The Sonata for Trumpet and Piano by Peter Maxwell Davies is one of his earliest works, and a notoriously difficult work to perform. While using serialism and other twentieth-century compositional techniques, this work also uses older historical forms, including sonata-allegro and sonata-rondo forms. An analysis of the work is presented, identifying the older historical forms, and considerations for performers when making decisions on how to perform the work are provided.

This written thesis accompanies a 32-minute documentary video, Journey for Jazz, which explores four Korean students who major in jazz at the University of North Texas in Denton. Detailed accounts of the pre-production, production, and post-production of the video guide the reader to understand the challenging and rewarding process of making this documentary. Theoretical issues are also discussed, including Bill Nichols's typology of documentary modes as a useful tool for analysis of hybrid documentaries and conventions of the observational and interactive mode in Journey for Jazz, which is considered a hybrid of both modes. The film focuses mainly on the scholarly and artistic experiences that the four students undergo while studying jazz in the United States.

The purpose of this study is to analyze sets of variations on Paganini's theme by three twentieth-century composers: Ferruccio Busoni, Ignaz Friedman, and Robert Muczynski, in order to examine, identify, and trace different variation techniques and their applications. Chapter 1 presents the purpose and scope of this study. Chapter 2 provides background information on the musical form "theme and variations" and the theme of Paganini's Twenty-fourth Caprice, Op. 1. Chapter 2 also deals with the question of which elements have made this theme so popular. Chapters 3,4, and 5 examine each of the three sets of variations in detail using the following format: theme, structure of each variation, harmony and key, rhythm and meter, tempo and dynamics, motivic development, grouping of variations, and technical problems. Chapter 6 summarizes the findings from this study and attempts to compare those elements among the three variations. Special attention is given to the application of the motivic cells, which are drawn from the original Paganini theme, in the development of succeeding variations. This study shows how these motivic cells contribute to the construction of new motives and melodies in each variation. Additionally, this study attempts to examine each composer's efforts in expanding variation procedure …

The impact of training on virtual team effectiveness was assessed in five areas: communication, planning tasks and setting goals, solving problems and making decisions, resolving conflict, and responding to customer requirements. A 12-page survey was developed exploring all aspects of virtual teams. 180 surveys were distributed, 52 were returned representing 43 companies. Training led to higher effectiveness in planning tasks and setting goals, solving problems and making decisions, and conflict resolution, but not in communication and responding to customer requirements. Training may not solve all the problems that virtual teams will encounter; however, training will make the challenges easier to handle.

A significant body of solo literature for the trombone has been written in the last fifty years that draws as much from the jazz tradition as from that of European classical music. While much attention has been paid to these works' use of characteristic jazz rhythms, harmonies and melodic inflections, there has been little focus on timbre, the musical element that perhaps most readily distinguishes jazz from other styles of Western music. This paper focuses on the important role jazz timbres should play in a performer's interpretation of those works that are significantly influenced by jazz. It includes explorations of the significant differences in concepts of timbre between European classical music and jazz, some of the ways in which these timbral differences are produced, and methods by which performers can develop the skills necessary to produce these varied timbres. Particular attention is paid to the importance of timbre to idiomatically appropriate performances of two significant works from the solo trombone repertoire, Robert Suderburg's Night Set (Chamber Music III) and Richard Peaslee's Arrows of Time.

The seventeenth century in England produced a large and historically significant body of music for the viola da gamba played "lyra-way." Broadly defined, playing "lyra-way" on the viol meant playing from tablature notation in a polyphonic style. Most players of plucked strings such as lute and guitar are familiar with tablature and, as a result, have a decisive advantage when attempting to explore this music. Other factors that make lyra viol repertory potentially attractive to the modern guitarist are its chordal textures, similarities in physical properties of the instruments, and many points of connection regarding the principles of left hand technique. The purpose of this study is two-fold: 1) to illuminate the historical and cultural context of the seventeenth-century English lyra viol music in general and that of Tobias Hume (c. 1579-1645) in particular; and 2) to present an idiomatic transcription for the modern guitar of four representative pieces from Hume's 1605 collection Musicall Humours. Musicall Humours, published in London in 1605, is one of the first and most significant collections of music for the lyra viol. The collection is both ambitious and groundbreaking, being the largest repertory of solo music for the lyra viol by a single composer in …

This document traces a link between Pedro Valls and Giovanni Bottesini by identifying traits of Homenaje à Bottesini that resemble techniques and musical characteristics of Bottesini's music, through the comparison of Valls' Homenaje à Bottesini to Bottesini's Fantasia sur La Sonnambula, focusing on the works formal, musical and idiomatic characteristics. This is supported by documented evidence of Bottesini's presence in Spain during Valls's lifetime and Pedro Valls contact with the Italian master of the double bass school of playing and teaching method. This study also proposes adjustments in the notation of Homenaje à Bottesini to more modern and player-friendly score indications, which will help its inclusion into the active double bass repertoire. This document examines performance practice(s) of the work and what advantages or disadvantages these practices have in playing the work, and to ultimately offer a clear pathway, a road map, to performers interested in delving into Pedro Valls's work, with a better idea of what Valls's style consists of and what approach to take when performing his works.

Concerto for Solo Percussion and Concert Band was commissioned by Staff Sergeant Rone Sparrow, a percussionist with the West Point Military Academy Band. Funding for the project was provided by the Barlow Foundation. The piece was premiered April 13, 2005 in the Eisenhower Hall Theater at West Point, New York. Rone Sparrow performed with the USMA band, and Colonel Thomas Rotondi Jr., Commander/Conductor, conducted the piece. The concerto consists of three movements, and each movement features a different instrument: the first features marimba, the second, vibraphone, and the third movement features the drum kit together with a rhythm section (piano, bass, and drums). In addition to the piece, the dissertation paper discusses important technical detail related to the piece, including: harmony, form, rhythm, programmatic ideas as they relate to motivic strands, and the process of generating and discarding material. The paper also focuses on a number of factors that were influential to the piece, such as postmodern philosophy.

Heart of the Fathers is a programmatic, seven movement work for wind symphony depicting my ancestors and their role as part of the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The movements represent their spiritual experiences, labors, times of joy, persecution, migration, and finally their arrival and success in their new homeland. The piece is organized in seven movements. Each movement represents a different portion of history leading to the western migration of my ancestors. The programmatic music contains a variety of symbols depicting the experiences of the pioneers. In the paper, each chapter addresses an individual movement. For each movement, the following information is provided: the historical events that inspired the piece, the musical symbols that characterize the program, and an analysis of the function of the music.

F. Melius Christiansen was very influential in the a cappella choral tradition. He started his career in Norway and brought his expertise to the American Midwest. Christiansen established a name for himself while working at St. Olaf Lutheran College as the head of the music department. It was the blended choral sound and precision he was able to achieve and display with his new choir in 1912 that caught everyone's ear. He continued to succeed with national and international tours, allowing him to spread his new "St. Olaf" choral sound through his music, compositions, and conducting school. This study explores the influence of F. Melius Christiansen (1871-1955) and the Minnesota choral tradition on six subsequent conductor-composers' compositions and conducting styles, including: Olaf Christiansen (1901-1984), Paul J. Christiansen (1914-1997), Kenneth Jennings (b. 1925), Robert Scholz (b. 1940), René Clausen (b. 1953), and Kenneth Hodgson (b. 1939) using Schenkerian analysis.

The early music ensemble has evolved from a counterculture to a mainstream musical genre. Because of this early music is having to learn arts management. Once a unique force it now competes with other arts organizations for funding and audience. Unlike other arts groups, early music has little help from within to clarify non-profit management. Through three types of surveys that were e-mailed to 239 early music organizations and 20 early music societies, an assessment of what is currently happening with early music ensembles in terms of growth, funding and over all well-being can be made. The information obtained revealed that most early music ensembles have little or no training in how to run an organization. This inexperience is creating problems and changing the face of early music. Information from the surveys also reveals that even with the economic problems over the last three years, early music is continuing to survive.

The Six épigraphes antiques represent a cross-section of Debussy's creative output that traces the composer's germ-seed from his original setting of the work in 1901 as incidental music to accompany the recitation of several poems, to the four-hand piano version of 1914, and its consequent reduction for solo piano. What can be gleaned by the methods of derivation from his original sketches to the final, mature works is an understanding of Debussy's use of musical metaphor and his connection to the poetry - the Chansons de Bilitis of Pierre Louÿs. Embedded literary procedures create a new musical expression of the work whereby text and music become integrated. Rather than serving as accompaniment to the poems, the Épigraphes function as the primary vessel for the conveyance of these ancient scenes. Several of Debussy's hallmark symmetrical and structural moulds, such as the whole-tone, chromatic, octatonic, and mirroring techniques reflect the omnipresent symmetry of Classical Greece. Various other artistic creations emanated from the Épigraphes, most significantly the orchestration of Ernest Ansermet in 1939. A look at the techniques used by Ansermet for the augmentation of the piano work serves to extrapolate the multifarious layers relevant in performance. In order to facilitate the four-hand …

When Schenkerian theory began to influence scholarly circles in the United States, the primary - although not the only - work to which scholars had access was Schenker's last monograph, Der freie Satz. Reading textual passages and examining the many musical graphs in the companion volume of examples influenced their concept of the fundamental structure as Schenker understood it, as well as the relationship of the other levels (Schichten) to the larger structure. The problem is that most of the second generation of Schenkerian scholars were reading the 1956 second German edition, not the 1935 first German edition. The second edition had been altered for textual and musical content by Schenker's student, Oswald Jonas - so there is already a disconnect between the original version and the text scholars were reading at that time (the 1950s, 60s, and 70s). Furthermore, many younger North Americans were insufficiently fluent in German to be able to read the work in the original language. In order to make Schenker's treatise accessible to English-speaking scholars, Ernst Oster set about translating the work into English, a task completed in 1979 just after his death. The text was based on the second German edition (ed. Jonas, Vienna, …

Composer Michael Nyman wrote the one-act, minimalist opera The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, based off the neurological case study written by Oliver Sacks under the same title. The opera is about a professional singer and professor whom suffers from visual agnosia. In chapter 1, the plot and history of the opera are discussed. Chapter 2 places The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat alongside a selection of minimalist operas from Philip Glass and John Adams. Chapter 3 contains a history of the Fluxus art movement and shows where Fluxus-like examples appear in the opera. Chapter 4 includes Nyman's usage of minimalism, vocal congruencies, and Robert Schumann as musical elements that convey the drama.

This study documents and analyzes cyclic patterns used as melodic vocabulary in John Coltrane's improvisations from compositions of 1965 to 1967. The analysis is categorized in two distinct sections. The first section analyzes melodic vocabulary that is derived from the cycle of descending major thirds progressions found in the compositions of 1959 to 1960. The second section analyzes melodic vocabulary that is derived from Nicolas Slonimsky's Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns using the theoretical terminology incorporated in the treatise. Musical examples consist of patterns from the Thesaurus and excerpts from selected improvisations of John Coltrane as transcribed by Andrew White. Important scholarly contributions relevant to the subject by Carl Woideck, Lewis Porter, David Demsey, and Walt Weiskopf are included. Every effort has been made to cite interviews with musicians and commentaries by writers contemporary to that period of time with special emphasis on the important influence of Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, and Ornette Coleman. Chapter headings include: Literature Review and Methodology; Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, and Ornette Coleman: Converging Influences; Analysis: Coltrane's Major Thirds Harmonic Cycles Used as Melodic Vocabulary; Interval Cycles in Coltrane's Melodic Vocabulary Based on Patterns from Slonimsky's Thesaurus; Summary and Conclusion.

This dissertation discusses the potential of the snare drum as a solo concert instrument. Four pieces from a collection entitled The Noble Snare are used for demonstration ("Homily" by Milton Babbitt, "Composed Improvisation for Snare Drum" by John Cage, "Peeping Tom" by Dan Senn, and "The Noble Snare" by Stuart Saunders Smith). In the absence of many traditional musical devices (i.e. melody and harmony), alternative means of expression are used by the composer. Each piece is discussed with regard to its distinctive compositional approach and inherent performance issues. Information is also given pertaining to the background of the Noble Snare series. This includes: the inspiration for the project, editorial issues, and its influence on snare drum performance. Much of this research was completed through interviews by with author with Sylvia Smith, publisher of The Noble Snare and owner of Smith Publications.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of three different levels of skill training in musical timbre discrimination on alphabet sound discrimination in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children. The findings of prior investigations indicated similarities between aural music and language perception. Psychoacoustic and neurological findings have reported the discrimination of alphabet quality and musical timbre to be similar perceptual functions and have provided, through imaging technology, physical evidence of music learning simultaneously stimulating non-musical areas of the brain. This investigator hypothesized that timbre discrimination, the process of differentiating the characteristic quality of one complex sound from another of identical pitch and loudness, may have been a common factor between music and alphabet sound discrimination. Existing studies had not explored this relationship or the effects of directly teaching for transfer on learning generalization between skills used for the discrimination of musical timbre and alphabet sounds. Variables identified as similar from the literature were the discrimination of same- different musical and alphabet sounds, visual recognition of musical and alphabet pictures as sound sources, and association of alphabet and musical sounds with matching symbols. A randomized pre-post test design with intermittent measures was used to implement the study. There were 5 …

Francis Poulenc's one-character opera La Voix humaine (1958), a setting of the homonymous play by Jean Cocteau, explores the psychological complexities of an unnamed woman as she experiences the end of a romantic relationship. During the forty-minute work, she sings in a declamatory manner into a telephone, which serves as a sign of the unrevealed man at the other end. Poulenc uses musical motives to underscore the woman's changing emotional states as she recalls her past relationship. The musical dramaturgy in this work resignifies Debussy's impressionist symbolism by collapsing devices used in Pelléas et Mélisande in a language that shifts between octatonicism, chromaticism, harmonic and melodic whole tone passages, and diatonicism. This late work recontextualizes elements in Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites (1953-56), and the end of the opera provides a theme for his Sonate pour Clarinet et Piano(1962), as Poulenc reflects on his youthful encounters with Cocteau, Erik Satie, and Les Six.

The purpose of this paper is to create a modern transcription/edition and an historical study of Munich Mus. Ms. 1511b thereby helping to define the social and pedagogical ramifications of lute repertoire from the mid-sixteenth-century. Because of the amateurish nature of the compositions, the conclusion of this study is that a member of the Herwarth family probably used the manuscript for learning purposes. Dance, grounds and other related forms found in the manuscript are discussed. Also included is an incipit concordance that can be used as a cross-reference for further research.

Jake Heggie, American art song and opera composer, began his association with Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ when he composed Dead Man Walking, an operatic adaptation of her memoirs. Though from two very different backgrounds, the two developed a deep friendship and spiritual bond that provided the impetus for further compositions dealing with spirituality. Heggie adapted Prejean's meditations as a text for his song cycle The Deepest Desire in 2002, producing what he considers to be his finest work to date. Using The Deepest Desire as a gateway, this paper explores the social and cultural aspects of their association, revealing their personal perspectives on their relationship, collaborations, and shared sense of spirituality. Chapters include the biographies and spiritual philosophies of both Heggie and Prejean, Heggie's compositional style, Dead Man Walking, a performance analysis of The Deepest Desire, and the continuing influence of the relationship between Heggie and Prejean on Heggie's work. The appendix includes transcriptions of personal interviews with both individuals, Prejean's original meditation texts, correspondence with Heggie, Prejean, and Joyce DiDonato, and performance notes for The Deepest Desire derived from a musical coaching with the composer.

Present Absence is a work that integrates electronic processing and live performance. It is approximately 20 minutes long and is divided into three movements. The movements are distinct from each other, but are related through various elements. Incorporating electronic processing and live performance can be cumbersome. The primary objective of this piece is to use electronic processing in a manner that liberates the performers from any restrictions imposed by the use of electronic processing. The electronic processing in the work is accomplished through the program MAX/Msp, a real-time digital signal processing environment. The patch that was created for this piece is called MOO-V. This paper discusses the both the technical details in the construction of this patch, and the aesthetic it serves.

David Werner Amram III, born in Philadelphia in 1930 is a celebrated American composer whose works have increasingly gained worldwide attention. His compositions embrace many genres including incidental music, film scores, symphonies, concertos, sonatas, instrumental trios, quartets, cantatas and operas as well as songs. One of Amram's earliest published songs, Pull My Daisy, is from his musical score for the experimental film of the same name. The song, text by Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac, is set in a jazz style. Twelve of his songs, published in three collections are drawn either from his incidental music for Shakespeare plays or from his chamber opera, Twelfth Night. Another group written for baritone voice, wind and string quintets is entitled Three Songs for America. Trail of Beauty for mezzosoprano, oboe and orchestra contains four settings of Native American texts. The first chapter of this paper provides a biography of the composer. Succeeding chapters give some analysis of representative songs from each published group, background to their composition, texts, information from reviews where available, and the composers own comments from telephone interviews with the writer. An appendix contains brief illustrations of music from representative songs. It is observed that Amram's multifaceted …

Kirke Mechem (b. 1925), American composer, has a musical output which includes a variety of genres, the most prolific being choral music. This document examines selected choral works by Mechem that are set to the poetry of Sara Teasdale (b. 1884, d. 1933). Included are biographical sketches of Mechem and Teasdale. Selected choral works examined include Christmas Carol (1969) SATB and guitar, The Winds of May, five movement choral cycle (1965) SATB, Birds at Dusk, from the choral cycle Winging Wildly (1998) SATB, and Barter (1995) SA, trumpet, piano 4-hands. Analysis of the poetry involved as well as musical attributes and compositional techniques, including meter, form, harmonic structures, wordpainting, rhythmic treatment and melodic characteristics are included in the discussion.

This thesis surveys a variety of songs and arias for high soprano which feature the nightingale; examines the musical elements that symbolize, refer to, or imitate the nightingale; and compares these musical elements with transcriptions of the nightingale's song. The first chapter reviews the symbolic development of the nightingale and its role in poetry and literature. The interior chapters address a selection of musical compositions that feature the nightingale and its song. The final chapter establishes a relationship between the sound of the actual sound of the nightingale and the musical gestures created by composers to imitate the nightingale.