Music Theory Commons^™

Audiotactile Music Theory And Jazz Education: Historical And Pedagogical Perspectives, Stéphane Audard

The IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research

The Audiotactile Music Theory offers new perspectives for considering the issues associated with the institutionalization of jazz education and the gradual transition from informal transmission situations to formalized curricula. The aim of this article is to show how certain central the concepts of the ‘Audiotactile Music Theory’ can be used in a dual historical and pedagogical perspective, to overcome certain dichotomies that structure discourses on jazz teaching at different times: written/oral, formal/informal and art/popular music. The Audiotactile Music Theory also allows us to question the place of jazz in music teaching institutions today, and our own pedagogical practice.

Twin Sons Of Different Mothers: Harmonic Convergence In Jazz And Classical Music, Kurt Ellenberger

The IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research

Jazz and classical music are two of the most celebrated genres of “art music.” Their origins could not be more disparate. The two genres are, on the surface, very different from one another. Yet, the humanity and creativity that shines through across time and space speak to something else at play: an unfathomably deep connection that defies the temporal, geographical, racial, and cultural differences, revealing instead the shared human spirit that is manifested in these powerful artistic expressions.

The Shape(S) Of Jazz To Come. Jazz Studies, Interpretation, Theory And Education Research Project, Ricardo Pinheiro

The IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research

Jazz Studies: interpretation, theory and education is a research project developed at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, Polytechnic University of Lisbon, that involved the collaboration between the Jazz and Composition Departments. The focus of the project coordinated by Ricardo Pinheiro (with the collaboration of Carlos Caires and Carlos Marecos) was to rethink artistic research outputs in the field of jazz studies, questioning the hegemony of the current musicological paradigm (Cook, 2014; Pinheiro and Caires 2019; Pinheiro, Caires and Neto 2024), and to explore the broad academic, scientific and artistic scope that this field can provide.

European Jazz Does Not Exist, Wouter Turkenburg

The IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research

Marion Dunkel and Josiah Boornazian have critically analyzed and evaluated important questions such as: What is jazz, and what it is not? How have its histories been written in the past? What are the various approaches in jazz historiography? Both authors provide useful suggestions to move past the confusing, standard teleological presentation of jazz history, and the methods used in the construction of jazz historiographies. I argue that jazz history must function as a dynamic and life-long applicable tool assisting the jazz musician in the decisions to be taken in musical, social, and cultural interactions.

Toxic Jazz Narratives - Dispelling The Illusory Relationship Between Suffering And Creativity, Rob Foster

The IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research

The trope of the suffering artist is a persistent theme in discussions about jazz, often overshadowing the music itself. The focus on the negative aspects of an artist's biography can inadvertently shape students' perceptions, leading them to associate artistic greatness with personal turmoil rather than with the technical and expressive aspects of the music. The emphasis on tragic life stories in introductory jazz courses can detract from a holistic understanding of the genre. Jazz should be explored as a rich tapestry of musical innovation, cultural expression, and collaborative effort, rather than through the lens of individual suffering. Highlighting the achievements …

Minority In Baroque Trumpet Repertoire: Minor-Key Literature For Baroque Trumpet, Wing Heng Victor Yuen

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The repertoire for trumpet in the Baroque era is overwhelmingly in major keys for obvious reasons. As natural trumpet is limited by design to play the notes of the harmonic series, most players have little access to sonorities outside the major scale and arpeggios within the series without the help of technical innovations such as the slide, and much later, vent-holes. Baroque trumpet makers built valveless natural trumpets, which are limited by design to play the notes of the harmonic series. Since the fundamental physics limit the musical notes available to the natural trumpet, minor key is not an essentially …

Spiral Historiography. A Balanced Alternative To Teaching Jazz History, Josiah Boornazian

The IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research

Jazz history is often presented in collegiate textbooks and classrooms as a linear, teleological, and chronological progression from one style to another. Some scholars have recently reacted against this pattern and have instead focused heavily on viewing jazz history through the lens of one or a few narrow perspectives such as race, economics, politics, gender, or similar topics. This paper argues that both of these approaches, taken separately, are flawed, and that therefore a more effective methodology might be to integrate the two by utilizing the abstract concept of a spiral. A spiral is a shape that, in three spatial …

Introduction By Kurt Ellenberger And Wouter Turkenburg, Kurt Ellenberger, Wouter Turkenburg

The IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research

Introduction Volume 2 of the IASJ Journal of Applied Jazz Research with an overview of the articles.

Old Becoming New Again: A Form-Function And Narrative Analysis Of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ 'Fantasia On A Theme Of Thomas Tallis', Aileen E. Sager

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ralph Vaughan Williams, a leading figure in the early twentieth-century movement to preserve traditional English music, composed Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis as a tribute to his love of Tudor music and English folksong. The piece is based on a psalm setting by Thomas Tallis, known as the Third Mode Melody, which features the Phrygian mode. Vaughan Williams discovered this theme while researching for the new English Hymnal. A brief history of the Tallis theme, along with an exploration of Vaughan Williams' education and early endeavors as a composer, are critical to understanding the Fantasia's historical …

Inattentional Deafness And Musical Training: Effects Of Perceptual Load On Tonal And Verbal Auditory Suppression, Annelise Coffey

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Inattentional deafness (ID) is a cognitive phenomenon of which we have relatively little understanding. The current study attempted to address this by considering current cognitive theories of thought and examined how musical training affects incidence rates of inattentional deafness. This study utilized a cognitive task and auditory stimuli previously designed to elicit inattentional deafness and measured musical training by administering the Goldsmith’s Musical Sophistication Index. Participants were instructed to engage in a high-load cognitive task, providing a condition in which inattentional deafness is likely to occur. During the task, a brief pure tone was presented simultaneously with the visual task …

How Schubert’S 9th Symphony (“The Great”) Serves As A Turning Point For The Orchestral Trombone, Tim Mccord

Bakerman Student Research Awards

No abstract provided.

Mater Dolorum Settings By Georg Reutter The Younger And Gregor Werner, As Reflected In Music By Joseph Haydn, Janet K. Page

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

Mater dolorum, a text by Heinrich Rademin (1674–1731), is a German-language oratorio intended for performance before a model of the Holy Sepulcher on Good Friday. Such works, amalgamating court sepolcro and popular traditions, were performed in churches throughout Central Europe during Holy Week. Mater dolorum, one of the most popular texts, was set by three of Haydn’s older contemporaries: Georg Reutter Jr. (1726), Gregor Werner (ca. 1733), and Georg Christoph Wagenseil (ca. 1739). In this essay, I consider how these settings, and the attitudes displayed in them, intersected with Haydn’s world and could have influenced him, especially in his …

The Context And Early Reception Of Haydn’S Stabat Mater, Dexter Edge

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

Haydn spent his formative musical years in Vienna, a city with a strong Marian cult that was expressed musically through such works in German as Heinrich Rademin’s Mater dolorum (set by Werner, Reutter the Younger, and Wagenseil), and by innumerable settings of the Latin sequence Stabat mater. In Vienna, musical settings of the Stabat mater were traditionally performed not only on the feast of Septem Dolorum B. V. M., but also on Saturdays in Lent and during Holy Week. In fact, we now know that Haydn sang a cappella settings of the Stabat mater by Palestrina and Reutter …

A “Rosary” Symphony? The Impact Of Haydn’S Religious Faith On His Symphonies, Henry Stratmann

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

Despite expressing a strong religious faith throughout his life, Haydn’s secular music far outnumbers his sacred works. Certain symphonies, however, include either allusions to religious themes or project what can be interpreted as a devotional mood. Specifically, some unusually long symphonic slow movements during Haydn’s “Sturm und Drang” period may be orchestral depictions of a meditative, contemplative, prayerful state of mind. They likely reflect the particular practices of Roman Catholic belief and worship that were a pervasive part of the culture in which Haydn lived his entire life and also part of his personal belief system. The Adagio assai of …

Reassessing Haydn’S Sacred Music: Abstracts Of Published Conference Papers, Michael E. Ruhling

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

No abstract provided.

The Tradition Of Illusion: Guitar Arrangement As A Post-Canonical Patchwork, Katalin Koltai

Soundboard Scholar

This paper proposes an underpinning terminology for scholarly discussions of contemporary arrangement practices in the field of classical guitar performance. The introduction provides some historical foundations for the topic, aiming to present the roots of different approaches and methods in the work of important guitar arrangers. The paper continues by contextualizing arrangement processes within linguistics and language philosophy, discussing the topic of translation, and giving an overview of relevant terminologies. The centre of the paper is the theoretical investigation of arrangement and the identification of translating acts related to musical space, instrumental choreography, texture, timbre, or a combination of those, …

Musical Semiotics In Kate Soper’S Ipsa Dixit (2010–2016), Scott A. Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes the six parts of Kate Soper’s Ipsa Dixit (2010–2016). While individual parts have received some music theoretical attention, this is the first analysis of the entire Pulitzer Prize-nominated work. Ambiguity and contingency are major themes of Ipsa Dixit, and by treating each part independently and in combination, I hope to honor Ipsa’s contingent status as a unified work comprised of six complete works. Soper’s libretto unifies an assemblage of texts with adaptations of Aristotle to investigate the intersections of language and music with authority, veracity, and (un)intelligibility.

I theorize that Soper’s “philosophy-opera” dramatizes the formation of …

Singing Petrarch In The Cinquecento: Embodied Reading And The Italian Madrigal, Thomas A. Hedrick Iii

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines how composers of sixteenth-century Italian madrigals highlighted poetic line rhythm, repeated vowel sounds (or assonance), and word repetition in figures of speech—all elements of the verse that have been previously overlooked by scholars, who have traditionally focused on musical depictions of the text’s semantics. The analysis in chapters 2, 3, and 4 shows that composers used a consistent set of techniques from the madrigals of Arcadelt to those of Monteverdi, and musical examples draw from large collection of madrigals on Petrarch sonnets. The analytical methodology is built on the premise that Cinquecento encounters with poetry can be …

Timbres Oubliés: The Forgotten Sounds Of Loeffler's Octet, Graeme Steele Johnson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Modern musicians play a lot of old music and a lot of new music, but not so much “new old music.” This study—with its accompanying critical edition score, world-premiere recording and first present-day performances—represents, at long last, the deliverance of one such work from the ashes of history to the ears of the present: Charles Martin Loeffler’s forgotten Octet for Two Clarinets, Harp, Two Violins, Viola, Cello and Double Bass, a piece that was left unpublished, unrecorded and unheard since 1897.

This paper documents my efforts to finally reintroduce the Octet to the repertoire. By cross-referencing the autograph manuscript score …

Kajian Konseptual Silabel Ritme Gandang Minangkabau, Aryuda Fakhleri Fallen, Yudi Sukmayadi, Tati Narawati

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This article tryes to initiate the concept of Minangkabau rhythm syllables, which is a method in music learning related to audiation in rhythm learning, the urgency in this study explores the basic elements of the audiation system that can be applied to music learning related to rhythm syllables based on local approaches, taking into account previous concepts that have been popular in recent schools. In West Sumatra, the concepts of syllable rhythm such as Zoltan Kodaly, Kannokol, American Style Syllables, and Edwin Gordon are not so popular, but environments such as schools and art studios have their own ways of …

Impressionism In The Hands Of Griffes, Bauer, And Howe, And The Musical Climate In Early 20th-Century America, Elaine Sara Lim

Dissertations, 2020-current

American composers Charles Griffes (1884-1920), Marion Bauer (1882-1955), and Mary Howe (1882-1964) are considered “Impressionist” composers by some scholars. This document will explore selected piano works of each composer to determine the extent to which impressionistic traits are present. Topics such as tonality, harmony, texture, and individual style will be examined, as well as the significant relationship between music and poetry. American Impressionism was short-lived but served as a link to Modernism, as all three composers eventually experimented with other styles. Early 20th-century American audiences, accustomed to the influx of European artists and music, were slow to embrace the new …

Thematic Synthesis: Rethinking Generative Music With Compositional Understanding In Game And Software Development, Jasper Moore Tucker

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Generative music, first introduced by composers like Brian Eno and David Cope in the mid-to-late 20th century, has evolved through many stages, with diverse applications across music and technology companies as well as the game industry. However, despite this widespread interest, there remains a notable lack of the foundational understanding of composition and individual expressiveness in current generative systems that was apparent in the work of early composers. This paper advocates for a shift towards prioritizing compositional thought in system design to foster greater diversity and innovation within generative music. To demonstrate this approach, a novel system synthesizing two distinct …

Einstein's Dream By Cindy Mctee: An Analysis And Transcription For Wind Ensemble, Kyle Aufderhar

Dissertations

Cindy McTee’s 2005 composition for strings, percussion, and computer music is an exploration in pluralism, combining newly composed music and computer-synthesized sounds with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Charles Ives. McTee’s initial use of Bach’s music comprises the complete harmonization of the chorale “Wir glauben all’ an einen Gott.” In later sections of the work, McTee creates entire textures from the chorale’s soprano line, subjecting it to a variety of treatments including augmentation, diminution, inversion, retrograde, and retrograde inversion. In addition to the inclusion of his music, McTee reiterates the importance of Bach through composition that relies on …

Chaconnes, Sonatas, And Fugues, Oh My: A Study Of The Influence Of Baroque, Classical, And Romantic Musical Forms On Today's Media, Cadence A. Graves

ATU Scholars Symposium

As a future music educator, it is my duty to have not only understanding and knowledge of composers, music history, and compositional techniques, but to also have an appreciation, passion, and interest in what music is, where it has been, how it has changed, and where it is going now. With this research, I deepened my appreciation for the evolution of music over the course of history, expanded my understanding of how and when they came into existence, and broadened my understanding and appreciation of music that draws on those techniques today.

In the comparisons I made between compositions of …

Arnaud Préot: Teacher, Composer, And President, Melonee Gray

Spring Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

Arnaud Préot (1818-1873) was the 8th president of Longwood University. He served between the years 1863-1869 and ran the institution during the Civil War. A Frenchman, Préot immigrated to America at the age of 19. In America, he served as a professor of language and music, and eventually served as president at three female colleges. Additionally, he composed music, including several piano compositions and many vocal pieces. His works are reflective of both the classical period and the French style. In this essay, two of his piano compositions and one of his vocal pieces are analyzed and discussed. Préot's pieces …

Rodrigo’S Concierto De Aranjuez Through The Writings Of Regino Sainz De La Maza, Leopoldo Neri

Soundboard Scholar

Regino Sainz de la Maza was the guitarist who premiered Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez at the Palau de la Música in Barcelona in 1940. Although musicologists have studied this musical phenomenon from different approaches, this study approaches the subject from the perspective of the performer and his musical writings, affording us new historical, aesthetic and technical data on Rodrigo's work.

The Tradition Of Microtonal Guitar On The American West Coast, Kenneth M. Cotich

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Microtonal music in the United States has a significant connection with the American West Coast. Influential microtonal musicians and theorists originated on the West Coast or passed through California, subsequently inspiring future generations of composers to work outside of twelve-tone equal temperament (12tet). This project begins by examining the early trailblazers of music education and composition in California who sought to rearticulate the fundamentals of music. Two substantial sources that influenced new musical materials were the harmonic series and non-Western music and culture. Microtonal music in California is then examined through the efforts of a series of outsider speculative music …

Blending European And Latin Sounds: A Study Of French Horn Repertoire In Mexico, Aj Bernal

Theses and Dissertations--Music

As a first generation Mexican-American, it is crucial that I advocate and promote music of the culture I grew up in. This project aims to unearth Mexican compositional techniques that derive from the fusion of European and Indigenous roots in an effort to promote diversity within the realm of Western Classical music. Music in Mexico is characterized by a unique blend of indigenous rhythms, European classical structures, and regional folk influences. This project will discuss how the bold timbre of the French horn intertwines with traditional Mexican and indigenous melodies, rhythms, and forms that create a unique style. The horn’s …

Sculpting Time: A Performance Guide To Four Fragments Of Time By Marcus Siqueira, Luis Felipe Vargas Magdaleno De Moraes

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This dissertation investigates the musical and phenomenological aspects of Four Fragments of Time by Marcus Siqueira (b. 1974) and provides a performance guide for this work. Furthermore, this dissertation analyzes previous guitar works by the composer, seeking to understand Siqueira’s compositional idiosyncrasies and to provide context for the interpretation of Four Fragments of Time. This dissertation includes a biography of the composer, an analysis of the compositional process of Four Fragments of Time, an analysis of the recurrent idiomatic procedures in Siqueira’s guitar works, and an overview of the collaborative process between the composer and the author. Additionally, an analysis …

Song Analysis - Final Project For The American Musical Experience, Agustina Checa

Open Educational Resources

Assignment designed as a final project for the undergraduate course MSH245: The American Musical Experience at Lehman College. This course surveys different musical expressions that emerged in the United States as well as the historical, social and technological contexts framing their popularization.This assignment asks students to analyze a song of their choosing performed by an American artist and to follow specific requirements in their study of this piece which include: historical and social contextualization, analysis of style, influences and lyrics, as well as the elaboration of a "listening guide" to fully appreciate the composition. Students are given the …