The Light is a twenty-four minute composition for two narrators and chamber orchestra. The two narrators perform the roles of the Apostle John and Moses. After an overview of the piece and a brief history of pieces incorporating narrators, the essay focuses on my compositional process, describing how orchestration, drama, motive, and structure work together in the piece. The Light is organized as a series of five related scenes. In the first scene, God creates light. In the second scene, God places Adam and Eve into the Garden of Eden to tend it, allowing them to eat from any tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent appears, Adam and Eve succumb to his evil influence, and God banishes them from the Garden of Eden. Many generations have passed when Scene Three begins. Moses relates a story from Israel's journey in the wilderness after leaving Egypt. The people had become frustrated with Moses and with God. When God sent serpents among them as punishment, they appealed to Moses to pray for them. God's answer was for Moses to make a bronze serpent and place it on a pole. Whoever looked at the serpent would live. …

More than 200 compositions have been written for solo trombone and organ since the nineteenth century, including contributions from notable composers such as Franz Liszt, Gustav Holst, Gardner Read, Petr Eben, and Jan Koetsier. This repertoire represents a significant part of the solo literature for the trombone, but it is largely unknown to both trombonists and organists. The purpose of this document is to provide a historical perspective of this literature from the nineteenth century to the present, to compile a complete bibliography of compositions for trombone and organ, and to determine the current state of performance of this repertoire. This current state of performance has been determined through an internet survey, a study of recital programs printed in the ITA Journal, a study of recordings of this literature, and interviews and correspondence with well-known performers of these compositions. It is the intention of this author that this document will serve to make the repertoire for trombone and organ more accessible and more widely known to both trombonists and organists.

Twi major areas concerning the problems of practice are discussed. One is that poor practice often relegates itself to mindless repetition. The second problem is that the student often has a vague definition of piano technique. All technique should be a means of expression, not just an isolated physical exercise. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to understand the nature of practice and to develop a suggested practice routine which incorporates both technical and musical aspects. Two recommendations, strategies toward effective practice and an ideal practice sessions, serve as a practice outline and reference for both piano teacher and student. An appendix presents a collection of the thoughts and viewpoints on practicing from forty-four internationally acclaimed pianists.

This dissertation contains the first complete Latin-English translation of one of the most controversial music theory treatises of the fifteenth-century: the Musica Practica (Bologna, 1942) of Bartolomeo Ramos de Pareia. its title as well as its content illustrate the Renaissance transformation from the abstract mathematical approach of "musica speculativa" to that of an emphasis upon the everyday demands of the practicing musician. Although Ramos provides traditional explanations of the modes, counterpoint, "musica ficta," and white mensural notation, his innovations in temperament, solmization, mutation, and the gamut set this treatise apart from other ffifteenth-century music treatises. Ramos's rejection of traditional Pythagorean-Boethian-Guidonian explanations, coupled with his strong polemic criticisms of the auctoritas, resulted in a treatise that remained at the center of heated debate well into the sixteenth century.

The purpose of this study was to determine differences between the same subjects' music preferences at the elementary and high school levels, and the relationship between these findings and the following variables: peer preferences, musical training, excerpt familiarity, grade, gender, and race.