Degree Discipline

Night of Glass (open access)

Night of Glass

Night of Glass is for chamber orchestra with an estimated performance time of 14 minutes. The instrumentation for the work, using one player per part, is Flute (also small glass wind chimes), Oboe (also 1 tuned water crystal), Clarinet in A (also small glass wind chimes), Bassoon (also 1 tuned water crystal), Horn in F (also 1 tuned water crystal), Trumpet in C (also 2 tuned water crystals), Percussion (Vibraphone, Glockenspiel, Chimes, Bell Tree, Hammered Dulcimer, 3 Suspended Cymbals, 1 Large Tam-tam, 4 Roto Toms, 3 Tympani), Piano, 1st Violin, 2nd Violin, Viola, Cello, and Double Bass, While not programmatic, the work is divided into six sections each expressing a predetermined emotional content: fragility, anxiety, solitude, fear, catharsis, and reconciliation. All are emotional contents which are found in the dream-state that is reflected in the work's title. All aspects of Night of Glass (i.e., pitch material, form structure, and structural density) are centered around the unifying factor of emotional projection within each section. The work seeks emotional content through the expansion of composition procedures while being accessible to listeners.
Date: May 1988
Creator: Sanders, Gregory L. (Gregory Lynn)
System: The UNT Digital Library
Computer Simulacra (open access)

Computer Simulacra

Computer Simulacra is a musical work composed for amplified instrumental ensemble and computer instruments on tape. It is a computer-assisted work, composed with the help of a stochastic compositional algorithm, called PTERIO, designed by the composer.
Date: December 1989
Creator: Phelps, James D. (James Dee)
System: The UNT Digital Library
Mysterium Cosmographicum, for Orchestra, Narrator/Actor, and Computer Music on Tape (open access)

Mysterium Cosmographicum, for Orchestra, Narrator/Actor, and Computer Music on Tape

Mysterium Cosmographicum is a musical chronicle of an astronomy treatise by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630). Kepler's Mysterium cosmographicum (Tubingen, 1596), or "Secret of the Universe," was a means by which he justified the existence of the six planets discovered during his lifetime. Kepler, through flawless a priori reasoning, goes to great lengths to explain that the reason there are six and only six planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) is because God had placed one of the five regular solids (tetrahedron, cube, octa-, dodeca-, and icosahedron) around each orbiting body. Needless to say, the publication was not very successful, nor did it gain much comment from Kepler's peers, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) and Tycho Brahe (1546-1601). But hidden within the Mysterium cosmographicum. almost like a new planet waiting to be discovered, is one of Kepler's three laws of planetary motion, a law that held true for planets discovered long after Kepler's life-time. Mysterium Cosmographicum is a monologue with music in three parts for orchestra, narrator/actor, and computer music on tape. All musical data structures ape generated via an interactive Pascal computer program that computes latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates For each of the nine planets as seen From …
Date: December 1989
Creator: Keefe, Robert Michael
System: The UNT Digital Library
S'I' Fosse Foco, Arderei'l Mondo (open access)

S'I' Fosse Foco, Arderei'l Mondo

The dissertation is recorded computer music. It has a duration of fourteen minutes and fifty seven seconds. The source sound material is a reading of a sonnet of the same name by thirteenth century Sienese poet Cecco Angiolieri. It utilizes Linear Predictive Coding and Short-time-fourier synthesis in addition to postprocessing by spatialization and digital filtering. The discussion of the piece includes an explanation of the synthesis techniques, the pitch manipulation algorithms and the programs written by the composer to generate computer scores based on these algorithms, and finally how the individual musical events were generated and mixed together. The computer scores and programs used to generated these scores are provided after the discussion.
Date: May 1993
Creator: De Lisa, Eugene, 1957-
System: The UNT Digital Library