Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Art and music'

This thesis consists of a portfolio of compositions in acoustic and electronic media with an accompanying commentary. The central theme of these works is the development of new strategies for the integration of diverse sound sources, styles and performance aesthetics. Key topics include the fusing of dramatic structures from classical and popular music, the blending of acoustic and electronic instruments, performance strategies for electroacoustic music with live musicians, how concert music can engage with the idea of “the mix” from commercial music, the creation of sound worlds that interpolate between conventional ‘musical’ ingredients and environmental sound.

The focus of my thesis is on the development of an Urban Art Music; urban in the sense that it reflects the character and events emanating from my experience of post-globalization urban society. The Commentary demonstrates how my approach has evolved and changed substantially from a starting point of deploying very specific and challenging but, to some extent, theoretically-based compositional techniques through to my current approach which is more spectrally-influenced and focuses on the utilization of physically recorded sounds from my urban environment as direct and indirect compositional source materials. I describe various means by which I have attempted to capture features of this society within the construction of musical works, whether by using contrasting strands of movement and stasis to reflect events and behaviours or by physically recording and manipulating actual urban sounds so that snapshots of my immediate environment play a direct part in shaping the music. Originality has remained important throughout the period of this work too. As such, I have tried to remain consistent in postulating a musical language that is ethereal in quality, perhaps reflecting both the vagueness of how events truly play out in current urban society and the sense of detachment and suspended reality I sometimes feel when relating and responding to a complex, unpredictable world; one I sometimes struggle to understand but nonetheless try, in an abstract sense, to comment on through my music. The contents are divided into three distinct parts. Part One seeks to explain how and why I compose music and elaborates on the socio-political aspects. Part Two focuses on the forms, structures and techniques that are the foundation of my music and highlights those specific pieces which demonstrate important, frequently deployed features. Part Three is a series of commentaries on the individual compositions included in the portfolio.

This thesis investigates what it means to call art music composition creative. Research into the concept of creativity has taken place mostly in science-based disciplines and is reviewed for its relevance. Discussions on what may constitute the foundations of creativity in music are conducted. Musical creativity is not bounded by normativity, consistency, truth-boundedness, optimization or effability for its recognition and is largely aesthetic. Current research methods are mainly explanatory, objective and analytic, and necessarily fall short in understanding musical creativity. It thereby undermines the validity of these methods when used to justify one’s understanding. The undermining invariably takes place by disrupting logical and reasonable expectations. The significance of this research is that it attempts to find and describe essences of the subject matter, the effect of which actually disrupts grounds for finding essences in the first place. It no longer seeks to explain creativity in musical composition. This thesis argues that creativity in art music composition is better understood through philosophical phenomenology than through analysis, where evidence as experience and description naturally includes aesthetic considerations. What composers say is made potentially helpful to understand their musical creativity. They are approached using an interview technique where problem solving, truth-boundedness, optimization and reasonable causality are set aside as essential precepts. Responses are interpreted intuitively to reveal essences present. Trains of thought that reveal essential properties in interview content are intuited. They show that communication is a prominent essence to motivation for being creative. Perceptual attitudes and experiences are often provoked by disruption to sonic expectation. Creativity in art music composition then becomes a generic initial step in the way it communicates and inspires through playing with musical expectation.

As a music student who was always more attracted to the “academic” side of music rather than the performance side, I have come to hold a great respect for music history. This interest only grew when I got the opportunity to study music for a semester in Edinburgh, Scotland. Being surrounded by so much history, both musical and artistic, only fed my passion. I began to notice many similarities between the development of music and art both during lectures at the university and in my leisure time in galleries. I noticed that composers and visual artists in the same time period would hold similar beliefs or thoughts, therefore similarities could be found between the two art forms. Oftentimes, I would come across a composer whose compositional techniques were directly influenced by an artist and/or vice versa. I became interested in this type of cross-pollination in music and soon began to ask myself the question “Have the development of art and music always been influenced by each other? How many composers were inspired by art?” When it came time to begin my honors thesis, I decided to address this topic. So, I chose to explore this type of cross-pollination in music and, in conjunction with this research, create my own musical composition based on a work of visual art of my own choosing. Specifically, I wanted to look more carefully at the technique composers had used historically to connect their pieces of music with particular pieces of visual art. I therefore chose several art-influenced compositions to examine how the music expresses the art. In the first chapter of my thesis, I discuss the problem of turning spatially existing art into a temporally existing composition and explore several compositions in which the composers chose to construct a musical narrative as an approach to this challenge. In the second chapter, I revisit the problem of turning art into music but instead explore a different set of compositions that overcome this issue using a ‘snapshot’ technique. In the third chapter, I take a look at ekprasis as a technique used to translate abstract art into music and focus on how one composition in particular expresses the artwork. The fourth chapter is a journal discussing the art I have chosen, the stages in my compositional process, and how I used what I learned from my research to create my own composition. I have included the score of my composition as the fifth chapter.

‘Metsän väki - Forest Dwellers’ was my Professional Integration Project (PIP). The project consisted of creating a performance titled ‘Metsän väki’, which was performed on May 9th 2016 in Helsinki, Finland and of writing this thesis. The performance was a collaboration between different artists and it involved music, visual art, dance and performance art. The starting point for creating the performance was my collaboration with sculptor and environmental artist Jenni Tieaho. In addition to traditional instruments, sounding objects were used in creating the music. There were both written and improvised music as well as improvised dance in the performance. The performance took place in a former psychiatric hospital. In the outcomes and conclusion I present my expectations for the performance and describe how those where met. I also examine the role of cross-artistic collaboration in the project. I give examples of my own artistic development as well as my development as a project leader. I also reflect on the relevance of the project to the community. The outcomes are presented through my own reflections and through discussion where I point to literature concerning the differences and similarities between different art forms. The outcomes of the project include audience feedback from the performance. This is presented in the appendices. My conclusion shows that I was also able to create a rich and diverse performance by using simple (low-tech) methods. The performance was inspired by my experiences, interests and background. In my thesis I also show how creating and structuring the ‘Metsän väki’ performance can help me to develop as an artist doing cross-artistic collaboration.
Professional Integration Project

This thesis looks at Samuel Beckett’s creative process beginning with an analysis of how the visual arts (in particular Kandinsky and Abstract Expressionism) influenced Watt, which he began writing as a means of staying sane during WWII, and ending with an investigation of the colour blue in Company (which was finished in 1980) in relation to paintings by Beckett’s acquaintance, Geneviève Asse. Three radio plays and two teleplays which Beckett wrote during this period are also examined to evaluate how contemporary (Morton Feldman and Marcel Mihalovici) and Romantic (Beethoven and Schubert) music instruct Beckett’s creative process, specifically his structural techniques and narrative voice. With reference to Beckett’s early drafts from his manuscripts held in the Beckett Collection at the University of Reading, his correspondences, and early critical essays, this research asks how music, art, and media inform Beckett’s aesthetic decisions and shape his work. Specifically, it asks how Beckett’s use of art and music can create new perspectives on his struggle to express the sense of longing and tension between hope and despair. By choosing texts that span forty years, Beckett’s stylistic shifts are analysed in relation to the cultural context, particularly the technological advancements and artistic movements, during which they occur. As an author who recycles numerous motifs – greatcoats, slippers, the sea, cylindrical enclosures – one can identify how Beckett’s methodological experimentation affects his creative process, particularly his use of language. This thesis finds new examples to claim that the drastic changes that took place in the visual and musical worlds, such as the move from abstraction to minimalism, and tonality to atonality, influenced Beckett and, in turn, were influenced by him. Its focus on Beckett’s creative process contributes to interdisciplinary scholarship, extending the discussion on Beckett and his personal and intellectual involvement with the surrounding artistic milieu.

This work seeks to explore the relationship between two arts: music and painting. The aim of this thesis is the creation and execution of an interdisciplinary performance in which music and painting dialogue live, "Painting music", to investigate how both arts relate and influence each other when they are part of a single artistic act and how performers and audience perceive this relationship. To do so, we will investigate interdisciplinary performances, synesthesia (union of perceptions) and the different ways in which painting and music can relate to each other.

The classification of notated Western art music is a perennial issue. This thesis analyses and models the knowledge organization of notated Western art music in order to elucidate a theoretical understanding of these classification issues and to offer new ways of viewing music classification in the future. This thesis also considers how music classification contributes to developments in general knowledge organization and compares the classification of Western art music across the library and information science (LIS) and music domains. The research is conducted using a number of analytical techniques, including examining music knowledge organization discourse, analysing examples of LIS classification schemes, unpicking discussions of classification in the music domain and analysing composer worklists in the music domain. After ascertaining how music classification fits into theories of faceted classification, three important facets of music are identified: medium, form and genre, and a quasi-facet of function. These three facets are explored in detail over five chapters: the binary vocal/instrumental categorisation; classifying numbers of instruments or voices, accompaniment, arrangements and “extreme” mediums; classifying musical instruments; classifying musical forms and genres; and the quasi-facet of function. Five resulting models of music classification are presented. Model 1 demonstrates the complexities of classifying musical medium, including the interlinked relationships between different parts of musical medium. Model 2 offers a solution to LIS classification’s largely binary view of vocal and instrumental categorisation by suggesting a novel new category: “vocinstrumental”. Model 3 illuminates the entrenched dependencies between facets of music, highlighting one of the structural issues with LIS classifications of music. Model 4 offers an original structure of music classification, proposing a simultaneous faceted and genre-based system. Model 5 compares classification in the music and LIS domains, offering a novel way of considering domain-based classification by codifying various types of relationships between the LIS and domain classifications. This thesis also contributes to the theory and practice of knowledge organization in general through the development of novel frameworks and methodologies to analyse classification schemes: the multiplane approach, reception-infused analysis, webs of Wirkungs (connections) between classification schemes and stress-testing.

I offer this dissertation as a survey and a story: a survey of my work across the field of sonic art and a story of my progressive compulsion toward sound that conveys touch. This haptic sensibility sharpens from Susurrus (2006) through Soma (2012), manifesting in a fixation on the impact of sound on bodies and the impact of bodies on sound. Both the visceral sensation of hearing and the manner in which movement imprints onto acoustic phenomena concern me. My musical forms are conceived not as abstract arrangements of objects (or notes) but as complex physical confrontations that produce audible byproducts. I compose primarily with chaotic spectra, mixing raw noise from found objects with extended instrumental techniques. These timbres front an acoustic wildness intentionally abated in conventional instrumental practice. And yet, the precision of classical instruments opens avenues of transformation closed to unmediated noise. Virtuosity and crudeness face-off in my work, circling an aesthetic region between embellishment and fact, between sound as a carrier of aesthetic intent and sound as a subsidiary effect of action. The ten works presented in this portfolio include eight compositions scored for a range of ensembles, from soloist to orchestra, with and without electronics, as well as two interactive multimedia installations. Dramatic links between physical movement and musical form arise across this output. In my installations, I posit causal relationships between visible stimuli (spinning strings, spatial structures, moving bodies) and resultant sounds. In my electroacoustic works, I attend to the implied weight of spatialized sound – as though a gesture’s trajectory through arrayed speakers were informed by gravity. In my acoustic music, I bring the muscular strain behind instrumental technique to the perceptual fore. My professional activities shift regularly between concert music and installation art and between acoustic and electroacoustic contexts. Passing between these genres stretches the boundaries of my creative practice and forces me to consistently reframe notions of ritual and form. Within each platform, I aim to stage visceral aesthetic encounters that, as Francis Bacon once hoped for his paint, bypass the brain and go directly to the nervous system.
Music

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of visual stimuli on music listening skills in pre-service elementary teachers. Visual Stimuli in this study refers to the presentation of arts elements in selected visually projected images of paintings. Music listening skills are defined as those skills needed to identify and interpret musical excerpts. A Pretest-Posttest Control-group Design was used in this study. Subjects were pre-service elementary general educators enrolled in a large southern university (N=93). Students from intact classes were randomly placed into either the experimental group or the control group. The treatment consisted of six music listening lessons over a two-week period with each group receiving the identical teaching protocol with the exception of the use of paintings with the experimental group. Listening instruction emphasized the identification of melodic contour, instrumentation, texture, rhythm and expressive elements of the compositions. The Teacher Music Listening Skills Test (TMLST) was constructed by the investigator and administered before and after the treatment. The TMLST was designed to assess music listening skills in adult non-musicians. Results indicate that the group receiving visual stimuli in the form of paintings scored significantly higher on listening skills (pandlt;.01) than the control group which received no visual stimuli in the form of visually projected images of paintings. There was an instruction effect on both preference and familiarity of the musical pieces for both the control group and the experimental group.

The sixteenth century brought increased English military occupation and settlement to Ireland. Members of the invading nobility, who consequently came into contact with the native culture, were seduced by the sound of the Irish harp and took the instrument from its roots in Gaelic society and placed it in the setting of European courtly music. My aim is to examine this process, the resulting developments which took place in the evolution of the Irish harp, and compositions associated with its usage in the 'art' music of England and the Continent. Particular reference is made to the 'Harpe' Consorts of William Lawes together with their sources and resulting implications when considering the capabilities of the instrument employed. The harp's role within this music is also analysed and a complete set of transcriptions of Lawes' consorts is included. Works by other musicians associated with the Irish harp during the period 1550-1650 are also discussed with specific reference to the compasses and accidentals of the instruments required by the composers where appropriate. Transcriptions of works attributed to Cormack MacDermott and the anonymous harp parts located at the back of Ch Ch Mus MS 5 are included. Martin Peerson's 'Mottects or Grave Chamber Music' and a collection of works for 'Treble Bass Viol and Harp', included in the back of the 1687 edition of Christopher Simpson's A Compendium of Practical Music are also discussed. A major part of the research involved the reconstruction of an Irish chromatic harp (presented as part of this thesis) capable of playing the music examined. An account of this is given in a report which looks at the decisions and processes involved, difficulties encountered, as well as some recommendations for future experimental directions.

Thesis (M.A.)--Case Western Reserve University, 2009
Title from PDF (viewed on ) Department of Music Includes abstract Includes bibliographical references and appendices Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center

Art song teachers are constantly seeking new repertoire for their students. Many countries outside those commonly represented in American vocal studios (for instance Spain and Russia) have rich art song traditions which merit inclusion in the vocal studio. In this era of increased cultural awareness, many other areas of music education are seeking to explore these repertoires. However, many art songs are unable to be utilized because of the lack of resources in this country concerning their acquisition, identification, history, pronunciation and performance. Finland has a vast art song repertoire that is largely unexplored by American singers and teachers for the reasons mentioned above. A relatively new nation, Finland has a rich past which has remained a mystery to the west because of its close connection to the former Soviet Union. In addition, prior to the twentieth century, Finland had been under the control of foreign governments including those of Russia and Sweden since the Middle Ages. This document seeks to identify and examine Finnish art songs while providing background information regarding their history, development, and relevance to Finnish culture. In addition, tools for acquiring and performing Finnish art song are included to facilitate the inclusion of these songs in American vocal studios. Various sections include the development of the art song genre in Finland, the connection of songs to the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, and a brief examination of the Finno-Ugrian language group. Biographical information is provided for seven selected composers arranged in chronological order. A total of ten songs are analyzed from the selected composers and an English translation is also provided for each. In addition, a collection of appendices providing complete lists of published songs for each composer, a Finnish IPA pronunciation chart, contact information for Finnish music publishers and musical resources and a selected discography are included.

The present paper discusses the two concepts 'music as art' and 'music as function', put in a historical context but also based on my own experiences and development throughout the Nordic Master in Folk Music. Special regard is given to how my changing relationship to these two concepts have affected my own development. The paper also describes several different methods for artistic development as well as some ideas about what (folk) music can be and how we can think about it.

Bilaga: 1 DVD

The concept of entrepreneurship in research and society has been firmly rooted in the realm of economics and business. This narrow focus excludes a large number of entrepreneurial acts that occur outside of economic contexts. The discipline of high art music performance is rich with innovative acts that challenge the boundaries of conventional practices. However, these acts largely go unnoticed because of the strength of the bond between entrepreneurship and economics. In this research paper, a literature review will be used to examine how entrepreneurship can best be conceptualized in the discipline of high art music performance. It is argued here that a project-based view of entrepreneurship (Lindgren & Packendorff 2003) provides a valuable conceptualization to understand entrepreneurship in high art music performance. This conceptualization is then applied to three case studies of Canadian high art music performers. The case study uses the musicians' narrative accounts to provide illustrations of the project-based nature of entrepreneurship in music performance. It is hoped that the findings from this investigation provides further support for a project-based view of entrepreneurship and a starting ground to develop more effective tools to support and develop entrepreneurship in music through education and policy development.

Forty songs are randomly selected from four randomly selected maqams. Songs are restricted to be in sofyan usü
l (sofyan rhythmic form) to check the statistical significance. Next, fractal dimensions of the these songs are calculated by using two different method and two different scattering diagrams. In the first method, fractal dimensions are calculated via two different box sizes. As for second method, successively decreased box sizes are used. In addition, standard deviation and mean values of the fractal dimensions are calculated to check the relation between fractal dimension and maqam. T test and F test are applied to check the statistical significance. After these calculations, it is verified that fractal dimension can be used as an information source concerning the Turkish art music songs which are nonlinear dynamical systems. Moreover, it is showed that maqams can have their own fractal dimension for low resolutions. On the other hand, it is seen that for high resolutions all songs have almost same fractal dimension.

This thesis describes research in the computational analysis of harmony in western art music, focussing particularly on improving the accuracy and information-richness of key and chord extraction from digital score data. It is argued that a greater sophistication in automatic harmony analysis is an important contribution to the field of computational musicology. Initial experiments use hidden Markov models to predict key and modulation from automatically labelled chord sequences. Model parameters are based on heuristically formulated chord and key weightings derived from Sch¨onberg’s harmonic theory and the key and chord ratings resulting from perceptual experiments with listeners. The music theory models are shown to outperform the perceptual models both in terms of key accuracy and modelling the precise moment of key change. All of the models perform well enough to generate descriptive data about modulatory frequency, modulatory type and key distance. A robust method of classifying underlying chord types from elaborated keyboard music is then detailed. The method successfully distinguishes between essential and inessential notes, for example, passing notes and neighbour notes, and combines note classification information with tertian chord potential to measure the harmonic importance of a note. Existing approaches to automatic chord classification are unsuitable for use with complex textures and are restricted to triads and simple sevenths. An important goal is therefore to recognise a much broader set of chords, including complex chord types such as 9ths, 11ths and 13ths. This level of detail is necessary if the methods are to supply sophisticated information about the harmonic techniques of composers. Testing on the first twenty-four preludes of J. S. Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, hand annotated by the author, a state of the art approach achieves 22.1% accuracy; our method achieves 55% accuracy.

This paper is a study of Carmen McRae’s unique style of delivering lyrics by analyzing her use of phrasing, stylistic elements, and personal connection, in an effort to apply these techniques to a modern-day vocal performance. The paper provides vocalists with a guideline in order to understand, emulate, and implement Carmen McRae’s techniques. Analyzing McRae’s interpretation of a song is important in today’s musical climate because the modern jazz singer has limited resources pertaining to how to perform a song with lyric interpretation as the primary focus.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.
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ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this dissertation, I examine contemporary South African art music performance practice and the social function it fulfils. Performance practice is understood in this study to mean an art practice or cultural item constituted by three types of 'role-players': performers of art music, composers of works in the art music genre and audiences that assimilate and respond to these works when performed. My own position as a performing artist in South Africa has suggested most of the research questions and problems dealt with in this dissertation, which was approached as a practice-based research study. Practice-based research, an emergent kind of research which aims at integrating practical and scholarly work, is becoming increasingly prevalent in academe internationally, although the present study is one of the first examples of such an approach in South Africa. Drawing on contemporary interpretations of the theories of phenomenology articulated by Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, my position as a performer of art music in South Africa and the personal experiences I have had as a practitioner within this art practice are interrogated. While I was involved in a variety of practical engagements during the course of this study, all of which have contributed on some level to the final research product, the research design comprised five 'performance projects' that were designed to interrogate specific issues in contemporary art music performance practice in South Africa. The knowledge gained through these performance projects are presented together with theoretical work in this dissertation. An attempt is made to explicate these subjective experiences gained through practice and interrogate them through the application of social theory, ultimately translating them into an objective research outcome which is presented discursively. In this sense, the research project is approached according to a two-pronged strategy: subjective experiences generated through practice are examined through the use of social theory, ultimately resulting in a discursively articulated research outcome. I suggest in this dissertation that art music practice in contemporary South Africa has been and has remained a cultural territory largely inhabited by white South Africans. I further argue that this practice has shown little transformation since the end of apartheid in South Africa, in spite of the political, social and cultural transformation that has characterized the country since the beginning of democracy in 1994. Drawing on the theories of Homi Bhabha and Regula Qureshi, I posit that contemporary art music performance practice is providing an ideological counter-environment to predominant socio-cultural realities in post-apartheid South Africa. Qureshi suggests that the art music practice of a society 'constitutes a meaningful, cultural world for those who inhabit it'(Qureshi 2000: 26). Such a 'world within a society' is here interpreted as providing a counter-environment within which white South African identity can be articulated, negotiated and propagated.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie proefskrif ondersoek ek die uitvoeringspraktyk van kontemporêre kunsmusiek in Suid-Afrika en die sosiale funksie wat dit vervul. Uitvoeringspraktyk word in hierdie studie geïnterpreteer as ‘n kunspraktyk of kulturele item wat uit drie 'rol-spelers' bestaan: uitvoerders van kunsmusiek, komponiste van werke in die kunsmusiek genre en gehore wat kunsmusiek assimileer en daarop reageer wanneer hierdie werke uitgevoer word. My eie posisie as uitvoerende kunstenaar het gelei tot die navorsingsvrae en navorsingsprobleme wat hierdie studie informeer. As sulks neem hierdie studie die vorm aan van ‘n praktyk-gebasseerde navorsingsstudie. Praktyk-gebasseerde navorsing is ‘n ontwikkelende soort navorsing wat internasionaal toenemend beoefen word. Hierdie studie is een van die eerste Suid-Afrikaanse voorbeelde van hierdie tipe navorsing in musiek. Die fenomenologiese teorieë van Edmund Husserl en Maurice Merleau-Ponty is gebruik om my persoonlike ervarings as uitvoerder van oorwegend kunsmusiek in Suid-Afrika te kontekstualiseer. My betrokkenheid by verskeie praktiese projekte gedurende die studietydperk, sowel as vyf praktiese projekte wat spesifiek vir die doeleindes van hierdie studie onderneem is, het deurgaans die studie geïnformeer. Hierdie projekte is aangepak om die bestudering van spesifieke aspekte van Suid-Afrikaanse uitvoeringspraktyk van kunsmusiek te fasiliteer. Die kennis wat deur middel van die praktiese werk ingewin is, is deurgaans in hierdie proefskrif met teoretiese werk versterk. Daar is gepoog om die subjektiewe ervarings van die uitvoerder aan te vul deur die toepassing van sosiale toerie, met die uiteindelike doel om hierdie ervarings in ‘n objektiewe en diskursief-artikuleerbare navorsingsresultaat te omskep. Die navorsing in hierdie proefskrif volg dus ‘n tweeledige benadering: subjektiewe, persoonlike ervarings wat deur praktyk gegenereer word, word deur middel van sosiale teorie benader, wat lei tot die uiteindelike navorsingsresultaat soos in die proefskrif aangebied. Ek stel dit in hierdie proefskrif dat kunsmusiekpraktyk in kontemporêre Suid-Afrika min bewyse van transformasie toon, ten spyte van die veranderende politiese- en sosio-kulturele omstandighede in Suid-Afrika sedert 1994. Dié praktyk word steeds gekenmerk deur deelname en ondersteuning vanuit die wit bevolkingsgroep. Die teorieë van Homi Bhabha en Regula Qureshi word gebruik om die argument te onderskryf dat kontemporêre kunsusiekpraktyk ‘n omgewing skep wat dien as ideologiese teenpool vir die sosio-kulturele realiteite van Suid-Afrika vandag. Qureshi is van mening dat ‘n gemeenskap se kunsmusiekpraktyk ‘n 'betekenisvolle, kulturele wereld skep vir die wat dit bewoon' (Qureshi 2000: 26). Hierdie 'wereld binne ‘n gemeenskap' word in hierdie proefskrif vertolk as ‘n 'ideologiese teen-omgewing' waarvandaan wit Suid-Afrikaanse identiteit geartikuleer, onderhandel en bevorder kan word.

Music travels across the past in the form of composers borrowing from each other. Such musical borrowings and quotations involve not only the use of melodic materials but also musical structures, texts, symbolism and other types of inspiration. The pre-existing musical idea being used is linked to a specific memory of a particular composer and time. The artistic allusions of composers connect the present and the past. Music also travels across the present and into the future. The outcome of contemporary composers borrowing from each other influences the present period and affects later composers' musical inspiration, i.e., it affects future composers, and therefore, the future. Composers frequently refer to melodies or musical idea from contemporaries and reinterpret them in their own compositions. This is largely because composers do not write in isolation and have been inspired and influenced by contemporary musicians and cultural contexts. However, these musical borrowings sometimes raise questions about the composers' creativity and authenticity. This is largely due to the nature of inspiration and imagination, which determines who or what is original. With this in mind, why do composers still borrow musical ideas despite the risks involved? In what ways do they overcome criticism and demonstrate the excellence of their own compositions while referring to the work of others? In what ways do artistic allusions influence new compositions? In this dissertation, I attempt to examine these questions and address the reasons for and the effects of musical quotations and allusions.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--Boston University
Western art songs written on Japanese poems, Tanka, appeared in the early twentieth century as a late manifestation of Japonisme, the Japanese influence on Western art and music. The songs discussed in this dissertation include Japanisches Regenlied (1909) by Joseph Marx, Three Japanese Lyrics (1912-13) by Igor Stravinsky, Petits Poi!mes Japonais (1919) by Francesco Santoliquido, and Romances on Texts by Japanese Poets (1928-32) by Dmitri Shostakovich. Japonisme emerged as a significant movement in late-nineteenth-century Western art when Japanese artworks were first exported to Europe. Under the influence of these works, Western painters soon adopted Japanese techniques especially from traditional wood-block prints (Ukiyo-e). The appreciation of Japanese art and culture eventually emerged in Western music as a part of Orientalism and exoticism, first in opera, then in Debussy's music, and lastly in art songs. The Japanese poems used in Western art songs examined here are most commonly referred to as Tanka (a short poem), a genre that flourished between the third and tenth centuries. Because of the unique characteristics of the Japanese language, translating Japanese poems into European languages requires a certain imagination. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the relationship between the original Japanese poems and their translations into European languages, and to discuss their transformation. The introduction provides a brief overview of Japonisme in Western art in the late nineteenth century. Chapter One focuses on the basic elements of Japanese poetry in order to outline the characteristics unique to the Japanese language. Considering Japanese influence within the category of "Orientalism" and "Exoticism" in music, Chapter Two explores the evidence for Oriental and exotic influences on Western music. Chapter Three focuses more specifically on Japanese influences in Western music. A detailed study of poems and translations, and their relationship to music is the core focus of Chapter Four. Chapter Five concludes that Tanka vanished from Western art songs soon after the songs under consideration were composed.

Automatically describing contents of recorded music is crucial for interacting with large volumes of audio recordings, and for developing novel tools to facilitate music pedagogy. Melody is a fundamental facet in most music traditions and, therefore, is an indispensable component in such description. In this thesis, we develop computational approaches for analyzing high-level melodic aspects of music performances in Indian art music (IAM), with which we can describe and interlink large amounts of audio recordings. With its complex melodic framework and well-grounded theory, the description of IAM melody beyond pitch contours offers a very interesting and challenging research topic. We analyze melodies within their tonal context, identify melodic patterns, compare them both within and across music pieces, and finally, characterize the specific melodic context of IAM, the rāgas. All these analyses are done using data-driven methodologies on sizable curated music corpora. Our work paves the way for addressing several interesting research problems in the field of mu- sic information research, as well as developing novel applications in the context of music discovery and music pedagogy. The thesis starts by compiling and structuring largest to date music corpora of the two IAM traditions, Hindustani and Carnatic music, comprising quality audio recordings and the associated metadata. From them we extract the predominant pitch and normalize by the tonic context. An important element to describe melodies is the identification of the meaningful temporal units, for which we propose to detect occurrences of nyās svaras in Hindustani music, a landmark that demarcates musically salient melodic patterns. Utilizing these melodic features, we extract musically relevant recurring melodic pat- terns. These patterns are the building blocks of melodic structures in both improvisation and composition. Thus, they are fundamental to the description of audio collections in IAM. We propose an unsupervised approach that employs time-series analysis tools to discover melodic patterns in sizable music collections. We first carry out an in-depth supervised analysis of melodic similarity, which is a critical component in pattern discovery. We then improve upon the best possible competing approach by exploiting peculiar melodic characteristics in IAM. To identify musically meaningful patterns, we exploit the relationships between the discovered patterns by performing a network analysis. Extensive listening tests by professional musicians reveal that the discovered melodic patterns are musically interesting and significant. Finally, we utilize our results for recognizing rāgas in recorded performances of IAM. We propose two novel approaches that jointly capture the tonal and the temporal aspects of melody. Our first approach uses melodic patterns, the most prominent cues for rāga identification by humans. We utilize the discovered melodic patterns and employ topic modeling techniques, wherein we regard a rāga rendition similar to a textual description of a topic. In our second approach, we propose the time delayed melodic surface, a novel feature based on delay coordinates that captures the melodic outline of a rāga. With these approaches we demonstrate unprecedented accuracies in rāga recognition on the largest datasets ever used for this task. Although our approach is guided by the characteristics of melodies in IAM and the task at hand, we believe our methodology can be easily extended to other melody dominant music traditions. Overall, we have built novel computational methods for analyzing several melodic aspects of recorded performances in IAM, with which we describe and interlink large amounts of music recordings. In this process we have developed several tools and compiled data that can be used for a number of computational studies in IAM, specifically in characterization of rāgas, compositions and artists. The technologies resulted from this research work are a part of several applications developed within the CompMusic project for a better description, enhanced listening experience, and pedagogy in IAM.
La descripció automàtica d’enregistraments musicals és crucial per interactuar amb grans volums de dades i per al desenvolupament de noves eines per a la pedagogia musical. La melodia és una faceta fonamental en la majoria de les tradicions musicals i, per tant, és un component indispensable per a la descripció automàtica d’enregistraments musicals. En aquesta tesi desenvolupem sistemes computacionals per analitzar aspectes melòdics d'alt nivell presents en la música clàssica de l’Índia (MCI), a partir dels quals descrivim i interconnectem grans quantitats d'enregistraments d'àudio. La descripció de melodies en la MCI, complexes i amb una base teòrica ben fonamentada, va més enllà de l’anàlisi estàndard de contorns de to (“pitch” en anglès), i, per tant, és un tema de recerca molt interessant i tot un repte. Analitzem les melodies dins del seu context tonal, identifiquem patrons melòdics, els comparem tant amb ells mateixos com amb altres enregistraments, i, finalment, caracteritzem el context melòdic específic de la música IAM: els rāgas. Tots els anàlisis s’han realitzat utilitzant metodologies basades en dades, amb un corpus musical de mida considerable. Iniciem la tesi recopilant la col·lecció més gran de MCI obtinguda fins al moment. Aquesta col·lecció comprèn enregistraments de qualitat amb metadades de música Hindustani i Carnatic, les dues grans tradicions de la MCI. A partir d’aquí analitzem el to predominant i normalitzem la peça pel context tonal. Un element important per a descriure melodies és la identificació d’unitats temporals rellevants, per la qual cosa detectem les ocurrències de nyās svaras en la MCI, que serveixen com a marques identificadores dels patrons melòdics més destacats. Utilitzant aquestes característiques melòdiques, extraiem els patrons melòdics recurrents més destacats. Aquests patrons són els blocs que construeixen les estructures melòdiques, tant en la improvisació i com en la composició. Per tant, són fonamentals per a la descripció de col·leccions de música MCI. Proposem partir d’un enfocament no supervisat que utilitza eines d'anàlisi basades en sèries temporals per descobrir patrons melòdics en grans col·leccions de música. En primer lloc, hem realitzat un anàlisi supervisat extensiu sobre la similitud melòdica, que és un component fonamental per al descobriment de patrons. A continuació, millorem els resultats (respecte al millor competidor segons l’estat de la qüestió) explotant les característiques peculiars dels patrons melòdics de la música MCI. Per identificar patrons musicalment rellevants, explotem les relacions entre els patrons descoberts mitjançant un anàlisi de xarxa. Extenses proves realitzades amb músics professionals revelen que els patrons melòdics descoberts són musicalment interessants i significatius. Finalment, fem servir els nostres resultats per al reconeixement de rāgas en actuacions gravades d'IAM. Proposem dos enfocaments nous que capturen conjuntament el to i els aspectes temporals de la melodia. El primer enfoc utilitza patrons melòdics, l’aspecte més important per als éssers humans a l’hora d’identificar rāgas. Utilitzem els patrons melòdics descoberts i fem servir tècniques de modelatge de temes (“topic modeling” en anglès), on considerem que la interpretació d’un raga és similar a la descripció textual d’un tema. En el nostre segon enfocament, proposem utilitzar el “time delayed melodic surface”, una característica innovadora basada en coordenades de retard que captura l’evolució melòdica del rāga. Amb aquests enfocaments demostrem una precisió sense precedents per al reconeixement de rāgas en el conjunt de dades més gran utilitzat mai per a aquesta tasca. Encara que el nostre enfocament està basat en les característiques de les melodies MCI i la tasca en qüestió, creiem que la nostra metodologia es pot estendre fàcilment a altres tradicions de la música on la melodia és rellevant. En general, hem incorporat nous mètodes computacionals per a l'anàlisi de diversos aspectes melòdics per a interpretacions de MCI, a partir dels quals descrivim i inter-connectem gran quantitat d'enregistraments de música. En aquest procés hem recopilat dades i hem desenvolupat diverses eines que poden ser utilitzades per a diferents estudis computacionals per a MCI, específicament en la caracterització de rāgas, composicions i artistes. Les tecnologies resultants d'aquest treball d’investigació són part de diverses aplicacions desenvolupades dins el projecte CompMusic que pretén millorar la descripció, l’experiència auditiva, i la pedagogia de la MCI.
La descripción automática del contenido de música grabada es crucial para la interacción con grandes colecciones de grabaciones de audio y para el desarrollo de nuevas herramientas que faciliten la pedagogía musical. La melodía es un aspecto fundamental para la mayoría de las tradiciones musicales, y es por tanto un componente indispensable para tal descripción. En esta tesis desarrollamos propuestas computacionales para el análisis de aspectos melódicos de alto nivel en interpretaciones musicales de Música Clásica de la India (MCI), con las que podemos describir e interrelacionar grandes cantidades de grabaciones de audio. Debido a su complejidad melódica y a su sólido marco teórico, la descripción de la melodía en MCI más allá de la línea melódica supone un interesante y desafiante objeto de investigación. Analizamos melodías en su contexto tonal, identificamos patrones melódicos, comparamos ambos tanto en piezas individuales como entre diferentes piezas, y finalmente caracterizamos el contexto melódico específico de MCI, los rāgas. Todos estos análisis se llevan a cabo mediante métodos dirigidos por datos en corpus de música de considerable tamaño y meticulosamente organizados. La tesis comienza con la confección y estructuración de los mayores corpus musicales hasta la fecha de las dos tradiciones de MCI, indostaní y carnática. Dichos corpus están formados por grabaciones de audio de alta calidad y sus correspondientes metadatos. De estas extraemos la línea melódica predominante y la normalizamos según la tónica de su contexto. Un elemento importante para la descripción de melodías es la identificación de unidades temporales significativas, para lo que proponemos detectar en música indostaní las ocurrencias de nyās svaras, marcas que delimitan patrones melódicos musicalmente prominentes. A partir de estas características melódicas, extraemos patrones melódicos recurrentes y musicalmente relevantes. Estos patrones son las unidades básicas con las que se construyen estructuras melódicas tanto en improvisaciones como composiciones, y por tanto son fundamentales para la descripción de colecciones de audio en MCI. Proponemos un método no supervisado basado en el análisis de las series temporales para el descubrimiento de patrones melódicos en colecciones musicales de tamaño considerable. En primer lugar llevamos a cabo un análisis supervisado en profundidad de similitud melódica, que es el componente crítico para el descubrimiento de patrones. A continuación mejoramos la propuesta más competitiva sirviéndonos de las características melódicas propias de MCI. Para identificar patrones musicalmente significativos, hacemos uso de las relaciones entre los patrones descubiertos mediante la implementación de análisis de redes. Exhaustivas evaluaciones auditivas por parte de músicos profesionales de los patrones melódicos descubiertos revelan que estos son musicalmente interesantes y significativos. Finalmente, utilizamos nuestros resultados para el reconocimiento de rāgas en interpretaciones grabadas de MCI. Proponemos dos métodos nuevos que captan conjuntamente los aspectos tonales y temporales de la melodía. Nuestro primer método se sirve de patrones melódicos, los principales indicadores para la identificación de rāgas por parte de oyentes humanos. Utilizamos los patrones melódicos descubiertos y empleamos técnicas de modelado de temas, en las que equiparamos la interpretación de un rāga a la descripción textual de un tema. En nuestro segundo método, proponemos una superficie melódica de tiempo de retardo, una característica nueva basada en las coordenadas de retraso que captan el contorno melódico de un rāga. Con estos métodos alcanzamos precisiones sin precedentes en el reconocimiento de rāgas en los mayores conjuntos de datos nunca usados para esta tarea. Aunque nuestra propuesta se fundamenta en las características de las melodías en MCI y la tarea en cuestión, creemos que nuestra metodología puede ser fácilmente aplicable a otras tradiciones musicales predominantemente melódicas. En resumen, hemos construido nuevos métodos computacionales para el análisis de varios aspectos melódicos de interpretaciones grabadas de MCI, con las que describimos e interrelacionamos grandes cantidades de grabaciones musicales. En este proceso hemos desarrollado varias herramientas y reunido datos que pueden ser empleados en numerosos estudios computacionales de MCI, específicamente para la caracterización de rāgas, composiciones y artistas. Las tecnologías resultantes de este trabajo de investigación son parte de varias aplicaciones desarrolladas en el proyecto CompMusic para la mejora de la descripción, experiencia de escucha, y enseñanza de MCI.

This essay investigates interpretations of evil as expressed in contemporary music, focusing mainly on lyrics in contemporary popular music. The purpose is to analyze whether there is acertain aesthetic embracing of risk and innovation on display when discussing such subject matters, and to relate such aesthetic connotations to cultural and religious aspects. Lyrical interpretations of evil in a musical context appear to be existent in different forms andare in various ways attempts to integrate the existence of evil acts, as leading to suffering and pain, by incorporating such themes into lyrical material. There appears to be a possible aesthetic embraced when artists are advocating evil acts, however, not totally separable from the aesthetics of the extreme metal scene. Such forms of creative practice appear as reliant on the dialectic between historical perceptions of morality,modern society as globalized, segmented and restructured and the reoccurrence of religion in a secularized perspective. Themes regarding evil appear in this form of aesthetic in different ways to traditional discourse; making use of historical and contemporary images of evil and portraying them as desirable in various ways. In some instances such creative release is also linked to religious belief and practise, making the artistic performance equivalent of a transcendental event.