Composition Commons^™

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 …

Revisiting Digital Sampling Rhetorics With An Ethic Of Care, Jared Sterling Colton

English Faculty Publications

Rhetoric and composition studies have conceptualized and defined digital sampling as a method of composition in many ways and for various pedagogical purposes: from a means of free-play invention that is critical of more formalistic writing practices to a semiotic strategy rooted in African American rhetorical traditions designed to effect political change. The latter view is critical of the former in that the former does not account for student digital sampling projects that unquestioningly appropriate from other people and communities. This is a real pedagogical problem, but students can create unethical and hurtful digital sampling projects, no matter the assignment …

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 …

Do It Again: Sequences In Gershwin And Kern’S Popular Songs, Maxwell Ramage

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

Melodic sequences can create musical unity, enhance extra-musical drama, and make a piece memorable. In constructing their popular songs for Broadway and Hollywood, Gershwin and Kern both employed melodic sequences, but did so in mutually differing ways. This article opens with a broad-brushed comparison between the composers’ most popular songs and finds that Kern had a greater predilection for sequences than did Gershwin. Next, I closely analyze several songs by each composer in order to specify differences between the two songsmiths’ approaches to sequence. It is determined that Gershwin often reserves melodic sequence for musical climaxes, whereas Kern tends to …

Concise Manual Of Harmony, Intended For The Reading Of Spiritual Music In Russia (1874), Piotr Illyich Tchaikovsky, Liliya Shamazov (Ed. And Trans.)

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

No abstract provided.

Preface To Piotr Illyich Tchaikovsky, Concise Manual Of Harmony, Intended For The Reading Of Spiritual Music In Russia (1874), Liliya Shamazov

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

No abstract provided.

A Tank Full Of Wishful Thinking: Crystallizing The Rhythms Of The Road, Leanna K. Smithberger

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This thesis is a personal exploration of American car culture — the roads the enable it, the everyday actions that sustain it, and the values that justify it. I use a constellation of mobilities, autoethnography, and rhythmanalysis in order to generate a glimpse into the rhythm of our road-centered culture — how it shapes and constrains our lives in mundane and extraordinary ways, why it is largely taken for granted, and why it is so stubbornly persistent. I use a variety of artistic, evocative methods, including narrative, poetry, and music, because I argue that knowing is not enough — we …

Gen Ms 32 Georgia Shaw Prescott Papers, Megan Turner

Search the General Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Description of the Papers: The Georgia Shaw Prescott Papers are contained within 3 series. The first series consists of numerous songs and poems all written by her, as well as personal notes and edits of her work. The second series contains sheet music, song lyrics, and essays. The third and final series is comprised of artwork by Ruth Scott (a local artist who collaborated with Georgia Shaw Prescott), newspaper clippings, business letters, and personal letters, in addition to a collection of miscellaneous papers whose purpose is not quite clear. The only known works within this collection that were ever published …

Symphony No. 2: Sights In Sound, Robert J. Luebbert

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

Symphony No. 2: Sights in Sound is an original composition for full chorus, string orchestra, woodwind quintet, eight-part percussion ensemble, and piano. Each of the work’s twelve movements utilizes a different combination of instruments, provides a distinct programmatic or cultural setting, and can be easily performed individually, outside of the full symphonic context. Despite this, the symphony as a whole is well bonded through various traditional elements and unifying themes. The titles of the movements are as follows: I. Phenomena of the Sky, II. Arirang, III. Colors of the Sea, IV. Amongst the Trees, V. Crossroads, VI. Dancing Leaves, VII. …

Iet., Andrew Maxbauer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In iet, the phonetic aspects of speech, as well as additional vocal noises, are employed in preference to more conventional semantic and syntactic values, derived from recognized language. The lack of pre-existing text removes the necessity to flesh out the skeleton of a pre-existing structure, and in turn creates the possibility of having a musical discourse in which each vocalization serves to modify the sound world of the piece in a specifically conceived manner. Thusly, the singers utilize only fragments of speech, uttering single syllables, as well as other more marginal vocal sounds such as audible breathing, and the smacking …

Baby Book For Soprano And Orchestra., Lauren Spavelko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Baby Book is a 12-minute work for soprano and orchestra. It sets three poems from Chloe Yelena Miller's collection of the same name. It will later be expanded into a six-movement work. The cycle explores miscarriage, pregnancy, and motherhood.

I. Great Aunt Dora

II. Objects

III. Children's Pool Game

Great Aunt Dora is a real person; she is the poet's own great aunt, a dearly beloved family matriarch. This poem is a conversation between the mother and the growing child inside her. Great Aunt Dora passed away before she could meet the child. Thus, the conversation is bittersweet, but full …

Compositional Intent: A Presentation Of Original Music, Daniel R. Key

Music Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper summarizes the inspiration, compositional techniques, and performance history of three works by composer Daniel Ryan Key: cling (2015), for euphonium, tuba, and piano; GAIA (2014), for two flutes; and Hours (2016), for chamber orchestra. Hours is a work in two movements, "0400" and "1700."

Applications Of The Sierpiński Triangle To Musical Composition, Samuel C. Dent

Honors Theses

The present paper builds on the idea of composing music via fractals, specifically the Sierpiński Triangle and the Sierpiński Pedal Triangle. The resulting methods are intended to produce not just a series of random notes, but a series that we think pleases the ear. One method utilizes the iterative process of generating the Sierpiński Triangle and Sierpiński Pedal Triangle via matrix operations by applying this process to a geometric configuration of note names. This technique designs the largest components of the musical work first, then creates subsequent layers where each layer adds more detail.

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.

Journey, Darren Alan Rainey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Journey is not about a particular journey, it is more about images or moments from within a journey. The interpretation for what this means is left up to the performers and listeners; however, I view this as one person not particularly achieving what they set out to achieve. It all began with a rough start, moments of happiness, playfulness, contempt and contemplation, but in the end it wasn't the expected outcome of the journey. The work plays between moments of vigor, aggitation, playfulness, light-heartedness, comfort and relaxation. Expression markings are described above each area of the work. These descriptions help …

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 …

The Wishing Well: A Children's Ballet (A Composer's Perspective), Lydia Dempsey

Honors Projects

As a composer, I am passionate about introducing audiences to contemporary classical music. I chose to compose a twenty-five-minute children's ballet titled The Wishing Well based on the fairytale Diamonds and Toads. It premiered on April 2, 2016 at the Bowling Green Performing Arts Center in collaboration with choreographer Sophia Schmitz and conductor Robert Ragoonanan. Other elements of the project included set design, costuming, lighting, audio and video recording, and marketing. The mission was to provide the local community with a free arts event, introduce young audiences to music and ballet, enrich people’s lives through music and dance, provide …

Musical Contextualization In The Local Church: A Pragmatic Exploration Concerning The Philosophy And Methodology Of Assimilating Sacred Music Into The Worship Vocabulary Of A Congregation, Kaleb Gooden

Senior Honors Theses

God’s mandate for all worship pastors is that they minister to their local body of believers in an effective way. This directive necessitates the use of scripturally and culturally appropriate music that clearly communicates the Gospel to the church congregation. This creative thesis further investigates musical contextualization in the local church.

Five philosophical pillars represent the most basic structure on which the entire process of local church contextualization stands. The minister must be rooted in scripture, led by the Spirit, present-minded, future-driven, and committed to service. After evaluating these philosophical concepts, this thesis will then explore the methodological contextualization process …

Little Birds, Anna Wagner, Daniel Swilley, Faculty Advisor

John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference

No abstract provided.

A Tank Full Of Wishful Thinking: Crystallizing The Rhythms Of The Road, Leanna K. Smithberger

Showcase of Graduate Student Scholarship and Creative Activities

This presentation is a personal exploration of American car culture — the roads that enable it, the everyday actions that sustain it, and the values that justify it. I use a constellation of mobilities, autoethnography, and rhythmanalysis in order to tap into the political, personal, and aesthetic ways our road-centered culture shapes and constrains our lives in mundane and extraordinary ways. I argue that our road system of mobility is largely taken for granted, and is stubbornly persistent due to deeply held cultural values. I use a variety of artistic, evocative methods, including narrative, poetry, and music, because I argue …

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 …

What Do You Mean, "Practice"? Theorizing The Writing-Music Connection, Callie Elise Compton

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Researchers in the field of composition studies have frequently made allusions to musicians when they’ve discussed the role of practice in gaining skill. In doing so, however, they’ve risked making speculative rather than testable claims and separating composition studies from recent insights on practice from other disciplines such as education and music psychology. These fields, I argue, offer testable frameworks with which composition instructors and scholars can teach and study writing practice. Such frameworks are necessary because composition researchers need to supplement qualitative studies of writers and writing with quantitative data to generate replicable tests of teaching methods that may …

Breakdown: Vol 1: Text And Music, A Survey Of Methodology And Process, Vol 2: In Full Score., Andrew Synnott

Doctoral

The work presented here is in two parts. The first part is an opera composed to a libretto by the Irish playwright, John Breen. This opera is in three acts and concerns the performance of four famous performance art pieces; Rhythm 0 by Marina Abramović, Breakdown by Michael Landy, Velocity Piece by Barry La Va and How To Explain Pictures To a Dead Hare by Joseph Beuys. These art works are presented as the action of the opera and happen concurrently on the stage during the first two acts. The third act reflects on the action of acts one and …

Aesthetic Meaning In The Congregational Masses Of James Macmillan, Stephen Kingsbury

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Examines the interconnetions between MacMillan’s congregational masses and other works by the composer. The compositional and philosophical commonalities between paired compositions deepens the philosophical and aesthetic meaning of both works. An understanding of these parallels and the manner in which they are worked out in practice provides an important insight into the composer’s intentions, making the performance of the masses within the context of the worship service more relevant to the spiritual experience of the congregant and provides insight into the interconnectivity of MacMillan’s compositional output.

Counteredpoint, Gary Barwin

The Goose

Poetry by Gary Barwin

Society Of Composers Region Iii Conference February 25-27, 2016, Mark Zanter

All Performances

No abstract provided.

2015-2016 New Music Festival, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Lisa Leonard

New Music Festival

Tenth Annual Music Festival

• Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Composer-in-Residence
• Lisa Leonard, Director

Tuesday, February 23, 2016 at 7:30 pm

• Spotlight I: Young Composers

Wednesday, February 24, 2016 at 7:30 pm

• Master Class with Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

Thursday, February 25, 2016 at: 7:30 pm

• Spotlight II: Music of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

Friday, February 26, 2016 at 7:30 pm

• Spotlight III: An Informance with Penderecki String Quartet

Issues Of Rhythm, Symmetry, And Style In Alfred Schnittke's Concerto For Piano And Strings, Ilya Mayzus

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation takes as its subject of study Schnittke’s Concerto for Piano and Strings and seeks to examine several interconnected issues in Schnittke’s music: the problem of unification of disparate and conflicting forces that generally describe his style; the wave-like shape of intensification followed by a pullback that can be seen as acting on different temporal levels; and one of narrative meaning. Particular attention is given to symmetry in various manifestations, which the composer considered a necessary ingredient, comparing rhythmic regularity to periodicity found in nature, while at the same time undermining it through the use of asymmetries in order …

The Motivic Economy In Nikolai Medtner's Sonata Romantica, Nellie S. Seng-Quinn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on the motivic aspect of Medtner’s Sonata Romantica Op. 53, No. 1. Medtner, in his book, The Muse and the Fashion, has stressed through numerous statements why the initial theme is of utmost importance to him and how the entire work should be derived from the theme. The goal is to trace the journey of Medtner’s themes through the course of the sonata. Using various methods of musical analysis, I will determine whether the theme is indeed the source of latter material found within the sonata.

Speaking Of Consequences: Contemporary Music For Political Discourse, Elizabeth Adams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation reads politically works by Georges Aperghis, Rick Burkhardt, Mark Enslin, and Elizabeth Hoffman. Chapter 1 argues that suspending intelligibility stimulates the audience to imagine alternative meanings and ways the music might go, in an orientation that is politically desirable. Synthesizing theorizations by Herbert Brün, Joseph Dubiel, Shoshana Felman, and Enslin, it catalogues four techniques for suspending intelligibility, and analyses Enslin’s Sonata Quijada. Chapter 2 suggests that we read politically metaphors of agency and power sharing in chamber textures, and translate those metaphors into our social and political lives. It draws on Elisabeth Le Guin’s reading of Boccherini, …