Musicology Commons^™

Revolutionary Songs From Myanmar: Reconsidering Scholarly Perspectives On Protest Music, Heather Maclachlan

Music Faculty Publications

Since the February 1, 2021 military coup in Myanmar, Burmese musicians have been creating and circulating anti- coup songs. This article describes a representative sample of these songs, explaining how the lyrics reference important tropes in Burmese life and history. Further, the article argues that these anti-coup songs, while they can be understood as protest music, do not fit precisely into categories previously delineated for protest songs. Nor do these songs provide a neat answer to the question that scholars so often pose of protest music, to wit: do these songs work to persuade listeners to take an anti-authoritarian position? …

2nd Funk Symposium: Selected Proceedings, 2021, Sharon Davis Gratto

Content Presented at the First and Second Dayton Funk Symposia

This is a printed proceedings of symposium presentations by authors who elected to submit them. They are available free for download, but printed volumes are available for $6 plus tax and shipping.

There’S A Whole Lotta Rhythm Goin’ Round: How Funk Shaped U.S. Copyright, Katherine Leo

Content Presented at the First and Second Dayton Funk Symposia

Rooted in stylized grooves and lineages of musical borrowing, funk can often seem to exist at the periphery of copyright protection. Its influence on Hip-Hop and R&B, particularly through collage techniques involving digital samples, contributed to a rise in the early twenty-first century of infringement disputes. How have these cases shaped copyright protection of music? After a gloss of federal copyright law, this presentation surveys landmark lawsuits involving funk songs and their impact on later cases. Through its interdisciplinary investigation, this presentation reveals how funk cases proved that musical style offers critical context to legal evaluations of musical similarity and …

Pour Some Water On Me: Prince And The Ohio Players, De Angela Duff

Content Presented at the First and Second Dayton Funk Symposia

In Prince’s incomplete and posthumous memoir, The Beautiful Ones, The Ohio Players is referenced four times. However, Prince’s love of The Ohio Players was evident, decades before the release of this book. Prince has covered Ohio Players’ classics, such as “Skin Tight,” “I Want To Be Free,” “Love Rollercoaster,” and “Heaven Must Be Like This,” in numerous rehearsals, shows, and after shows over the years. However, The Ohio Players are rarely discussed by music critics as one of Prince’s influences. This presentation will attempt to deconstruct why, while also exploring Prince’s funk roots and influences.

Funk Pedagogy: An Ethnographic, Historical, And Practical Study Of Funk Music In Dayton, Ohio, Caleb Vanden Eynden

Content Presented at the First and Second Dayton Funk Symposia

This presentation will discuss an honors thesis research project completed as an undergraduate music student at the University of Dayton. Titled “Traditional Funk: An Ethnographic, Historical, and Practical Study of Funk Music in Dayton, Ohio,” the thesis explores traditional funk style, Dayton’s musical history, and how funk music can be incorporated into music programs and curricula across Dayton area schools. During his student teaching semester, Vanden Eynden had an opportunity to teach a unit on Dayton funk to students at Springboro High School. This presentation will explore some of the findings from this project and share ideas for its future …

Land Of Funk Art, Morris Howard

Content Presented at the First and Second Dayton Funk Symposia

The Funk Mural on Land of Funk Way in Dayton was completed in 2018. There are, however, a few other artistic tributes to some of our Dayton Funk heroes, including the metal statue tribute to Roger Troutman and a mural to the Dayton Funk bands located on Germantown Street. Although these are just a few examples here in Dayton, there are also many images of "funk art" all over the world.

"My Name Is Prince, And I Am Funky!" Prince’S Funk And How He Helped Bring It To A New (Power) Generation, Andrea Foy

Content Presented at the First and Second Dayton Funk Symposia

Throughout his career, Prince Rogers Nelson crossed many genres, pop, rock, punk, R&B, jazz, soul, and funk. He created funky jams from Erotic City to Housequake to Musicology. This presentation addresses an understudied and essential fact that Prince Rogers Nelson is funky. This presentation will outline his contribution to the funk genre through a study of his collaboration with funk legends, including The Time, George Clinton, Sly & The Family Stone, Larry Graham and Maceo Parker, Chaka Khan, Mavis Staples, and Rick James.

Funk And The Defunct Music Curriculum, Ed Sarath

Content Presented at the First and Second Dayton Funk Symposia

What, if any, is the place of funk in a 21st century music curriculum in America? This talk responds to this question by situating funk with the context of what Jeff Pressing, in a seminal essay, calls “Black Atlantic Rhythm” (BAR). Pressing’s heading refers to the multitudinous and massively prominent body of rhythmic languages and practices that originated in Africa and took hold, and further evolved, through its various musical diasporas. I view Funk and Black Atlantic Rhythm as part of what I call “21st century” common practice rhythmic literacy, which I argue to exceed in importance Eurocanonic common practice …

Keynote Address — Funk And Afro Futurism: The Past, Present, And Future Of The Funk, Frederick Vincent

Content Presented at the First and Second Dayton Funk Symposia

Dr. Frederick “Rickey” Vincent is author of the award-winning Funk: The Music, the People and the Rhythm of The One (1996), the first definitive treatment of funk music and culture. His address addresses:

• Liberation in the Moment: Other Worlds and Black Liberation (from Soul Train to “Wakanda Forever”)
• The Rhythm Revolution: Liberation, Motion, and Black Identity (JB and The One)
• Transcendence: The Higher Plane of the Funk Groove (Sly and the body/mind/spirit unification)
• The Collective: Tribalism in a Post-Industrial World (Funk blends genres, blends cultures as long as it’s “On the One”)
• The Epic: P-Funk Earth Tour and Beyond (The …

Program: 2021 Dayton Funk Symposium And Line Dance Party, University Of Dayton

Content Presented at the First and Second Dayton Funk Symposia

Program includes a welcome from Sharon Davis Gratto, Graul Chair in Arts and Languages; a schedule of presentations; and biographies of presenters, performers, and panelists.

From Prop To Partner: The Evolution Of Female Roles In American Opera, Mariah J. Berryman

Honors Theses

For many years, women in opera have been in service to their plots. They have always been present but have either been relegated to passive roles in their own stories or actively considered societal outcasts. They were dramatically stereotyped as either airheads or witches, mothers or daughters, love interests or foes to be conquered. And, along with the character stereotypes came typically associated vocal stereotypes. Lighter and higher voices were assigned to roles that portrayed virtue, innocence, and other general characteristics of the “feminine ideal.” Conversely, lower voices were assigned to sinful, outcast, “fallen women.” These vocal stereotypes are especially …

Making Culture-Centered Music Therapists: Resources For Working With Latinx Young Adults, Michaela A. Miller

Honors Theses

This thesis investigates the lack of music therapy literature related to this topic and identifies considerations music therapists should take when working with Latinx communities. I illustrate how social justice and culture-centeredness can be integrated into music therapy practice with the identified communities. I use interviews collected from Latinx university students to learn about the diverse musical preferences and cultures that different members of Latinx communities hold. I describe necessary changes in the American Music Therapy Association’s Competencies for Music Therapists to equip music therapy students to better work with diverse populations. Finally, I provide examples of music experiences and …

Ancient Mesopotamian Music, The Politics Of Reconstruction, And Extreme Early Music, Samuel N. Dorf

Books and Book Chapters by University of Dayton Faculty

I write this piece primarily as a musicologist and amateur early music practitioner (viola da gamba player) who tries to understand the ways twentieth- and twenty-first century musicians and scholars have imagined and performed ancient music and dance. This essay emerged from my book project Performing Antiquity: Ancient Greek Music and Dance from Paris to Delphi, 1890-1935 and brings my training as a historical musicologist and dance historian to bear on issues typically of concern to archaeologists, classicists, and linguists.

While working on that book, I kept running across a number of individuals working now who are deeply engaged in …

Developing A Model For Clinical Song Analysis, Or Why Music Therapists Still Need Music Theory And Musicology, Lesley Wray

Honors Theses

In the music therapy literature, there is a distinct lack of research on clinical song analysis. Analyzing songs can be beneficial for music therapists when choosing songs to use in a session, when discussing songs with a client, and when arranging songs to play with or for clients. In this thesis, I start to bridge the fields of music therapy, music theory, and musicology to create a language of analysis upon which music therapists can draw for clinical song analysis. I focus first on foundational concepts such as timbre, style, and form, which I explain through the analysis of four …

Cover Songs: Ambiguity, Multivalence, Polysemy, Kurt Mosser

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The notion of a “cover song” is central to an understanding of contemporary popular music, and has certainly received its share of attention in writing about contemporary music, from the mainstream press to slightly more technical ethnomusicological studies such as “Cross-Cultural ‘Countries’: Covers, Conjuncture, and the Whiff of Nashville in Música Sertaneja (Brazilian Commercial Country Music)” (Dent, 2005). In many major U.S. cities, musicians make a living in “cover” bands, recreating the music of well-known groups such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, U 2, the Who, ABBA, the Dave Matthews Band, the Grateful Dead, and others. Consumers …

Fred Bartenstein: The Right Place At The Right Time, Kurt Mosser

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Fred Bartenstein has always seemed to find himself perfectly situated to pursue his life-long interest in bluegrass music – as he puts it, “I’ve always seemed to be in the right place at the right time.” This luck has allowed him to find bluegrass in the most surprising places, whether at a private day school in New Jersey, or at Harvard University in the late 1960s. It has also meant that, among other things, he found himself attending the first bluegrass festival in Fincastle, Va., becoming a bluegrass DJ at the age of 16, starting Muleskinner News magazine, and playing …