Music Theory Commons^™

Music 274 Syllabus (Theory Iv, Harmony, Counterpoint, Keyboard Skills), Gilad Rabinovitch

Open Educational Resources

This is a syllabus for Music 274 relying on open-access / zero-cost materials on Open Music Theory (Gotham et al.) and developed by the instructor. Modules developed by the instructor include Szymanowska-style and Joplin-style model composition projects and an analytical focus on chromatic harmony in Schubert.

Investigating Creative Possibility Using Automated Composition, Kian Drees

Undergraduate Honors Theses

As a constructive method, Johann Joseph Fux’s theory of counterpoint defines a space of musical possibility for contrapuntal composition. I developed a computational method for generating melodies to systematically investigate selected properties of this space. My program recursively generates a tree of all possible cantus firmus melodies of a specified length or all possible first species counterpoints on a given cantus firmus, starting with an empty root node and adding child nodes representing possible musical notes at each step until the specified length is reached. I then investigated several properties of the generated melodies, such as the approximate relationship between …

Controlling Death: Analyzing Formal Structures In The Music Of Chuck Schuldiner, Cory Cogley

Theses and Dissertations

From 1987 to 1999, the metal bands Death and Control Denied released eight total albums, with music primarily composed by guitarist and vocalist Chuck Schuldiner. This corpus study analyzes the form of these records to demonstrate Schuldiner's compositional idiolect adhering to recognizable formal structures, specifically AABA and ABA.

Thoughts Upon Richard Taruskin’S Yahrzeit, Scott Gleason

Music & Musical Performance: An International Journal

Teaching portions of Richard Taruskin’s The Oxford History of Western Music to non-music majors at Columbia University (in the early 2000s) offered special opportunities and challenges. Taruskin’s musical ethics, central to that book, are clearly embodied in his writings about John Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer. The Princeton School of composer-theorists is a litmus test of Taruskin’s thinking: in particular, Taruskin’s emphasis on music criticism can aid in an analysis of Roger Sessions’s 1958 String Quintet. David Lewin’s unpublished 1959 analysis of that same piece (by his teacher) shows a very different approach; Lewin’s analysis is a vivid but rarely …

The Public Relations Of Microtonal Music Through The Eyes And Ears Of Microtonalists, Tristan B. Young

Anthós

In this article, I attempted to answer the question of how microtonal musicians and music theorists view the general public's perception of microtonal music. To do this, I had three one-on-one interviews and one focus group with microtonal musicians, which were all audio recorded with consent from the participants. Patterns that emerged from their responses included blaming corporate and academic establishments for their conservatism in music theory, mentioning the different possible definitions one may make for microtonality based on geographic culture and so on, and bringing up the idea that people think that microtonality is less diverse than it actually …

The Interconnectedness Of Fun Home On Page And Stage, Livia M. Nocito

English and Creative Writing Independent Study Projects

In Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel, instances of Alison’s emotional “rise,” or openness in being queer, and Bruce’s “descent,” or need to conform, in the book are further supplemented by translations made into the musical through leitmotif and musical composition. This cements not only their roles as Daedalus and Icarus respectively in the metaphor Alison presents in her memoir, but also highlights their lived experiences in a way that truly extends Alison’s liberation as a lesbian to be elevated in grandeur and Bruce’s stifling life to be as damning as Icarus’s fall into the sea.

Looking Back While Moving Forward: Four Musical Works That Signify Complex Emotions Regarding The Passage Of Time Through Ambiguous Endings, Bailey Griggs

Music Undergraduate Honors Theses

Defying expectations is a useful and overlooked tool in music composition. Despite all their differences, the final movement of Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony, Joe Hisaishi’s score to the 2001 film Spirited Away, Joni Mitchell’s popular song “Both Sides Now,” and electronic artist The Caretaker’s album set Everywhere at the End of Time all share similar programmatic content. Each presents a protagonist who is coming to terms with the passage of time and is conflicted about how they should cope with change. Upon examination of these four works, they all use unexpected and ambiguous endings to signify complex ideas about time through …

Thomas Pereira’S 'Lülü Zuanyao' 律呂纂要 (Ca. 1685): A Jesuit Music Theory Textbook For The Chinese Emperor, Qingfan Jiang

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Thomas Pereira (1646–1708), a Portuguese Jesuit missionary, arrived in Beijing in 1672 and was appointed by the Kangxi Emperor (1654–1722) as his music tutor. For the emperor's music lessons, Pereira authored Lülü Zuanyao 律呂纂要 [Elements of Music] (ca. 1685), the first known Western music theory treatise written in Chinese. My translation includes the first half of Zuanyao that focuses on Western music notation, solmization, and the hexachordal system. As a product of the global circulation of musical knowledge in the early modern period, Zuanyao is significant in three ways. First, it illustrates the direct influence of the music education Pereira …

The Passive-Active Interaction (Pai) Model: Redefining Audio Interactions In Video Game Music, Morgan A. Weeks

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Scholarship on music in video games has focused on the player in two main ways: the psychological effect music has on the player and the physical, kinesthetic relationship between the player’s inputs and the game’s music. This dissertation builds on this work by exploring gameplay moments in which the music informs the player’s inputs through rhythms, tempo, harmonic relationships, and changes in the musical texture. Using “analytical play” (Summers 2016), rhythmic analysis, looping analysis, and harmonic observations, alongside a variety of different video games, consoles and genres, I have developed an analytical Passive-Active Interaction (PAI) Model that is applicable to …

Experimenting With Colors In Music: Making And Breaking Rules In The Butterfly Effect, Chloe King

Honors Theses

The following thesis is a culmination of four years of academic and musical development as a percussionist at the University of Mississippi. It offers a discussion and analysis of my original composition, The Butterfly Effect (2021-2023), exploring the compositional process from preliminary sketches to the finalized score. It also discusses the inspiration for composing an original work, the use of different music theory techniques relevant to an analysis of the work, and comparisons to relevant compositions throughout the history of Western music. The Butterfly Effect experiments with compositional techniques that often depart from established rules of harmony and counterpoint, a …

A Composer's Perspective On The Clarinet Concerto, Sarah Marze

Honors Scholar Theses

While seminal literature on concerto form analysis and compositions for clarinet and orchestra has been conducted, this undergraduate thesis is an exploration from a young composer’s perspective. My priority was discovering the breadth of what the clarinet concerto has to offer in order to learn how to place my own work as a composer into historical, cultural and aesthetic contexts.
First, I present an abridged history of the clarinet concerto. Despite this musical form being hundreds of years old, concerto composition is still relevant today because it is a display of balance; the best concerti are delicate balancing acts of …

One Bite At A Time: Writing In The Theory Classroom, Jennifer Shafer England

Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy

Prose writing in the music theory classroom is often a daunting task for both instructors and students. For instructors, the very thought of the heavy grading load associated with writing assignments combined with the difficulty that we know students encounter when writing about music (especially if students’ general written communication skills are still developing) can be overwhelming, even if we personally believe that our students would benefit from engaging in written communication about music. For many students, communication in written form is a skill that they are still developing, and writing about music only adds an additional challenge—especially when they …

Rhythmic Theory Pedagogy, Ways Of Knowing, And Experiential Learning, Ben Duinker

Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy

This article proposes an approach to rhythmic theory pedagogy that foregrounds the intersection of performance, creation, and analysis. Daphne Leong’s recent work on this intersection uses the German verbs wissen (knowing that), können (knowing how), and kennen (knowing of) to describe the different kinds of knowledge generated and utilized by theorists and performers. I use Leong’s theory to identify a mismatch, or gap, between what undergraduate students learn about rhythm in the theory classroom and what their practical needs are as music majors—a plurality of whom specialize in performance. As a means of remedying this mismatch, I use David Kolb’s …

Volume 37, Various Authors

Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy

Volume 37 of the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy.

Rachmaninoff The Harmonist: The "Rachmaninoff Sixth" And Its Analysis In His Music, Jay Forsythe

Honors Program Theses

The music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), Russia’s great pianist, conductor, and composer, has often been maligned by critics and musicologists alike for its reluctance to follow the avant-garde of the music world into that great adventure of experiments in atonality and non-common-practice technique of the early twentieth century. Although the composer’s works are beloved by audiences worldwide, they have often faced complex critical reception for the composer’s supposed conservatism and relative lack of expressive palette. Francis Maes, author of A History of Russian Music, lamented that “he lacked the exuberant imagination and subtle aestheticism of [Tchaikovsky],” and wrote that Rachmaninoff’s …

The Percussionist's Guide To Music Theory Fundamentals, Mckenna M. Lee

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The research priorities that I have established as a theorist, percussionist, and an instructor of both, have led me to a master's thesis project combining music theory practices within the study and performance of percussion repertoire. As the graduate assistant of the percussion department at West Virginia University, I have been teaching applied orchestral percussion lessons and leading percussion ensembles. In my experience, a number of first-year percussionists in the studio at WVU have had a limited background with reading definite pitches on the staff, and struggle with sight-reading and pitch identification, therefore making their Written I and Aural I …

An Annotated Bibliography Of String Method Books And Theory Books For Pre-College String Students, With A Focus On Music Theory Concepts And Sequence Analysis, Rebecca Zou Hale

Master's Theses

The Hattiesburg Public School District (HPSD) Strings program, one of the largest public school string programs in the state of Mississippi, has been utilizing a method book series titled Essential Elements for Strings (EES) in their curriculum since the early 2000s. After almost two decades of use, the HPSD Strings staff has noticed that a majority of intermediate and advanced strings students struggle with fundamental music theory concepts. The current music theory deficiencies necessitate an improvement in the HPSD Strings curriculum's choice of instructional materials.

Referencing established music curricula and music theory textbooks, the instruction of fundamental music theory concepts …

Qigang Chen’S Synthesis Of Multicultural Compositional Features In Er Huang, Isaac Reel

Student Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to identify prominent multicultural features of Qigang Chen's piano concerto, "Er Huang." It looks at theoretical aspects borrowed from Chinese practice as well as the practices of Chen's mentor Olivier Messiaen. This thesis then shows how Chen synthesizes those traditions. Chinese concepts discussed are banqiang, gong shift, bian sheng (changed notes) and the specific luogu dianzi (percussion topoi from beijing opera) ji-ji-feng. Messiaenic concepts discussed are motivic recycling and transformation, added values, irregular augmentation and diminution, modalism and rhythmic contrast.

Embodied Cognition In The Music Theory And Aural Skills Classrooms, Leslie Thompson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Applying concepts of embodied cognition positively impacts pedagogy in the theory and aural skills classrooms. This thesis defines a holistic view of the student and identifies how classroom instruction from that perspective can benefit student learning as well as overall well-being. The opening chapters provide a brief scientific background and connect concepts of embodied cognition with specific music theory and aural skills examples from an interview. A select survey of the music theory pedagogy literature also illustrates principles of embodied cognition. Based on this background, the final chapter presents new sample lesson plans and discusses how to adapt to student …

Guitar Thinking, Jonathan De Souza

Soundboard Scholar

Playing the guitar develops physical skills but also ways of listening and thinking about music. For example, guitarists often conceptualize chords as two-dimensional shapes—an approach that is foreign to pianists. What does it mean, then, to think like a guitarist? This article approaches “guitar thinking” through music theory and cognitive science. Psychological experiments help to reveal auditory, visual, and tactile aspects of guitar playing and to show how guitarists respond to the instrument’s affordances (i.e., its possibilities for action). Additionally, recent research in music theory models fretboard space and examines patterns of body-instrument interaction. To demonstrate this mode of analysis, …

Music Theory Pedagogy For The Violin: Cognitive Philosophy And Three Model Curricula, Morganne J. Mcintyre

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Violin playing promotes a connection between mind and body that allows the performer to internalize, or embody, tactile features of the instrument, such as the distance between strings, the feeling of the fingertips on the fingerboard, the interval size between notes, and many other aspects. This thesis designs a pedagogy that employs the violin’s physical attributes to provide the beginning through advanced player with a deeper understanding of music theory. The thesis suggests pairing of physical learning and musical theory at each stage of a violinist’s musical education. Chapter 1 surveys embodied cognition and cognitive artifacts. Chapter 2 applies these …

Volume 36, Various Authors

Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy

No abstract provided.

Constructivist Peer Review In Music Theory And Composition Courses: Technologies And Practice, Brendan Mcconville

Journal of the Association for Technology in Music Instruction

This article considers the supporting technologies and practices for effective semi-anonymous peer review in traditional music theory and composition-related courses: orchestration, arranging, and composition. A coordinated approach probes two questions nested within one broad case study: (1) does the use of peer review in music theory and composition-related courses create meaningful, constructivist-inspired learning experiences, and (2) what web technologies can efficiently and effectively accomplish its activities? The article first provides a constructivist theoretical framework; next, it explains the methodologies, technologies, and resulting feedback from using peer review in a three-course study; and finally it provides concluding remarks on the many …

An Annotated Bibliography Of Selected Music Theory Resources For The Middle And High School Choral Classroom With Alignment To Mississippi College- And Career-Readiness Standards, Amanda M. Brandon

Master's Theses

Middle and high school choral ensembles often struggle to produce musicians who are proficient in music theory skills; however, music theory and ear training skills provide numerous benefits to the student and ensemble. Promoting and fostering theory and ear training skills develop a student’s overall musicianship – thus, strengthening sight-reading skills– further leading to more accurate sight reading, using less rehearsal time, and the option of learning more, or even more technically challenging, literature. Additionally, developing independent musicianship skills encourages higher order and critical thinking in the choral classroom.

This project will examine and review selected music theory and ear …

Developing Variation In The Late Work Of Morton Gould And Why It Matters, J. Wesley Flinn

Music Publications

American composer Morton Gould (1913-1996) was remarkably consistent stylistically over the course of his compositional career; this project examines certain motivic transformational techniques used in two of his last works, Stringmusic (1993, winner of the Pulitzer Prize) and Remembrance Day (Soliloquy for a Passing Century) (1995). These techniques, which can generally be filed under the principle of developing variation, are: 1. Mirroring and reversal; 2. Rotation; 3. Motivic expansion and contraction; 4. Additive sets; and 5. Asymmetric injection. After an overview of each technique, I give a full analysis of the fourth movement of Stringmusic using the approaches described …

Volume 35, Various Authors

Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy

No abstract provided.

Exploring Maximalism In Music, Comparing The Selected Works Of Richard Strauss And Kanye West: Annotated Bibliography, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

In the realm of music theory, many terms are used to simplify characteristics of musical compositions. Many of these terms become “ism’s” as a way to easily group many characteristics or techniques that composers implement. A well known ‘ism’ that is taught often in American music theory/history courses is minimalism, where composers made music with techniques like repetition, simplification, etc. This paper seeks to define another emerging ‘ism’ in music theory, Maximalism. This term broadly refers to the over exaggeration of compositional techniques in music, and their effects. I propose that in many ways the composers Richard Strauss and Kanye …

“Mortality’S Wilting Flower:” Terror Management Theory And Music In Animated Films, Lauren Bertsch

Senior Honors Projects

There’s something about animated films - so full of light and wonder - that invokes this “warm and fuzzy” feeling when you sit down to watch it. Yet an entire spectrum of human emotion is demanded from us as an audience. Buried in the heart of animated films are these dark themes, problems that lie in the bedrock of humanity. And it leaves us pondering: why? The answer may actually stretch back to when our species developed thought and reason. In 1973, American anthropologist Ernest Becker uncovered the mental foundation that allows us to live, function, and thrive in a …

An Exploration Of Cultural Transmission Through The Application Of Jazz Theory To The Music Of Frederic Chopin, Aaron Michael King

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Connections between classical music and jazz were observed and detailed, providing an expanded understanding of the cultural underpinnings of Western music. This study featured explanations of concepts found in jazz theory, such as approach tones and ii⁷-V⁷-I⁷ progression, and comparisons of stylistic features of both music. These concepts were then applied to describe features in the music of Frederic Chopin, specifically “Nocturne No. 1,” “Berceuse,” and “Prelude No. 4.” Through cross-cultural analysis, this study aims to provide the reader with information and further appreciation of the elements found in jazz music and to delineate the …

The Language Of Music, Music Theory For Non-Majors, Danny Beard

Open Textbooks

The Language of Music, Music Theory for Non-Majors, is a textbook written to share the fundamentals of music notation with students outside of schools of music. Topics covered include rhythmic notation, meter and time signatures, pitch notation, scales, key signatures, intervals, triads and Roman numeral and lead sheet notation.