Musicology Commons^™

Resisting The Historical And Geographical “Other”: The Role Of Expertise In Video Game Music, Tommy Dainko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Video games create rich, virtual worlds for players to explore. Game developers have often utilized exoticism, allowing players to experience the “Other” from the comfort of home. Music is a powerful tool to evoke Otherness and can reinforce stereotypes about the past and different cultures. This thesis looks at recent games where developers have collaborated with expert musicians either from the culture depicted or with expertise in historical performance practices. I document two purposes these collaborations can serve. First, the use of expert musicians creates a veneer of authenticity allowing developers to market the games as “authentic” experiences. Second, these …

English Folk Song Performance On Tuba: An Annotated Bibliography, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

English folk song and tuba performance are mostly unrelated topics, the closest they come to intertwining is in the compositions of English folk influenced composers like Ralph Vaughan Williams or Percy Grainger. However, this combination is limited to Western Art Music performance, not the traditional performance of English Folk Song. This paper aims to describe how a tubist may perform English folk song in a more traditional setting not disturbed by the iterations created by composers rooted in Western Art Music.

Violin Pedagogical Methods And The Neurodivergent Brain: A Comparison Of Suzuki And O’Connor Methods In Context With Adhd And Dyslexia, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

There are several teaching pedagogies that have been utilized throughout the history of the violin, beginning in the early sixteenth century. In my research, I have identified two categories: methods used in the U.S. and methods used in European countries. With this surplus of violin teaching methods, there are several approaches to individual techniques, which undoubtedly affect each pupil differently depending on their learning style. For students with learning deficits, such as dyslexia and ADHD, certain pedagogies such as the Suzuki Method approach auditory stimuli and note reading in a way that contrasts with other pedagogies utilized in the U.S. …

A Comparative Analysis Of Music And Sound In J-Horror Films And Their American Remakes, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

It has been long established that music has the potential to influence a listener’s emotions. Likewise, visual stimulation can influence our emotions. Horror movies rely heavily on the combination of these two systems working together to create tension and fear. This essay will analyze the use of sound, music, and silence in Japanese horror films as compared to their American remakes. I will explore the instrumentation and compositional methods through the lens of traditional Japanese kabuki theatre conventions as well as classical American film scoring to compare my perceived scariness of each film’s most stressful scenes.

Marcel Tabuteau: A Glance Into The New Pedagogical Ideas That Changed The American Woodwind School, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

Marcel Tabuteau was one of the most influential American musicians, changing how American wind players approached their instruments and how they taught especially. His legacy as a teacher and as a performer has been passed down through generations of students and has been disseminated all over the United States and the world at large. To say that his teachings endured because they were good is quite an understatement, however, to analyze how his original teaching and ideas have evolved and grown with modern music and musicianship is what this paper aims to do. It also aims to analyze how his …

Annotated Bibliography: How Is Musical Labor Exploited In The United States’ Economy?, Kalen Meyer

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

The goal of this paper is to highlight the various ways in which musicians and their labor are exploited in today’s capitalist economy. Music can be labelled in different ways such as aesthetic labor or creative labor and is not typically seen through the same lens of labor as more traditional forms of work. Record labels will abuse the vagueness of artists contracts to unfairly pay them and streaming services such as Spotify will leverage their political power and capital power to keep royalty payments to artists as low as possible. Gig work is also an important aspect to the …

Is It Worth It? A Look At Antique And Modern Violins: An Annotated Bibliography, Calvin Luo

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

Violin family instruments have been made for hundreds of years. Cremona, a city in Northern Italy, is particularly renowned for producing world-class instruments. Old Italian violins especially from Cremonese makers such as Amati, Stradivari, and Guarneri, are often associated with high-caliber soloists, concertmasters, or quartet first violinists. A multi-million-dollar price tag is also not uncommon for these types of instruments. A newly made or modern violin by an established living maker (luthier) is often marketed toward section players of orchestras, chamber musicians, and conservatory students. These instruments usually carry a price tag of anywhere from eight to eighty thousand dollars. …

The Ongoing Death Of Classical Music: An Annotated Bibliography, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

Live classical music is an art medium that has been seeing a decrease in attendance for several decades. Several factors play into this ongoing “death,” which include but are not limited to decreasing support or funding for the arts, lack of education, as well as stagnating programs from repetitive repertoire. This paper examines these factors, and it suggests initiatives or solutions to this problem.

Orff: How His Pedagogy In Early Music Education Came To Be And What Influences Projected His Philosophy Into Popularity Amongst Music Educators, Zachary Gnall

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

Carl Orff, a profound music educator, composer, and musician of his time, developed his methodology of teaching early music to young students in the 1920’s. This pedagogy, known as Orff-Schulwerk or simply the Orff Approach, encompasses a student’s ability to use movement, drama, and speech within the context of music to create an engaging and cognitively engaged environment for the students, similar to that of their typical play times. Orff, alongside his colleague Gunild Keetman, developed this approach with through scrutiny over his involvement with the Nazi party, albeit indirect, just after The Great War ended.

What Defines A Runestad Work? The Evolution Of Choral Music In The Twenty-First Century, Nora Cullinan

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

Choral music has undergone a number of changes through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, thanks in part to technological advances that offered composers a wealth of music traditions from which to draw inspiration. This led to what some have called the “neoimpressionist” style of choral composition: a new approach that combines historical traditions such as impressionism and early polyphony with forward-thinking sonorities and harmonic progressions, as well as a strict focus on text. In defining this style, musicologists often turned to the works of Eric Whitacre, who is well-known for his text-driven pieces laden with clustered harmonies. In …

How Did Ray Brown’S Playing Evolve During His Tenure From 1951 To 1965 In The Oscar Peterson Trio?, Jason Crowe

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

How Ray Brown’s bass playing evolved during his tenure from 1951 to 1965 in the Oscar Peterson Trio. Compare and contrast Ray Brown’s work during the 14 years he performed with the trio.

Garifuna Music Transcriptions: Western Notation Of Garifuna Rhythms, Isaac Antonio Rodriguez Bustillo

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

An annotated bibliography.

Music Performance Anxiety: A Comparative Analysis Of Treatment Options For The Vocalist, Brooklyn Becker

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) is a multifaceted social anxiety disorder that affects a significantly large population of practicing and professional musicians. If untreated, it can have detrimental effects on the performer and their career. MPA is multifaceted in that it encompasses cognitive, physiological, and behavioral symptoms. Because of its multifaceted nature, there is not one specific intervention or treatment option for MPA, but multiple interventions that have been studied and tested as potential treatment options. While the body of research on MPA has expanded since the 1970s, there is a disparity of research in the literature that focuses solely on …

“Workinonit”: How The Orchestration Techniques Of Maurice Ravel Influenced The Production Of J Dilla, And How Certain Musical Techniques Have Withstood Changes In Style And Genre, Richard Tucker

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

This paper explores the parallels between Classical orchestration techniques and Hip- Hop production. Using the works of producer/composer J Dilla and composer/orchestrator Maurice Ravel, the paper seeks to answer the question: How might Maurice Ravel’s orchestration and composition techniques have influenced, directly or indirectly, the production and composition techniques of J Dilla? Various recordings from across Dilla’s career, including selections from Fantastic, Vol. 2 and Donuts serve as a vehicle for looking at music from a technical and process perspective, attempting to put aside aesthetic conventions and analyses to allow vastly “different” musical idioms to be discussed together. Ravel’s work, …

Breaking The Wall Separating Western-Classical And Musical Theater Belt Vocal Techniques, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

This paper will serve as a dialogue aimed to keep breaking down the tangible wall between opera and musical theater techniques and practices. The two fields offer a plethora of ideas and possibilities for growth of the arts as a whole. Included will be examples of techniques in both fields and how they can be compared and practiced consequently. The topic of belt versus legitimate singing is prominent in the vocal arts and will be discussed further as well. There are many academics that subscribe to the “my way or the highway” ideal and refuse that which varies from classical …

Politics And Country Music: Analyzing Why Country Music Is Associated With The Political Right, Christa Noe

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

The general perception that country music aligns itself with the political right is perhaps most exemplified by the songs, “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)” by Toby Keith and “Okie from Muskogee” by Merle Haggard. Both songs speak of patriotic values that are traditionally associated with that side of politics. However, At the same time, some country songs, particularly older music, align more with the political left, such as “Man in Black” by Johnny Cash and “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton. Nadine Hubbs (2014) has shown how country music is often associated with the poor …

What Is The Significance Of Specialized Voice Technique In Handel's Cantatas?, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

George Frideric Handel’s music is not performed as prominently as that of his peers of his time. This research project aims to achieve the following objectives: a. To analyze Handel's cantatas in terms of vocal range, ornamentation, and technical challenges. b. To identify the specialized vocal techniques in the Baroque era and skills needed for the interpretation of Handel's cantatas and why its subtle nature makes it inaccessible to singers and audiences.

Mozart’S Da Ponte Operas And The Bel Canto, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

One of the most prominent composers of opera since the latter half of the 18th century is the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Lauded for his catchy melodies, notoriously difficult passages, and his structural brilliance, his operas remain as popular today as they were when they first premiered. At the same time as these operas were being composed, another movement was occurring within Italianate vocal music, that of “bel canto” or beautiful song. This movement, although highly disputed over its exact definition and origin appears to refer to a style of singing popularized in Italy within the 17th and 18th centuries …

The Pros And Cons Of Beta Blockers: Doping In Music Performance, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

When performing in front of an intimidating panel of judges, an audience, or peers, many musicians faces a common problem that’s not talked about often: music performance anxiety. In this current time, every musician at least knows someone that takes a type of drug that enhances their music performance and gets rid of their anxiety. However, there’s been some controversies in using drugs in music competitions and auditions, leading in the continuous practice of drug abuse, questioning ethically what’s right and what’s wrong, and the suspicion in cheating. In this paper will examine the pros and cons of beta blockers, …

Marcel Tabuteau’S Legacy On The American School Of Oboe Pedagogy: Annotated Bibliography, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

Marcel Tabuteau was a French-American oboist who is considered the father of American style oboe playing. Every oboist invested in music should know his name, but as time passes, oboists hear less about Tabuteau and more about his students: John Mack, John de Lancie, Robert Bloom, etc. The students of Tabuteau’s students are even more well known today: Richard Killmer at the Eastman School of Music and John Ferrillo at Juilliard just to name a couple. Even though most oboists may have heard Marcel Tabuteau’s name, few know just how revolutionary he was to the pedagogy of American oboe playing, …

Kenny Clarke: The First Modern Drummer In Jazz: Annotated Bibliography, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

Kenny Clarke, born in 1914, is considered a pioneer of an improvised style of Afro-American music known today as Jazz. Clarke grew up in an era before that word. The soundtrack of his youth consisted of military bands, Dixieland, and blues music. The role of the percussionist in these settings were fixed and rigid. They were there to keep the time. Whether it be with a snare drum, bass drum, or small set of cymbals, the drummer’s role in an ensemble was not a dynamic role in any sense. Through the medium of an exciting new style of music later …

Ethics In Kakadu (1988): Finding Djilile’S “True Tracks”, Natasia T. Boyko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Tasmanian-born Peter Sculthorpe (1929 – 2014) was one of Australia’s most iconic modernist classical composers of the twentieth century. Kakadu (1988) seems to have sparked the most controversy of Sculthorpe’s works and has become one of his most well-known pieces. In the program notes provided in the score’s foreword, Sculthorpe asserts that “the melodic material in Kakadu, as in much of my recent music, was suggested by the contours and rhythms of Aboriginal chant.” Sculthorpe attributed this melodic material to the Arnem Land chant, Djilile. Consequently, Sculthorpe has been criticized for extracting Djilile from its authentic context as …

Becoming Camilla Urso: A Female Celebrity Violinist And The Transformation Of American Musical Culture, Maeve Nagel-Frazel

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Camilla Urso (1840-1902) was the first nationally famous female violinist in the United States. Between 1852-1902, Urso gave over a thousand concerts in the United States, becoming a musical celebrity on par with the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind. Through her public visibility, Urso transformed nineteenth-century American violin playing from a male-dominated field into an acceptable and even fashionable field for women. Despite her nineteenth-century fame, today Urso is mostly forgotten. Over the course of six chronological chapters, this thesis presents a contextual biography of Urso’s American concert career. Utilizing archival sources, digitized newspapers, and digital mapping methodologies, I argue Urso’s …

Video Gamers As Performers: Annotated Bibliography, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

This study is based on the concept and idea of video game players performing music through the games that they play. This serves as a very assessable way for people who do not have the money, time commitment, and or motivation to be able to play and perform music without any background in music literacy.

From Words To Grammar And Grammar To Speech: A Practical Analysis Of Charlie Parker, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

Today, there exists a respectable body of work analyzing the music and life of Charlie Parker. Parker left behind around 900 recordings, a prolific body of work. There remains a great deal of solos to be transcribed and studied although there is much research examining hundreds of Parker solo transcriptions and proffering pedagogy to be used by the student of jazz improvisation in order to learn how to improvise within the musical language of Charlie Parker. Scholars have not paid a great deal of attention to how to synthesize the various research and pedagogies into a methodical guide for the …

Why We Don’T Just Dance To A Metronome: Examining The Musical Characteristics Of American Rhythm And Smooth, Tommy Endicott

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

American Smooth and Rhythm are the fastest growing styles of ballroom dance in America, and as new ideas for how to perform the dances flood the dance floor, so do new ideas for what music best expresses the character of the dance. The music of American Smooth is trending towards electronic forms of the tango and towards pop ballads in place of traditional Viennese Waltzes; meanwhile, the music of American Rhythm is trending away from its Cuban roots and towards hip hop. These innovations could potentially revitalize ballroom dance music for new audiences and also help dancers to reach a …

Participation And Community Healing In The Me2/ Orchestra, Lee Cyphers

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

The Me2/ Orchestra is a Boston-based community orchestra for people living with mental illness and those who support them. Me2/’s mission, according to its website, is “to erase the stigma surrounding mental illness (including addiction) through supportive classical music rehearsals and inspiring performances.” In order to investigate the methods and practices used by Me2/ to fulfill this mission, this annotated bibliography compiles important literature on community music initiatives with social projects. Concepts of “participation” and “performance” are explored, as well as problems posed by research into the effectiveness of arts programs. In addition, the distinction is made between amateur music-making …

Adult Recreational Music-Making And Its Place In Piano Pedagogy: An Examination Of The Value Of Rmm To Both Student And Teacher, Jen Bowlds

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

This project aims to answer the following research question: How can the piano pedagogy community embrace the Recreational Music Making movement to expand its reach among adults and transform the piano teacher’s sense of professional satisfaction and career sustainability? I will examine the opportunities that exist within piano pedagogy and the growth potential for RMM as a valuable pedagogical approach for adult group piano classes. As is routinely used in strategic business planning, a SWOT analysis will be conducted to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the RMM movement within the piano pedagogy field. A relatively new (and …

The Developmental Influence Of Both Musical Notation And Wind Instruments On Electronic Music And Music Software, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

This annotated bibliography is meant for you – the person who wishes to learn more about electronic music and its roots. I argue that electronic music is a legitimate form of music, and despite films depicting machines and robots as cold and lifeless they have the potential to be humanistic and wonderfully expressive. Perhaps one day, sooner than later, electronic instruments will be quintessential for orchestras in the near future. Until that day these series of sources are critical in informing electronic music enthusiasts the history behind electronic music and synthetic sound.

Technology, Artistic Collaboration, And Performance Practice In Bella Voce’S 2019 Recording Of Brahms’ A German Requiem, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

How do the recordist, conductor, and performers work together to create a unique recorded statement within the discourse between a 19^th century composer and a 21^st century listener in Bella Voce’s 2019 recording of Brahms A German Requiem (1871 London Version)?

The complexity of preparing a musical work and creating a recording of its performance encompasses many disciplines and the collaboration of many individuals. The process involves questions of performance practice, recording technique, applications of digital technology, and artistic choices on the part of all involved. The 2019 Bella Voce recording of Brahms’ A German Requiem is an …