The three respond motets from Matins for the Dead by Robert Parsons constitute an important part of the sacred Latin repertory of mid-sixteenth-century England, illustrating central features of the English mid-century style. Although he worked within a conservative musical tradition, Parsons experimented with that tradition in personal and individual ways. Specifically his modal and thematic construction as well as his practice of musica ficta are singled out for closer analysis. Consequently, a methodology for editorial decisions concerning musica ficta is developed. Two special problems, the simultaneous cross-relation and diminished fourth, are shown as the result of normative polyphonic processes and vertical structures.

This study provides commentary on Mizler's Dissertatio and Anfangs-Gründe des General Basses. Chapter V is an annotated guide to his Neu eröffnete musikalische Bibliothek, one of the earliest German music periodicals. Translations of Mizler's biography in Mattheson's Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte and selected passages of Mizler's Der musikalischer Staarstecher contribute a sampling of the critical polemics among Mizler, Mattheson, and Scheibe. As a proponent of the Aufklärung, Mizler was influenced by Leibnitz, Thomasius, and Wolff. Though his attempts to apply mechanistic principles to music were rejected during his time, his founding of a society of musical sciences, which included J. S. Bach, Telemann, Handel, and C. H. Graun as members, and his efforts to establish music as a scholarly discipline deserve recognition.

Benjamin Keach (1640-1704) was a seventeenth-century preacher and hymn writer. He is considered responsible for the introduction and continued use of hymns, as distinct from psalms and paraphrases, in the English Nonconformist churches in the late seventeenth century, and is remembered as the provider of a well-rounded body of hymns for congregational worship. This thesis reviews the historical climate of seventeenth-century England, and discusses Keach's life in terms of that background. Keach's influence on congregational hymn singing, hymn writers, preaching, and education is also examined. Keach's writings and contributions to hymn singing are little known today. This thesis points out the significance of these writings and hymns to seventeenth-century religious life.

This study presents a theory of melodic creation, transmission, memory, and recall within the Anglo- and Celtic-American culture of lower Appalachia, from the time of the earliest European settlers until the present. This theory and its attendant hypotheses draw upon earlier published ideas, current theories of memory and recall, and the results of applying a computer-supported analytical system developed by the author. Sources include previous studies of folksong melody, song collections, and earlier investigations of the psychology of memory. Also important are portions of an anonymous treatise on traditional Celtic musical scales and an authoritative, modern interpretation of this document. A final body of sources is a small group of sound-recordings.