Music Theory Commons^™

G. P. Telemann’S Exercises In Singing, Keyboard-Playing, And Thoroughbass (Ed. And Trans. Derek Remeš), Derek Remeš

Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy

In recent years, scholars and pedagogues alike have increasingly recognized the creative potential of thoroughbass. Yet too often, thoroughbass instruction today still lacks good models. G. P. Telemann’s Exercises in Singing, Keyboard-Playing, and Thoroughbass (1733–34) fills this need. This collection contains forty-eight short, simple arias with thoroughbass realizations by Telemann himself. Telemann also provides brief commentary to each aria. This important collection is presented here for the first time as a modern pedagogical edition with English translation (Vol. 1), worksheets for realization (Vol. 2), and audio recordings (with and without voice part). As Telemann’s title suggests, the didactic possibilities are …

Light And Shadow In Kaija Saariaho's Maan Varjot, Benjamin M. Cornelius-Bates

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Kaija Saariaho’s work Maan Varjot is a relatively new addition to a set of repertoire that includes the organ as a part of the orchestra. This commission from the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Orchestre National de Lyon, Southbank Centre, and the Philharmonia Orchestra, was premiered in 2014 and features the organ as a timbral enhancement and contrast to the orchestra. The 52nd Stanza from the poem Adonais, written by Percy Shelley and dedicated to John Keats, provide an important insight into the analysis and interpretation of the work. Two lines in particular are important: “The One remains, the many change …

Exercises In Developing Bebop Scale Language For Collegiate Jazz Students, Lars Swanson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this document, major, dominant and minor bebop scales are introduced and engaged through a series of etudes for C instruments, Alto Sax, Tenor Sax, Trumpet, Trombone and Bass. The methodology used is derived from a series of private lessons in which bebop scales were introduced and then engaged over chord progressions. Backing tracks are utilized and linked.

Rhetorical And Musical Synthesis And The Strategies For Inter-Generational Resonance In Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, Kiara Wiedman

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

This study critically examines the popular rock anthem Bohemian Rhapsody to understand why the song has remained a lasting and eminently compelling standard for the progressive rock genre and why it has appealed through an inter-generational scope. Through the use of Close Textual Analysis (CTA), with an emphasis on metaphoric criticism, combined with Music Analysis of the score using popular song analysis tools, this study deconstructs the song and uncovered rhetorical strategies of the music and the lyrics as they function separately. In the conclusion, the two methodological approaches are synthesized to reveal the intertextual interanimation of the music and …

The Roman Catholic Ordinary Mass From Circa 1750 To Circa 1820: A Selected Bibliography, Letícia Gabriele Grützmann Januario

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Orchestrated masses from the 18th century and early years of the 19th century provide a valuable source of repertoire for contemporary choral conductors. This project will explore composers and works from circa 1750 to 1820 to provide choral conductors with a list of works suitable for programming based on the practical size of vocal and instrumental forces.

Western choral music was born in a church setting. Among all choral genres, the mass is the only genre composed throughout all eras, from medieval until the 20th century. The mass remained a prominent genre during the 18th century despite the secularizing influence …

The Querelle Des Clés: An Episode In Francisco Frontera De Valldemosa's Exuberant Life, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

In 1858, Francisco Frontera de Valldemosa published a peculiar music theory treatise in Madrid under the title Equinotación ó Nuevo sistema musical de llaves. It has two parts. The first (pp. 11-20) is an explanation of the invention (namely, the reduction of all clefs to only three) detailing the perceived actual need for it (that is, most clefs are unnecessary, and they impede or delay the creativity of the avid music learner). The second part (new pagination, pp. 2-83) is a curious anthology of music in many genres and styles. On the left page of each spread, there is a …

Composition Portfolio, Alexander J. Juhan

Theses and Dissertations

A selection of works. Includes contemporary pieces, as well as music scored to picture.

The Function Of Singing In The Architecture Of Songs Of Karakalpak Traditional Music, Shakhida Berdikhanova

Eurasian music science journal

In the modern world, questions of revival, maintenance and propaganda national to tradition of ethno culture, and in particular their musical heritage there is one of the most actual tasks of study of art.

Musical culture of Karakalpak people, phenomenon original, having centuries old history, in the sources of the family people closely associated with work inhabiting territory of Central Asia. Karakalpak folklore has a variety of genres and forms in which history, everyday life, customs and traditions are embodied.

The study of the Karakalpak song tradition will allow us to understand the basic patterns of the musical language of …

About This Issue, Michael E. Ruhling

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

No abstract provided.

Michael Haydn's Early Masses And Their Viennese Context, Bruce C. Macintyre

HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America

Although Joseph Haydn felt that his brother Michael (1737-1806) held “first place” in the field of church music, scholarship on the brother surprisingly still has many lacunae; e.g., in the study of Michael’s early works composed before he went to Salzburg. Nearly half of this brother’s 28 settings of the Mass Ordinary for voices with orchestral accompaniment were composed in his early years, i.e. after his early studies in Vienna ca. 1745 and during his work for the bishop in Grosswardein (Oradea, Romania) and prior to his arrival in Salzburg in August 1763. This paper attempts to shed more light …

An Integration Of East And West: History, Analysis And Reception Of The Yellow River Piano Concerto, Lin Tao

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Yellow River Piano Concerto remains as one of a few representative and major instrumental compositions within the Chinese repertoire since it was composed in 1969. Thanks to the devoted work of Chinese pianists, the Yellow River Piano Concerto has disseminated around the world and has become a musical symbol of Chinese culture in recent years. This piano concerto serves as a tool for the cultural communication between China and the world. The Yellow River Piano Concerto has a unique ability to depict Chinese culture and history through the language of music. Its exotic pentatonic melodies and eastern orchestrations make …

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.

J.K. Mertz’S Bardenklänge: A Context For The Emergence Of The Character Piece Genre Within The Repertoire For Solo Guitar, Brinsley Doran

Masters

Having experience a large increase in concert activity in recent years, one would assume that the works of J.K. Mertz (1806–1856) would haveexperience the same level of attention within academic circles, however research is still limited. As a result, this thesissetsout to understand in what areas do Mertz's works differ fromother guitar works in the first half of the nineteenth century—specifically Mertz's set of character piecesfound in hisBardenklänge, op. 13. This thesiswill address shifts in culture, aesthetics and the increasing interest in the ‘Folk’c.1800–1850 that led to the composition of Mertz’s Bardenklänge. Published in 1847, these works are unique in …

Performing Rhythmic Dissonance In Ligeti’S Études, Book 1: A Perception-Driven Approach And Re-Notation, Imri Talgam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Interpretive approaches to the Études have been limited by Ligeti’s choice of notation, which creates several layers of difficulty in the presentation of complex rhythms. In order to resolve some of these difficulties, this dissertation includes a complete re-notation of four Etudes, using a methodology based on research in cognition and perception of rhythm.

Based on this new score, the notion of rhythmic dissonance is developed as an analytical tool to investigate in-time perception of rhythmic complexity, drawing on existing work on metric entrainment and metric dissonance. Different compositional strategies for the production of rhythmic dissonance are shown to have …

Exploring Political Action And Socialization Through Group Improvisation Within The Music Of Frederic Rzewski And Cornelius Cardew, Marcel Rominger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the late 1960s, socialist composers, Cornelius Cardew and Frederic Rzewski, each established ensembles with the purpose of performing works consisting of experimental forms of improvisation. By employing group improvisation, and including untrained, non-musicians within their performances, they strove to use these ensembles as a model for society itself; this model includes a dissolution of the hierarchy among performers and the barrier between performer and audience. Improvisation helped music resist commodification by the culture industry or appropriation by authoritarian regimes for the purpose of propaganda. This dissertation aims to explore how Cardew and Rzewski constituted effective socialization and political action …

Analyzing Harmonic Polarities: A Tonal Narrative Approach, Stephen J. Whale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation aims to develop an approach to analyzing common-practice repertoire based on the dynamic interplay of centripetal and centrifugal forces. It aims at interpreting various kinds of chromaticism and modulation in terms of the interaction of forces moving away from the tonic or principal key (centrifugal) and those returning to it (centripetal). Centripetal forces also correspond to the force of cadential substantiation of keys, not only the principal key, which I call temporal-centripetal force; temporal-centrifugal forces correspond to the phenomena of tonal instability, of motion through multiple regions.

The dynamic interplay and counterbalancing of these forces is a core …

Tonicizations, Periods, And Period-Like Structures In The Music Of Dvořák, Xieyi Zhang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Discussions of the tonal construction of parallel periods usually focus on the standard eighteenth-century layout in which the cadence at the end of the antecedent is either an imperfect authentic cadence (IAC) or half cadence (HC) in the main key. In exceptional cases, antecedents may deploy a reinterpreted HC—i.e., a perfect authentic cadence (PAC) in V that is reinterpreted as a tonic-key HC. Especially in music of the nineteenth century, however, one also often finds periods in which the antecedent concludes with a PAC in a key other than V. In these modulating antecedents, cadences of the antecedent and consequent …

Thirteen Ways To “Hail, Mary”: A Case Study Of The 2013 Forum For The Inculturation Of Liturgical Music In Nigeria, Quintina Carter-Enyi, Aaron Carter-Enyi

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Every two years since 1997, the Forum for the Inculturation of Liturgical Music (FILM) has given a platform for many of Nigeria’s cultures to contribute to the future direction of the Roman Catholic liturgy in Nigeria. This case study focuses on the 2013 Biennial Choral Competition, specifically 13 settings of the Ave Maria text in seven of Nigeria’s hundreds of languages. Prior to that year, FILM had already introduced music with lyrics in minority languages including Bini, “Osolobruvwe Do”, and Efik, “Yak Ikom Abasi”, into the Nigerian canon of choral music, including both concert and church performance. In 2013, the …

Pantomime: The History And Metamorphosis Of A Theatrical Ideology, Karl E. Toepfer

Open Educational Resources

This book offers perhaps the most comprehensive history of pantomime ever written. No other book so thoroughly examines the varieties of pantomimic performance from the early Roman Empire, when the term “pantomime” came into use, until the present. After thoroughly examining the complexities and startlingly imaginative performance strategies of Roman pantomime, the author identifies the peculiar political circumstances that revived and shaped pantomime in France and Austria in the eighteenth century, leading to the Pierrot obsession in the nineteenth century. Modernist aesthetics awakened a huge, highly diverse fascination with pantomime. The book explores an extraordinary variety of modernist and postmodern …

Thelonious Monk's Prototypical Style: Close And Distant Readings Of Jazz Stylings, Connor Davis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Thelonious Monk’s style has been considered non-conformist, modernist, technically stilted, intentionally unconventional, even incompetent. His performing is idiosyncratic, to say the least. However, by what metric is his performing idiosyncratic, or, framed another way, in what ways do Thelonious Monk’s performances deviate from the prototypical performance? Situated within family resemblance theories of prototypicality, I utilize supervised and unsupervised machine learning approaches to categorize jazz solos based on their melodic usage of standard jazz language (novel corpus of 530 jazz solo improvisations). Using these distant readings to determine which solos are prototypical, I perform a close reading of these prototypical solos …

Increasing The Inclusion Of Women Composers In The Wind Band Repertoire: Pale As Centuries By Sarah Kirkland Snider, Clifton Gerod Croomes

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Women composers are underrepresented in the wind band medium. This study aims to determine the major factors for the disparity between men and women composers. I’ve transcribed a contemporary chamber music piece, Pale As Centuries by Sarah Kirkland Snider, for the wind band. Expanding on Snider’s existing work for chamber ensemble I will explore her compositional style and reinterpret the piece using the colors of the wind band.

A review of the literature focuses on trends within western music in the United States over the last century and establishes a documented history of institutionalized marginalization. In an interview with Snider …

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.

Modeling Melodic Dictation, David John Baker

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Melodic dictation is a cognitively demanding process that requires students to hear a melody, then without any access to an external reference, transcribe the melody within a limited time frame. Despite its ubiquity in curricula within School of Music settings, exactly how an individual learns a melody is not well understood. This dissertation aims to fill the gap in the literature between aural skills practitioners and music psychologists in order to reach conclusions that can be applied systematically in pedagogical contexts. In order to do this, I synthesize literature from music theory, music psychology, and music education in order to …

Analysis And Utilization Of Hip-Hop Techniques In Classical Music, William Francis Montgomery

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT

As of January 4^th, 2018, R&B/Hip-Hop (including rap) had overtaken rock and roll as the most popular genre among music fans. Nielsen Music reported that rap had surpassed rock in terms of total consumption with rappers such as Drake and Kendrick Lamar leading the charge. This would lead to the second-highest growth of any genre of music, spiking at 25% over the previous year.[1] This came as a very big surprise to many, especially when we take into consideration the rocky at best relationship that rap has had with public perception.

There are many misconceptions and …

A New Theory Of Musical Semiosis, Matthew Stanley

Music ETDs

Musical semiotics is the study of the various ways in which musical structures become meaningful. This thesis is an attempt to create a logical, systematized, transformational theory of musical semiotics that can elucidate the various ways in which music conveys meaning. While the semiotic exploration of music is by no means novel, this thesis presents a unique, highly rigorous, and truly theoretical approach to musical semiotics that differs significantly from previous theories. By combining all aspects of the semiotic theory of Charles Sanders Peirce with the metaphor theories of George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, and Zoltan Kovecses, a theoretical apparatus is …

Classical Music From The Late 19th Century To The Early 20th Century: The Creation Of A Distinct American Musical Sound, Ashley M. Christensen

Young Historians Conference

The paper talks about American classical music through the late 19th century and the changes made going into the 20th century. It examines the sheet music from the era and the shift away from traditional European tonal style to a redefined American sound. The thesis of the paper is that the turmoil and upheaval of the Civil War and following era was the catalyst for the creation of a new American sound in classical music.

Negative Harmony: Experiments With The Polarity In Music, Michael Brister

Undergraduate Honors Theses

I set out to experiment and justify the use of a new theory called Negative Harmony in 21^st century music. Negative Harmony is a musical avenue from which composers can glean new tones within traditional music theory rules. I took inspiration from the current leading authority on the topic, Jacob Collier, as well as older scholars from the 20^th century, such as Ernst Levy and George Rochberg. I conducted research on the theory by finding its relation to major and minor chords, and how these mirrored chords worked from a theory standpoint. I then composed two original works, …

Eclectic: A Recording Project Of Original Crossover Compositions, Chance Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Music makers have always borrowed one another’s influences, across philosophies, across culture, and thus, across genres. Since the 1950’s, a time when classical music was at its farthest reach from popular music, the rift between these two “worlds” has shrunk, and music crafters from each category are free to take from the other as they please. As a figure who stands between the cultivated and vernacular traditions, my aim for this thesis is to give an introduction to some of the ways genre hybridization has been achieved since 1950, present a collection of my own compositions (along with recordings) that …

Effects Of Genre Tag Complexity On Popular Music Perception And Enjoyment, Lauren Shepherd

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The popular online streaming platform Spotify added over 1400 genre tags in the last two years. Despite that numerous artists and composition competitions claim to seek projects that “transcend the traditional notion of genre,” the industry has only added more complex and mystifying genre labels. This dichotomy between artists and industry ignores the effects these labels have on consumers. Do more complex genre tags enhance the listening experience for the average consumer by providing additional information about what they are about to hear? The current research seeks to examine the effects of the granularity of genre tags on popular music …

Marvin Gaye's What's Going On And The Civil Rights Movement: A History And Analysis, Jacob Barnhill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Marvin Gaye’s first self-produced album, What’s Going On is a timeless work in American popular music. This thesis illuminates many of the intricacies that went in to the creation of the album and discusses its relevance during the Civil Rights Movement. Chapter 1 provides a background in popular music analysis and the genre of Soul music. Chapter 2 includes a biography of Gaye and a brief history of the Detroit record label known as Motown. The collaboration of musicians and engineers at Motown, along with Gaye’s influences from his personal life and music career, had profound effects on the outcome …