Musicology Commons^™

“When White Men And Indians United Shall Praise:” Indigenous Inclusion In The Hartford Music Company, Savannah N. Skaggs

ATU Research Symposium

The Hartford Music Company and Institute of Hartford, Arkansas has attracted increasing academic interest, particularly within the last twenty years. This southern gospel music publishing company and singing school based in southern Sebastian County published a collection of shape note hymnals which boasted some of the genre’s most prolific literature. Though a growing number of Arkansans are learning that these gospel staples came from their own hill country, many do not realize that several of these songs were premiered by or recorded by Indigenous people. While this may not initially seem particularly impactful, this genre developed its own distinct identity …

Music As A Tool For Ecstatic Space Design, Pranav Amin

Masters Theses

Music and architecture share a sacred bond across cultures. Their histories intertwine and together, they shape ritualistic, religious, and popular practices. As one of the few remaining avenues of universal transcendental experiences that have been so integral to humans, music’s ability to create ecstatic spaces is ever more necessary for the modern human. This thesis uses spatial, artificial intelligence, visual, and aural tools—while engaging in a dialogue between rationalist architecture and shamanic conceptions of spaces—to create an ecstatic space that seeks to reimagine the union of music and architecture. It reveals new ways in which this union can be experienced …

Mozart And Genius: Music And Philosophy, Aidan Witvoet

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

This output poster serves as an overview to my efforts and responsibilities throughout the duration of the internship. Here I also showcase a brief sample of the concepts and areas of exploration within which I have been immersed, both in regards to the the content of the book I am helping to prepare for publishing as well as accompanying readings and discussions.

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 …

The Eye And The Ear: A Study Of The Connections Between Music And The Visual Arts In The Italian Baroque, Mckay Perry

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

The seventeenth centaury is one of the most widely studied periods in the arts. Music, drama, architecture, and the visual arts flourished around Europe. In Italy especially, the seventeenth century was a time of innovation and flourishing of the arts, thanks to patronage of the papacy in Rome, powerful families funding the arts in cities such as Florence, and increased economic activity in cities such as Venice. Music and the visual arts in particular flourished during this period: from seventeenth century Italy emerged the genre of opera, the sculptures of Bernini, and countless other timeless works of art. Though scholarship …

Expanding Experimentalism: Art And Popular Music At The Kitchen In New York City, 1971-1985, Sarah A. Cooper

Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores artists' engagement with popular music at the interdisciplinary alternative space, the Kitchen, from 1971 to 1985. It seeks a critical language to challenge institutional frameworks to account for the creative output of artists' bands and the relationship between parallel and hybrid popular music and avant-garde performance practices.

1981: One Or Several Aesthetics?, Jacob Norris

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Gilles Deleuze’s monograph on Francis Bacon, The Logic of Sensation (1981), proposes a theory of aesthetic experience that prioritizes the material depths of sensation over stable, identifiable forms. Deleuze’s key references in The Logic of Sensation to playwright Antonin Artaud arouse the suspicion that Artaud’s schizophrenic experience of language, wherein words are reduced to phonetic ramblings, illuminates how Deleuze interprets this chaos of sensation in Bacon’s art. My work therefore calls back to The Logic of Sense (1969) and the first section of his book on Masochism (1967) to explore the waves of consistency between Deleuze’s understanding of language and …

Cellist, Catalyst, Collaborator: The Work Of Charlotte Moorman, Saisha Grayson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

When classically trained cellist Charlotte Moorman (1933-1991) moved to New York City in 1957, she swiftly positioned herself at the intersection of experimental music, performance, video, and the visual arts. She interpreted works by composers like John Cage, collaborated with artists such as Nam June Paik, and founded and organized the New York Avant Garde Festival from 1963 to 1980. This dissertation argues that Moorman’s career sheds new light on what it meant to be an artist in this post-medium-specific moment and proposes that Moorman’s deterritorialization of authorship exerts pressure on traditional art histories. The generative dynamics of her collaborations …

Women In Music: Letting A Long Story Be Long Contemplating Women’S Sonic, Musical, And Spiritual Experiences In Prehistory, Deborah J. Saidel

Theses and Dissertations

Situated within deep history, this study explores the auditory and spiritual lives of Paleolithic women. It considers their personal agency in mediating the spiritual power of sound and how doing so contributes to a multifaceted musicality. The theoretical framework involves a wide spectrum of topics, from ways of rethinking the writing of history and reckoning with time, to sound studies and the study of acoustics in ancient sites, to a critical examination through a feminist lens of normative disciplinary scholarship in anthropology and archaeology, religious studies, and musicology. I explore potential audio-visual-lithic relationships for their implications for deepening an understanding …

The Partimento Tradition In The Shadow Of Enlightenment Thought, Deborah Longenecker

The Research and Scholarship Symposium (2013-2019)

This presentation investigates the relationship between partimento pedagogy and Rameau’s music theories as influenced by Enlightenment thought. Current research on partimento has revealed its importance in Neapolitan music schools of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Along with counterpoint, partimento was a core subject in the study of composition in the Neapolitan schools; however, as pedagogy and theory began to be influenced by Enlightenment ideals such as the scientific method or a preference for clear systemization, the partimento tradition began to wane. In this presentation, I examine Rameau’s music theory as an example of Enlightenment thought in music, juxtaposing the central …

Look At Where You Listen: A Study Of Commercial Music And Mediation, Thomas Walton Moore

Senior Projects Spring 2017

A joint senior project submitted to the divisions of arts and social studies. This project aims to reconsider the 'album' as a format of music distribution that has effects on the consumption-of and relationship-with music as commodity. This project consists of writing and recorded-music-making. Please email tom (at) dpimusic (dot) com for a link.

Arnold Dolmetsch's "Green Harpsichord" And The Musical Arts And Crafts, Edmond Johnson

Edmond Johnson

Edwin Fischer And Bach Performance Practice Of The Weimar Republic, Bradley V. Brookshire

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Edwin Fischer (1886-1960) provided a synthesis of approaches to Bach pianism that resolved dialectical tensions of long standing between schools that opposed one another throughout the nineteenth century. I argue that Fischer’s synthesis––which permits exegetical interpretation while maintaining a preservationist stance toward the integrity of the text––resembles both Felix Mendelssohn’s bifurcated approach to Bach’s music and Moses Mendelssohn’s description of a similar duality within modern Judaism. Such resemblance may not be coincidental or superficial, given that Fischer married into the Mendelssohn family at the height of its cultural influence in Weimar-Era Berlin. Although pieces of the Mendelssohnian construct were in …

On The Hallelujah Efect: Priming Consumers, Recording Music, And The Spirit Of Tragedy, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

An overview of The Hallelujah Effect concentrating on priming or sonic branding, media, online porn as well as marketing and media programming, with a special excursus on the space of music --and radio in Adorno's Current of Music, and a detailed discussion on Nietzsche and music in antiquity as he explores this with reference ot Beethoven in The Birth of Tragedy.

Romantic Exoticism: The Music Of Elsewhere In The Nineteenth Century, Josiah Raiche

Senior Honors Theses

Western art music has drawn on many sources. One of these is non-western music, which can be integrated into European classical music tradition in the form of exoticism. This paper will highlight musical elements used by composers seeking to create exoticism, examine selected works, and note common elements of western music that have exotic roots. In the nineteenth century, there were three general trends in exoticism. The first, non-musical exoticism, utilizes conventional western music alongside extra-musical exotic elements. Romantic exoticism portrays distant lands using musical elements, drawing these from the audience’s perceptions of the music represented. Realistic exoticism attempts to …

Der Zauber Der Musik: E.T.A. Hoffmann Und Das Erleben Des Sublimen, Katelin M. Richter

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Die Werke von E.T.A. Hoffmann konzentrieren sich auf ein bestimmtes romantisches Konzept: auf die Sehnsucht nach dem Unendlichen und auf das Erlebnis dieses sublimen romantischen Reiches. Um Hoffmanns romantische Ästhetik besser zu begreifen, lohnt es sich seine Werke (Novellen, musikalische Schriften, Aufsätze und Kompositionen) heranzuziehen, um festzustellen, wie seine Figuren vor allem durch die Musik das romantische Reich erleben und wie und aus welcher Perspektive der Zuschauer auf dieses Reich reagieren kann. Diese Arbeit wird untersuchen, wie sich Hoffmanns romantische Ästhetik in den Erzählungen, den theoretischen Schriften und in der Oper Undine offenbart, wie seine Charaktere durch die Musik danach …

The Early Drama, Art, And Music Project: Publications 1977-2002, Timothy Christiansen, Clifford Davidson

Early Drama, Art, and Music

A bibliography of publications of the Early Drama, Art, and Music project at Western Michigan University, originally compiled by Timothy Christiansen and updated in 2002 by Clifford Davidson. This digital reprint was created in 2014 for ScholarWorks at WMU, with an addendum, an update, and a few corrections to the formatting of the 2002 publication.

Iconography: A Checklist Of Some Useful Sources For Scholars And Students Of Medieval Art And Drama, Clifford Davidson

Early Drama, Art, and Music

A classified bibliography of scholarship on medieval drama, art, and music compiled by Clifford Davidson in 2002. This reprint was created in 2014 for ScholarWorks at WMU, with some corrections to the content and the formatting of the 2002 version.

Review Of La Imagen De Nuestros Músicos: Del Siglo De Oro A Edad De Plata, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

La imagen de nuestros músicos: Del Siglo de Oro a la Edad de Plata is a hefty compilation of 681 portraits of Spanish composers from the Renaissance to the present. The illustrations are organized in four large chapters: "Del siglo de oro a la ilustración", covers the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries; "El primer romanticismo" and "El segundo romanticismo", deal with the first and second half of the 19th century; the final section, "Los músicos de nuestro siglo" focuses on the 20th century. If my numbers are correct, the earliest composer included in the study is the polyphonist Cristóbal de …

The "Llibre De Franqueses I Privilegis Del Regne De Mallorca": A Source Of Music Iconography, Antoni Pizà, Ramon Rosselló

Publications and Research

The Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca of Palma de Mallorca, Spain, holds numerous collections of manuscripts that have been assembled at random regardless of their unity in subject or time period. The codices kept at the Arxiu comprise many different types of documents whose provenance and compilation history is yet to be determined. One of the most valuable among these codices is the Llibre de franqueses i privilegis del Regne de Mallorca (Codex 1), also known as Códice de los Reyes.

Musical Inspiration As Seen Through The Artist's Eyes, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

The role of inspiration in the creation of a musical work has been a matter for conjecture and research by musicians and psychologists. But the realm of inspiration belongs to the creators themselves, who supply mythology, religion, and science to account for the source of an artwork. Throughout history, painters, too, have given their version of musical inspiration and the process of the creation of the work of art. What is musical inspiration? Where does it come from? What are its effects? The following essay explores some painters' responses by surveying some representative works of art.