Musicology Commons^™

The Maturation Of Pulse: The Rhythmic Evolution From Swing To Bebop, Sam Weber

Masters Theses

The musical style that came to prominence in US in the 1940s, known as bebop, is a style that is remembered and discussed in terms of its harmonic characteristics and its notable soloists. This is the view that is taken in most scholarly writing on the music and also the view that is taught to most students of jazz today. However, there is arguably an equally if not more profound evolution in the rhythmic language of this music which is almost totally un-discussed. By digitally analyzing recordings, tracing musical and personal influence, and by examining related technological developments, it becomes …

All I Am: Defining Music As An Emotional Catalyst Through A Sociological Study Of Emotions, Gender And Culture, Adrienne M. Trier-Bieniek

Dissertations

This dissertation, "'All I Am': Defining Music as an Emotional Catalyst through a Sociological Study of Emotions, Gender and Culture", is based in the sociology of emotions, gender and culture and guided by symbolic interactionist and feminist standpoint theory. A primary focus is on understanding the emotional and empowering relationships women build with music that is written and performed by women, especially if they are using the music for emotional support or as a means to heal themselves. This study examines the cultural, emotional and gendered role music plays in day-to-day social life using data collected during forty-two semi-structured interviews …

The “Indie” Sound: A Band's Guide To Success In The Competitive Indie Market. An Evaluation Of Touring Trends & Helpful Tricks Of The Trade., Nicole L. Stratman

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Other Sides Of Billy Joel: Six Case Studies Revealing The Sociologist, The Balladeer, And The Historian, A. Morgan Jones

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The failure of music critics to recognize Billy Joel’s tendency towards writing songs about issues greater than himself, issues such as the Vietnam War, the Cold War, struggling American industries and the effect of mass media on popular culture, particularly on two albums, The Nylon Curtain and Storm Front, has led to a pronounced lacuna in serious scholarship on Joel and his music. Relegated to adult contemporary radio stations due to the success of romantic pop ballads such as “Just the Way You Are,” “She’s Always a Woman” and “Uptown Girl,” and derided as a drunken egomaniac by many …

"You're Pretty Good For A Girl": Roles Of Women In Bluegrass Music, Jenna Michele Lawson

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the past and current roles that female bluegrass musicians achieve within the music industry in the United States. Using sociological concepts by Judith Butler, Simon Frith, Mavis Bayton, and, importantly, Thomas Turino’s ideas of participatory and communal versus performative and individual, I demonstrate women’s complex musical, social, and cultural positions in bluegrass culture.

While women continue to make strides in achieving recognition in the bluegrass genre, society still hinders them from finding complete acceptance alongside male musicians. As bluegrass music is based on patriarchal foundations set by its creator, Bill Monroe of the Blue Grass Boys, female …

An Explanation Of Anomalous Hexachords In Four Serial Works By Igor Stravinsky, Robert Sivy

Masters Theses

Igor Stravinsky's precompositional process was so methodical that his move to serialism is no surprise. After becoming acquainted with the music of Schoenberg and Webern, Stravinsky was moved to experiment with serial techniques. He rejected many of the conventional approaches developed by the serial architects, only to adopt the technique at its basic form—the use of a series of pitches—and cultivate it into his own compositional style. Stravinsky continued to refine his style throughout his serial period (1951–1966) as each composition grew increasingly more serial than the last. For each work composed after 1960, Stravinsky constructed rotation arrays, a serial …

The Life And Selected Piano Works Of David Burge, Mary Chung

Dissertations

Although David Burge is recognized as one of the most important American pianists dedicated to contemporary music in the twentieth century, little is known about his contributions as a pedagogue, lecturer, writer, novelist, and, especially, as a composer. This biographical study focuses on three of his piano compositions: Second Sonata, Eclipse II, and Go-Hyang. Each work represents one of three distinct compositional periods: the first reflects the influence of Prokofiev and features characteristics of the neoclassicism; the second marks a turn to experimentalism, atonality, and serialism; and the final indicates the return to a more traditional style that makes use …

"This Murder Done": Misogyny, Femicide, And Modernity In 19th-Century Appalachian Murder Ballads, Christina Ruth Hastie

Masters Theses

This thesis contextualizes Appalachian murder ballads of the 19^th- and early 20^th-centuries through a close reading of the lyric texts. Using a research frame that draws from the musicological and feminist concepts of Diana Russell, Susan McClary, Norm Cohen, and Christopher Small, I reveal 19^th-century Appalachia as a patriarchal, modern, and highly codified society despite its popularized image as a culturally isolated and “backward” place. I use the ballads to demonstrate how music serves the greater cultural purpose of preserving and perpetuating social ideologies. Specifically, the murder ballads reveal layers of meaning regarding hegemonic …

Kevin Volans' She Who Sleeps Witha Small Blanket: An Examination Of The Intentions, Reactions, Musical Influences, And Idiomatic Implications, Peter D. Breithaupt

Masters Theses

Using and expanding upon a theoretical model for examining the meaning of music presented by ethnomusicologist Timothy Taylor, one of the leading scholars on composer Kevin Volans and his music, this research will attempt to properly position Volans' percussion solo, She Who Sleeps witha Small Blanket, composed in 1985, within Volans' African Paraphrase classification. It will also attempt to dissociate She Who Sleeps from the claims of hegemonic cultural appropriation that are attached to Volans' African Paraphrase pieces. In his model, Taylor talks about the "inseparable metatext" that surrounds a piece of music and includes the composer's intentions, the listener's …

An Intricate Simplicity: Contraries As An Evocation Of The Sublime In Mozart’S Jupiter Symphony, K. 551, Emily Michelle Wuchner

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the eighteenth-century aesthetic of the sublime in application to Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 Jupiter, K. 551. Using Immanuel Kant’s definition of the mathematical sublime and Johan Georg Sulzer’s idea of the sublime, I argue that Mozart achieves this aesthetic through the synthesis of stylistic opposites: the learned and the galant. The culmination of such is best articulated in the fugue found in the Coda of the fourth movement. In this segment, Mozart combines five galant motives into a learned fugue; this intricate combination of stylistic opposites creates an elevated effect, one in keeping with eighteenth-century philosophies …

Gyorgy Kurtag's Kafka Fragments, Op. 24 : Fragment As Form., Kaitlin Doyle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper discusses the Kafka Fragments for Soprano and Violin, a work of forty movements composed by Hungarian composer, Gyorgy Kurtag, in 1985 through 1987. The piece is based Kurtag's own compilation of fragments written by Franz Kafka, which were taken from Kafka's diaries, personal letters, and Blue Octavio Notebooks. They are some of the most personal and intimate examples that exist within Kafka's body of writing. The paper primarily addresses Kurtag's compositional process as illustrated through the Kafka Fragments and attempts to provide insight about his especially unique qualities as a composer. The main topics of the paper include …

Bluegrass Nation: A Historical And Cultural Analysis Of America's Truest Music, Leslie Blake Price

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Defining Englishness In Ralph Vaughan Williams's On Wenlock Edge, David Rugger

Music Graduate Theses

No abstract provided.

Socialist Realism And Soviet Music: The Case Of Dmitri Shostakovich, Michael Robert Tirman

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the few Soviet musicians able to balance his creative perceptions while adhering to the party‟s needs. Through socio-musical trial and error, Shostakovich was able to become an honest, modernist composer in one of the most difficult environments to be a progressive artist. Each of Shostakovich‟s works contain a piece of his emotional and compositional struggle during his life. He was an honest musician because he valued a variety of different opinions and beliefs that circulated throughout the Soviet Era, and his music vividly reflects this wide array of inspirational material. Although it would be short-sighted …