Musicology Commons^™

Samuel Adler Composer / Conductor In Residence, Samuel Adler

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Samuel Adler was born March 4, 1928, Mannheim, Germany and came to the United States in 1939. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May 2001. He is the composer of over 400 published works, including 5 operas, 6 symphonies, 12 concerti, 8 string quartets, 4 oratorios and many other orchestral, band, chamber and choral works and songs, which have been performed all over the world. He is the author of three books, Choral Conducting (Holt Reinhart and Winston 1971, second edition Schirmer Books 1985), Sight Singing (W.W. Norton 1979, 1997), and The Study of …

The Diffusion Of Black Gospel Music In Postmodern Denmark: With Implications For Evangelization, Meaning Construction, And Christian Identity, Mark W. Lewis

ATS Dissertations

In recent decades the phenomenon of Black gospel music has diffused throughout much of Western Europe and beyond. Each year new gospel choirs are formed, attracting people of many religious and non-religious backgrounds, who in turn are impacted affectively and spiritually by the music through participation in rehearsal and performance settings. This is also the case in Denmark - a country reputed for being spiritually reserved and where church attendance is among the lowest in the Western world. Since around 1990, the proliferation of gospel choirs and music events, such as gospel festivals, gospel workshops, and gospel worship services has …

The History Of The Marimba, Daniel Rager

Music Faculty Publications

The author presents an international and historical history of one of the earliest melodic percussion instruments made by man. His research suggests the instrument was widespread throughout Asia and Africa, although many other regions claim it to have originated in their country.

Known by many names and created from an endless array of materials, this paper reflects the marimbas evolution from the fourteenth century to present day. The writer’s research encompasses the marimbas social roles, musical functions, timbres and styles across many countries as well as its evolution into the twenty-first century.

Inspiration Plus Performance Equals Success: A Study Of Instrumental Music Participation And Its Effect On Fifth Grade Students In An Inner-City School, Gary E. Jack

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis examines the academic performance of inner-city elementary school children with the purpose of proving or disproving that exposure to instrumental instruction in addition to general music class enhances learning in the core areas of study, thus improving test scores and overall academic performance. The data collected and the results that come from this experiment are intended to represent only a small neighborhood in a fairly large city.

Medievalism And Exoticism In The Music Of Dead Can Dance, Kirsten Yri

Music Faculty Publications

In 1991, the alternative rock band Dead Can Dance released an album that caught the attention of music reviewers by constructing an aural allegiance to the Middle Ages. Suitably called A Passage in Time, the album was described as imitating medieval chant, troubadour music, Latin hymns and courtly songs and included Dead Can Dance’s hybrid medieval songs as well as performances of actual medieval repertoire. In modeling their songs and sounds after historical recordings of medieval music, Dead Can Dance also adopted some of the ideological parameters of these performances and historical reconstructions. Examining the output of Dead Can Dance …

The Collection Of John Mazzarella, Francesco Izzo

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

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 …

166 Years Of Verdi Biography, Gregory W. Harwood

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

From The Directors, Linda B. Fairtile, Francesco Izzo

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

In Memory Of Pierluigi Petrobelli, Roger Parker, Emanuele Senici

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

Motive, Key, Sonorità, And Tinta In La Forza Del Destino (1862), William Rothstein

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

The Composing Of "Musick" In The English Language: The Development Of The English Cantata, 1700-1750, Jennifer Cable

Music Faculty Publications

The cantata as cultivated by Alessandro Scarlatti and his contemporaries Alessandro Stradella and Giovanni Bononcini was the model for the early development of the English cantata, "which remained a solo vocal genre in England throughout the eighteenth century, namely 1710-1800. By focusing on specific musical elements, such as cantata format (recitative-aria-recitative-aria or aria-recitative-aria), song forms, motivic use, textual content, instrumental requirements and performance venues, the evolution of the English cantata can be observed during the first half of the eighteenth century, developing from a simple imitation of the Italian form to a genre in its own right.¹

The Rise And Fall Of The Hillbilly Music Genre, A History, 1922-1939., Ryan Carlson Bernard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research will examine the rise in popularity of the hillbilly music genre as it relates to the early part of the twentieth century as well as its decline with the arrival of the western hero, the cowboy.

Chapter 1 examines the origins of traditional music and how instrumental the fiddle and banjo were in that development. Chapter 2 looks closely into the careers of recording artists who recorded what would later be called hillbilly music. Chapter 3 examines the string band and the naming of the hillbilly genre. Chapters 4 and 5 look at the aspect of radio programming …

Unlv Magazine, Gian Galassi, Vicki Smith, Erin O'Donnell, Lisa Shawcroft, Angela Sablan, Maria Phelan, Beth English, Eric Leake

UNLV Magazine

No abstract provided.

A Study Of Robert Schumann And His Impact On The German Song Cycle, Melissa A. Mills

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research was to gain information about Robert Schumann and his impact on the German song cycle. The specific problems of the study were as follows: 1.) To trace the origins and development of the song cycle; 2.) To identify the significance of Robert Schumann to the German song cycle; and 3.) To analyze Frauenliebe und-Leben (‘A Woman’s Life and Love’), a song cycle composed by Schumann in 1840, in terms of form, style, and vocal technique. This research investigates the return of Robert Schumann from instrumental music back to vocal music and how he helped develop …

A Musical Poet: Themes In The Lieder Of Robert Schumann’S Year Of Song, Mary H. Harkrader

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

My thesis will research themes of solitude, love, nature, mood or emotional states, and the duality of joy and pain in the Robert Schumann’s Lieder composed around the year 1840. This year was the year of Schumann’s marriage to his music teacher’s daughter Clara Wieck and is, consequently, the year when Robert Schumann turned to writing Lieder or songs. Lieder were a unique lyric genre created in Germany during Romantic era. These songs combined the works of great German poets of the time with the artistic expression of emotions captured by the composer. Tracing the themes in Robert Schumann’s Lieder …

Rock Music Scholarship, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

My challenge is to take my master’s thesis, a lengthy annotated bibliography of academic monographs on rock in American culture, and make it come alive and, in the process, provide a sense of how the academic rock discourse has evolved.

Mathematical Methods In Composing Melodies, Thomas Brown

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

This thesis, “Mathematical Methods in Composing Melodies,” explores the different ways in which mathematics can be used to create music. Some research has been done in this field already. Richard F. Voss and John Clarke used fractals and different frequencies of noise to create music. The Greek composer Iannis Xenakis used Markovian Stochastic trees to create some of his compositions. Explored in this thesis are seven different methods to compose melodies. After compiling the different melodies, they were categorized by different musical periods based on the musical characteristics found in the melody. This thesis differs from other research that deals …

A Study Of Lars-Erik Larsson And His Contributions To Trombone Repertoire, Thomas S. Brown

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research was to gain information about Lars-Erik Larsson and his contributions to trombone repertoire. The specific problems of the study were as follows: 1) to identify and investigate Larsson’s major contributions to twentieth century music; 2) to identify and investigate Larsson’s contribution to trombone repertoire; 3) to analyze Larsson’s Concertino for Trombone and String Orchestra Op. 45 No. 7 in terms of form, structure, and twentieth century techniques. A biographical overview of Larsson’s life is given as background and as insight to his compositions.

A Study Of Charles-Auguste De Beriot And His Contributions To The Violin, Leigh P. Mackintosh

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research was to gain information about Charles-Auguste de Beriot (1802-1870) and his contributions to the violin. The specific problems of the study were as follows: 1.) to identify what influenced the compositions of Charles-Auguste de Beriot; 2.) to outline important developments in his writing that contributed to violin technique and Romanticism; and 3.) to analyze Concerto IX in A minor for Violin, Op. 104 in terms of melody, harmony, tonality, texture, and form. The intention of this research is to investigate Beriot’s compositions for violin and examines the Romantic aspects that appear in his Concerto IX. …

From The Directors, Linda B. Fairtile, Francesco Izzo

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

The "Introduction" To The Great Operas (1899): A Verdian Manifesto?, Roberta Montemorra Marvin

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

Frankenstein: Man Or Monster?, Leigh P. Mackintosh

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Since its first publication in 1818, Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein has left a lasting impression upon the world speaking to a multitude of audiences including artists, scientists, philosophers, and society as a whole. Considering the impact of Frankenstein through its evolution as a cultural myth in various plays and films, this thesis will provide a way to gauge the relevance of Shelley’s story as an adaptation. Only by knowing what has been done in the past and how the materials have been used by other playwrights and screenwriters can one understand how to handle them as an original work. The …

'Si Ridesti [Il Leon Di Castiglia] La Fiamma Sopita': Ricordi's Censored Libretto Of Ernani And Some Vicissitudes Of The Conspiracy Scene, David B. Rosen

Verdi Forum

No abstract provided.

Edward Said And The Study Of Music, Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

My first encounter with Edward Said’s work was in the 1980s with the book, Beginnings: Intention and Method (1975). I was exploring a semiotic approach to late 18^th-century music, specifically, a beginning-middle-ending paradigm (an Aristotelian paradigm) that seemed to me to capture the rhetorical intentions of Classic composers. Said’s wide-ranging reflections and ruminations on beginnings – as inaugural moments, as sites for the establishment of difference, as authorially privileged moments, and as "first steps in the intentional production of meaning" – proved inspiring. My enduring impression of him at the time was that he was a very good …

Commentary On "Timbre As An Elusive Component Of Imagery For Music" By Freya Bailes, Andrea R. Halpern

Faculty Journal Articles

The study of musical timbre by Bailes (2007) raises important questions concerning the relative ease of imaging complex perceptual attributes such as timbre, compared to more unidimensional attributes. I also raise the issue of individual differences in auditory imagery ability, especially for timbre.

To Cite Or Not To Cite? Confronting The Legacy Of (European) Writing On African Music, Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

English Abstract:

The current citational practice in Western scholarship is ideologically loaded, being far more suited to a written economy than a primarily oral culture in which knowledge is preserved in memory and disseminated through repeated performance. The impact of orality on musical scholarship should be more closely investigated; African scholars have all too often become informants rather than theorists of their own traditions. It is therefore proposed that the routine citation of a body of scholarship developed without Africa's historically-specific intellectual needs and ambitions in mind should in fact be discouraged.

German Abstract:

Die heutige Zitierpraxis der westlichen Wissenschaft …

Bob Dylan And The Sixties: A Social Commentary Reflecting Politics And Existentialism, Nicole Lemieux

Honors College Theses

The 60s were typified by a generation's profound political activism. Issues of race, class, gender, among others each came to the forefront at various points throughout the decade, and acts of protest have come to symbolize the movement's desire for change. While masses of people sought to protest by marching on Washington, some wrote. Through works like James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time and Norman Mailer's The Armies of the Night , the struggles that were being so passionately fought by thousands were able to be recorded and preserved for generations that were to come. However, the writer who would …

Parallel Dichotomies: Serialism, Folk Song, The University, And Authenticity, David Blake

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This thesis seeks to analyze the similarities between the electronic music and serialist movement in art music, and the folk revival, both of which peaked during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Each of these movements contained within them an avant-garde that positioned itself on the university setting to gain cultural terrain to combat what they perceived to be commercialized “kitsch.” The avant-gardes within each culture felt the ideologies they promoted were justified because they were authentic. Electronic music composers and serialists viewed themselves as aligned with the modernist tradition of art music, which promoted the progression of music through …

Structural Analysis Or Cultural Analysis? Competing Perspectives On The "Standard Pattern" Of West African Rhythm, Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

Polyrhythmic dance compositions from West Africa typically feature an ostinato bell pattern known as a time line. Timbrally distinct, asymmetrical in structure, and aurally prominent, time lines have drawn comment from scholars as keys to understanding African rhythm. This article focuses on the best known and most widely distributed of these, the so-called standard pattern, a seven-stroke figure spanning twelve eighth notes and disposed durationally as <2212221>. Observations about structure (including its internal dynamic, metrical potential, and rotational properties) are juxtaposed with a putative African-cultural understanding (inferred from the firm place of dance in the culture, patterns of verbal discourse, …