Musical Borrowing: Referential Treatment in American Popular Music (open access)

Musical Borrowing: Referential Treatment in American Popular Music

This thesis examines the relationships between popular contemporary musical styles and classic-era art music. Analysis of pop-rock songs, and their referential treatment in art rock, classical music, and society will be examined. Pop-rock musicians borrow from the masters of the past and from each other. Rock guitarists such as Eddie Van Halen employ a virtuosic technique suggestive of Liszt and Paganini. The group Rush borrowed freely from opera seria. Frank Zappa referenced contemporary musicians as well as classical techniques. Referential treatment in popular music and the recent advancements in technology, have challenged copyright law. How these treatments and technologies affect copyright legislators and musicians will be discussed.
Date: December 1998
Creator: DiGiallonardo, Richard L. (Richard Lee)
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Investigation of the Influence of Evaluator Background on Appraisals of a Music Lesson Using the Texas Teacher Appraisal System (open access)

An Investigation of the Influence of Evaluator Background on Appraisals of a Music Lesson Using the Texas Teacher Appraisal System

This study's purpose was to investigate the differences in scores and written comments given by two appraisal groups in their evaluation of a music teacher using the Texas Teacher Appraisal System (TTAS). One appraiser group had musical training while the other group specialized in other subjects. Analyses of both group's appraisal scores showed no significant differences. An examination of the written comments revealed that both appraisal groups focused on the same aspects of the lesson and used similar vocabulary. The TTAS instrument was a consistent measure of generic teacher behaviors in the music lesson, but it did not measure specific music teaching behaviors or encourage suggestions for improving musical instruction.
Date: December 1997
Creator: Bohnstengel, Carol
System: The UNT Digital Library
Mail Order Music: the Hinners Organ Company in the Dakotas, 1879-1936 (open access)

Mail Order Music: the Hinners Organ Company in the Dakotas, 1879-1936

Founded in 1879 by John L. Hinners, the Hinners Organ Company developed a number of stock models of small mechanical-action instruments that were advertised throughout the Midwest. Operating without outside salesmen, the company was one of the first to conduct all of its affairs by mail, including the financial arrangements, selection of the basic design, and custom alterations where required. Buyers first met a company representative when he arrived by train to set up the crated instrument that had been shipped ahead of him. Tracker organs with hand-operated bellows were easily repaired by local craftsmen, and were suited to an area that, for the most part, lacked electricity. In all, the company constructed nearly three thousand pipe organs during its sixty years of operation. Rapid decline of the firm began in the decade prior to 1936 during which the company sold fewer than one hundred instruments, and closed in that year when John's son Arthur found himself without sufficient financial resources to weather the lengthy depression. The studies of the original-condition Hinners organs in the Dakotas include extensive photographs and measurements, and provide an excellent cross section of the smaller instruments produced by the company. They are loud, excellently crafted, …
Date: August 1997
Creator: Alcorn-Oppedahl, Allison A. (Allison Ann)
System: The UNT Digital Library
Music Preferences 1980 Versus 1989 and Their Relationship With Selected Environment and Listener Variables (open access)

Music Preferences 1980 Versus 1989 and Their Relationship With Selected Environment and Listener Variables

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.
Date: August 1994
Creator: Novak, Jennifer J. Doud
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Musical Fallout of Political Activism: Government Investigations of Musicians in the United States, 1930-1960 (open access)

The Musical Fallout of Political Activism: Government Investigations of Musicians in the United States, 1930-1960

Government investigations into the motion picture industry are well-documented, as is the widespread blacklisting that was concurrent. Not nearly so well documented are the many investigations of musicians and musical organizations which occurred during this same period. The degree to which various musicians and musical organizations were investigated varied considerably. Some warranted only passing mention, while others were rigorously questioned in formal Congressional hearings. Hanns Eisler was deported as a result of the House Committee on Un-American Activities' (HUAC) investigation into his background and activities in the United States. Leonard Bernstein, Marc Blitzstein, and Aaron Copland are but a few of the prominent composers investigated by the government for their involvement in leftist organizations. The Symphony of the Air was denied visas for a Near East tour after several orchestra members were implicated as Communists. Members of musicians' unions in New York and Los Angeles were called before HUAC hearings because of alleged infiltration by Communists into their ranks. The Metropolitan Music School of New York, led by its president-emeritus, the composer Wallingford Riegger, was the subject of a two day congressional hearing in New York City. There is no way to measure either quantitatively or qualitatively the effect of …
Date: August 1993
Creator: McCall, Sarah B.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Hartley Wood Day: Inventor of Numeral Notation and Adversary of Lowell Mason (open access)

Hartley Wood Day: Inventor of Numeral Notation and Adversary of Lowell Mason

Ignorance of the basic principles of music reading was one of the primary obstacles to the improvement of congregational singing in nineteenth-century America. Six separate numeral notation systems arose to provide a simple way for the common man to learn the basic principles of music. Hartley Day developed his own numeral notation system and published six tune-books that enjoyed modest success in the New England area. This thesis examines Day's numeral notation system as it appeared in the Boston Numeral Harmony (1845), and the One-Line Psalmist (1849). It also studies Day's periodical, The Musical Visitor, in which he continually attacked Lowell Mason, possibly leading to Mason's dismissal as Superintendent of Music of Boston's public schools.
Date: December 1991
Creator: Carnes, Tara Barker
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Investigation of Selected Female Singing- and Speaking-Voice Characteristics Through Comparison of a Group of Pre-Menarcheal Girls to a Group of Post-Menarcheal Girls (open access)

An Investigation of Selected Female Singing- and Speaking-Voice Characteristics Through Comparison of a Group of Pre-Menarcheal Girls to a Group of Post-Menarcheal Girls

The purpose of this study was to compare the speaking fundamental frequency, physiological vocal range, singing voice quality, and self-perceptions of the singing and speaking voice between two groups of girls ages 11 through 15 years, who were pre-menarcheal by 6 months and post-menarcheal by 10 months or more. Subjects were volunteers who attended a North Texas public school system. Each subject was examined by an otolaryngologist. Age, height, weight, a hearing screening, and information on music classes and/or private music lessons were obtained. The speaking fundamental frequency measure was obtained by having each subject speak for 30 seconds on a subject of choice and read a passage of approximately 100 syllables. The vocal range measure was obtained by having each subject begin at an arbitrary pitch and sing mah and moo up the scale as high as possible and mah and moo down the scale as low as possible. These four measures were repeated with the researcher giving visual gestures. For singing-voice quality, each subject sang "America" in the key of her choice and again in the key of F major. Each subjects singing voice was rated according to breathiness. Data regarding self-perceptions of the singing and speaking voice …
Date: May 1990
Creator: Williams, Bonnie Blu
System: The UNT Digital Library