicology and by interviewing composers themselves about their composition practices--approaches that are both underused in the rhetoric and composition community.

I frame my research participants' responses with a discussion of the different degrees to which composers try …

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.

Fugue In A Minor, Ryan A. Stones

Student Publications

"Fugue in A Minor" was composed during the Fall 2011 section of "Counterpoint and Composition" offered at the Sunderman Conservatory of Music at Gettysburg College. The piece is composed in the style of J. S. Bach's fugues in his famous collection of solo keyboard music called The Well-Tempered Clavier. "Fugue in A Minor" is a four part fugue, featuring a traditional exposition, followed by a development section including sequences and fugue subject entries, and concluding with a recapitulation of the initial fugue material and a coda.

Multiple Media Outlets For Composition, Bethany A. Ciullo

Honors Scholar Theses

Through integrating different forms of media, the creator is able to give their audience a unique, multi-sensory experience. In my honors thesis, I concentrated on combining sight and sound as a communication tool and to further engage the observer.

The first type of media I chose to include was original solo instrument, voice, and piano songbooks focusing on lyrical playing for student and amateur musicians. I have also created audio realizations of the songs through Finale, which I then organized into CDs with the intention that the musician could understand how the music sounds before practicing. I combined the visual …

Helen: An Opera In One Act, Garrett Hope

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

Helen is a one-act opera that tells the story of a woman whose husband would later betray her trust and love. It begins with her debut as an eligible young woman and ends with the husband’s demise. Through the course of the story it becomes apparent that her husband is both verbally and physically abusive as well as unfaithful to her. In the end her situation is redeemed through his death because his bacchanalian behavior resulted in his fatal sickness.

The opera is a retelling of a portion of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë, which was adapted …

The Life And Works Of Edvard Grieg, Leah Kennedy

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Composer Edvard Grieg merged a Classical and Romantic style of music with traditional Norwegian characteristics to create his own unique, complex style that is still widely performed today. His music changed the way we think of Romantic music and foreshadowed 20th century styles that would emerge only a few years later. His compositions vary throughout his life based on other composers’ innovations and his own preferences, but how much did Grieg’s personal life affect his music? And how did his life events shape his emerging style during his career? This information is displayed in a lecture recital format and will …

Red Note New Music Festival Poster, 2011, School Of Music, Carl Schimmel

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.

Subtle Shifts: Using The Brightest To Darkest Modal Concept To Express Jazz Harmony, John Anthony Madere

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this paper, I will outline a method of composition that I believe has been highly under-used in jazz composition. I have studied the work of composers Ron Miller and Maria Schneider, and have used their concept of brighter to darker modes to further my modal exploration. With explanation and musical examples, I will explain two possible ways to achieve 12 modes that progress from bright to dark, and then from dark back to bright. Another purpose of this paper is to provide a compositional aid to other composers interested in this concept and the subtle shades of major and …

Music Composition Portfolio, Daniel O'Neill

Masters by Practice

There are six pieces included in this M.Phil. These were completed over two years and are accompanied by a written text part. These pieces contain different instrumentations and range from solo to orchestral works. In this portfolio there is a set of two choir pieces, a trio for piano, clarinet and violin, an orchestral piece, a guitar quartet, three pieces for saxophone quartet and a solo piano piece. The written part of this portfolio examines in detail my compositions with reference to their inspiration, construction and overall shape. There is a detailed description of the six works along with musical …

Red Note New Music Festival Program, 2011, 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.

The Memory Of Persistence, Scott Pfitzinger

Graduate Thesis Collection

This composition for Wind Ensemble (like Concert Band but usually only one player on a part) was Scott Master's Thesis for completing a Master of Music degree in Composition at Butler University. Written in 2010, the piece is a combination of styles, philosophies, and techniques, all in balance with each other. Avant-garde and traditional techniques are used; tonality and atonality vie with each other, resulting in a combination of the two; specific musical directions are balanced by a degree of choice available to each participant.

“The Memory of Persistence” is about a journey. No specific personal story is presented, nor …

The Logic Of Objects, David B. Eichelberger

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

The human mind assimilates information and experiences quickly and constantly, and is aided by mental systems that we rely on to function. We classify the input of our lives with extreme efficiency. Our notions about the things we encounter in the world are learned from past experiences, and these expectations help us file the data of our lives. My work is composed to create pause. I am interested in slowing down the processes of assimilation by manipulating our expectations, and extending events measured in microseconds into saturated and engaging experiences. Functional qualities, visual rhythms, and exaggerated proportions are some of …

Fifth Wheel For Jazz Band, Ian C. Boswell

Music Honors Projects

Fifth Wheel is a composition written for Macalester's jazz band that uses form and extended tonality to create an emotional narrative. It contains elements of both classical and jazz traditions: its form and unusual meter (5/4) from the former and improvisation and jazz harmony from the latter. Writing harmonies in an extended tonal language was of particular importance in this piece's creation.

Marshall University Music Department Presents A Bfa Senior Composition Recital, Jeff Blair, Jeff Blair

All Performances

No abstract provided.

An Analysis And Overview Of Selected Original Compositions By Dario Escobedo, Dario Valentino Escobedo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The following chapters present an overview of the compositions I wrote as part of my graduate studies toward the Master of Music degree. They are presented chronologically in the order they were composed. Each piece was written to achieve goals and meet challenges that I took into consideration during the compositional process.

Hip Hop Rhetoric: Relandscaping The Rhetorical Tradition, Roberto Jose Tinajero Ii

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation is a rhetorical analysis of hip hop music and culture. Chapter 1 focuses on adding hip hop rhetoric to the discussion and terrain of rhetoric and writing studies and to the rhetorical tradition. Chapter 2 uses the rhetorical notion of kairos to discuss the ethos of hip hop culture and discourse. Chapter 3 uses hip hop rhetoric to discuss the tensuous-solidarity between Latinos and African Americans. Chapter 4 focuses on Latino/Borderland Hip Hop and discusses the multi-consciousness of Latino identity. Chapter 5 focuses on Christiian religious imagery in gangsta rap music. There is also a short conclusion.

Senior Honors Recital, Mark Maguire

Senior Honors Projects

I have always enjoyed the challenge music has given me. I have found very few disciplines that can give a work ethic while engaging one’s emotions. Music connects the analytical left side of the brain while uniting itself with the expressive right side of the brain. I began playing trumpet at ten years old and switched to the euphonium (a lower brass instrument with the range of a trombone but the sound of a French horn) in sixth grade when I got braces. I loved band. I learned how to improve my own playing ability while working with a team. …

The Composing Of "Musick" In The English Language: The Development Of The English Cantata, 1700-1750, Jennifer Cable

Music Faculty Publications

The cantata as cultivated by Alessandro Scarlatti and his contemporaries Alessandro Stradella and Giovanni Bononcini was the model for the early development of the English cantata, "which remained a solo vocal genre in England throughout the eighteenth century, namely 1710-1800. By focusing on specific musical elements, such as cantata format (recitative-aria-recitative-aria or aria-recitative-aria), song forms, motivic use, textual content, instrumental requirements and performance venues, the evolution of the English cantata can be observed during the first half of the eighteenth century, developing from a simple imitation of the Italian form to a genre in its own right.¹

An Analysis And Overview Of Selected Original Compositions, Miguel Angel Soto

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The following chapters present an overview of the compositions completed as part of my studies toward the Master of Music degree. They are presented chronologically in the order in which they were composed. The analyses of these works are intended to offer insight into the process of their composition, as well as to draw attention to their important musical elements. These pieces involve a wide range of instrumental and vocal settings, as well as a variety of traditional forms.

A Study Of Robert Schumann’S Liederkreis Op.39: Tracing Themes Of Nature From Poetry To Music, Mary H. F. Harkrader

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research was to gain information on Robert Schumann and trace themes of nature within his Liederkreis Op. 39. The specific problems of this study were as follows: 1.) to analyze the lieder of Schumann’s Liederkreis Op. 39 in terms of form; 2.) to identify and trace the themes of nature in Liederkreis Op. 39; and 3.) to identify how these themes are found in both the music and poetry of Liederkreis Op. 39. A brief section of research places this specific song cycle in the context of time, place, and composer.

A Study Of Charles-Auguste De Beriot And His Contributions To The Violin, Leigh P. Mackintosh

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research was to gain information about Charles-Auguste de Beriot (1802-1870) and his contributions to the violin. The specific problems of the study were as follows: 1.) to identify what influenced the compositions of Charles-Auguste de Beriot; 2.) to outline important developments in his writing that contributed to violin technique and Romanticism; and 3.) to analyze Concerto IX in A minor for Violin, Op. 104 in terms of melody, harmony, tonality, texture, and form. The intention of this research is to investigate Beriot’s compositions for violin and examines the Romantic aspects that appear in his Concerto IX. …

An Original Composition, Diamundo, And A Historical Survey Of Music Spatialization, Amaro Borges Moreira Filho

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is divided in two parts. Part one is an original composition, Diamundo, for percussion, winds, strings, and loudspeakers, based on the poem of the same name by the Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade. It is scored for a chamber orchestra with a main ensemble formed by strings, piano, percussion, and guitar, plus electroacoustic sounds, and four solo wind instruments: flute, saxophone, trumpet, and trombone. The ensemble and the eight-channel loudspeakers are spatialized. The piece is divided in six movements without interruption. The first five movements are separated by 4 cadenzas for the solo instruments. Most of the …

An Original Composition, Vestiges Of Kubla And An Analysis Of George Crumb's Quest For Guitar, Soprano Saxophone, Harp, Contrabass, And Percussion, John Manuel Crabtree

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Vestiges of Kubla is scored for the following instrumentation: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, timpani, 3 percussionist, guitar, and strings. Structured differently than a traditional concerto form, the overall architecture of the work is a large-scale sonata-allegro form in which the first movement is an exposition, the second movement is a slow development, and the third movement is a recapitulation of musical ideas from in the first, followed by a concluding coda. Although the concerto is unified by thematic, motific, and harmonic content presented in the first movement - …

Bob Brookmeyer: Composer, Performer, Pedagogue, Mace Francis

Theses : Honours

Before my California stay (1968-1978) I considered myself a player first and a writer second, although I did a lot of writing, from Ray Charles to Thad [Jones] and Mel [Lewis].1 Since 1979 I have come to view myself as a composer who also plays trombone; add conducting and teaching and that gives me 4 hats to wear. I do not have a swollen head, so they all fit nicely. (Brookmeyer, 1997, n.p.)

Although acknowledged as one of the pivotal figures in twentieth-century jazz, the career and the music of Bob Brookmeyer has received scant attention in secondary literature. This …

Symphonic Revelations, Carlo Vincetti Frizzo

LSU Master's Theses

Symphonic Revelations is scored for 3-3-3-3, 4-3-3-1, 1 timpani, 3 percussionists, harp, piano, and strings and is approximately 20 minutes in length. It is a single movement symphonic work that consists of three major sections and is built from the pitch class set [0, 1, 3]. The first section’s overall form resembles both a large crescendo and an accelerando. The music begins softly and slowly and over time gradually builds becoming louder and faster. Eventually in bars 225 to 229, the section comes to an end with a tutti passage that marks one of the loudest and fastest moments in …

James Ithal, Percussion & Composition, Music Department

General and Sophomore Recitals

This Sophomore Performance and Junior Composition recital features James Ithal, percussion and composition, with the EIU Percussion Ensemble.

Ryan N. Groff, Composition, Music Department

Senior and Graduate Recitals

This Senior recital features Ryan N. Groff (composition) with the EIU Woodwind Quintet.