Beyond the Binary explores the intersection of gender with cross-cultural identity in composer Reena Esmail's professional life and choral music. This intersection manifests in her musical style, which accesses the resonant spaces between Western and Indian classical music. I argue that it is through the convergence of Esmail's gender identity with her cross-cultural identity that her compositions challenge gender norms and break down perceived barriers between East and West, inviting her listeners into an intersectional feminist space. This project synthesizes musicological, theoretical, and ethnographic methods, and is meant as a starting point for choral musicians and scholars to consider cultural difference and its impact on choral music. What begins as a consideration of social themes within Esmail's life and work culminates in a practical musical analysis and performance practice guide to aid conductors in preparation of Esmail's music. The compositions discussed are I Rise: Women in Song (2016), Take What You Need (2016), TaReKiTa (2016), Tuttarana (2014), and This Love Between Us: Prayers for Unity (2016).

This research explores the need for a unique, self-help manual to provide music students with diagnoses of dyslexia under the umbrella of specific learning disorder (SLD) and/or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) a positive way of coping with their musical tendencies. Dyslexia and ADHD are the most prevalent, comorbid neurodevelopmental disorders with symptoms affecting academic, social, and/or personal life. Musical symptoms could include difficulties in any of the following areas: notation reading; time, pulse, and rhythm; posture; fingering coordination; memorization; sight-reading; organization of thoughts, time, and materials; spatial and directional awareness; focused attention; retention of new concepts; positive attitude; and the ability to process written and/or oral information quickly and accurately. This dissertation includes scientific information related to the conditions; an analysis of musical tendencies; pedagogical approaches; personal anecdotal stories that serve to illustrate scientific concepts; and a self-help manual. The manual, "Music, Dyslexia, and ADHD: A Self-Help Manual for Students with Exceptionalities," is a colorful, accessible resource that begins to fill the self-help gap in the musical instruction literature for students with dyslexia and/or ADHD. It offers useful information, multisensory/multimodal techniques, and coping strategies to empower students with these learning differences to achieve more rewarding, independent success throughout their musical studies.

The trumpet was one of the wind instruments Hindemith used frequently in his chamber music, and he employed it prominently in five works from 1925 to 1954. These works are the Sonate fur Trompete (1939), the Konzert fur Trompete in B und Fagott mit Streichorchester (1954), Drei Stucke (19251 the Septett fur Blasinstrumente (1949), and "Morgenmusik," from the collection Plöner Musiktag (1932). This study examines and compares Hindemith's writing for the trumpet in these selected works, noting features in his use of the instrument which determine the applicability of the works to the Gebrauchsmusik concept.

Frederick Thurston was a prominent British clarinet performer and teacher in the first half of the 20th century. Due to the brevity of his life and the impact of two world wars, Thurston's legacy is often overlooked among clarinetists in the United States. Thurston's playing inspired 19 composers to write 22 solo and chamber works for him, none of which he personally commissioned. The purpose of this document is to provide a comprehensive biography of Thurston's career as clarinet performer and teacher with a complete bibliography of compositions written for him. With biographical knowledge and access to the few extant recordings of Thurston's playing, clarinetists may gain a fuller understanding of Thurston's ideal clarinet sound and musical ideas. These resources are necessary in order to recognize the qualities about his playing that inspired composers to write for him and to perform these works with the composers' inspiration in mind. Despite the vast list of works written for and dedicated to Thurston, clarinet players in the United States are not familiar with many of these works, and available resources do not include a complete listing. Much of this repertoire remains unexplored and unrecorded yet is suitable for intermediate to advanced level …

Rapsodies pour voix, clarinette, alto, et piano is a set of three songs by Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935) with text by Maurice Rollinat (1846-1903). The songs were composed in the summer of 1898 but never published during Loeffler's lifetime. This study compares Loeffler's holograph and copyist scores, showing differences in pitch, rhythm, and various articulation markings. Loeffler and Rollinat's biographies are included, along with scans of the holograph and copyist scores.

Like numerous other Baroque pieces, the Ciaccona attributed to Tomaso Antonio Vitali (1663-1745) was transformed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The German violinist and composer Ferdinand David (1810-1873) was the first to edit and publish the piece. The composition became popular after being included in the second volume of his Die Hohe Schule des Violinspiels [The Advanced Method of Violin Playing] (c.1867). Since then, Vitali Ciaccona became an essential work in the violin repertoire and is often heard in concert halls. However, what many audiences hear in concerts is essentially an arrangement of the Ciaccona. Acknowledging the "double life" of the piece as both Baroque and Romantic, this dissertation examines the advantages and disadvantages of playing the Ciaccona attributed to Vitali on both the Baroque and modern violins.

Self-handicapping is a psychological behavior people engage in to protect their self-image, project a desired image to others, and to augment feelings of success and achievement. Self-handicapping occurs when individuals have a positive but uncertain self-image about their competence in an arena of life fundamental to their self-identity. Musicians have been underrepresented in self-handicapping studies; yet the very competitive nature of their education and craft, the strong identification musicians have as musicians, and the frequent challenges during all phases of development to their abilities would suggest they are extremely vulnerable to developing self-handicaps. This dissertation discusses the theoretical components of self-handicapping, the personality traits typically exhibited by high self-handicappers, causes, types, and possible motivations for self-handicapping, short and long term effects of the behavior, and the implications these concepts have to the musician community. In addition, it contains the results of an extensive survey of musicians which examines self-handicapping tendencies, depression, imposter phenomenon, and self-esteem ratings to determine 1) if musicians self-handicap, 2) how the four constructs are related to each other within the musician population, 3) if other factors concerning musicians and self-handicapping are related, 4) areas for future research. Several significant relationships involving the four constructs tested, as …

By considering sixteenth-century English chorister training, modern singers of Renaissance vocal music are informed of the practical and academic demands unique to Elizabethan musicians and audiences. Clauses in relevant choirmaster contracts provide an insight into pedagogical expectations of teachers and their choristers. Studies included plainchant, grammar, Latin, rhetoric, improvisation, poetry, morality, instrumental instruction on organ and viols, and composition. For those not associated with cathedrals and collegiate chapels, Thomas Morley outlined the educational sequence of his teacher's generation in his 1597 publication, "A plaine and easie introduction to practicall musicke." Morley presented education as discourse between students and teacher, and covered the fundamentals of singing, improvisation, and composition. With the digitization of and online access to Renaissance performing sources, present-day performers can readily examine the design of sixteenth-century manuscript and printed partbooks. Performance practice recommendations can be gleaned from the physical nature of the music that once equipped the Renaissance chorister with the visual means necessary for expression. Combined with principles of chorister training, this project suggests learned choices in pronunciation, tone, intonation, phrasing, pitch, text underlay, musica ficta, rhetoric, and expression for the prima pars of William Byrd's middle period motet, "Tristitia et anxietas." With the digitization of and …

This dissertation examines the work of German composer and vocal pedagogue Nina d'Aubigny von Engelbrunner through her collection of songs entitled "Deutsche, Italienische und Französische Gesänge mit Begleitung des Pianoforte," published in 1797. A brief overview of the life and works of Ms. d'Aubigny is provided, followed by a discussion about the "woman question" as it relates to Ms. d'Aubigny's works. The second part of this project includes a new, modern performance edition of the collection of songs, complete with general editorial guidelines, notes and translations, and a critical report detailing all deviations from the original 1797 edition.

The purpose of this study is to provide a historiographical and musical analysis examining the jazz ride cymbal pattern, from its inception on woodblock, small accessory cymbals, hand cymbal mechanisms and brushes through what becomes known as the modern-day ride cymbal pattern. This research examines a wide array of drummers and bandleaders, with the objective of identifying the earliest recordings of this important addition to jazz drumming, and popular music history while analyzing the ride cymbal pattern's evolution through definitive recordings. The study begins with the earliest known recordings that clearly display the pattern as it is played on any of the instruments mentioned above. The research concludes with the jam sessions of the early 1940s at Minton's Playhouse, where the pioneer of bebop drumming, Kenny Clarke, experimented with altering the pattern. At this point, the pattern reach its final level of maturity and has since experienced no subsequent major modification. The historical and geographical analysis uses relevant literature from the field of jazz history in order to interpret and evaluate the impact of the the overall trajectory of the music and players. By surveying newspaper and magazine articles, archival interviews, and photographic sources, combined with audio and film analysis, …

Brass musicians are known to experience a performance problem that is sometimes called valsalva maneuver or musical stuttering. This problem is known to cause difficulty starting a first note, tension in the throat, and tightness in the chest. Unfortunately, the research literature lacks sufficient details for evidence-based interventions. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to characterize and define this performance problem as experienced by brass musicians. An online epidemiologic survey was developed and deployed to collect data from brass musicians who have experienced this problem in their own playing. The survey was designed to acquire data in order to characterize and define the phenomenon through a biopsychosocial framework. The survey was also designed to assess whether this problem aligns with Altenmuller's heuristic model of motor control disruptions. A diverse group of brass musicians (n = 252) participated and offered relevant details for characterizing and defining this problem. Analysis of characteristic data suggests this problem is not a form of musical stuttering. Considering these data through Altenmuller's model suggests that this problem is experienced as a spectrum of motor disruptions that can develop into a unique type of musician's dystonia. While additional research is warranted, the results of this study …

In today's rapidly changing performing arts market, trumpet players are required to be more versatile than ever. Trumpet performing jobs are diversifying and for a trumpeter, employment often requires the multi-faceted skill set that includes the ability to perform in all styles and settings ranging from jazz to classical, solo to large ensemble and brass quintet. As the demand for the brass quintet medium has grown, the study of chamber music repertoire has also become a common requirement in collegiate music programs. However, coaching in chamber music is limited, sometimes to as little as one hour per week. This coaching time is generally in the format of a single coach instructing the full chamber group, and therefore one-on-one instruction/attention is limited or nonexistent, leaving the onus of learning on the students, for whom these collegiate chamber music ensembles are their first exposure to the medium. While students have ample access to concentrated instruction for orchestral, band, and opera excerpts through the multitude of existing excerpt books, such a resource for trumpet players learning brass quintet repertoire does not yet exist. The purpose of this project is to create a succinct guide to the performance of the trumpet parts of standard …

During World War II the composer Kurt Weill was in America writing for the Broadway stage. On August 27, 1943, he became an American citizen and was eager to volunteer his talent to the American war effort. Among his many wartime musical contributions are fourteen songs, all with war-related texts, which can be divided into three distinct groups: the American propaganda songs (8), the German propaganda songs (2), and the Walt Whitman songs (4). It is the purpose of this paper to present a comparative analysis of a representative group of these war songs (two from each group) in order to illustrate Weill's musical versatility. The American propaganda songs were written in a purely popular song style; sung by Broadway actors; directed toward an American audience; with texts by the Broadway lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II and the Hollywood movie executive Howard Dietz. The German propaganda songs were written in a cabaret song style; sung in German by Weill's wife, Lotte Lenya; directed toward a German audience behind enemy lines; with texts by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht and the German cabaret writer Walter Mehring. The Four Walt Whitman Songs were written in a classical art song style; sung by classically …

Modern flute pedagogy tends to focus on repertoire which utilizes or builds upon tonal and Romantic stylistic conventions, largely ignoring works that disregard or reject these conventions until later in student's education. This lack of stylistic diversity in commonly studied works from the first half of the twentieth century can be problematic when students are approaching avant-garde or modernist repertoire for the first time, as they are unfamiliar with the style and technical needs of the pieces. This dissertation provides a style guide and progressive curriculum for the avant-garde repertoire of the early- and mid-twentieth century to help students bridge the gap from commonly-studied early-twentieth century repertoire to Post-War Modernist works. The curriculum and style guide are accompanied by an overview of avant-garde musical styles prominent in Europe and American between the 1890s and 1970s, a discussion of the pedagogical challenges of avant-garde repertoire, and two performance guides for avant-garde pieces included in the curriculum, Diaphonic Suite No. 1 by Ruth Crawford and Variations for Solo Flute by Ursula Mamlok.

Alberto Nepomuceno (1864-1920) is considered to be the father of the Brazilian art song. With a total of seventy songs, Nepomuceno revolutionized and established a new path to the Brazilian art song. His songs were innovative because they: (1) incorporated folk elements in his songs, (2) introduced Portuguese as a language acceptable in bel canto style and (3) established Brazilian songs in the tradition of the European vanguard. His approach influenced several composers including his young student Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), one of the most significant Latin American composers. The purpose of this research is to inform singers and teachers about one of Brazil's most significant art song composers, and to provide the necessary tools--Brazilian Portuguese diction guide, IPA and poem translations of the selected songs--for effective and accurate performances and interpretations.

The Evening Service settings of great British composers like Charles Stanford, A. Herbert Brewer, Charles Wood and Herbert Howells are well known and performed often throughout the world. However, little is known about the body of settings created by American composers. There are currently approximately 75 American composers dating from 1890 to the present, with Evening Service settings in print. Joel Martinson, based in Dallas, Texas, is an American composer, church musician, concert organist, and presenter. Although Martinson has composed four Evening Service settings (Evening Service for the St. Mark's School 1996, Evening Service for the Incarnation 2000, Evening Service for Church of the Nativity 2002, and Evening Service for the Transfiguration 2015), these works are not widely known outside of Dallas and small Anglican circles, nor is the value of his contributions to Anglican Evensong repertoire recognized. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that Martinson's four settings make a valuable American contribution to Anglican repertoire through his neo-classical style and creative counterpoint. The four settings are modern and challenging but remain approachable for both choir and audience.

The purpose of this document is to chronicle and describe the historical developments of saxophone performance in mainland China. Arguing against other published research, this document presents proof of the uninterrupted, large-scale use of the saxophone from its first introduction into Shanghai's nineteenth century amateur musical societies, continuously through to present day. In order to better describe the performance scene for saxophonists in China, each chapter presents historical and political context. Also described in this document is the changing importance of the saxophone in China's musical development and musical culture since its introduction in the nineteenth century. The nature of the saxophone as a symbol of modernity, western ideologies, political duality, progress, and freedom and the effects of those realities in the lives of musicians and audiences in China are briefly discussed in each chapter. These topics are included to contribute to a better, more thorough understanding of the performance history of saxophonists, both native and foreign, in China.

Undergraduate cellists from diverse pedagogical backgrounds with various levels of technical proficiency often struggle to adapt to the demanding performance standards of the university environment. Frequently, these challenges are caused by technical concepts that have been incorrectly learned or unaddressed in the cellist's previous educational experience. Designed for university cello professors and undergraduate cello students, this study is a remedial and enhancement technical method for developing efficient performance habits; it presents a synthesis of cello performing ideologies, comprehensive technical analysis, physical conformation solutions, original sequential exercises, practice models, and recommendations for supporting literature. The method provides a structured path to expressive mastery and artistic freedom in performing advanced cello repertoire.