Composition Commons^™

The Effect Of Post-Production On Storytelling In Narrative And Documentary Filmmaking, Natalie Pace

Senior Honors Theses

Documentaries and narrative films both tell stories in different ways. A common saying states that narrative filmmakers write one movie, shoot another, and edit a third. In postproduction, timelines are rearranged, montages are created, new dialog and voiceovers are written, and the score can alter the mood and meaning entirely. Documentaries can change even more over the course of their creation. Usually, the script of the documentary is not written until the edit, after most of the interviews and B roll have been shot. This paper examines whether documentary post-production makes more or less use of storytelling techniques than does …

Anxiety And Alternative Facts: An Arts-Based Critical Social Improvisation Project, Rebecca Zarate, Nancy Beardall, Talaye Zarafshandardaky, Brooke Rutstein

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

According to Grayson and Meilman (2011) the stakes are too high in current campus culture to not acknowledge the social roots of mental health issues such as anxiety, and concerns of students as related to campus safety. This arts-based, music performance project responded to concerns on campus from recent political and social events. More specifically, it aimed to explore the concept of “alternative facts” and how this idea plays with the collective concepts of truth and falsifications. It explored applications of clinical improvisation and the concept of collective anxiety as a social phenomenon expressed through arts including music, dance, and …

Laminated Paint, Travis R. Austin

Theses and Dissertations

Though we may not perceive it, we are surrounded by material-in-flux. Inert materials degrade and the events that comprise our natural and social environments causally thread into a duration that unifies us in our incomprehension. Sounds reveal ever-present vibrations of the landscape: expressions of the flexuous ground on which we stand.

Connection Between Visual Arts And Music: The Painting And Music Of I-Uen Wang Hwang, Yining Jenny Jiang

Dissertations, 2014-2019

This document explores the connection between the visual arts and music, particularly focusing on the similarity between visual and aural artistic expression by analyzing two sets of piano pieces composed by I-Uen Wang Hwang, a contemporary Taiwanese-American composer and artist. The piano pieces are Dream Garden, Series I and II (2000-2004) and Preludes for Piano (2016). Series I of Dream Garden contains two piano solo compositions based on a series of Hwang’s own watercolor works. Each composition has an analogous painting: “The Horn of the Plenty” and “Butterfly Orchid”. Series II includes two compositions written for two pianos: “Red and …

Villa-Lobos's Compositional Techniques And Treatment Of Folk Melodies In Cirandas For Piano, Gustavo Schafaschek

Dissertations

Despite his significance as the most important Latin American composer of the twentieth century, serious analytical studies on the music of the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos are still few and far between. Recent scholarship has started to demystify the figure of Villa-Lobos as an intuitive composer with no technique, revealing an artist that strove to develop an idiosyncratic musical language. The present document aims to contribute to this new trend in Villa-Lobos’s scholarship by analyzing pieces from the piano cycle Cirandas, W220, considered one of the most important works from the composer’s mature style. Each of the sixteen pieces …

La Música Como Una Forma De Educación: Canciones Para Cambios Sociales / Music As A Form Of Education: Songs For Social Changes, Di Hu

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este proyecto de ISP no tradicional busca recrear un mini EP de tres canciones basado en el entorno problemático del sistema educativo chileno y sus influencias negativas en los estudiantes. Las canciones pretenden pedir cambios sociales y aumentar la conciencia al criticar los problemas y al mismo tiempo servir como una forma de educar a los jóvenes de la nueva generación sobre las realidades del sistema educativo actual. Usando información de observaciones escolares anteriores, inspiraciones de la música de diferentes músicos y lo más importante las narrativas de entrevistas, estas tres canciones tomaron forma en tres temas principales: un llamado …

Trees On The River (For Solo Piano), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

One of three short pieces for piano, composed in early August 2017, for piano learners. (NB: RXZ)

Lost Bicycle (For Solo Piano), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

One of three short pieces for piano, composed in early August 2017, for piano learners (NB: RXZ).

Looking Through The Glass: An Album Of Original Music And Accompanying Artist Book, Sam Genualdi

Lawrence University Honors Projects

“Looking Through the Glass” is a 12 track, 38-minute long album of original songs accompanied by a hand-bound artist book. The book houses the CD as a well as an accordion-structure text block of original prints. The content and form of the work draw upon the experiences of the author to create a unique and personal take on memory as a human experience. Sam Genualdi composed and produced all of the music as well as created all of the art.

The Makings Of An Ep: From Silence To Portable Sounds, Emily Ream

Senior Honors Theses

The creation of an EP is a process that requires skills in multiple areas. Once, creating an EP was only available to those who garnered resources and support from a record label. However, an increasing number of aspiring musicians are writing, recording, and making their music available for download or purchase without the assistance of a record label. Doing this successfully and excellently requires application of knowledge in areas such as literature, theology (for Christian artists), music theory, music technology, and marketing. This thesis will describe one process used to turn inspiration into a tangible product that one can purchase …

Music Theory For Student Composers: A Course Designed For Engagement By Using Both A Flipped Classroom And Praxial Philosophy, Michelle Nagy

Masters Theses

In a world filled with innovation, technology and hands-on learning, the subject of music theory in the high school classroom has stayed relatively the same for the past fifty years for the student composer. By using the same tried-and-true methods, teachers are introducing concepts through lectures, while students reinforce concepts on their own during their homework assignments. Music examples are given on a regular basis and they are usually played on the piano by the professor or through recording. These methods, while effective, are not meeting the needs of today’s tech savvy and hands-on generation. While students are engaging with …

New Compositions For Percussion Duo, Andrea Venet

Showcase of Faculty Scholarly & Creative Activity

The submitted videos are a representation of recent performances and world premieres of commissions by Dr. Andrea Venet’s percussion duo, Escape Ten. Escape Ten is an ensemble in residence at the UNF School of Music with Dr. Annie Stevens (Virginia Tech). The first video is of a new composition, 2300 Degrees, by Ivan Trevino. Trevino held a musical residence at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY and was greatly affected by observing glass blower Lino Tagliapietra work. Ivan states “In order to recreate the feelings I felt while watching Lino work, I decided to create a piece with …

Ex Nihilo: An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Musical Creation, David Orvek

Capstone Research Projects

As of late there has been much interest in the creative process of musical composition. Most studies to date have taken the form of quantitative and/or psychological analyses performed upon composers by researchers who are not themselves composers. In contrast, this project takes a more philosophical and historical approach in that it takes time to reflect upon the context and manner in which music has been composed throughout history. Additionally, this study offers a more personal perspective as it draws information from the author’s own compositional process–as recorded in a composition journal–as well as the thoughts and reflections of composers …

A Discussion Of Shiguang Cui’S Piano Concerto No. 2, Focusing On A Stylistic Analysis And Traditional Chinese Musical Elements, Yuting Ji

Dissertations

Shiguang Cui (崔世光) (b. 1948) is a Chinese composer and pianist. To celebrate the 2008 Summer Olympic Games held in Beijing, his work Concerto for Ten Concert Grand Pianos and Orchestra was commissioned by the Dean of the National Center for the Performing Arts, Mr. Ping Chen. Ten internationally-renowned pianists were invited to give the world premiere on August 19, 2008. The pianists were Claude Frank, Phillippe Entremont, Vladimir Feltsman, Louis Lortie, Yunyi Qin (秦云轶), Shikun Liu (刘诗昆), Lang Lang (郎朗), Cyprien Katsaris, Guillermo Gonzalez, and Sha Chen (陈萨).¹

This piece was originally conceived as Concerto for Ten Concert …

Searching For Sounds: Instrumental Agency And Modularity In Electroacoustic Improvisation, Stephen (Red) Wierenga

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In their radical departure from conventional instrumental technique and standardized instruments themselves, the practices of electroacoustic improvisation present a particular challenge to prevalent Western concepts of musical instruments. These concepts—which generally treat instruments as fixed objects—are ill-equipped to account for the ways in which electroacoustic improvisers foreground the agency of their instruments and abandon the quest for “mastery” typical especially of classical attitudes. Additionally, electroacoustic improvisers often approach instruments not as singular, self-contained, and static in their materiality, but rather as modular instrumentaria capable of myriad states and ever in flux, similarly problematizing conventional conceptions that view the physical constitutions …

A Comparative History And The Importance Of Chamber Music, Aaron M. Sacks

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This capstone presentation focuses on the role of chamber music in both social and academic contexts. Using examples from the past five centuries and including local examples, parallels and divergences are drawn to points of most import. The spotlight is upon three areas: a) what the role of chamber music was in the past, compared to today; b) why it is an important genre, to both musicians, as well as non-musicians, and c) in what ways more exposure to the form can be built. Much of the focus is on composers and their influence, but the impact of and upon …

The Impact And Creation Of Level Music For Video Games, Randolph Kestner

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores the creation of music for a video game level utilizing industry tools for music compositions as well as level design. Music as an element of game design and its resulting impact is also examined.

An Annotated Bibliography And Performance Commentary Of The Works For Concert Band And Wind Orchestra By Composers Awarded The Pulitzer Prize In Music 1993-2015, And A List Of Their Works For Chamber Wind Ensemble, Stephen Andrew Hunter

Dissertations

The purpose of this document is to assemble into one resource the concert band, wind orchestra, and chamber wind ensemble compositions of the 23 composers who were awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music between 1993 and 2015. The Pulitzer Prize in Music is given annually to an American composer in recognition of distinguished achievement in composition of a work that received its premiere during the previous year. Timothy Mahr completed this study on composers who received the Prize from 1943 to 1992. This is a continuation and replication of that study, following Mahr’s procedures.

A brief biographical sketch will be …

An Approach To Undergraduate Research - Developing An Understanding Of The Musical Process Through The Editing Of Early Music, Jared Chance Taylor, Gary W. Cobb

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

This project is an outgrowth of a larger project that involves the eventual compilation of a series of Italian madrigals into a modern performing edition. The purpose of this project was to transcribe and edit a madrigal from Carlo Grossi’s L’Anfione musiche da camera or per tavola (Venice, 1675) in order to better understand and be able to perform an Italian madrigal as it might have been done in the late seventeenth century. Through a process of research, examination and transcription, I was able to not only to transcribe Grossi’s music into modern notation but was also able to also …

Symphony For Wind Orchestra By Luis Serrano Alarcón: Background, Analysis, And Conductor’S Guide, Donald F. Goodwin

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Born in 1972, Luis Serrano Alarcón has in a very short period of time, established himself as one of Spain’s most prominent composers. His works are constantly being performed, not only in his home country, but throughout the world. While some of his compositions tend to retain the rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic style typical to Spanish music, many of the works sound as if they were borne more from the Viennese symphonic tradition, both during the time of Haydn and Beethoven, but also during the time of Arnold Schoenberg.

As a young boy Alarcón took up piano lessons with a …

Childe Roland: String Quartet, Percussion And Electric Guitar, David Blevins

Theses and Dissertations--Music

An original composition in five movements for string quartet, percussion and electric guitar. Majority of the electric guitar parts are marked “quasi-improvisation”, with the intent of allowing the player freedom to explore their own creativity and expand upon the notated guitar parts as desired. The percussion parts, also marked “quasi-improvisation”, allow the player to expand upon the notated rhythms and choose their own combination of muted wood blocks as desired.

The name of this piece and its individual movements pay homage to the author Steven King and his series of books known as the The Dark Tower. Much of …

A Jamaican Voice: The Choral Music Of Noel Dexter, Desmond A. Moulton

Dissertations

As we approach the twenty-first century, the world generally is moving away from the dominance of the European aesthetic towards a world music that owes much to the musical resources of the African-American tradition. Jamaica’s social and philosophical music belong mainly to that tradition, which includes the use of rhythms, and timbral and melodic resources that exist independently of harmony. Already in this century, Jamaicans have created two totally new music - Nyabinghi, which performs a philosophical function and Reggae, which performs a social function. The choral music of Noel Dexter is important because it is uniquely Jamaican/Caribbean in its …

Starships, Gallifrey, Krypton, And Earth: Searching For The Hero Archetype In The Melodies Of Science Fiction And Superhero Films, James Wesley Talbot

Wayne State University Theses

The study of science fiction and superhero melodies is relatively new in the academic world of music theory. Analysis of hero archetypes found in Doctor Who, Star Trek (and its major motion pictures), Star Wars, and Superman provide excellent conduits for all students of music to access the hidden and overt musical meaning assigned to heroes. Realization of this study’s findings will feature interval tension and Schenkerian analysis, score reductions, and topic theory to provide perspective on how heroes are identified and perceived by directors, composers and audiences alike. Deryck Cooke, Leonard Ratner, and V. Kofi Agawu’s approach to thematic …

Music In Site: Integrating Elements Of Site-Specificity Into Composition, Mace Francis

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Architectural spaces and their acoustic characteristics offer unique musical material for the compositional process. Acoustic and physical design features of unorthodox performance spaces can become part of works and their performances. This thesis examines ways to integrate acoustic characteristics of an architectural space into the compositional process, and discusses how different levels of site-specificity may be engaged in this process.

This research grew from an interest in composing music for the acoustic problems of performance spaces rather than trying to resist them, after a jazz ensemble performance in a large reverberant space. This led to exploring built environments that offered …

Syntagma Musicum Ii: De Organographia, Parts Iii – V With Index, Michael Praetorius, Quentin Faulkner Trans. & Ed.

Zea E-Books Collection

Michael Praetorius (1571–1621) achieved distinction as a practicing musician: as organist and Kapellmeister at Wolfenbüttel, Dresden and Magdeburg, and (in his later years) by incessant travel to fulfill commissions at various central German courts. Amid his travels Praetorius found time to publish an impressive series of collections of musical compositions, in all more than a thousand works. Praetorius’s three-volume Syntagma musicum (Musical Encyclopedia) belongs to the last years of his life. Volume I, Musicae artis analecta (1614/15, in Latin), treats principles and practices of religious music, from a decidedly Lutheran perspective. Volume II, De organographia (1619, in German) deals with …

Crotale Sample Library, Ryan Waczek

Music

This report will discuss the process of creating a digital sample based library for musical applications. Topics such as recording, microphone placement, and mixing will be addressed; as well as elements of design in Adobe Photoshop, and computer scripting in the language of the computer program Komplete 5 by Native Instruments. The instrument sampled is the crotales, an orchestral, melodic percussion instrument.

Garden Of The Carpathians: Four Reflective Pieces For Mixed Ensemble That Highlight The Dualism Of Romania’S People, Culture, And Aesthetic, David Stamps

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

Garden of the Carpathians is a collection of original compositions inspired by four separate explorations of Romanian cultural elements, rural and urban landscapes, and an American perception of dualism within their historical aesthetic. The four pieces (Țuică, Troubled Splendor, From Unknown Heights, and Modistoric) each emphasize a different aspect of this dichotomy. Țuică focuses on the social traditions of Romania by examining customary meal-time interactions that are now influenced by Western culture and commercialism. Troubled Splendor acknowledges the typical stereotypes of communism, gypsy life, and poverty, but then highlights the hard-working, curious, and motivated enlightenment …

Sonata Divina Commedia (Part I: Inferno), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

Part 1 of planned 3-part violin and piano sonata modeled after Dante's "Divina Commedia." Part 1 "Inferno" is a wild modernist adventure for violin and piano, echoing the terrors of inferno. As the piece is incredibly virtuosic, the composer allows for variation, adaptation, and some minor changes if necessary for performers to execute the piece, as faithfully as they can. The work was written in honor of two superb musicians, who by random chance, the composer met or had connections with separately, before realizing the violinist (Mr. Kerr) and the pianist (Mr. Wallace) actually met and went to school together …

A Song Through Time: Tiger Rag And The Twentieth Century, Thomas Grady Hartsock

Music

Tiger Rag is one of the first recorded jazz works.This project investigates the initial creation of the work and follows it through five different artists in the twentieth century to explain how this piece of music has grown in it's hundred years of life.

Folk/Traditional Music Of West Virginia Arranged For Classical Guitar Ensemble, Júlio Ribeiro Alves

Music Faculty Research

My motivation for writing this book grew from my desire to better understand the people and the music heritage of West Virginia and to share the findings of my experience, with the guitar community, in the form of guitar ensemble arrangements.