Music Commons^™

Acoustics Of The Louis Armstrong Theatre, Bailey Groendyke

Student Summer Scholars Manuscripts

Like many multipurpose auditoriums, the Louis Armstrong Theatre (LAT) at Grand Valley State University has been reported by a considerable number of students and faculty to have unsatisfactory acoustics for music performance. This study focused on physical measurements and simulated changes to LAT. Reverberation time (RT) was measured by filling LAT with sound and measuring the decay for select frequencies as per ASTM E2235 protocol, and the initial time delay gap (ITDG) was determined using slapsticks as an impulsive sound source. A model of LAT was also constructed from blueprints and physical measurements; simulations using this model were conducted using …

The Intermediate Sphere In North Indian Music Culture: Between And Beyond ‘Folk’ And ‘Classical’, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

If in discourse about traditional music in North India, the notions of “folk” and “classical” continue to be widely used, in this essay I posit the existence of an “intermediate sphere,” comprising a heterogeneous set of traditional music genres that, in different ways, shares features with both folk and classical realms. I suggest five categories in this socio-musical stratum and provide brief glimpses of some of their constituents and distinguishing features, including the distinctive sorts of theory they embody and elite patronage that sustains them. I conclude with observations about historical changes in the status of this sphere in general.

Emil Heerbrugger's Grand Grecian Military March In Facsimile, Robert Ferguson

Soundboard Scholar

Ferguson discusses Emil Heerbrugger's Grand Grecian Military March, composed for one or two guitars and published in the 1830s. It is parlor music for the amateur and displays the traits of so much of that repertoire: foursquare phrasing, strict diatonicism, tonic-dominant harmony, and simple rhythm. The tambour technique was a staple of nineteenth-century martial music on guitar, typically used to evoke drums, and Heerbrugger marks it as such in his score. The composer recommends executing the effect percussively with the right-hand middle finger.

Teachers' Perceptions Of The Influence Of Professional Development On Music Integration, Marcy Thurmond Simmons

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

International Baccalaureate (IB) schools are focused on a school-wide approach to developing inquiring students who are motivated to succeed. The problem explored in this case study was based on a local IB elementary school's response to a reform model to integrate music into other content areas. The curriculum lacked an interdisciplinary approach to music education even though teachers had participated in some professional development (PD) to help them integrate music into content areas. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of elementary teachers regarding the influence of professional development on music integration at the IB elementary school. …

The Missing Link: Filling The Gap And Achieving Success In Australian Contrabass Auditions, Giovanni Vinci

Theses : Honours

In Australia, a contrabass player who wishes to win a full-time orchestral position must pass a formal audition. Australian contrabass auditions normally consist of both solo works and a set of orchestral excerpts. In order to be successful in the audition, the aspiring musician must meet the standard expected by the adjudicating panel of musicians. This dissertation explores the keys to success in such auditions, shining light upon why some musicians are successful and others not. A series of interviews have been conducted with string musicians around Australia to assist in discovering optimal strategies and approaches to achieving success. Practising …

Proceedings Of The 2015 Wa Chapter Of Msa Symposium On Music Performance And Analysis, Jonathan R. Paget, Victoria Rogers, Nicholas Bannan, Paul Hopwood, Krista Low, Adrian Yeo, Alix Hamilton, Lindsay Vickery, Stuart James, Carol Williams, Stewart Smith, Robin Ryan, Emma Jayakumar, Cat Hope, Lucas O'Brien

ECU Books

This publication, entitled Proceedings of the 2015 WA Chapter MSA Symposium on Music Performance and Analysis, is a double-blind peer-reviewed conference proceedings published by the Western Australian Chapter of the Musicological Society of Australia, in conjunction with the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University, edited by Jonathan Paget, Victoria Rogers, and Nicholas Bannan. The original symposium was held at the University of Western Australia, School of Music, on 12 December 2015.

With the advent of performer-scholars within Australian Universities, the intersections between analytical knowledge and performance are constantly being re-evaluated and reinvented. This collection of papers presents …

Wandering Philosopher, Augustus Chigozie Onwubiko

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

"Lithuanian Suite Op. 1", John Paul Bimbiras

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Captain Beefheart, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Addressing The Critical Shortage Of Latinos In Music Education: Pre-Service Latino Music Education Student Perspectives On Recruitment And Retention Strategies, Eben-Ezer Arias-Garcia, Dean Gronemeier

McNair Poster Presentations

My research focus is on 1st and 2nd generation Latino music education students and their paths to becoming music educators in the United States. Latino students are an under researched portion of music education in the American population, but represent the fastest growing ethnic group in America. During my preliminary research I found that there is a critical shortage of Latino music educators. Through an instrumental case study with critical-case sampling, done through interviews and a questionnaire taken by several pre-service Latino music education majors at a southwest university, I found that the most important factor for recruiting future music …

We Live In Waves, William S. Trachsel

Graduate Thesis Collection

Composition for orchestra.

Inferno, Stephen Kachenovich

Graduate Thesis Collection

Composition for piano.

Rift, Luke Flynn

Graduate Thesis Collection

Composition for orchestra.

V.1 2015-2016, Center For Arts & Language, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The 2015-2016 issue contains articles on addressing the complexities surrounding today's institutions, pedagogies, technologies, and professional expectations. This issue was not themed intentionally, yet the articles signal the problems of higher education and the precarity of the students who occupy it.

Editorial: Guitar Research Resources—An Update, Thomas Heck

Soundboard Scholar

In early May, 2015, there was a biennial gathering of guitar history enthusiasts and scholars at the town of Hemmenhofen, Germany, on Lake Constance. One of the sessions was a round table with the title, "Old and New Sources and Horizons for Historical Research on the Guitar." It was designed to stimulate audience participation and certainly succeeded. Brief papers were offered by three scholars in attendance. Here, Heck identifies eight points of progress, each of which can be considered good news for those who work in the field of guitar history.

And I Heard 'Em Say: Listening To The Black Prophetic, Cameron J. Cook

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis aims to explore how conceptions of the black prophetic tradition, as discussed by thinkers Cornel West and George Shulman, might be expanded into the realm of African American musical traditions and genres. I argue that musical genres like the blues and hip-hop function as an affective discourse that aesthetically, politically and religiously function as sites of resistance to white supremacy and provide alternate pathways to liberation as compared to more canonical instantiations of the black prophetic. In particular I provide close readings of performances and art by Nina Simone and Kanye West.

Stefano Landi's Arie A Una Voce And Early Seventeenth-Century Italian Guitar Music With Alfabeto Notation, Nicholas Galfond

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the first few decades of the seventeenth century countless songbooks were published in Italy, more than 300 of which included the notation system for guitar accompaniment known as alfabeto. This early repertoire for the five-course Spanish guitar was printed mostly in Naples, Rome, and Florence, and was a pivotal precursor to our modern tonal musical understanding. The very nature of both the instrument and its characteristic dance-song accompaniment style led composers to create block harmonies in diatonic progressions long before such concepts bore any semblance to a functioning theory. This paper uses the 1620 publication Arie a una voce …

The Forging Of Modern Broadway Sound Design Techniques Amid The Fires Of The Rock Musicals In The Late 1960s And 1970s., Timothy Tracey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

From the ancient Greek theater, through the dawn of the Renaissance, beyond the development of Shakespearean theater, to the Broadway theater boon in the 1920s, sound reinforcement within the theater remained virtually unchanged. Through Broadway's Golden Age, directors and producers relied on architectural acoustics to carry sound throughout the theaters. This is not surprising given that most of the theaters were built in the early 1900s, before the invention of any electric sound reinforcement technology. Moreover, early attempts at amplification in the 1940s yielded dismal results. Eventually, the maturation of the integrated book musical and the invasion of the rock …

Romantic Ideals In Contemporary Folk Music, Brett Schwartz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines contemporary folk music from no earlier than 2006, specifically music of the bands The Decemberists, Fleet Foxes, and Bon Iver. Providing a close reading of select songs, I prove that modern music is seeing a revival in the Romantic Era and Transcendentalist ideals and philosophy. The works and philosophy of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), William Wordsworth (1770-1850), John Keats (1795-1821), as well as Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), among others and their critics are all considered for points of comparison to the modern lyrics. The reason for this revival is considered in the conclusion …

Makerspace: The Future Of Music, Anthony L. Paganelli

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Presentation regarding the use of Makerspace in creating and sharing music.

Musical Borrowing In Las Cuatro Estaciones Portenas: Piazzolla, Desyatnikov, Vivaldi, Wayanne Watson

Honors Theses

Leonid Desyatnikov arranged Astor Piazzolla's Las Cuatro Estaciones Portenas for violin and string orchestra, interspersing quotations from Vivaldi's Four Seasons throughout the new work. My score-based analysis of the arrangement investigates Desyatnikov's borrowing practice and connects his compositional techniques to musicological meanings. In addition to identifying levels of contrast value between the quotation and the surrounding arrangement, I examine alterations to the original content and context of the quotations and determine whether Desyatnikov maintains or transforms the quotations' identities. I combine identity and contrast value into an interpretive model of musical interaction, providing a more nuanced exploration of musical dominance.

"Goodbye, Old Arm": The Domestication Of Veterans' Disabilities In Civil War Era Popular Songs, Devin Burke

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

IN October of 1863, two years into the Civil War, a short editorial titled "Empty Sleeves" appeared on the front page of the Staunton Spectator.1 It addressed a question that had become familiar in the wake of the war's unprecedented violence; namely, how to encounter, or how to look at (in both the literal and figurative senses), the quickly growing population of veterans whose injuries marked them as "disabled:' This question could be cause for considerable anxiety in able-bodied Americans whose beliefs were shaped by Victorian and muscular Christian values.

A Graduate Recital In Voice, Marie Sorenson

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Marie Sorenson, soprano, presented her graduate voice recital on Friday, November 6, 2015 at 6:00 p.m. in Davis Hall of the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center on the University of Northern Iowa campus. The program consisted of three sets of music by Reynaldo Hahn, Johannes Brahms, and Jake Heggie, in collaboration with pianist Polina Khatsko. This abstract discusses musical and historical features of the recital pieces in the order of the program.

Expanding The American Canon: A Conductor's Compendium Of Black American Orchestral Composers, Nseobong Ekpo

Theses and Dissertations

From the colonial days in the early 1600s until the present, Black Americans have contributed to the musical life of America. Black Americans and composers of African descent have contributed to symphonic music since the early days of Western Art Music. However, Black Americans have not been adequately represented in symphonic concert programs past or present. This document aims to address the issue of accessible published works by Black Americans by presenting a current resource of available and ready-tobe- performed symphonic orchestral music by Black American composers. This document will include: A brief historical overview of contributions of Black Americans …

Carl Friedrich Zelter’S Kantate Auf Den Tod Friedrichs: An Historical Overview, Conductor’S Guide, And Modern Edition, Dustin C. Ousley

Theses and Dissertations

This study of Carl Friedrich Zelter’s Kantate auf den Tod Friedrichs marks the first scholarly and musical exploration of the piece since the eighteenth century. A handcopied score of the cantata was converted into modern notation in 2009 using the program Sibelius. This version of the score, as well as instrumental parts, was used for the lecture-recital that grew from the study of this work. The manuscript’s present-day owner, Renate de La Trobe of Hamburg, Germany, granted access to a fair copy of the original score with a dedication in Zelter’s own hand. A member of Mrs. de La Trobe’s …

A Summary And Reflection Of The Percussion Repertoire For My Senior Recital, Christopher Scimecca

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

Students’ Attitudes Towards Individual Musical Instrument Courses In Music Education Graduate Programs In Turkey, Gülten Cüceoğlu Önder

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The Individual Musical Instrument course is a compulsory part of the curriculum, in the Music Education Departments of universities in Turkey. The main purpose of the course is to ensure that each student is able to play a musical instrument and, use the instrument once they become music teachers. This study aims to determine the attitudes of students enrolled in the Music Education Department towards the course within the program. Participants included 334 students studying Music Education at four different Universities in Turkey. The study adopted the “Attitudes towards Individual Musical Instrument Course Scale” (Topoğlu & Erden,2012). No statistically significant …

Music Of Christmas, Vanja Y. Watkins, Marvin K. Gardner, Ronald Staheli, Myrna Layton

Books

No abstract provided.

Metamorphosis And Persona In Ned Rorem's Poems Of Love And The Rain, Jacob Boca

Senior Independent Study Theses

Ned Rorem’s 1963 song cycle for mezzo-soprano, Poems of Love and the Rain, presents settings of texts by eight American authors loosely centered on the subject of unrequited love. The cycle’s formal structure is particularly unique given that each text is set twice, with contrasting settings placed directly opposite each other along the cycle’s temporal plane. That is, the sequential ordering of texts, one to nine then back to one, yields an overarching pyramidal or mirror form. The following study examines text-music relationships, both at various moments within the cycle and between contrasting settings, with the ultimate goal of …

Resurrecting The Hip-Hop And Christian Cultures: Lecrae's Unashamed Use Of The Rap Narrative, Persona, And Language, Marci Swank

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Hip-hop and Christian cultures do not overlap too often, or do they? As a rapper, Lecrae is able to share his narrative through his lyrical content, which includes his Christian faith. This thesis examines the history of hip-hop, Lecrae’s personal influences, and the overarching movement within the two cultures. Lecrae’s persona, use of the hiphop and Christian platforms, and rhetorical decisions reveal him as an example of how the American culture both resists and embraces the less-likely artist. Some view Lecrae as the one bringing hip-hop back to its original origins, but others believe that he is tainting both cultures …