Musicology Commons^™

The Quartet’S Death: Embodiment, Performativity, And Physicality In Heinz Holliger’S 1973 String Quartet, Vicente Alexim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Throughout the twentieth century and continuing today, many composers have explored and expanded the ways in which performers are asked to interact with their musical instruments. Often referred to as “extended techniques,” these modes of playing frequently produce sounds of indefinite pitch, or which fall outside equal temperament, and the works that employ them rely on the physicality of these techniques in order to create additional layers of meaning. The concrete parameters involved in making use of such resources can sometimes take precedence over or drive other more abstract compositional materials such as precise pitch and rhythm, but their influence …

Review Of Coherence In New Music: Experience, Aesthetics, Analysis, By Mark Hutchinson. (New York, Ny: Routledge, 2016)., Orit Hilewicz

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

A review of Mark Hutchinson's book from 2016, Coherence in New Music: Experience, Aesthetics, Analysis.

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

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

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 …

Intriguing Interpretation Of Dyads In Common-Practice Tonal Music, Yosef Goldenberg

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

The study offers a systematic exploration of situations in which dyads in common-practice tonal music change their meaning, when repeated or as pivots. The most common such situation is thirds that serve as either the upper or the lower pair of consonant triad members, most often with the tonic as one of the options. Sometimes, however, an implied harmony turns out to be dissonant. Occasionally, dyads other than thirds are also subject to reinterpretation. In exceptional circumstances, dyads do not imply complete harmonies.

Using Distributed Techology To Make Music In The Time Of The Attention Economy, Tate Carson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Sounds Aware is a mobile web app that allows users to record soundwalks and share them so that other people can experience them. The creator of the soundwalk records their perceptions of the restorativeness of a specific place on the walk, these answers are then sonified for whoever experiences the walk later to hear. Sounds Aware aims to be a social app that is restorative to our attention. It does this by encouraging experience of nature and by using decentralized technology that exists outside of the attention economy.

The attention economy is discussed as a force that exists within much …

Sacred Music In Colonial Era Hispaniola: The Evangelization Of The Taino People, Tito J. Gutierrez

Student Theses

During the 15th-18th centuries, the major European religious orders; the Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, and Jeronymites, journeyed to the newly colonized American territories in an attempt to convert the multitudes of natives peoples living there. Along with prayer books, crucifixes, and religious images, these missionaries brought sacred European music to American shores in an attempt to attract the native people to the Catholic faith.The use of music as a tool for conversion of native people in places such as Mexico, South America, California, and the South West United States, have been well researched and documented. However, the research of the spiritual …

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 …

Using Big Data To Facilitate A Lyrical Analysis Of Poetry And Rap, Remington Yve Giller

English Undergraduate Distinction Projects

Poetry and rap are dissected using text mining techniques in order to determine overall trends in the words used by both. With this data, the way in which ideas and concepts are expressed can be compared and contrasted as a way of showing the legitimacy of rap as a form of literary expression. Other topics within the paper are: a background of the history of rap and the digital humanities, and an example of a close reading featuring a medieval poem and a rap by Eminem. This demonstrates how even in a traditional way of handling texts, both poetry and …

Signal To Noise: Harmonic Temperaments And Patterns Of Interference, Dylan A. Marcheschi

Theses and Dissertations

An audio/visual exploration of historical tuning systems. Most contemporary Western audiences will seldom if ever encounter harmony outside of post-Renaissance tuning conventions. This presentation highlights some of those pre-orthodox harmonic relationships which existed throughout most of history. The corresponding paper documents correlates in recent advances of acoustic ecology.

The Arranging Techniques Of Leon “Smooth” Edwards And Their Application To Calypso-Styled Classical Music Arrangements For Steel Orchestra, Michelle A. Rudder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The steelpan was invented in the 1930s in Trinidad and Tobago. It has evolved over the past eighty years. Although steelbands are now found across the globe and at all levels of music education, academic research regarding the music of the steelpan and its composers and arrangers is scarce. This paper examines six works for steelband by Leon “Smooth” Edwards, a prominent arranger of indigenous steelband music for the Panorama competition in Trinidad and Tobago. Music scores for four of the works have been notated for the first time. The paper documents Edwards’ variation development techniques, voicing, and orchestration. The …

El Bell I El Sublim De La Mà De Benet Casablancas, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Fa molts d’anys, a l’institut de secundària, vaig tenir un professor d’història de l’art que era un autèntic excèntric. Ens obligava a parlar en castellà (res estrany, aquí); i s’expressava ell també en un castellà rudimentari, après amb unes monges de Ses Salines, a Mallorca. Havia ideat també un peculiaríssim sistema de puntuació d’exàmens que als seus ulls era axiomàtic i inqüestionable. El deu —la qualificació més alta— era per a Déu, segons deia ell; el nou, per a Franco, a qui admirava incondicionalment; el vuit, inexplicablement, per a ell mateix; i del set per avall, per als alumnes.

Günther Anders’S Epitaph For Aikichi Kuboyama, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Günther Anders’s poem Du kleiner Fischerman is read here as a text contribution to the irruption that is violence and its enduring (omnipresent) aftermath. The essay includes a discussion of transmedial expression, including dramatization, or television and social media, text and subtext, as well as the inspiration of Anders’s poem as a work of art continuing in our times: the ongoing exclusion(s) of certain names and certain thinkers as of certain musical modes, including electronic musical works, as of voices and of collective memory, or oblivion. Reading Raymond Williams along with Anders and Adorno on television updated in today’s era …

Symphony Of Nature: "Fall", Davis Cooper

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This honors project is for an analysis paper based on one movement of an original music composition by the author in the realm of environmental sound art. The movement, entitled “Fall” from the Symphony of Nature, consists of hundreds of individual audio recordings of specific animals (such as an American Crow, Carolina Ground Cricket, and Gray Catbird), groups of animals (such as a choir of Ground Crickets, a murder of crows, and so forth), or geophonic sounds (such as a light rain on dry leaves, a several-miles-distant thunderstorm, or mid-to-high range audio spectrum wind). The analysis paper includes the rationale …

Fostering Music Performers In The 21st Century: A Contemporary Professional Perspective Toward A New Curricular Agenda For Graduate Study In Music, Andre Januario

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

What if the core curriculum for graduate students in music performance were designed to prepare students to succeed in the world of the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

This dissertation offers a hypothetical answer: a structured and systematic academic curricular framework for music graduate students of performance of concert music (especially those in terminal degrees, such as doctoral students), along with music instructors, professional music performers, school administrators, and college professors, seeking to prepare such students for achieving and maintaining a music career more in keeping with the current work environment, especially those skills demanded by the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the …

Arvo Pärt: Sounding The Sacred [Toc], Peter Bouteneff, Jeffers Engelhardt, Robert Saler

Religion

Scholarly writing on the music of Arvo Pärt is situated primarily in the fields of musicology (analyzing Pärt’s signature “tintinnabuli” method), cultural and media studies (Pärt’s audience is uncannily broad within and beyond the contemporary classical world) and, more recently, in terms of theology/spirituality (Pärt is primarily a composer of sacred music). For the most part, this work is centered around the representational dimensions of Pärt’s music (including the trope of silence), writing and listening past the fact that its storied effects and affects are carried first and foremost as vibrations through air, impressing themselves on the human body. In …

Exploring The Gospel Fusion Arrangements Of The Recording Collective, Tyler Williams

Composition/Recording Projects

Exploring the Gospel Fusion Arrangements of The Recording Collective

Schubert’S Compositional Development Reflected In Winterreise: Annotated Bibliography, Reid Wolch

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Modes Of Intervention In Alvin Lucier’S I Am Sitting In A Room, Daniel Fox

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Alvin Lucier’s I am sitting in a room (1969) is an icon of experimental music and sound art. The sizable literature addressing the aesthetic and philosophical implications of this piece rarely discusses the performance practice beyond what is indicated in the score itself. This is problematic for two reasons: 1) The meaning that is derived from the piece often hinges not just on what sounds are obtained, but on how they are obtained. 2) Over the past 50 years, changes in the performance practice have altered what constitutes the work: magnetic tape was used until 2000 when it was replaced …

Emmylou Harris’S Bold And Broken Pieces Of Sky, Jennifer Morrow

Backstage Pass

This article critically examines the 1975 album, "Pieces of Sky," from country artist Emmylou Harris, whose unique blend of strength and vulnerability shine through in an imperfect yet promising work of art. The piece explores how Pieces of Sky succeeded in reaching a mainstream audience through innovative musical stylings and emotionally authentic lyricism.

“The Personal Is Political”: The Power Of Female Voices In 1970s Pop Music And Beyond, Jennifer Morrow

Backstage Pass

This essay examines how, in the male-dominated structures of the popular music industry, narratives about women have been marginalized, ignored, and undervalued. The female singer-songwriter, my research suggests, is, by definition, a contradiction and subversion of traditional gender roles, and this position has been claimed by female musicians as a form of rebellion and resistance. In the scope of my research, I focus on how female pop artists have embraced songwriting as a medium for authentic self-expression, and how these narratives have been embraced as autoethnographies that represent the collective experiences and frustrations of women in a patriarchal social landscape. …

Negative Harmony: The Shadow Of Harmonic Polarity On Contemporary Composition Techniques, Debora Haller

Composition/Recording Projects

If we are to blame any composer for the puzzling question ‘What is Negative Harmony?’ that caused a worldwide itch on the creative minds of many young composers in this century, it would be Jacob Collier, who introduced the world with prodigious, colorful harmonies upon releasing his first album “In My Room” in 2016. Provided with brief answers during interviews with June Lee that explained the concept of tones and chords being mirrored on an axis center in the opposite direction, the surface of Negative Harmony was exposed but led to even more confusion. Prompted by even more questions, the …

Murder Music: Horror Film Soundtracks Throughout History, Vincent G. Aragon

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Horror films often rely heavily on their music to create a tense and frightening experience for their audience, and it is the composer's job to write a score that satisfies that requirement. Throughout film history, the methods composers utilize to achieve that goal differ across time due to various factors including available technology, allotted budget, and the norms and expectations of films at the time. This capstone paper explores the different approaches composers employed in writing horror soundtracks from the early 20th century to the modern-day, noting any significant shifts and common themes found in the music of popular horror …

Zhao Xiaosheng And His Original Piano Solo Works, Ke Xue

Student Works (2020-2029)

As an influential composer in contemporary Chinese piano development, Zhao Xiaosheng has made outstanding contributions through his piano compositions, including original piano solos, transcriptions, etudes, concertos, and impromptus. His six original piano solos illustrate the development of his compositional career, which coincided with the development of Chinese new music from the period of the Cultural Revolution to the Reform and Opening-up. Therefore, in the context of Chinese new music, this research attempts to study Zhao Xiaosheng’s contributions by looking into his six original piano solo works, namely Textile Worker (纺织工人) (1974), Fisherman’s Song (渔歌) (1975), Ballade in D♭ Major (D♭大调叙事曲) …

Two Cello Works Of Pēteris Vasks: Structure, Symbolism, And Identity, Caroline Bean Stute

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation presents analyses of two compositions for cello by Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks: Grāmata Čellam (1978), for solo cello, and Concerto No. 2, “Klātbūtne” (“Presence,” 2011–2012), for cello and string orchestra. It acquaints readers with defining elements of Vasks’s musical language and relates his music to the concurrent stylistic classifications of Baltic Minimalism and Neoromanticism. The paper also discusses the significance of Vasks’s national identity in his creative process and provides historical context on Latvia.

Engaging The Eclectic Bulgarian Soul In Viola Concerto No. 1 By Marin Goleminov (1908-2000): A Faceted Analysis With New Pedagogical Studies, Lubitza Braikova

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The main purpose of this monograph is to provide a faceted study of Marin Goleminov’s Concerto for Viola No.1, a work of art complexly revealing its creator’s constructive study of style – including national style. It is hoped that this will, among other things, assist in deepening relevant performances and researches.

This document examines the M. Goleminov Concerto for Viola and Orchestra no.1, 1950 (Концерт за Bиола и Oркестър Hомер 1 Марин Големинов, р.1908–п.2000). It would bring essential features of it to the attention of a broader audience, perhaps beginning with inquisitive violists. If, with the necessary selectivity, …

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 …

“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 …

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.

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 …

Music In Japanese Prisoner Of War Camps, Zerai Thornton

Student Scholar Showcase

During World War II, both the Axis and Allied powers held enemy soldiers and civilians in prisoner of war (POW) camps with little recreational activities. Although some Japanese POW camps did not allow their prisoners to engage in recreational activities, inmates transformed songs into acceptable performance practices. With the intent of improving music pedagogy, the purpose of this research was to investigate music in Japanese POW camps. The particular problems of this study were to (1) examine traditional practices in Japanese POW camps; (2) determine how music developed a Japanese POW camp; and (3) create a POW camp song, entitled …