Musicology Commons^™

Towards An Understanding Of Pop Music: New Rhetorical Tools Employed In The Analysis Of Four Paul Simon Songs, Dan Haag

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Over the last quarter of a century, scholars from many disciplines have explored the realm of popular trends, music being no exception, including the music of Paul Simon. Simon has distinguished himself as an accomplished songwriter, performer, and he has chosen a path of perpetual self-improvement in these areas. Since his arrival on the music scene in the late 1950's, much has been written about Simon. Most of the literature is purely biographical, recounting his life's details and career accomplishments. The more analytical literature has been largely devoted to the study of his lyrics, which are rich in symbolism and …

Theories Of Culture, Identity, And Ethnomusicology: A Synthesis Of Popular Music, Cultural, And Communication Studies, Alyssa Santos

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Pitch Perception In Changing Harmony, Cecilia Taher

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The role of harmony in the definition of tonality provides theoretical framework for the hypothesis that harmonic context affects pitch perception. In tonal music, the stability of individual notes depends on the harmonic setting. It seems then reasonable to expect harmonically guided variations in the cognitive representation of tones. With the purpose of enhancing current models of pitch perception, this thesis proposes an empirical investigation of the effects of harmony on pitch sensitivity. In two experiments, nonmusicians performed a same/different discrimination task on two pitches (a reference tone RT and a comparison tone CT) that were embedded in a melody …

An Analysis And An Historical Contextualization Of Frank Ticheli’S “Cajun Folk Songs”, Jody Anthony Besse

Dissertations

This document was constructed using a qualitative research approach to discuss and illuminate the various compositional techniques used by Frank Ticheli in his composition Cajun Folk Songs. The content will include a biographical background of Mr. Ticheli, documentation related to the Cajun Culture and Cajun Music, an analysis of Ticheli’s composition Cajun Folk Songs, and valuable information related to the rehearsal and performance of this work. The intent of the study is to shed light on the relevant aspects pertinent to the musical interpretation of the selected work for the conductor, the performer, and the listener.

Copyright’S Creative Hierarchy In The Performing Arts, Michael W. Carroll

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Copyright law grants authors certain rights of creative control over their works. This Article argues that these rights of creative control are too strong when applied to the performing arts because they fail to take account of the mutual dependence between writers and performers to fully realize the work in performance. This failure is particularly problematic in cases in which the author of a source work, such as a play or a choreographic work, imposes content-based restrictions on how a third party may render the work in performance. This Article then explores how Congress might craft a statutory license to …

Joseph Kreines: A Biographical Sketch, An Analysis Of American Song Set For Band And A Descriptive Catalogue Of His Original Compositions And Transcriptions For Wind Band, Paul Eugene Weikle Jr.

Dissertations

Joseph Kreines is a well-respected composer, conductor and educator who has maintained an illustrious musical career in Florida and elsewhere. Originally from Chicago, Illinois, Kreines came to Florida in the 1960s as the Associate Conductor of the Florida Symphony Orchestra. Other professional conducting appointments with the Brevard Symphony Orchestra, The Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestra and appointments as the conductor of the Florida Symphony Orchestra Youth Symphony, Pinellas Youth Symphony Orchestra and Brevard Youth Symphony Orchestra proved to be the launching of a successful free-lance career as guest conductor for hundreds of Secondary programs in Florida and elsewhere including band, orchestra …

A Performer’S Guide To Six Song Cycles Composed Between 1959 And 2010 By Mississippi Composers, Sarah Hogrefe Mabary

Dissertations

This dissertation offers a performer’s guide to six song cycles by Mississippi composers, including the structure and form of the songs, possible poetic interpretations, and performance practice techniques. The song cycles addressed are Samuel Jones’s Four Haiku, Howard Keever's Dreams, Raymond Liebau's Song Set I and Song Set II, and James Sclater's Three Songs on Texts of Emily Dickinson and Songs from “Telephone Poles.” For the purposes of this study, a Mississippi composer is defined as one who has a significant connection to Mississippi, either by birth or by having worked as a musician in the state for many years. …

Ravel And Roussel: Retrospectivism In Le Tombeau De Couperin And La Suite Pour Piano, Op.14, Qingfan Jiang

Papers

Urged by an increasingly pervading nationalism, many French composers at the beginning of the twentieth century sought to create unique French music by linking to their past musical traditions. This trend of the retrospective approach to musical composition is evident in the works of contemporary French composers such as Vincent d’Indy, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Albert Roussel. Of the latter two composers, however, personal stylistic traits differentiate their Retrospectivism on both the musical level and the aesthetic one.

Neuromusicology And Combat-Induced Traumatic Brain Injury, Brittany L. Neuser

Honors Theses

The number of reported cases of combat-induced traumatic brain injury (TBI) among American veterans is rapidly increasing. The results of TBI are often a combination of deficits in cognitive, physical, emotional, and behavioral functions. Each case poses unique challenges for all involved—soldiers, their families, and health care personnel. Though each case is unique, common symptoms include impaired gross and fine motor, speech and language, memory, attention, visual, auditory, and emotional functioning (Davis, Gfeller, Thaut, 2008).

Due to the holistic nature of TBI symptoms, finding an effective yet cost-efficient treatment modality proves to be a difficult task. Previous research has suggested …

Neuromusicology And Combat-Induced Traumatic Brain Injury, Elisabeth C. Spinniken

Honors Theses

The number of reported cases of combat-induced traumatic brain injury (TBI) among American veterans is rapidly increasing. The results of TBI are often a combination of deficits in cognitive, physical, emotional, and behavioral functions. Each case poses unique challenges for all involved—soldiers, their families, and health care personnel. Though each case is unique, common symptoms include impaired gross and fine motor, speech and language, memory, attention, visual, auditory, and emotional functioning (Davis, Gfeller, Thaut, 2008).

Due to the holistic nature of TBI symptoms, finding an effective yet cost-efficient treatment modality proves to be a difficult task. Previous research has suggested …

Illuminating The Infelice: Defiance And Transcendence In The 19th Century Operatic Madwoman, Claire Biringer

Music Honors Projects

The female protagonist’s mad scene, since coming into true vogue in the early nineteenth-century Italian opera tradition, has been prized for its dramatic and poignant emotive qualities. This project explores four nineteenth-century mad scenes; Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), Bellini’s I Puritani (1835), Meyerbeer’s Dinorah (1859), and Verdi’s Macbeth (1847), surveying the literature of each scene and providing formal analysis of musical attributes such as harmony, melodic structure, and formal design, all in comparison to generic operatic conventions. Musical elements generally associated with the operatic madwoman include the orchestral recollection of significant past themes, virtuosic coloratura lines, and the presence …

Agencies At War: Marshaling Places, Objects, And Sonorities In The Alta California Missions, Naomi R. Sussman

History Honors Projects

1769, Spanish Franciscan Junípero Serra initiated the missionization of Alta California. To transform California into a Spanish territory, Franciscan missions evangelized indigenous peoples. While traditional Alta California mission histories emphasize either Franciscan abuses or saintliness, reifying Native American subordination, most contemporary scholarship accentuates mutual hybridization but minimizes colonial power dynamics. Through archival and secondary research, this thesis argues that spatial interplay expressed neither syncretization nor unadulterated domination, but instead competing agencies within a physical and social “contact zone.” In this Alta Californian “contact zone,” material and sonic culture reinforced the continuous struggle for authority in the missions.

Jean-François Beaudin: Borrowing From The Old World And The New, Wendell B. Dobbs

Music Faculty Research

The modern flute world is full of innovation. Every year brings a new assortment of changes intended to improve the design or functioning of the modern flute—a new head-joint or a new material, a design innovation such as the vertical flute or a new contrabass flute. Much more subtle are changes to the design of 18thcentury style flutes. Generally, modern makers of these instruments take careful measurements of particular antique flutes that are recognized for ease of playing and copy them. The innovations are most likely subtle—a new wood, gentle tweaking of the embouchure or a tone hole, or cosmetic …

Germaine Tailleferre's Film Score To Les Grandes Personnes, Jenna E. Moghadam

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

French female composer, Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983) is well-known for her small chamber music compositions, but less known for her film score compositions, and her elusive film scores have not been a topic of discussion in music scholarship at the time of this writing. The aim of this thesis is to analyze one of thirty-eight films for which Tailleferre composed a score, Les Grandes Personnes (1961), and the information will be presented in three chapters. Chapter 1 provides information on Tailleferre’s life and compositional career, her inclusion in and the aesthetic endeavors of Les Six, and a background on French …

Illuminating The Infelice: Defiance And Transcendence In The 19th Century Operatic Madwoman, Claire Biringer

Music Honors Projects

The female protagonist’s mad scene, since coming into true vogue in the early nineteenth-century Italian opera tradition, has been prized for its dramatic and poignant emotive qualities. This project explores four nineteenth-century mad scenes; Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), Bellini’s I Puritani (1835), Meyerbeer’s Dinorah (1859), and Verdi’s Macbeth (1847), surveying the literature of each scene and providing formal analysis of musical attributes such as harmony, melodic structure, and formal design, all in comparison to generic operatic conventions. Musical elements generally associated with the operatic madwoman include the orchestral recollection of significant past themes, virtuosic coloratura lines, and the presence …

From The Directors, Linda B. Fairtile, Francesco Izzo

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

Verdi, The Theater, And Risorgimento Nationalism, John A. Davis

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

Polychoral Performance Practice And "Maestro Di Cappella" Conducting, Florian Bassani

Performance Practice Review

This article disputes some basic questions concerning the coordination of seventeenth century sacred music, approaching the phenomenon through a musical species of particular interest, though largely unstudied from a performance practice point of view. Roman polychorality with its specific performing conditions offers an illuminating perspective on principles of musical direction and interaction which differ significantly from our modern access path towards these topics. The inquiry ranges from basics of performance (such as sheet music, rehearsals, direction technics, models and stylistic conditioning of the performers) over the concrete role of the maestro di cappella as well as the tactus as cornerstones …

A Christmas Eve To Remember: William Henry Fry's "Santa Claus" Symphony, Laura Moore Pruett

Visual & Performing Arts Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Nielsen's Arcadia: The Case Of The Flute Concerto, Ryan M. Ross

CoE Publications

In this essay I suggest that there are distinct patterns pertaining to the Flute Concerto involving the idea of ‘Arcadia’ as it contrasts an idyllic past with a troubled present. In my analysis, I argue that his positioning of simple themes with relation to their surroundings in the concerto’s two movements suggests a process-driven search for an Arcadian ideal. As such, and far from simply being merely an interesting work with several beautiful moments, the concerto is an important access point both for further understanding Nielsen’s creative approach to form and his late-period preoccupation with the idea of simplicity

A Survey Of The Sacred Choral–Orchestral Works Of Sir Henry Walford Davies (1869–1941), Martin C. Cook

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

In the closing years of the 19th Century, when Charles Villiers Stanford, Hubert Parry and Edward Elgar were at the height of their fame and influence in British musical society Henry Walford Davies emerged as one of the most promising talents of the day, receiving commissions from the provincial music festivals of Great Britain, which were a rite of passage for emerging composers.

Between 1904 and 1929 Davies produced eleven sacred choral-orchestral works for these festivals and one further work, which were received favorably in their day but are now almost forgotten. There are five large multi movement works: The …

Cornell University Verdi Study Day 2013: Overview, David B. Rosen, Francesco Izzo, Alessandra Campana, Mary Ann Smart

Verdi Forum

Includes abstracts by Francesco Izzo ("'Quel vecchio': Some Thoughts on Old Age and Aging in Verdi"), Alessandra Campana ("Otello, Falstaff, and the Scene of Spectatorship"), David B. Rosen ("How Verdi's Minor-Mode Set Pieces End -- i, I, or X? -- and Why"), and Mary Ann Smart ("Art and Revolution Italian Style: Ambivalence and Absolutism in Verdi's Early Operas")

Verdi Biography Via Film, Charlotte Greenspan

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

Review: "Verdi's 'Il Trovatore': The Quintessential Italian Melodramma" By Martin Chusid, David Lawton

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

Die Zauberflöte: A European Singspiel, Zachary Bryant

Theses and Dissertations

Through modern-day globalization, the cultures of the world are shared on a daily basis and are integrated into the lives of nearly every person. This reality seems to go unnoticed by most, but the fact remains that many individuals and their societies have formed a cultural identity from the combination of many foreign influences. Such a multicultural identity can be seen particularly in music. Composers, artists, and performers alike frequently seek to incorporate separate elements of style in their own identity. One of the earliest examples of this tradition is the German Singspiel. Through the synthesis of foreign and native …

Exploring Low Brass Recording Techniques, Phillip Andrew Broome, Philip Andrew Broome

Theses and Dissertations

The modern day art and science of music recording evolved through a constant process of trial and error. Although many of these techniques are well-documented and commonplace in modern recording studios, most of them are generalized recording techniques used in the popular and classical music industries. Among these techniques, there is an observable lack of recognized standards for the recording of low brass instruments. This project aims to articulate quality techniques for low brass recording through research in early recording techniques and through an experimental study comparing many popular stereophonic microphone techniques. Although testing every low brass instrument would give …

Ulrich Siegfried Leupold (1909-70), Paul Helmer

Consensus

No abstract provided.

A Footnote To Harold Powers' 'La Dama Velata' (On Un Ballo In Maschera, Act Ii), William Rothstein

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

Review: "The Life And Operas Of Verdi" By Robert Greenberg, David B. Rosen

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

New Tools In Improvised Music Performance., Seán Mac Erlaine

Articles

This paper looks at the synthesis of computer technology and instrumental practice in improvised music performance. The emerging field of performers who use real-time signal processing as a technological extension of their instrument is discussed. How do new tools affect musical practice? Does the use of computers impose an associated aesthetic?

A number of key players are scrutinised including Evan Parker, La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Jon Hassell, Miles Davis, Pauline Oliveros, David Behrman. The research provides a historical context to these practices and explores how pre- and post-digital technologies have shaped their work.

This article identifies an innovative and …