Music Commons^™

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 …

Sense-Making, Meaningfulness, And Instrumental Music Education, Marissa Silverman

John J. Cali School of Music Scholarship and Creative Works

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the nature of “meaning” and “meaningfulness” in the context of instrumental music education. By doing so, I propose to expand the ways in which instrumental music educators conceive their mission and the ways in which we may instill meaning in people’s lives. Traditionally, pursuits of philosophical deliberation have claimed that meaningfulness comes from either personal happiness (e.g., Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill) or an impersonal sense of duty (e.g., St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Immanuel Kant). However, philosopher Wolf (2010) criticizes these positions in favor of a broader perspective, one …

A Violist In Nashville: The Viola’S Role In The Nashville Recording Industry, Patrick Monnius

Composition/Recording Projects

The viola, the violins larger and often overlooked sibling, is not the instrument people would typically think of when they think of Nashville. That honor would most likely go to either the fiddle or acoustic guitar. But present day Nashville is home to much more than the Country music that originally gave the city its' famous moniker Music City. The recording scene now encompasses almost every genre of popular music imaginable as well as a large amount of video game, television, and movie recording. Through this project, I attempted to explore the multitude of ways in which viola can be …

A Bright Size Transformation: Examining Pat Metheny's Improvisatory Evolution Through Select Original Compositions From The Album Bright Size Life (1976), Lee Heerspink

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

Pat Metheny has consistently been one of the most widely celebrated and prominent jazz guitarists from the mid-1970s to present day. Over the course of Metheny’s 45-year career, he has accumulated 44 albums as a band leader, 20 Grammy awards, and numerous “Best Jazz Guitarist” awards from DownBeat and JazzTimes. Despite the general sources, articles and interviews conducted about Metheny’s life and music, there is a lack of scholarly research which addresses how Pat Metheny’s improvisatory approach has changed throughout the course of his career.

This document provides a better understanding of Pat Metheny’s improvisatory evolution with transcriptions, analyses, …

Critical Edition And Interpretative Analysis Of Música Para Orquesta De Vientos Y Percusión Op. 152 By Blas Emilio Atehortúa, Rubén Darío Gómez

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

This document presents a critical edition of the band piece called Música para Orquesta de Vientos y Percusión Op. 152 by Colombian composer Blas Emilio Atehortúa, as well as an interpretative analysis of it. Until today, the only original written material of the piece is a set of instrumental parts in manuscript form. The full score and any form of a reduced or condensed score are missing. Throughout the process of making the present critical edition, the author clarified and reconciled the original manuscript parts, create a complete full score, and produced an engraved set (parts and score).

This document …

In Time Gone By: Song Cycle For Baritone And Six Players, Bryan Grosbach

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

In Time Gone By is a song cycle for Baritone vocalist and Pierrot Ensemble + percussion that explores the value of life being a byproduct of its finitude. Only during the most vulnerable and difficult events of that life can self-realization occur. These topics are wrapped into a “love-story” narrative crafted from select poems from Chamber Music by James Joyce and select quotes from the prose Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne. Using intervallic focus as a tool for development, the piece transitions from sparse quintal harmony to lush tertian harmony as a musical metaphor for the self-realization of …

At The End Of The Dock, Christina D. Ensign

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

Highly emotional and wildly eclectic, At the End of the Dock is a nine-movement work for string quintet, jazz quintet, and piano. As a culmination of my studies of composers who have been most inspirational to my work as a student, theorist, and composer, I have written a piece which strives to encapsulate the styles of many into a single harmonious package. Standing as the foundation are three interludes, namely movements three, five, and seven, which reflect upon a childrens’ tune heard in the opening movement, “Prologue.” These movements, which represent loneliness, tie together the larger and more overtly “jazz” …

The Dinner: An Opera In One Act., Rachael Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

After getting engaged Kate decides to invite her estranged mother over to come out as queer. As Kate attempts to appease her mother, who fervently disagrees with her lifestyle, choices, and sexuality, the dinner starts over, progressively becoming stranger until Kate must finally confront their relationship.

Rethinking Meredith Monk., Tracy Monaghan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Meredith Monk’s decades of work embody an interdisciplinary art that exists at the intersection of sonic, visual, and kinesthetic artistic media. To date, scholars and critics of music and dance have only studied aspects of her work in isolation and have tended to omit the other critical aspects of Monk’s compositional language. For example, music scholars omit analysis of movement in their analyses, while dance scholars omit musical analyses. This has led to inappropriate categorization of her work, particularly into the vein of minimalism. My project represents the most in-depth study of all aspects of Monk’s music to date by …

Effects Of Chair Testing In Orchestra On Student Motivation: Student Perspectives And Applications From Motivational Theories, Rosanna Christine Honeycutt

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The purpose of this descriptive study was to examine how string students perceive achievement on chair testing through the lens of attribution and achievement goal motivational self-theories. A teacher survey was administered to identify the goals of chair testing in two high school and seven middle school orchestra classrooms. A student survey was used to collect data in those same classrooms on (a) the reasons why students do and do not do well on chair tests, (b) the perceived goals of chair testing and (c) the ratings of motivation and self-achievement. Qualitative techniques were used to analyze attributions within both …

Follow Me: Following Jesus With Your Head, Heart, Hands, And Feet, Vincent Dodge Frampton

Masters Theses

Following Jesus requires more than merely a mind exercise. It is more than giving money to the right causes or helping to build hospitals. Following Jesus requires the head, heart, hands, and feet--the whole self. The goal of this music and worship ministry project is to help people to follow Jesus with their whole selves.

Secondary School Chorus: Practical Implication Of Praxial Music Education In Sight-Singing And Ear-Training, Euna P. Kim

Masters Theses

High school chorus students are often required to sing and memorize a diverse range of choral repertoire for performances. In the process of performance preparation, students learn many techniques including basic breathing, vocalization, blending of the voice, singing in pitch, keeping the rhythm, and following dynamics. Sight-singing is an essential technique for singers because music requires coordination of sight and singing through recognition of notation and rhythm. When a group of singers have a higher skill level of sight-singing, the learning of the song is easier and more efficient. The competency of sight-singing level of a group of singers allows …

Moments Of Music: A Qualitative Case Study In A Metropolitan Community Chorus, Katherine Iooss

Masters Theses

Making music in collaboration with others has impacted the strength, development, and connection amongst people throughout American history. Community music ensembles can strengthen social bonds and improve collaboration between citizens. Developing interest and skill in choral singing can provide an avenue for social connectedness in adulthood, as well as reduce stress throughout adolescence. This qualitative study focused on participants’ professed benefits from voluntary participation in a community chorus and the effect of rehearsal participation on perceived stress and/or energy level. The study was situated in a non-auditioned community choir in a densely populated metropolitan suburb in Northern Virginia. Data was …

Teaching Elementary School Music: A Composition Approach, Lauren Amanda Hammer

Masters Theses

The 2014 National Music Standards emphasizes the importance of the three artistic processes of creating, performing, and responding. The Massachusetts Music Standards follow both the 2014 and the 1999 standards. The 1999 music standards are as follows: singing, reading and notation, playing instruments, improvisation and composition, critical response, purposes and meanings in the arts, roles of artists in the communities, concepts of style, stylistic influence, and stylistic change, inventions, technologies, and the arts, and interdisciplinary connections. Both standards mention either creating, improvisation, or composition, but are music educators emphasizing the importance of these standards? In Massachusetts, following both sets of …

School Of Music Faculty/Staff Newsletter, May 2020, School Of Music

School of Music Faculty/Staff Newsletter

Accomplishments and news from the faculty and staff of the School of Music at Illinois State University.

The Art Of Forgiveness: How The Arts Helped Facilitate Forgiveness, Darlene Kuehn

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

This research explored how the arts can help facilitate the process of forgiveness using a diverse methods research design. The first part of the research was a qualitative phenomenological inquiry examining the experiences of eight people who identified as having worked through a substantial process of forgiving in which the arts was an informative part of their process. The second part involved arts-based research to further investigate how art helped facilitate the participants forgiveness process. The primary investigation of the inquiry was: How did involving art effect the participants’ process of forgiving, and, did art facilitate or enrich the forgiveness …

Key Notes: The Newsletter Of The Department Of Music, Georgia Southern University

School of Music: News & Publications (2017-2023)

• From the archives...
• From the future...
• From the chair...

Chameleons Of Modern Drumming: Mastering Diverse Commerical Styles, Cameron Simons

Recital Papers

Studio drummers are some of the most well-rounded musicians contributing to commercial music in the modern era. They are hired to lend their talents to an artist’s compositions by creating drum parts that will complement the overarching song arrangement. In this type of work, it is very helpful to be fluent in many different styles of drumming, as the music of each artist will require different techniques. Each of the drummers highlighted in this research have mastered the ability to shift from one style of music to the next with ease, earning them the title as a “chameleon” of modern …

Bach-To Ysaÿe: History And Performance Considerations Of Sonata No. 2, Mai Vestergaard

Honors Scholar Theses

Eugene Ysaÿe’s Violin Sonata No. 2 has been influenced by the baroque music of Johann Sebastian Bach and the musical techniques brought forth by the Franco-Belgian Violin School. Each sonata movement has musical elements incorporating virtuosic techniques such as ponticello, chromaticism, and emphasis of the tri-tone. The performer draws attention to the audience by using advanced performance practices to change the piece's color and story. Ysaÿe engages with these ideas to share a musical and personal journey through each sonata movement, dedicating it to Jacques Thibaud. This violin sonata is a pinnacle to the violin repertoire, emphasizing the importance of …

A Master's Recital In Conducting, Meredith Kay Tipping

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Meredith Tipping’s Master of Music Recital in conducting was scheduled for April 28th, 2020, at 7:30 pm in the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Art Center’s Great Hall with the University of Northern Iowa Wind Ensemble. The recital was presented in partial fulfillment of a Master of Music in conducting. The program consisted of four contrasting pieces from the wind band repertoire: Novorossiisk Chimes by Dmitri Shostakovich, Pageant by Vincent Persichetti, Letter from Sado by Jodie Blackshaw, and Paris Sketches by Martin Ellerby.

Intentional Worship During Times Of Mourning: The Worship Leader's Plan For Praise, Kchristshan Howard

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The intent of this study is to examine the characteristics of a worship leader dealing with personal trauma or grief. This thesis also provides strategies for the worship leader, congregation, and pastoral leadership regarding how one grieves. Guided by the actual experiences of grieving worship leaders, this qualitative thematic analysis identifies perspectives that have not yet been explored and documented concerning the lives of Christian worship leaders. Perspectives on grief have emerged as themes through exploration of a small body of existing literature and personal interviews with participants who serve in their local churches and community. While serving in their …

Mentoring Worship Leaders To Become Mentoring Worship Leaders, Robert Todd Craig

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Although Jesus provides the biblical example for the process and significance of mentoring others, today’s ministry leaders often fail to take up this mantle. Much research exists on the value of mentoring, especially in the corporate world where those at the highest levels intentionally mentor those who display significant potential. Recent literature addresses the importance of ministry leaders mentoring others, such as veteran pastors showing those expressing a call to ministry how to be a minster. However, a gap exists in the body of literature regarding the importance of the mentoring relationship between veteran and novice worship leaders. Due to …

Music Reviews, Volume 76, No. 5, Kathleen Roland-Silverstein

Voice - All Scholarship

Contains reviews of Twelve Easy Songs for Low Voice and Piano/for High Voice and Piano ; Godiva: Monodrama for Mezzo Soprano and Piano; Sentiment: Monodrama for Soprano Solo Unaccompanied; Fünf Lieder für Gesang und Klavier—for voice and piano, op. 39. ; 57 Lieder, hohe Stimme/for high voice; 51 Lieder für mittlere/tiefe Stimme/ for medium/low voice.