Composition Commons^™

Bendit_I/O: A System For Extending Mediated And Networked Performance Techniques To Circuit-Bent Devices, Anthony Thomas Marasco

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Circuit bending—the act of modifying a consumer device's internal circuitry in search of new, previously-unintended responses—provides artists with a chance to subvert expectations for how a certain piece of hardware should be utilized, asking them to view everyday objects as complex electronic instruments. Along with the ability to create avant-garde instruments from unique and nostalgic sound sources, the practice of circuit bending serves as a methodology for exploring the histories of discarded objects through activism, democratization, and creative resurrection. While a rich history of circuit bending continues to inspire artists today, the recent advent of smart musical instruments and the …

The Making Of When We Say Goodnight, Andrew Newman

Honors Theses

The following thesis documents the writing and recording of When We Say Goodnight, an album by Lo Noom. The author discusses the various influences that led to the development of the album’s concept. The album is meant to explore the feelings the author associates with summer nights in Mississippi. He attempts to create a world in which the songs and feelings live. He discusses the album’s song development and various recording processes. As he brings the album to completion, a struggle emerges between the author’s desire to please his audience and his desire to create for his own personal enjoyment. …

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.

Sacred Song Sisters: Choral And Solo Vocal Church Music By Women Composers For The Lenten Revised Common Lectionary, Lisa Elliott

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This document explores sacred music by women composers for the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) of the Catholic and Christian churches. The study researches exclusively choral and vocal solo music by women composers for the church season of Lent. Other primary limitations include music in English, and music from the nineteenth century to the present. The main question answered in this document is: what sacred music has been published by women composers that may be programmed in church services?

This question is answered in the included appendices. These appendices list the music by women composers appropriate for the specific RCL readings …

Music And Infrasound In Horror Movies - How They Can Be Used To Enhance Horror Films, Isabella Sills

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The purpose of this project is to research and investigate the effect music and sound effects have on horror films, specifically, the natural phenomena known as infrasound will be explored in depth. Just outside our range of hearing at 20 Hz, infrasound may not be audible, but can still cause physical reactions such as anxiety, uneasiness, and extreme sorrow (Morrow, 2017). I am looking to create a horror comic in the form of a video that heavily relies on musical cues and the incorporation of infrasound to build up parts of the story told in the form of a comic. …

Our Perception Of Scary Sounds: A Comparison Of Films And Popular Music, David Puhl

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

My Capstone Research Paper will be an analysis on the usage of “scary” sounds performed in popular music as well as a comparison to the practice of using similar sounds in film, making a note of any similarities or differences (ex. audience perception, use of visuals). I will also touch on the integration of scary sound effects alongside music scoring for film, specifically in the Horror and Suspense genres. With popular music being my primary focus, I want to elaborate on the cognitive psychology of audiences (in film and music) and their reactions to "scary" or "horrific" sounds to better …

Memory Management For Game Audio Development, Rahmin Tehrani

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Research in managing memory for video game audio development. Interactive music and audio implementation are explored with a strong focus on how to manage data while developing game sound. Some concepts that are important include the multi-use of one sound, file conversion, and randomization in music and audio using technology. Additionally, audio middleware such as Wwise is referenced and strongly used to showcase the previously described concepts. The end of this research project explores the future in video game audio with information relative to the next generation of consoles, video game streaming, physical memory limitations and expansions, and the future …

Trippy Sounds: Recording Studio Effects Of Psychedelic Rock, 1960s And Present, Theo Farnum

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The psychedelic rock movement of the 1960s dominated popular music and culture of the decade. The movement was heavily shaped by the consumption of LSD, a mind-altering hallucinogenic drug. Songwriting and lyrics often reflected the drug and the states of mind that it induced, and unique cutting-edge production techniques were used to imitate the effects of LSD use. Artists such as The Beatles used new effects, such as phasing, artificial double tracking, tape loops, and reverse recording.

In the 21st century, music has again been described as psychedelic rock, though the music under that term is much more diverse. Bands …

A Conductor's Guide To Amass By Jocelyn Hagen, Matthew J. Myers

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Contemporary American composer Jocelyn Hagen grew up in Valley City, North Dakota, where she found an early love for singing, playing instruments, and composing. After completing degrees at St. Olaf College and the University of Minnesota, Hagen began a career as a full-time composer. Her appointment as Composer-in-Residence for The Singers led to her first major multimovement work, amass (2011).

Though Hagen planned to write a traditional setting of the Catholic Mass, she struggled to accept the text of the “Credo” as the only path to salvation. Thus, she substituted spiritual poems from a variety of faith traditions to create …

Finding Music In Chaos: Designing And Composing With Virtual Instruments Inspired By Chaotic Equations, Landon P. Viator

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Using chaos theory to design novel audio synthesis engines has been explored little in computer music. This could be because of the difficulty of obtaining harmonic tones or the likelihood of chaos-based synthesis engines to explode, which then requires re-instantiating of the engine to proceed with sound production. This process is not desirable when composing because of the time wasted fixing the synthesis engine instead of the composer being able to focus completely on the creative aspects of composition. One way to remedy these issues is to connect chaotic equations to individual parts of the synthesis engine instead of relying …

Dynamic Procedural Music Generation From Npc Attributes, Megan E. Washburn

Master's Theses

Procedural content generation for video games (PCGG) has seen a steep increase in the past decade, aiming to foster emergent gameplay as well as to address the challenge of producing large amounts of engaging content quickly. Most work in PCGG has been focused on generating art and assets such as levels, textures, and models, or on narrative design to generate storylines and progression paths. Given the difficulty of generating harmonically pleasing and interesting music, procedural music generation for games (PMGG) has not seen as much attention during this time.

Music in video games is essential for establishing developers' intended mood …

Cf Album, Transcriptions, And Analyses, Collin Felter

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

CF is an album of Collin Felter original compositions with a focus on creating a more approachable form of jazz harmony. To further the accessibility of the music, Felter has transcribed and analyzed his compositions for the listeners to theoretically understand what they are aurally experiencing. Included is the transcriptions/analysis document along with a link to the recordings of the album (can be found on all music streaming platforms).

An Analysis Of Western Art Music Arrangements For Steel Pan Chamber Ensemble, Ian Meiman

Dissertations

This dissertation is an analysis of western art music arrangements for steel pan chamber ensembles. Specifically, this dissertation will analyze how certain arrangers have adapted western art music for steel pan chamber ensemble while discussing the possible methods the arranger used to create this adaptation. The analysis will observe the melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, and other significant alterations made in the steel pan chamber arrangement, and discuss any changes made, whether due to the adaptation of the instruments or otherwise, from the original works. The dissertation will also include a brief historical discussion on western art music’s influence of early steel …

Fluids In Music: The Mathematics Of Pan’S Flutes, Bogdan Nita, Sajan Ramanathan

Department of Mathematics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

We discuss the mathematics behind the Pan’s flute. We analyze how the sound is created, the relationship between the notes that the pipes produce, their frequencies and the length of the pipes. We find an equation which models the curve that appears at the bottom of any Pan’s flute due to the different pipe lengths.

“Native American Folk Song Suite”: A Study Of Traditional Native American Melodies, The Role Of Music In Native American Society, And Its Translation To The Modern Wind Ensemble, Preston Parker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Music holds a sacred place for the many Native American tribes of the United States. Over the past 150 years, ethnomusicologists Dr. Theodore Baker (1851-1934), Dr. Frances Densmore (1867-1957), and John Donald Robb (1892-1989) have preserved these songs by sitting down with indigenous Native Americans and recording their music straight from the source. Through these recordings, these ethnomusicologists created a springboard for composers, including myself, to study the past and create new music that honors the traditions and culture of Native Americans. I have applied my new knowledge of these musical techniques and traditions to create a work for wind …

Dimër (Winter), Anthony Elia

Bridwell Library Research

This work is an original musical setting of the poem by Albanian poet Lasgush Poradeci (1898-1987). The work was written for the esteemed mezzo-soprano Etleva Shemai.

A Failure Of The Music Industry: The Frustration Of Women Of Color, Christina Estes-Wynne

Backstage Pass

Throughout the history of the music industry, women of color have not received the same recognition as their male counterparts because males have dominated the industry resulting in lack of female representation. Women have been oversexualized reducing their clout in their fields and the lack of acknowledgement of success, which discourages future generations of colored women from attempting to reach their highest potential.

Designing And Composing For Interdependent Collaborative Performance With Physics-Based Virtual Instruments, Eric Sheffield

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Interdependent collaboration is a system of live musical performance in which performers can directly manipulate each other’s musical outcomes. While most collaborative musical systems implement electronic communication channels between players that allow for parameter mappings, remote transmissions of actions and intentions, or exchanges of musical fragments, they interrupt the energy continuum between gesture and sound, breaking our cognitive representation of gesture to sound dynamics.

Physics-based virtual instruments allow for acoustically and physically plausible behaviors that are related to (and can be extended beyond) our experience of the physical world. They inherently maintain and respect a representation of the gesture to …

Music Reading For Everybody: Notation For Laptop Music Making, Kathleen Alyse Winn

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to document the creation of a new music notation called KeyMusic for the ASCII/QWERTY keyboard on any computer platform. This notation is designed to enable those without musical training the ability to participate in music making. Creation of the notation is traced from its conception to the application of HCI (Human Computer Interaction) usability criteria to establish its efficacy for users. All of the pieces notated in this format so far, are transcriptions from traditional folk song and arrangements of classical melodies. The development of a chromatic, polytonal, multitimbral laptop instrument which is designed …

1999 Aaa Jrpg Quality And How A 2019 Indie-Game Developer Can Meet It, Kailynn Haskell-Harbert

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This paper is a delve into 1999 JRPG AAA video games and how small developers can make something of similar quality with contemporary technology. This is explored by using Final Fantasy VIII and Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete as a 1999 AAA standard, then comparing that standard to modern indie-games as well as my own experience in indie-game development. The ultimate goal of the paper is to prove that small indie-game studios can create 1999 AAA quality JRPGs with relatively minimal investment.

Original Music For Bass Trombone And Piano From 1985 To 2018: An Annotated Bibliography, Brian Lew

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

The purpose of this document was to compile and annotate original music for the bass trombone and piano from 1985 to 2018. Original works is defined as compositions whose original intentions were for the idiom of solo bass trombone and piano. Works included are exclusive of transcriptions and arrangements

This document annotates more than 100 compositions. Each annotation includes information about the composer (birth year and death year, if applicable), length of the piece, publisher, level of difficulty, a preview of the music, and the written annotation. Observations from the examined compositions are found in the closing chapter. Observations range …

Electronic Music And The Uno Technology Assisted Performance Ensemble, Nicholas Spencer

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The University of Nebraska at Omaha's Technology Assisted Performance Ensemble (or TAPE) is UNO's first Laptop Orchestra. TAPE focuses on electronic music as well as exploring the boundaries of what we understand to be music. Combining traditional music theory and digital synthesis creates a new genre of academic music that is on the cutting edge of research in both fields of music and technology. TAPE was founded by Dr. Seth Shafer and Nicholas Spencer with initial funding by the University of Nebraska at Omaha's FUSE grant.

Diy In Early Live Electroacoustic Music: John Cage, Gordon Mumma, David Tudor, And The Migration Of Live Electronics From The Studio To Performance, Lindsey Elizabeth Hartman

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research examines early live electronic works by Gordon Mumma, David Tudor, and John Cage—three influential American experimental music composers who designed, built, and recontextualized electronics for live performance—and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) aesthetic embodied by their instruments and the compositions written for them. This dissertation serves as a presentation of original research into the earliest composers of live electronic works and the necessary DIY approach used in building independent systems. Previous research on the DIY perspectives in music often touch on the grass-roots nature of contemporary electroacoustic systems but there is not yet research specific to the DIY approach taken …

Contemporary Music Notation For The Flute: A Unified Guide To Notational Symbols For Composers And Performers, Ms. Eftihia Victoria Arkoudis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

David Cope stated: “There are two basic approaches to the study of New Music Notation: codification and comprehension […] what really needs to be done is not to keep listing the diverse ways each composer symbolizes his music or create substantially new and negating systems of notation, but to concentrate on codifying one way for future composers to symbolize their music.”^[1]

In an attempt to limit the inconsistency and complexity characterizing contemporary notation idiomatic to the flute, this paper is the first to adopt Cope’s statement and ultimately apply it in relation to the notation of non-standard extended flute …

Audio To Architecture: House Music As A Form Generator, Polina Timchenko

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Contemporary music undergoes similar process of creation to that of the design process through computation and variation. House music as a representation of contemporary culture has a layered structure that allows specific characteristics to identify it as house music. Song components can vary and mix in different orders that form new dynamic compositions. I am going to explore the idea that every house music component can be translated into geometry with the use of parametric design techniques.

Songwriting, Digital Audio Workstations, And The Internet, Joe Bennett

Faculty Works

This chapter investigates the interrelationship between songwriting process and product, focusing on two digital tools that became available to songwriters toward the end of the twentieth century: the digital audio workstation (DAW) and broadband internet connectivity. Two songwriter case studies are used—a “digital immigrant” who began to write songs professionally before either of these tools were available, and a “digital native” who has always used DAWs and an internet connection in his songwriting. The participants were asked to describe their creative processes in detail, and to reflect on how these tools may have influenced their decision making and artistic direction. …

Generating Audio Using Recurrent Neural Networks, Andrew Pfalz

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Long Short Term Memory cells are a type of recurrent neural network that perform well when predicting sequence data. This works presents four approaches to modeling audio data. The models are trained to predict either raw audio samples or magnitude spectrum windows based on prior input audio. In a process called sampling, the models can then be employed to generate new audio using what they learned about the data they were trained on.

Four methods for sampling are presented. The first has the model predict a vector for each vector in the input. The second has the model predict one …

The Composer, The Musicologist, His Wife, And Her Lover: On Lacan’S Relevance To Music, Thomas Reiner

Directions of New Music

This paper asks what it is to write about music. When we ask students or colleagues to write about music are we asking them to describe music structurally, or to cope with music’s ever-shifting signifieds? The paper attempts to answer this question by clarifying the relationship between composition, musicology, and music “itself” by way of a Lacanian reading of Peter Greenaway's film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. Lacan’s existential concepts of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real are first introduced in relation to music with reference to music by Hans Werner Henze, Lady Gaga, …

From Swing King To Swing Kids: The Jazz Era Of ‘Big Band Orchestras’ In World War Ii, Katie Victoria Burnopp

Student Scholar Showcase

Known as the ‘King of Swing’, clarinetist and band leader Benny Goodman (1909-1986) threatened the Nazi cause during WWII. With intent of improving music pedagogy, the purpose of this research was to investigate swing music during World War II. The particular problems of this study were to: (1) identify how the swing music of Benny Goodman (1909-1986) influenced adolescents in the United States of America, United Kingdom, and Germany; (2) explore the Nazi party view on ‘swing’ music of the era; (3) examine how the music of Charlie and his Orchestra became used as a tool for Nazi propaganda; and …

A Rhythmic Transcription And Spectral Analysis Of Luciano Berio's Thema (Omaggio A Joyce), Christopher C. Mccardle

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Thema (Omaggio A Joyce), composed by Luciano Berio resides within a tempo of 80 beats per minute. The discovery of a constant tempo allowed for a precise rhythmic transcription to be created which found musical structures including large formal sections, subsections, phrases, rhythmic and melodic motives, layers, and dialogue. Analysis of the rhythmic phrases shows that electroacoustic music can have a controlled structure and that these structures earned Thema an enduring legacy of masterpiece. The transcription provides a road-map to compare and contrast different elements that reoccur throughout Thema. The work was composed with a well thought-out and …