A Teaching Guide for Debussy and Ravel: Technical and Stylistic Applications for Korean Piano Teachers (open access)

A Teaching Guide for Debussy and Ravel: Technical and Stylistic Applications for Korean Piano Teachers

Most Korean students study very little French music during their pre-college years. A survey of ten Korean piano professors as well as an investigation into the annual set repertoire from universities, music high schools, middle schools and national competitions in Korea show that French repertoire appears very seldom on the list of required repertoire. Therefore, it is easy for Korean students to neglect French piano music. By the time students reach undergraduate or graduate school and are required to play the music of Debussy and Ravel for the first time, they find themselves at a serious disadvantage. The purpose of this paper is to provide a pedagogical guide for Korean teachers who wish to offer their beginning, middle school and high school students a good foundation in the style of French piano music. This syllabus will introduce a series of French piano pieces, from Couperin and Rameau as well as Chaminade and Fauré to the easier pieces of Debussy and Ravel, which will lead to the ultimate goal of interpreting aspects of French tone, style, technique, and cultural context involved in the eventual successful performance of the more advanced pieces of Debussy and Ravel, which are the bedrock of French …
Date: December 2015
Creator: Kim, Kiryang
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Pedagogy of Robert Dick (open access)

The Pedagogy of Robert Dick

Robert Dick is best known as a leading proponent of contemporary music and extended techniques for the flute; however, his teaching is informative on a broader level that encompasses technical and musical aspects of traditional playing as well as contemporary practices. This dissertation is intended to serve as a resource for flutists, providing a detailed documentation of his approach to playing and teaching the flute. Dick’s highly integrated pedagogy—informed by his traditional training, revolutionary work in documenting and codifying extended techniques on the flute, and his equal personal involvement in performance, composition, and improvisation—provides a strong basis and clear trajectory, musically as well as technically, to his students. The primary research material for this document is the author’s personal collection of detailed notes from her studies with Dick. Additionally, as no pedagogy exists in a vacuum, a number of sources including historical treatises and more recent published documentations of flutists’ pedagogies provide context and support. Such publications are of current and continuing educational value; considering Dick’s contributions to the development of flute playing and his integrated approach to teaching the flute, a document that accurately and thoroughly addresses his pedagogy is a logical addition to this literature.
Date: December 2014
Creator: Bost-Sandberg, Lisa
System: The UNT Digital Library
Modern Forms of an Ancient Art: A Selection of Contemporary Fanfares for Multiple Trumpets Demonstrating Evolutionary Processes in the Fanfare Form (open access)

Modern Forms of an Ancient Art: A Selection of Contemporary Fanfares for Multiple Trumpets Demonstrating Evolutionary Processes in the Fanfare Form

The pieces discussed throughout this dissertation provide evidence of the evolution of the fanfare and the ability of the fanfare, as a form, to accept modern compositional techniques. While Britten’s Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury maintains the harmonic series, it does so by choice rather than by the necessity in earlier music played by the baroque trumpet. Stravinsky’s Fanfare from Agon applies set theory, modal harmonies, and open chords to blend modern techniques with medieval sounds. Satie’s Sonnerie makes use of counterpoint and a rather unusual, new characteristic for fanfares, soft dynamics. Ginastera’s Fanfare for Four Trumpets in C utilizes atonality and jazz harmonies while Stravinsky’s Fanfare for a New Theatre strictly coheres to twelve-tone serialism. McTee’s Fanfare for Trumpets applies half-step dissonance and ostinato patterns while Tower’s Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman demonstrates a multi-section work with chromaticism and tritones. By applying modern compositional techniques to an older, abstract form, composers have maintained the original aesthetic while allowing for fanfares to be used as concert music. This document adds to the limited body of scholarly writing on modern fanfares.
Date: May 2015
Creator: Florek, Paul J.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Musical Borrowing in the Choral Music of Andrew Rindfleisch (open access)

Musical Borrowing in the Choral Music of Andrew Rindfleisch

American composer Andrew Rindfleisch (b. 1963) has contributed twenty-one pieces to the repertoire of contemporary choral literature to date. His works have been commissioned, premiered, and recorded by notable choral ensembles and performed in significant venues around the country. Influenced by his own early choral singing experience in his native Wisconsin, much of Rindfleisch’s choral music is infused with influences of the music of earlier composers and choral idioms. With these works, Rindfleisch participates in a long-standing trend in choral composition of looking to the musical past for inspiration and procedure while writing in a contemporary harmonic vocabulary, and his efforts can be evaluated through the lens of a study of musical borrowing. Through a case study of five of Rindfleisch’s choral works – “In manus tuas,” “Mille regretz,” “Psalm,” “Anthem,” and “Graue Liebesschlangen” – this document identifies common characteristics of Rindfleisch’s choral music and demonstrates his uses of musical borrowing and allusion. The influence of Renaissance polyphony, Debussy, Brahms, and German expressionism is revealed.
Date: December 2015
Creator: Glann, Kerry
System: The UNT Digital Library
Reimagining “The Art of Phrasing” by Jean Baptiste Arban: Teaching Musical Style to Modern Day Trumpet Players (open access)

Reimagining “The Art of Phrasing” by Jean Baptiste Arban: Teaching Musical Style to Modern Day Trumpet Players

“The Art of Phrasing” is a chapter from Arban’s Complete Celebrated Method for the Cornet (published in 1864) that contains a selection of 150 melodies from Classical and early Romantic works. This section of Arban’s method was necessary for a new generation of cornet and trumpet players to learn melodic phrasing and style. A larger part of the trumpet solo repertoire was written for the clarino register or composed in fanfares due to the limitation of the valveless trumpet. The newly chromatic cornet grew to be a prominent solo instrument in symphonies and wind bands by the mid 19th century, and Arban's “Art of Phrasing” instructed players in musical style. Due to today’s vast number of musical genres, it is unlikely that present day students will be exposed to the melodies of “The Art of Phrasing.” With advancements in music streaming technology and with increased accessibility to countless recordings via the internet, trumpet players are able to access recordings of the melodies. However, there are errors and omissions in the chapter that prevents students from finding recordings with ease. This dissertation presents a new compilation of melodies organized by musical period from medieval to modern day, complete with proper title, …
Date: December 2015
Creator: George, Miranda
System: The UNT Digital Library
Sensitivity, Inspiration, and Rational Aesthetics: Experiencing Music in the North German Enlightenment (open access)

Sensitivity, Inspiration, and Rational Aesthetics: Experiencing Music in the North German Enlightenment

This dissertation examines pre-Kantian rational philosophy and the development of the discipline of aesthetics in the North German Enlightenment. With emphasis on the historical conception of the physiological and psychological experience of music, this project determines the function of music both privately and socially in the eighteenth century. As a result, I identify the era of rational aesthetics (ca.1750-1800) as a music-historical period unified by the aesthetic function and metaphysical experience of music, which inform the underlying motivation for musical styles, genres, and means of expression, leading to a more meaningful and compelling historical periodization. The philosophy of Alexander Baumgarten, Johann Georg Sulzer, and others enable definitions of the experience of beautiful objects and those concepts related to music composition, listening, and taste, and determine how rational aesthetics impacted the practice, function, and ultimately the prevailing style of music in the era. The construction, style, and performance means of the free fantasia, the most personal and expressive genre of the era, identify its function as the private act of solitude, or a musical meditation. An examination of pleasure societies establishes the role of music in performance and discussion in both social gatherings and learned musical clubs for conveying the morally …
Date: December 2015
Creator: Fick, Kimary E.
System: The UNT Digital Library