Creativity is not a hierarchical, but an intertextual, rhizomic process, pulling from a vast array of interests, experiences, and influences. These feed into each other, to inform and motivate artists as creating persons in an ongoing process we call the creative act. Anytime an artist sets out to make something, they are experiencing a dynamic yet concentrated moment of energy in the chaotic cloud of creativity. To demonstrate this, I explore several ideas that inform my piece, Codex Symphonia, including musical influences, but also visual art, film, literature, philosophy, social theory, and politics. In this document, I show that the act of creating a musical work is a deeply personal process that relies heavily on the experiences and vast network of influences on the composer. With this document I look to the contextual structure(s) that point to the possibilities that a work might exist. That is to say that the composition Codex Symphonia is a specific result of an extensive network of ideas and influences not coming from a single origin—it is, in fact all of them together at the same time in a metamodernist act of reconciliation.

This paper presents an overview of the concepts and strategies in the original composition, The Harbour of Incense, a cycle of three movements for different groups of instruments. Each movement addresses an aspect of the musical cultures of Hong Kong. The first movement Taan Go for Harp Solo explores the sound world of the folk genre saltwater song; the second movement Jat1 Wun2 Sai3 Ngau4 Naam5 Min6 for Flute and Piano highlights the musicality of Cantonese language; the third movement Daa Zaai for Oboe, Clarinet in B-flat, Bassoon, and Percussion, is inspired by the keyi music used in the Taoist funeral. The paper discusses how to bring together Southeast Asian aesthetics and contemporary Western compositional techniques, as well as how to communicate this unique cultural experience to performers and audiences from other backgrounds. It provides the transcriptions of two saltwater songs and an excerpt of keyi music, and illustrate how they inform the structures, textures, and melodic gestures of the composition. The nine tones of Cantonese language are also explored for generating melodic materials, metric plans, and articulation writing.

The purpose of this study is to present a personal interpretation of progressive education and its function in "teaching" primary music. A few supplementary aids are provided to correlate with the Amarillo, Texas, Course of Study for Primary Grades to lend aid and encouragement toward a rhythmic approach to child learning.

This paper explores the development of the hautboy, or early oboe, and highlights the prominent oboe virtuosi of eighteenth-century England. Jennifer Bauer Morgan explains the lives and abilities of the performers and the evolution of the oboe.

The Commedia dell'arte was a form of Italian comedy prevalent from about 1560 to 1760. It was rooted in the comedy of ancient Greece and Rome, and it first appeared during the Middle Ages. An example of this is the comic opera The Love for Three Oranges, scored by Sergei Prokofiev.

This paper provides a biographical tribute and analysis of the life and music of tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, who is known as one of the greatest jazz musicians. John Gunnar Mossblad explores the man's past, travels, and contributions.

The public school of Vanderbilt, Texas is in the process of building a band. The steady growth of the band will depend upon a long-range planning program. It is the band director's aim to set up such a long-range plan to cover the five years from the 1947 school year and including the 1952 school year. The following chapters will cover most of the phases of the band's work, and that of the director's work, and his relation to the band and the community.

This paper analyzes Ralph Vaughan Williams' Songs of Travel and asserts that the songs are a song cycle rather than just a collection of songs set to to the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson. Richard Porter Cole performs a musical and poetic analysis of the songs and makes suggestions to aid performers of the piece.

The idea for this investigation was inspired by the writer's attempt to acquire a more complete knowledge of piano teaching techniques. It is hoped that this report will challenge musicians of all ranks to delve further into the subject and investigate other methods of technique not included in this report.

This paper discusses the song cycle Despite and Still by Samuel Barber, created with three poems by Robert Graves, one poem by Theodore Roethke, and part of Jame Joyce's novel Ulysses. Phyllis Bush Thomas describes the feeling created by the song cycle and the compositional style of Samuel Barber.

This study traces the significant developments in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which led to the development of electronic music and increased writing for percussion. Whether by coincidence or premeditation, the field of percussion in Western culture and electronic music share many parallel aspects in their history. Carlos Chavez, Edgard Varese and John Cage foresaw a time when electronic music would allow composers to realize compositions with ease, provide new sounds to the spectrum of possible material for pieces and aid in the conception of works. Significantly, these same composers were important figures in the development of percussion composition. In many ways, Lejaren Hiller's Machine Music can be seen as a culmination of the developments which had been taking place in the history of electronic music and percussion music. A product of the innovations in both fields, it poses some formidable problems for the performers. This study will give some background into its composition, examine its structure and deal with its performance problems.

In this thesis, I explore the careers and songs of Florence Price and Margaret Bonds—two African American female composers who were part of the Chicago Renaissance. Price and Bonds were members of extensive, often informal, networks of Black women that fostered creativity and forged paths to success for Black female musicians during this era. Building on the work of Black feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins, I contend that these efforts reflect Black feminist principles of Black women working together to create supportive environments, uplift one another, and foster resistance. I further argue that Black women's agency enabled the careers of Price and Bonds and that elements of Black feminism are not only present in their professional relationships, but also in their songs. Initially, I discuss how the background of the Harlem and Chicago Renaissances and racial uplift ideology shaped these women's artistic environment. I then examine how Bonds and Price incorporated, updated, and expanded versions of these ideals in their music and careers. Drawing on the scholarship of Rae Linda Brown, Angela Davis, and Tammy L. Kernodle, I analyze Price's "Song to the Dark Virgin," "Sympathy," and "Don't You Tell Me No" and Bonds's "Dream Variation," "Note on Commercial Theater," …

After teaching music in several high schools for a number of years, and observing the lack of continuity in assembly programs, the writer became interested in developing a program of music which would more adequately function in the high school assembly.

Since the music requirement does rest with the teacher training institutions, the elementary education major is required, in most colleges and universities, to take six hours of music education. My problem is to develop an adequate course of study in music education to fit the musical needs of the elementary education major which will prepare her as well as possible in the allotted six hours to teach music in a classroom aided or unaided by supervision

Music plays an important role in Mexican funeral ceremonies, acting as a vehicle for men to acceptably express emotions of bereavement. As an important symbol of mexicanidad (Mexicanness), mariachi music is often used in traditional Catholic funerals, ritualizing grief equally as a mourning of loss and a celebration of the life of a deceased person. Although a form of popular music, mariachi's secular songs go through a process of sacralization, becoming meaningful sites for experiencing grief. As a musical expression of Mexico's idealized gender norms mariachi opens an aesthetic sphere for masculine grief to be expressed, experienced, and socialized in an acceptable form. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the musical mediation of masculine grief, experienced and ritualized within funeral ceremonies, and observed through an ethnographic study of Mexican immigrant communities.

It shall be the purpose of the writer to prepare program material appropriate for school use which will interest, instruct and contribute toward mutual understanding of both the Latin-American and Anglo-American child. This program material has been incorporated into ten musical plays, the themes, dances and songs of which have been gleaned from a great amount of reading material, stories related by Mexican people, legends told by pioneer Anglo residents of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and ideas that have been presented by students. It is the purpose of the writer to organize this material into plays which may be of service to any teacher who intends to present a program, in the intermediate grades, dealing with some phase of Latin and Anglo-American relations.

Helen Kotas was an accomplished musician and teacher who helped open the door for women in major US orchestras. In 1941 the Chicago Symphony hired its first female brass musician, principal hornist Helen Kotas. With that daring move, she became a pioneer for her gender in the major orchestras of North America. Despite her many contributions to the musical community, Kotas's life has not been researched and documented. This paper looks at Helen Kotas's career as well as a glimpse at her life and personality. In addition to documenting her life, this dissertation attempts to show at least a portion of Kotas's philosophy of teaching and horn playing. She was an accomplished horn soloist and studied the literature extensively. Kotas performed in the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the Woman's Symphony Orchestra, and Leopold Stokowski's All-American Youth Orchestra. Kotas was hired by Fritz Reiner as third horn of the Pittsburgh Symphony. When Frederick Stock, conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, heard that Helen Kotas was going to Pittsburgh, he insisted that she audition for the CSO. Kotas auditioned on the Concerto for Horn by Richard Strauss and the concertmaster said, "Hire her!" She performed as principal horn with the orchestra until Artur …

In this study, the Anton Webern's music is considered in two groups: that which was written before Webern adopted the twelve-tone technique, Opp 1-16, and that written in the twelve-tone technique, Opp. 17-31. This division is not intended to represent an attempt at periodization of Webern's music, for the changes of style in Op. 17 are not that significant. But the fact that Webern employed the twelve-tone technique in all the works he wrote after Op. 16 makes this a natural point of division for a study of this sort. Besides the music of Webern, two peripheral areas are included in this study. No attempt has been made at an exhaustive biography of Webern, but facts relative to his life, and impressions about the person are presented. Also, to create a proper perspective for the study of Webern's which existed during the time that Webern lived and composed, is presented.

It is the purpose of the study to make a survey of the larger libraries in this region and to compile a list of the holdings of books about music. With the impetus of the North Texas Regional Union List of Serials, 1943; Comprising the libraries of North Texas State Teachers College. Southern Methodist University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Texas Christian University Texas State College for Women, and the Public Libraries of Dallas and Fort Worth, and its two supplements of 1943-45 and 1945-46, and following the general form of that work, the present "Union List of Musical Literature in North Texas Regional Libraries, 1946," has been compiled. The libraries represented in the North Texas Regional Union List of Serials are included here, with holdings listed as of March 1, 1946. These libraries are: North Texas State Teachers College and Texas State College for Women, Denton, Texas; Texas Christian University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Fort worth Public Library, Fort Worth, Texas; Southern Methodist University and Dallas Public Library, Dallas, Texas.

The musical compositions known collectively as the French cantata have remained relatively unknown since their popularity waned in the middle of the 18th century. In order to establish a foundation for their systematic study and to bring them to the attention of a wider audience, this survey and catalog have been prepared. The cultural mileu in which the cantatas were written, their formal structure, and principles related to their performance have been presented along with pertinent biographical and bibliographical information.