Musicology Commons^™

The Orpheus Figure: The Voice In Writing, Music And Media, Jason R. D'Aoust

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study traces a historical trajectory of the voice as it encounters the Orpheus figure in writing, music, and other media. Following a critical discussion of Auerbach’s literary figuration, the author questions certain aspects of phonocentrism in relation to opera and texts using the voice for authoritative or rhetorical purposes. Grounded in the prefiguration of opera’s earlier displacement of the singing voice, the understanding of mass media and digital media then developed is critical of theories of immersion in media. The analyses of the series of works and figures (Orpheus, Ossian, and Tristan) in this study lead the author to …

The Halifax Pop Explosion: Music Scenes, Sloan, And The Case For A Halifax Sound, Danielle Hamel

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In the early 1990s, the Halifax music scene was catapulted into the limelight as Canada's answer to the Seattle grunge scene. Dubbed the Halifax Pop Explosion, the surge of bands that became popular during this time came of age in an already well-established music scene with nurturing local infrastructure. At the forefront of the city's mainstream success, the band Sloan and their peers had developed a particular style of songwriting and performance that led the media and local audiences to believe that a particular 'Halifax Sound' had emerged, a notion that still reverberates in the local music scene. Using the …

Exodus Concerto For Guitar And Chamber Orchestra, Spencer Joel Kappelman

Masters Theses

Exodus is a four-movement composition for solo guitar accompanied by a chamber orchestra. This piece is composed in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree Master of Music with a concentration in Music Composition from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Exodus was composed during the 2010-2012 academic years.
This paper provides a narrative analysis of Exodus in terms of its musical content, and relationships to other composers of the last century. Similarities to these composers refer to form, orchestration, melody, harmony, rhythm, and meter.

Disruptive Voices In The American Musical Discourse: Comic Song Performance In The American Parlor, 1865-1917, Kevin Steven O'Brien

Masters Theses

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the American song sheet industry vastly increased in size. This mass mediated form reached a broad number of consumers, who performed this music in their homes, identified with it, and shaped the new discourse on their identity as they did so. Simultaneously, Americans were re-shaping their cultural conceptions of music, in a process Lawrence Levine chronicled as the emergence of “highbrow” and “lowbrow” distinctions. Performing music in the culturally sacralized space of the parlor was meant to be an edifying experience and a display of genteel, “highbrow” identities. Performing comic songs (comic …

Brundibár: Confronting The Misrepresentation Of Resistance In Theresienstadt, Anna Catherine Greer

Masters Theses

Brundibár, a children’s opera written by Czech composer Hans Krása (1899-1944), routinely appears in Holocaust musical scholarship as a depiction of “thriving” Jewish cultural activity during the Holocaust. First performed clandestinely in a Prague orphanage in 1942, the work was ultimately co-opted by Nazi authorities in Theresienstadt. Under the jurisdiction of the Freizeitgestaltung (Leisure Time Activities), the opera came under control of the camp administration and became part of several propaganda schemes, including the 1944 Nazi propaganda film, Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt (The Führer Gives a City to the Jews). In preparation for the International Red …

Performing Jonathan Newman's "Symphony No. 1: My Hands Are A City", Joseph Corey Francis

Dissertations

The purpose of this document is to provide analysis for interpretation of and rehearsal suggestions for Jonathan Newman’s Symphony No. 1: My Hands Are a City (2009). This document serves as the first significant scholarly work on the entire composition and is intended to be a resource for musicians seeking to gain information about the work. Included in the document is a biography of Jonathan Newman, as well as history concerning the commissioning of Symphony No. 1, a formal analysis of the work, and insight to conducting concerns. Information was gathered through formal interviews with Jonathan Newman, Jeff Gershman (Associate …

A New Kind Of National: Modified String Quartet Practices In Post-Soviet Eurasia, Adam Taylor Lenz

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the practices of string quartet modification implemented by three post-Soviet Eurasian composers: Franghiz Ali-Zadeh (Azerbaijan), Vache Sharafyan (Armenia), and Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky (Uzbekistan). After an introduction to the geography of the region and the biographies of the composers, their works containing modified string quartet configurations are examined within three distinct modification practices. These practices consist of the addition of outside instruments, the addition of electronic components, and the alteration of performance practice. The evaluation of these techniques is carried out through musical analysis and examination of cultural context. After each work has been examined, the body of works …

Mary In Three Movements, John E. Accola, Jr

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

Mary in Three Movements is an imagined account of how Mary might have felt and observed her experiences through the three most important events of both Christian and human existence, the conception, the birth, and finally the death of her son. I have attempted to remain true to the biblical Marian references which primarily speak to Mary as a young woman in a first century patriarchal Roman Jewish society. Therefore, I have taken these three events and put them to verse for mezzo-soprano with piano accompaniment. The accompanying paper outlines both the historical and musical context in which this project …

From Unsung To High-Strung: The Development Of The Viola Through The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, As It Is Used To Introduce Fugues, Anthony Vincent Dell'osso

Music

This paper looks at the development of the viola through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and considers why it has been used to introduce fugues more and more often. The viola has historically been an unimportant filler instrument, but beginning in the nineteenth century, and continuing to the present day, it has been given an increasingly important role in contrapuntal orchestral and chamber music. This study considers twelve pieces in which a fugue is launched by the viola.

The Effects Of Totalitarian Regimes And The Individual On Russian And Soviet Music, Tyler Christian Mills

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This paper addresses the development of Russian and Soviet music from the 1860’s through Stalin’s terror in the late 1930’s. It focuses on the constraints placed on the composers by the totalitarian regime and how these individual composers were able to not only survive, but leave a greater impact on the development and style of music than the state that was constraining them. The paper focuses on how individual composers were able to use their innovation and talent to create unique material that captivated audiences both at home and abroad.

Django's Caravan: The Journey Of The Gypsy King, Patrick Ray Monson

Music

The life and musical contribution of Django Reinhardt including musical and visual examples.

Adapting J.S. Bach's Solo Violin Sonatas And Partitas For The Marimba: Broken Chord And Arpeggio Performance Practices, Jason Eugene Mathena

Dissertations

This purpose of this study is to provide the keyboard percussionist with information and examples for breaking chords and properly executing arpeggio passages in J. S. Bach’s solo violin Sonatas and Partitas. Primary sources included Baroque treatises on performance practice and recent scholarship of the past one hundred years. Various editions of the Sonatas and Partitas were surveyed for this document but, in the end, only Bach’s autograph manuscript and Gunther Hausswald’s critical edition were used for the musical examples as well as the marimba transcriptions included in appendices.

Topics covered are appropriate places to break chords and the various …

Three Solitudes And A Dj: A Mashed-Up Study Of Counterpoint In A Digital Realm, Anthony B. Cushing

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation is primarily concerned with developing an understanding of how the use of pre-recorded digital audio shapes and augments conventional notions of counterpoint. It outlines a theoretical framework for analyzing the contrapuntal elements in electronically and digitally composed musics, specifically music mashups, and Glenn Gould’s Solitude Trilogy ‘contrapuntal radio’ works. Conventional studies of counterpoint encompass sixteenth- through early twentieth-century modernist and neo- classical materials but stop there. Composition by magnetic tape and computer software using pre-existing recorded audio offers the potential for a new study of music that displays clear contrapuntal elements but lacks the analytical models to outline …

“The Future Is Medieval”: Orality And Musical Borrowing In The Middle Ages And Online Remix Culture, Claire E. Mcleish

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis re-situates sampling and the mashup in a broader tradition of musical borrowing and oral practice. Musical creators in the West borrowed throughout history; the variety and quantity of this borrowing remains dependent on the proprietary status of music. Copyright was first applied to music to protect printed scores, and is thus ill equipped to accommodate works that borrow recorded elements. Taking Ong’s concept of “secondary orality” as applied to hip hop by Tricia Rose, this thesis connects techniques of musical borrowing in the Middle Ages with those in the late-20^th and 21^st centuries through several close …

Across The Red Steppe: Exploring Mongolian Music In China And Exporting It From Within, Thalea C. Davis

Masters Theses

Mongolian music culture as it exists in China is a unique entity unto itself as it features a base of traditional Mongolian practice and also includes aspects of Chinese music and culture. As the world becomes more interconnected and as China continues to display a markedly Han society to the world at large, Mongolian musicians and Mongolian-music enthusiasts in China maintain and evolve their musical culture in a nebulous middle-ground between Mongolian and Han-Chinese culture. How Mongolian music culture in China came to be and its ultimate function in global society are the key questions being investigated in this thesis. …

The Performance And Perception Of Social Identities In Country-Rap Music, Rachel Grandstrand

Honors Papers

Within the United States, few genres incite as vehement of a reaction as Country and Hip-Hop music, and both of these genres have faced a history of marginalization by the mainstream media corporations and by the broader population of the US. The reason for this marginalization often stems from the racial and class associations of the communities that produce this music, and the relationship between these genres and the broader population is well documented. What remains under-discussed is the relationship between these two communities. This study explores this relationship through an analysis of Country-Rap music, a sub-genre of Country music …

Patterns In The Sacred Music Culture Of The American South And West (1700-1820), Nikos A. Pappas

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This narrative chronicles the dissemination of sacred music from the eastern seaboard to the West and South spanning a time frame from the colonial era to the latter part of the Early Nationalist Period (1700-1820). Musical culture in its migration away from the eastern seaboard also parallels the greater western and southern expansion of the United States from its initial configuration of localized regional subgroups to the beginnings of a larger national identity. From this conceptual base, sacred music becomes a vehicle for understanding not only religious and musical changes over time, but also the broader maturity of a nation. …

Ben Wendel : The Manipulation Of Sound And 'Shapes' In The Construction Of An Improvised Solo, Luke Christopher Minness

Theses : Honours

The aim of this dissertation is to define and analyse several idiosyncratic devices utilised by tenor saxophonist Ben Wendel in order to manipulate elements of sound, rhythm and melody in the construction of an improvised solo. Through transcription and analysis of selected improvisations performed both live and in the recording studio. This paper will also outline and observe Wendel’s use of several articulation techniques as well as examining key methods of manipulating melodic and rhythmic cells unique to Wendel’s improvisational style. Definitions of each device and their application will be taken from transcription analysis of solos taken over "What …

The Synthesizer: Modernist And Technological Transformations In Film Sound And Contemporary Music, Dusin J. Green

CMC Senior Theses

The invention of the synthesizer meant the possibility of achieving virtually any sound in one mechanism, a superbly convenient device for musical creativity. Perhaps the perfect space for this approval of sound creativity was in the modern electronic film score. The synthesizer also flourished in popular music immediately following its emergence, but a common form began to solidify itself among synthesizer music. Shortly after, improvements in electronic instrument technology led to the democratization of electronic music and equipment, ultimately leading to electronic music as the new mainstream.

The Design Of P200: Mensural Quantity And Proportion In The Early Version Of The Art Of Fugue, Joel Thomas Runyan

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The intended structure of Bach's ostensibly unfinished Die Kunst der Fuge has been debated since the work's publication in 1751. This study examines the proportional design of an early version of the work, subsisting in the autograph manuscript (P200) of the early 1740s. As the only complete source extant, P200 and its revisions provide substantial insight into Bach's intentions for the later version of the Art of Fugue.

Unlocking The Paradox Of Christian Metal Music, Eric S. Strother

Theses and Dissertations--Music

In 1984, Stryper released its first album The Yellow and Black Attack and introduced audiences to a different kind of heavy metal. Instead of lyrics about sex, alcohol, and Satan, Stryper sang about Jesus, salvation, and God. While there were a number of fans ready for this change more were not. Members of the Church as well as members of the metal subculture were in agreement that Christianity and heavy metal were incompatible. Despite these objections, however, more bands emerged, and Christian metal became a significant genre within the Christian music industry. These bands presented Christian-oriented lyrics within the full …

China’S Musical Revolution: From Beijing Opera To Yangbanxi, Yawen Ludden

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This study seeks to investigate the modern derivative of Beijing opera, known as yangbanxi, through macro and micro approaches. The first part of the thesis surveys the development of Beijing opera under the historical context and in its social, political, and cultural perspectives. The second part, taking a microscopic perspective, undertakes an in-depth analysis of the compositions that were solely created by composer Yu Huiyong. First, it assays the application of Yu’s theory to his compositions of various Beijing opera arias. Second, it analyzes Yu’s instrumental music in compositional dimensions such as material, structure, and techniques, considering the larger implications …