Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Music recordings'

"...music is an art that exists in point of time." Aaron Copland, What to Listen for in Music
Few definitions are adequate to describe music, but a "point of time" is a concept with which people are familiar. When musicians give concerts they try to create these points in a context, which allows the audience to observe each moment by itself. Concert practice has developed to define the edges of musical points, guided by cues such as clapping, pauses, and concert program notes.
This masters thesis investigates how to analyze concert recordings of Western music and their program notes to produce segments which best fit the boundaries of musical points. Modern segmentation techniques are reviewed and a new method specific to concert recordings is examined.

A software system that automatically classifies MIDI files into hierarchically organized taxonomies of musical genres is presented. This extensible software includes an easy to use and flexible GUI. An extensive library of high-level musical features is compiled, including many original features. A novel hybrid classification system is used that makes use of hierarchical, flat and round robin classification. Both k-nearest neighbour and neural network-based classifiers are used, and feature selection and weighting are performed using genetic algorithms. A thorough review of previous research in automatic genre classification is presented, along with an overview of automatic feature selection and classification techniques. Also included is a discussion of the theoretical issues relating to musical genre, including but not limited to what mechanisms humans use to classify music by genre and how realistic genre taxonomies can be constructed.

This thesis focuses on a time in the mid-1960s where practice in the studio changed from a formal arena where previously rehearsed songs were recorded, to a playground where sonic possibilities were explored and sound manipulation became normal practice. This abuse of technology and manipulation of reality became part of the creative process in the studio, providing soundscapes that resonated with the counter-cultural ethos of upsetting the established order, and were adopted by the mainstream during the 1967 ‘Summer of Love”. Following a discussion of current literature, practice as research is applied to demonstrate how interaction with historical technology reveals the performative nature of the tacit knowledge that created many of the aural effects under consideration. The research then focuses through the prism of two case studies, “Eight Miles High” recorded by The Byrds in Los Angeles in January 1966, and “Rain”, recorded by The Beatles in London in April 1966. Through re-enactment of these historical recording sessions, I recreate the closed envirnment of the 1960’s recording studio. By interacting with historical technology and following a similar structure to the original sessions, I investigate how the methodology was influenced by collaborative actions, situational awareness and the demarcation of roles. Post session video analysis reveals the flow of decision making as the sessions unfold, and how interaction with the technological constraints recreates ‘forgotten’ techniques that were deemed everyday practice at the time and were vital to the outcome of the soundscapes. The thesis combines theory and practice to develop an understanding of how the engineers interacted with technology (Polanyi, 1966), often abusing the equipment to create manipulated soundscapes (Akrich and Latour, 1992), and how the sessions responded to musicians demanding innovation and experimentation, circumventing the constraints of established networks of practice (Law and Callon, 1986) during the flow of the recording session (Ingold, 2013).

Syftet med det här arbetet är att undersöka befintliga och söka nya tillvägagångssätt som kan hjälpa mig att skapa liv i min musik. Jag har komponerat korta musikexempel med hjälp av olika befintliga metoder och jämfört dem med deras metodmotsatser. Jag har också komponerat fritt och försökt att arbeta mig fram till nya tillvägagångssätt. I arbetet beskriver jag processen jag gått igenom med tillvägagångssätten och reflekterar över hur tillämpningen av dem påverkar det musikaliska resultatet. Jag presenterar också ett konstnärligt resultat i form av två kortare stycken. Arbetet har utvecklat mina tekniska kunskaper och har gjort mig mer medveten om varför jag tidigare använt vissa verktyg på olika sätt. Jag har upptäckt för mig nya tillvägagångssätt att använda i mitt arbete. Jag har också fått ökad förståelse för hur jag bör använda mig av befintliga tillvägagångssätt för att att skapa musik som låter mer levande.

Audio-to-audio alignment of musical recordings is the mapping of events in one recording to their corresponding events in other recordings of the same underlying musical piece. Among other applications, musical audio-to-audio alignment is used for: comparing and analyzing musical performances; finding different performances and arrangements of a musical work in a database; discovering musical motifs in field recordings of folk music; automatically synchronizing multiple takes (re-recordings of specific excerpts) in a recording studio; and aligning a musician's performance to a score in realtime, for purposes of interactive performance such as automated accompaniment. This thesis investigates audio-to-audio alignment by an algorithm that has not previously been applied to music, the continuous profile model (CPM) (Listgarten et al. 2005).In this thesis, the CPM is used to align pairs of recordings (pairwise alignment) as well as groups containing more than two recordings (multiple alignment). A standard evaluation methodology is used to systematically compare pairwise alignment by the CPM to pairwise alignment by dynamic time warping (DTW), the algorithm most frequently used for audio-to-audio alignment of music. The evaluation methodology is then generalized to multiple dimensions in order to compare two approaches to multiple alignment: simultaneous multiple alignment with the CPM and iterative pairwise alignment with DTW.
L'alignement audio-audio des enregistrements sonores est le mappage de certains moments dans un enregistrement aux moments correspondants dans d'autres enregistrements de la même pièce musicale. Parmi d'autres applications, l'alignement audio-audio sert à: comparer et analyser des performances musicales; trouver de plusieurs performances et arrangements d'une oeuvre musicale dans une base de données; découvrir des motifs musicaux dans des enregistrements de terrain de la musique folk; synchroniser automatiquement de multiples prises (réenregistrements d'extraits spécifiques) dans un studio d'enregistrements; et aligner une performance d'un musicien qui utilise une partition en temps réel pour permettre des performances interactifs avec des ordinateurs, par exemple, l'accompagnement automatisé. Dans cette thèse, on examine l'alignement des enregistrements musicaux accompli par un algorithme qui n'a auparavant jamais été appliqué à la musique qui s'appelle le « modèle du profil continu » (« continuous profile model » ou « CPM » en anglais) (Listgarten et al. 2005).Cette thèse examine la CPM pour les alignements deux à deux et les alignements multiples des enregistrements sonores. On emploie une méthodologie standard pour comparer systématiquement l'alignement deux à deux accompli par le CPM à l'alignement deux à deux accompli par la « déformation temporelle dynamique » (en anglais, « dynamic time warping » ou « DTW »), l'algorithme le plus souvent employé pour l'alignement audio-audio de la musique. La méthodologie d'évaluation est ensuite généralisé à plusieurs dimensions à comparer deux approches pour l'alignement multiple: alignement multiple simultanée par le CPM à itérative alignement par paires avec DTW.

This thesis explores the music of rock band U2, utilizing two perspectives: current research in popular musicology, specifically the work of Albin Zak, Allan Moore, and Lori Burns, and the thoughts of the band members of U2. These two perspectives provide the framework for the discussion that covers several examples from across the bands discography (1980-2000). The role of music in communicating with the listener is discussed from the perspective of the band members of U2. This discussion highlights the desire of the band members to actively participate in the songs' meaning by shaping the musical performance to the themes and ideas discussed within the text. The way that the text shapes the understanding is examined through a discussion of the songs "All Along the Watchtower," and "Playboy Mansion." The bands live performances are also considered, through a discussion of the Elevation Tour. The songs "Sunday Bloody Sunday," and "Bullet the Blue Sky" are discussed in-depth, taking into account the music, text, and performance from their initial studio recordings in the 1980s, to the recent performances in the Elevation Tour. The focus centers on the messages communicated through the bands music, the choices made in shaping their sound, and the importance of the details in fully understanding each performance.

ARGENT SOUND RECORDINGS explores the integration of visual, written and sonic elements to tell a story. "The Silver Bell," a fairy tale, is delivered through the internet – providing users an opportunity to experience and interpret a constructed narrative under the guise of an independent record label website.

This thesis addresses several shortcomings on the current state of the art methodologies in music information retrieval (MIR). In particular, it proposes several computational approaches to automatically analyze and describe music scores and audio recordings of Ottoman-Turkish makam music (OTMM). The main contributions of the thesis are the music corpus that has been created to carry out the research and the audio-score alignment methodology developed for the analysis of the corpus. In addition, several novel computational analysis methodologies are presented in the context of common MIR tasks of relevance for OTMM. Some example tasks are predominant melody extraction, tonic identification, tempo estimation, makam recognition, tuning analysis, structural analysis and melodic progression analysis. These methodologies become a part of a complete system called Dunya-makam for the exploration of large corpora of OTMM. The thesis starts by presenting the created CompMusic Ottoman- Turkish makam music corpus. The corpus includes 2200 music scores, more than 6500 audio recordings, and accompanying metadata. The data has been collected, annotated and curated with the help of music experts. Using criteria such as completeness, coverage and quality, we validate the corpus and show its research potential. In fact, our corpus is the largest and most representative resource of OTMM that can be used for computational research. Several test datasets have also been created from the corpus to develop and evaluate the specific methodologies proposed for different computational tasks addressed in the thesis. The part focusing on the analysis of music scores is centered on phrase and section level structural analysis. Phrase boundaries are automatically identified using an existing state-of-the-art segmentation methodology. Section boundaries are extracted using heuristics specific to the formatting of the music scores. Subsequently, a novel method based on graph analysis is used to establish similarities across these structural elements in terms of melody and lyrics, and to label the relations semiotically. The audio analysis section of the thesis reviews the state-of-the-art for analysing the melodic aspects of performances of OTMM. It proposes adaptations of existing predominant melody extraction methods tailored to OTMM. It also presents improvements over pitch-distribution-based tonic identification and makam recognition methodologies. The audio-score alignment methodology is the core of the thesis. It addresses the culture-specific challenges posed by the musical characteristics, music theory related representations and oral praxis of OTMM. Based on several techniques such as subsequence dynamic time warping, Hough transform and variable-length Markov models, the audio-score alignment methodology is designed to handle the structural differences between music scores and audio recordings. The method is robust to the presence of non-notated melodic expressions, tempo deviations within the music performances, and differences in tonic and tuning. The methodology utilizes the outputs of the score and audio analysis, and links the audio and the symbolic data. In addition, the alignment methodology is used to obtain score-informed description of audio recordings. The scoreinformed audio analysis not only simplifies the audio feature extraction steps that would require sophisticated audio processing approaches, but also substantially improves the performance compared with results obtained from the state-of-the-art methods solely relying on audio data. The analysis methodologies presented in the thesis are applied to the CompMusic Ottoman-Turkish makam music corpus and integrated into a web application aimed at culture-aware music discovery. Some of the methodologies have already been applied to other music traditions such as Hindustani, Carnatic and Greek music. Following open research best practices, all the created data, software tools and analysis results are openly available. The methodologies, the tools and the corpus itself provide vast opportunities for future research in many fields such as music information retrieval, computational musicology and music education.
Esta tesis aborda varias limitaciones de las metodologías más avanzadas en el campo de recuperación de información musical (MIR por sus siglas en inglés). En particular, propone varios métodos computacionales para el análisis y la descripción automáticas de partituras y grabaciones de audio de música de makam turco-otomana (MMTO). Las principales contribuciones de la tesis son el corpus de música que ha sido creado para el desarrollo de la investigación y la metodología para alineamiento de audio y partitura desarrollada para el análisis del corpus. Además, se presentan varias metodologías nuevas para análisis computacional en el contexto de las tareas comunes de MIR que son relevantes para MMTO. Algunas de estas tareas son, por ejemplo, extracción de la melodía predominante, identificación de la tónica, estimación de tempo, reconocimiento de makam, análisis de afinación, análisis estructural y análisis de progresión melódica. Estas metodologías constituyen las partes de un sistema completo para la exploración de grandes corpus de MMTO llamado Dunya-makam. La tesis comienza presentando el corpus de música de makam turcootomana de CompMusic. El corpus incluye 2200 partituras, más de 6500 grabaciones de audio, y los metadatos correspondientes. Los datos han sido recopilados, anotados y revisados con la ayuda de expertos. Utilizando criterios como compleción, cobertura y calidad, validamos el corpus y mostramos su potencial para investigación. De hecho, nuestro corpus constituye el recurso de mayor tamaño y representatividad disponible para la investigación computacional de MMTO. Varios conjuntos de datos para experimentación han sido igualmente creados a partir del corpus, con el fin de desarrollar y evaluar las metodologías específicas propuestas para las diferentes tareas computacionales abordadas en la tesis. La parte dedicada al análisis de las partituras se centra en el análisis estructural a nivel de sección y de frase. Los márgenes de frase son identificados automáticamente usando uno de los métodos de segmentación existentes más avanzados. Los márgenes de sección son extraídos usando una heurística específica al formato de las partituras. A continuación, se emplea un método de nueva creación basado en análisis gráfico para establecer similitudes a través de estos elementos estructurales en cuanto a melodía y letra, así como para etiquetar relaciones semióticamente. La sección de análisis de audio de la tesis repasa el estado de la cuestión en cuanto a análisis de los aspectos melódicos en grabaciones de MMTO. Se proponen modificaciones de métodos existentes para extracción de melodía predominante para ajustarlas a MMTO. También se presentan mejoras de metodologías tanto para identificación de tónica basadas en distribución de alturas, como para reconocimiento de makam. La metodología para alineación de audio y partitura constituye el grueso de la tesis. Aborda los retos específicos de esta cultura según vienen determinados por las características musicales, las representaciones relacionadas con la teoría musical y la praxis oral de MMTO. Basada en varias técnicas tales como deformaciones dinámicas de tiempo subsecuentes, transformada de Hough y modelos de Markov de longitud variable, la metodología de alineamiento de audio y partitura está diseñada para tratar las diferencias estructurales entre partituras y grabaciones de audio. El método es robusto a la presencia de expresiones melódicas no anotadas, desviaciones de tiempo en las grabaciones, y diferencias de tónica y afinación. La metodología utiliza los resultados del análisis de partitura y audio para enlazar el audio y los datos simbólicos. Además, la metodología de alineación se usa para obtener una descripción informada por partitura de las grabaciones de audio. El análisis de audio informado por partitura no sólo simplifica los pasos para la extracción de características de audio que de otro modo requerirían sofisticados métodos de procesado de audio, sino que también mejora sustancialmente su rendimiento en comparación con los resultados obtenidos por los métodos más avanzados basados únicamente en datos de audio. Las metodologías analíticas presentadas en la tesis son aplicadas al corpus de música de makam turco-otomana de CompMusic e integradas en una aplicación web dedicada al descubrimiento culturalmente específico de música. Algunas de las metodologías ya han sido aplicadas a otras tradiciones musicales, como música indostaní, carnática y griega. Siguiendo las mejores prácticas de investigación en abierto, todos los datos creados, las herramientas de software y los resultados de análisis está disponibles públicamente. Las metodologías, las herramientas y el corpus en sí mismo ofrecen grandes oportunidades para investigaciones futuras en muchos campos tales como recuperación de información musical, musicología computacional y educación musical.
Aquesta tesi adreça diverses deficiències en l’estat actual de les metodologies d’extracció d’informació de música (Music Information Retrieval o MIR). En particular, la tesi proposa diverses estratègies per analitzar i descriure automàticament partitures musicals i enregistraments d’actuacions musicals de música Makam Turca Otomana (OTMM en les seves sigles en anglès). Les contribucions principals de la tesi són els corpus musicals que s’han creat en el context de la tesi per tal de dur a terme la recerca i la metodologia de alineament d’àudio amb la partitura que s’ha desenvolupat per tal d’analitzar els corpus. A més la tesi presenta diverses noves metodologies d’anàlisi computacional d’OTMM per a les tasques més habituals en MIR. Alguns exemples d’aquestes tasques són la extracció de la melodia principal, la identificació del to musical, l’estimació de tempo, el reconeixement de Makam, l’anàlisi de la afinació, l’anàlisi de la estructura musical i l’anàlisi de la progressió melòdica. Aquest seguit de metodologies formen part del sistema Dunya-makam per a la exploració de grans corpus musicals d’OTMM. En primer lloc, la tesi presenta el corpus CompMusic Ottoman- Turkish makam music. Aquest inclou 2200 partitures musicals, més de 6500 enregistraments d’àudio i metadata complementària. Les dades han sigut recopilades i anotades amb ajuda d’experts en aquest repertori musical. El corpus ha estat validat en termes de d’exhaustivitat, cobertura i qualitat i mostrem aquí el seu potencial per a la recerca. De fet, aquest corpus és el la font més gran i representativa de OTMM que pot ser utilitzada per recerca computacional. També s’han desenvolupat diversos subconjunts de dades per al desenvolupament i evaluació de les metodologies específiques proposades per a les diverses tasques computacionals que es presenten en aquest tesi. La secció de la tesi que tracta de l’anàlisi de partitures musicals se centra en l’anàlisi estructural a nivell de secció i de frase musical. Els límits temporals de les frases musicals s’identifiquen automàticament gràcies a un metodologia de segmentació d’última generació. Els límits de les seccions s’extreuen utilitzant un seguit de regles heurístiques determinades pel format de les partitures musicals. Posteriorment s’utilitza un nou mètode basat en anàlisi gràfic per establir semblances entre aquest elements estructurals en termes de melodia i text. També s’utilitza aquest mètode per etiquetar les relacions semiòtiques existents. La següent secció de la tesi tracta sobre anàlisi d’àudio i en particular revisa les tecnologies d’avantguardia d’anàlisi dels aspectes melòdics en OTMM. S’hi proposen adaptacions dels mètodes d’extracció de melodia existents que s’ajusten a OTMM. També s’hi presenten millores en metodologies de reconeixement de makam i en identificació de tònica basats en distribució de to. La metodologia d’alineament d’àudio amb partitura és el nucli de la tesi. Aquesta aborda els reptes culturalment específics imposats per les característiques musicals, les representacions de la teoria musical i la pràctica oral particulars de l’OTMM. Utilitzant diverses tècniques tal i com Dynamic Time Warping, Hough Transform o models de Markov de durada variable, la metodologia d’alineament esta dissenyada per enfrontar les diferències estructurals entre partitures musicals i enregistraments d’àudio. El mètode és robust inclús en presència d’expressions musicals no anotades en la partitura, desviacions de tempo ocorregudes en les actuacions musicals i diferències de tònica i afinació. La metodologia aprofita els resultats de l’anàlisi de la partitura i l’àudio per enllaçar la informació simbòlica amb l’àudio. A més, la tècnica d’alineament s’utilitza per obtenir descripcions de l’àudio fonamentades en la partitura. L’anàlisi de l’àudio fonamentat en la partitura no només simplifica les fases d’extracció de característiques d’àudio que requeririen de mètodes de processament d’àudio sofisticats, sinó que a més millora substancialment els resultats comparat amb altres mètodes d´ultima generació que només depenen de contingut d’àudio. Les metodologies d’anàlisi presentades s’han utilitzat per analitzar el corpus CompMusic Ottoman-Turkish makam music i s’han integrat en una aplicació web destinada al descobriment musical de tradicions culturals específiques. Algunes de les metodologies ja han sigut també aplicades a altres tradicions musicals com la Hindustani, la Carnàtica i la Grega. Seguint els preceptes de la investigació oberta totes les dades creades, eines computacionals i resultats dels anàlisis estan disponibles obertament. Tant les metodologies, les eines i el corpus en si mateix proporcionen àmplies oportunitats per recerques futures en diversos camps de recerca tal i com la musicologia computacional, la extracció d’informació musical i la educació musical. Traducció d’anglès a català per Oriol Romaní Picas.

Since the 1970s, music librarians have been discussing the challenges of cataloging music media. In the 1990s, they began work on a Music Thesaurus to provide a multi-faceted approach to indexing, cataloging, and retrieving music media. In 1999 Indiana University proposed a digital music library, to allow for better indexing and retrieval in addition to content-based music retrieval. In 2000, a commercial venture, The Music Genome Project ©, began cataloging sound recordings of popular music by hundreds of musical characteristics and has created a user interface that allows listeners to enter the title and artist of a certain piece of music and receive recommendations for similar music to then purchase via Pandora.com. The following paper will address the question: how might current analyzing and classifying methods be used to provide additional indexing that facilitates retrieval and use of sound recordings by special populations, specifically professionals treating children with Asperger’s syndrome?

This study examines the possibility of creating original video-based content for the video-enabled iPod that was released in October 2005. Current trends show that existing content created for conventional media like television, cinema and computers are simply being ported over to this new medium. However, when this project began, none of the production studios are concentrating on creating content specifically for this medium, which has its own unique properties like portability, screen size and the ability to easily start and pause content as required. The purpose of this project is to prove that such medium-specific content can be created and made financially viable for the creators. Further, this hypothesis is put to the test by presenting it to a group of Ball State University students and their responses are examined in detail.
Department of Telecommunications

Virtual reality (VR) as a field is currently seeing big technological advancement and an increase in both interest and content. At the same time, the production workflows for creating content for VR are still in their infancy and there are few commonly accepted conventions within the field. This study aims to compare different sound field microphone techniques for classical music recording in virtual reality. A Sennheiser AMBEO microphone, a double MSZ array and an INA-5 array as well as a 360° camera were used to record a rehearsal of The Royal Swedish Orchestra. These recordings were then used to conduct a listening test in VR where subjects scored the different microphones techniques on “localisation” and “naturalness”. A t-test between the results of the different techniques showed that the AMBEO microphone was significantly better than the INA-5 array for localisation and that the double MSZ array was significantly better in terms of naturalness compared to the INA-5 array. However, these results should be interpreted with caution as many variables during the process might be unique to this particular study.

Critical review of performance is today one of the most common professional and commercial forms of music written response. Despite the availability of representative material and its impact on musicians' careers, there has been little structured enquiry into the way music critics make sense of their experience of performances, and no studies have to date broached the key question of how music performance is reviewed by experts. Adopting an explorative, inductive approach and a novel combination of data reduction and thematic analysis techniques, this thesis presents a systematic investigation of a vast corpus of recorded performance critical reviews. First, reviews of Beethoven's piano sonata recordings (N = 845) published in the Gramophone (1923-2010) were collected and metadata and word-stem patterns were analysed (Chapters 3 and 4) to offer insights on repertoire, pianists and critics involved and to produce a representative selection (n = 100) of reviews suitable for subsequent thematic analyses. Inductive thematic analyses, including a key-word-in-context analysis on 'expression' (Chapter 5), were then used to identify performance features (primary and supervenient) and extra-performance elements critics discuss, as well as reasons they use to support their value judgements. This led to a novel descriptive model of critical review of recorded performance (Chapters 6, 7, and 8). The model captures four critical activities - evaluation, descriptive judgement, factual information and meta-criticism - and seven basic evaluation criteria on the aesthetic and achievement-related value of performance reliably used by critics, plus two recording-specific criteria: live-performance impact and collectability. Critical review emerges as a highly dense form of writing, rich in information and open to diverse analytical approaches. Insights gained throughout the thesis inform current discourses in philosophy of art and open new perspectives for empirical music research. They emphasise the importance of the comparative element in performance evaluation, the complexity and potentially misleading nature of the notion of 'expression' in the musical discourse, and the role of critics as filters of choice in the recording market. Foremost, they further our understanding of the nature of music performance criticism as a form of reasoned evaluation that is complex, contextual and listener specific.

Thesis (M. Phil. (Music Technology)) -- University of Stellenbosch, 2006.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Modern digital signal processing, allowing a much greater degree of flexibility in audio processing and therefore greater potential for noise removal, pitch correction, filtering and editing, has allowed transfer and audio restoration engineers a diversity of ways in which to “improve” or “reinterpret” (in some cases even drastically altering) the original sound of recordings. This has lead to contrasting views regarding the role of the remastering engineer, the nature and purpose of audio restoration and the ethical implications of the restoration process. The influence of audio restoration on the recorded legacy of a performing artist is clearly illustrated in the case of Maria Callas (1923 - 1977), widely regarded not only as one of the most influential and prolific of opera singers, but also one of the greatest classical musicians of all time. EMI, for whom Callas recorded almost exclusively from 1953 - 1969, has reissued her recordings repeatedly, continually adapting their sound “to the perceived preferences of the record-buying public” (Seletsky 2000: 240). Their attempts at improving the sound of Callas’s recordings to meet with the sonic quality expected of modern recordings, as reissued in the latest releases that form part of EMI’s Callas Edition, Great Recordings of the Century (GROTC) and Historical Series, have resulted in often staggeringly different reinterpretations of the same audio material that bear no resemblance to previous CD or LP incarnations or “evince no consolidated conviction about exactly how Callas’s voice should sound.” In essence, some commentators argue that the “Callas sound” we hear on recent CD releases is not necessarily exactly as the great diva might have sounded. The purpose of this study is to consider the influence of audio restoration and remastering techniques on the recorded legacy of Callas, by illustrating the sometimes startlingly different ways in which her voice has been made to sound, examining and comparing the way in which different remasterings of the same audio material can vary in quality, as well as demonstrating how vastly different sonic reinterpretations of a single recording can affect our perception of an artist’s “true” sound. To this end, various reissues of six different complete opera recordings, including four studio recordings: Tosca (1953), Lucia di Lammermoor (1953), Norma (1954), Madama Butterfly (1955), as well as two “live” performances of Macbeth (1953) and La Traviata (1958), have been evaluated and compared, using the “true” sound of Callas’s voice as reference in comparing the different remasterings. Pitch and frequency spectrum analysis was used to confirm or support any subjective claims and observations and further analysis performed with the aid of a specialised Matlab algorithm.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Moderne digitale seinprossesering bied kragtige en veelsydige moontlikhede vir die verwerking van klankseine. Die groter potensiaal vir ruisverwydering, toonhoogte verstelling, filtrering en redigering van opnames bied klankingenieurs ‘n wye verskeidenheid van maniere om die oorspronklike klank van opnames te verbeter, te interpreteer en soms ingrypend te verander. Dit het aanleiding gegee tot teenstrydige en uiteenlopende menings oor die funksie van die klankrestourasie-ingenieur, die aard en doel van klankrestourasie en die etiese gevolge van die restourasieproses. Die invloed van klankrestourasie op die klanknalatenskap van ‘n uitvoerende kunstenaar kan duidelik bestudeer word in die geval van Maria Callas (1923 – 1977), algemeen aanvaar as een van die mees invloedryke en grootse klassieke musici van alle tye. Die platemaatskappy EMI, vir wie Callas feitlik uitsluitlik vanaf 1953 tot 1969 opgeneem het, het haar klankopnames reeds verskeie kere heruitgereik en die klank daarvan deurlopend aangepas om aanklank te vind by die “veronderstelde voorkeure van die publiek” (Seletsky 2000: 240). EMI se pogings om die klank van Callas se opnames te verbeter om aan die klankvereistes van moderne opnames te voldoen, het ontaard in dikwels aangrypend verskillende interpretasies van dieselfde audio materiaal wat geen ooreenkomste toon met vorige laserskyf of langspeelplaat uitgawes nie, asook “geen vasgestelde oortuigings openbaar oor hoe Callas se stem presies moet klink nie.” Sommige critici argumenteer dat die “Callas klank” wat ons op hedendaagse CD uitgawes hoor, nie noodwendig klink soos wat Callas werklik geklink het nie. Die doel van hierdie studie is om die invloed van klankrestourasie op die klanknalatenskap van Callas te bestudeer deur die verskillende wyses waarop die klank van haar stem aangepas is te illustreer, die verskille in klankkwaliteit tussen verskillende uitgawes van dieselfde materiaal te ondersoek en te vergelyk, asook te demonstreer hoe uiteenlopend verskillende interpretasies van ‘n enkele opname die persepsie van ‘n kunstenaar se “ware” klank kan affekteer. Vir hierdie doel is verkeie uitgawes van ses verskillende volledige opera opnames, insluitend vier studio opnames van onderskeidelik Tosca (1953), Lucia di Lammermoor (1953), Norma (1954) en Madama Butterfly (1955), asook twee “lewendige” opnames van Macbeth (1952) en La Traviata (1958) bestudeer deur Callas se “ware” klank as maatstaf te gebruik om die onderskeie opnames te vergelyk. Toonhoogte- en frekwensie spektrum analise, asook analise deur middel van ‘n gespesialiseerde Matlab algoritme, is deurlopend gebruik om enige subjektiewe gevolgtrekkings en waarnemings te staaf.

Technologies new and old in concert with a twenty-first century folk music revival have introduced historical music from Appalachia to a new generation of music fans, within the region, across the nation, and around the world. One unforeseen consequence of this situation is that this new generation is being inundated with a flood of regional stereotypes associated with that older music--stereotypes that are unleashed on the new generation when historical recordings are reissued (or issued for the first time, in the case of some field recordings). In my presentation, I'll discuss several case studies from my own work as a producer of historical music releases in which stereotypes either were subtly embedded in reissued recordings or were overtly associated with the music or the musicians featured on those releases. I'll discuss some of my efforts as producer and liner notes writer to confront stereotypes in such a way as to help a new generation defuse stereotypes while at the same time find meaning, value, and enjoyment in older recordings that are at one level "politically incorrect" or even offensive.

This thesis examines themes of male control and female resistance in commercially recorded American roots music of the interwar period, focusing primarily on recordings made in the years 1920-1940. It argues that much of the roots music recorded during this period communicated powerful messages about gendered and racial hierarchies to consumers. Rooted in close textual analysis of song lyrics and visual marketing materials for a plethora of commercially available roots music, the thesis deploys methodologies drawn from history, literary, cultural studies, and musicology. It questions why scholars have understudied themes of gendered power contestations and social control in commercially recorded roots music and the accompanying marketing materials during the interwar period. Although scholars have acknowledged intersections of race, class, gender, and the construction of segregated roots music markets during the nascent stages of a rapidly-developing fledgling industry, this thesis contends that lyrical content and marketing materials also intersected with white supremacist and eugenic ideologies, reflecting ideas about social control of women during the interwar period. It advances extant scholarship on black and white female roots music artists active during the interwar period, underscoring and illuminating themes of female resistance to male control, inside and outside of the worlds created on commercial recordings.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether an Aebersold play-along recording is an effective tool for becoming a more proficient jazz improviser. Participants (N=35) were undergraduate and graduate trumpet, trombone, and saxophone students enrolled in the jazz program at a mid-sized university in the mid-western United States.The study followed a pretest/posttest design in which participants were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group. Both groups were asked to record a pretest of improvisation over two choruses of F blues, along with a rhythm section playalong recording. Three expert judges evaluated these pretest performances using the Instrumental Jazz Improvisation Evaluation Measure (IJIEM). Participants self-reported a total of four hours of individual practice over the next thirteen days, the control group practicing F blues without the aid of accompaniment and the experimental group practicing with a play-along accompaniment compact disc provided by the researcher. Participants recorded two choruses of improvisation as a posttest on day fourteen, which were subsequently evaluated by the three expert judges, again using the IJIEM. The pretest and posttest results for all three judges were then averaged and compared for differences.The results reveal a significant difference with positive gain scores in both groups. While both groups showed higher mean gain scores, the experimental group experienced a fifty-six percent gain over the control group (not statistically significant).
School of Music

This research looks at the feasibility of using repatriation as a tool for the revitalisation of indigenous music within a contemporary South African musical context. Using tracks from the International Library of African Music (ILAM), this investigation presents isiXhosa traditional and indigenous music to a group of musicians from a hip-hop background that would never have had access to this type of music before. The thesis then traces their creative use of the music within their own genres. Speaking to the legacy of the Hugh Tracey collection at ILAM and criticisms that have surfaced, this research also attempts to validate the efforts made by Hugh Tracey in collecting and documenting African music. Themes ranging from understanding the term “tradition” are addressed, as well as other technical terms in the vernacular while also exploring and analysing the results of the repatriation project. Practical issues regarding the sampling of indigenous music were interrogated carefully due to the fact that the complexity of African music was foreign to most of the participants. Their familiarity with the music, or lack thereof, either motivated or ended the musicians’ participation in the research project. An in-depth analysis of the results of the musicians’ interaction with the music is presented where this study finds, at the heart of this research, that the musicians performed as agents who easily took to revitalising the music.

This thesis describes and analyses stylistic change in violin performance (c. 1900-1960) by examining the so-called Hungarian violin school as an exemplar of stylistic change in this period. The thesis uses examples from both written and recorded sources to examine shifts in the use of expressive fingering, vibrato and flexibility of rhythm and tempo. The sources used include: performing editions; treatises; and recordings. In respect of the study of stylistic change, the thesis argues that recordings provide a valuable research resource for assessing the theoretical use of expressive devices, as well as the prominence, character and actual application in performance of such devices. The thesis focuses on the relationship between a player's formal training and the cultural-aesthetic influences to which he/she was subsequently exposed, and also considers the relationship between performing theory and performing practice. Chapter one explores nineteenth-century French and German antecedents to the Hungarian school, before discussing the syllabus and pedagogy of Jeno Hubay in Budapest. The cheaper concludes with a case study of the changing approaches to technique and expression of Hubay's pupil, Josef Szigeti. Chapters two, three and four concentrate on the expressive devices used in the performances of violinists in the twentieth century: chapter two explores fingering; chapter three concerns vibrato; and chapter four addresses rhythm and tempo. The thesis shows that, in the case of the Hungarian school, players retained aspects of their initial training, but that other influences played a more decisive role in their evolution as mature artists. The thesis concludes by arguing that recorded sources have a vital and significant contribution to make to the field of twentieth-century performance practice.

Ensemble singing is a well-established practice across cultures, found in a great diversity of forms, languages, and levels. However, it has not been widely studied in the field of Music Information Retrieval (MIR), likely due to the lack of appropriate data. In this dissertation, we first address the data scarcity by building new open, multi-track datasets of ensemble singing. Then, we address three main research problems: multiple F0 estimation and streaming, voice assignment, and the characterization of vocal unisons, all in the context of four-part vocal ensembles. Hence, the first contribution of this thesis is the development and release of four multi-track datasets of vocal ensembles: Choral Singing Dataset, Dagstuhl ChoirSet, ESMUC Choir Dataset, and Cantoría Dataset, all of them with audio recordings and accompanying annotations. The second contribution is a set of deep learning models for multiple F0 estimation, streaming, and voice assignment of vocal quartets, mainly based on convolutional neural networks designed leveraging music domain knowledge. Finally, we propose two methods to characterize vocal unison performances in terms of pitch dispersion.
Cantar en un conjunt vocal és una activitat arrelada a moltes cultures i que es desenvolupa en diversos formats, idiomes i nivells. Tanmateix, la falta de les dades adequades ha fet que no s’hagi estudiat extensivament en el camp de la Recuperació de la Informació Musical (MIR). En aquesta tesi, primer abordem l’escassetat de dades creant noves bases de dades obertes amb gravacions multi-pista de conjunts vocals. Tot seguit, ens centrem principalment en tres tasques d'investigació: estimació i seguiment de múltiples valors de F0, assignació de veus i modelat d’unísons, totes en el context de grups vocals a quatre veus. Per tant, la primera aportació d’aquesta tesi és la publicació de quatre bases de dades amb enregistraments de conjunts vocals: Choral Singing Dataset, Dagstuhl ChoirSet, ESMUC Choir Dataset i Cantoría Dataset, totes amb enregistraments d’àudio multi-pista i anotacions. La segona aportació d’aquesta tesi és un conjunt de models d’aprenentatge profund per l’estimació i el seguiment de múltiples valors de F0 i per l’assignació de veus en quartets vocals, principalment basats en xarxes neuronals convolucionals dissenyades per incorporar coneixement musical. Finalment, proposem dos mètodes per modelar i caracteritzar unísons vocals en termes de dispersió d’altura tonal (pitch).

This thesis explores how musical recordings circulate within various sites of metacultural analysis, such as print music publications, music blogs, community-based campus radio music programmes and music podcasts. Drawing on theories about cultural production, the circulation of cultural objects, and metaculture (circulation of ideas about cultural objects, rather than the objects themselves), the author traces how an independent record label discursively positions musical recordings for movement towards and within these meaning-making spheres. Print music publications and music blogs facilitate recognition and consecration of recordings in different capacities, particularly in relation to music publicity. Community-based campus (c/c) radio and music podcasts situate recordings within new cultural objects--radio texts--that engage with listeners in different ways. In this manner, all sites are stakeholders in shaping the meaning of a musical recording and propel its actual and metacultural circulation along various trajectories.
Cette thèse explore comment les enregistrements musicaux circulent à travers différents lieuxd'analyse métaculturelle, comme les publications imprimées traitant de musique, les bloguesmusicaux, les émissions de musique des radios communautaires et universitaires ainsi que lesbaladodiffusions musicales. Basé sur les théories de la création de la culture, de latransmission des objets culturels et métaculturel (la circulation d'idées à propos d'objetsculturels plutôt qu'à propos des objets eux-mêmes), l'auteur démontre les méthodesdiscursivement employées par une étiquette indépendante afin d'encourager le mouvement deses enregistrements musicaux au sein de ces sphères créatrices de sens. Les publicationsimprimées et les blogues musicaux facilitent la reconnaissance et la consécration desenregistrements musicaux, notamment à travers la promotion de la musique. Les radioscommunautaires et universitaires ainsi que les baladodiffusions musicales placent cesenregistrements à l'intérieur d'un nouvel objet culturel- le contenu radiophonique -lesquelsattirent l'attention de l'auditoire de différentes façons. Ainsi, tous ces environnementscontribuent à donner un sens à l'enregistrement musical et à le propulser, au sens propre et ausens métaculturel, vers ses trajectoires variées.

Music Performance
D.M.A.
This monograph analyzes recordings of three orchestral excerpts for the oboe made between 1910 – 2016 and studies trends in interpretation, showing how performance practice is continually evolving as musical tastes change. The chosen excerpts span several style periods from the early nineteenth century to the twentieth century. The first excerpt, the cadenza from the Allegro con brio movement of the Fifth Symphony by Beethoven, has been under-studied by oboists and musicologists and yet it plays a pivotal role in the first movement of this iconic piece. The second excerpt, the Adagio solo from the second movement of Brahms’s Violin Concerto, has much room for individual interpretation and soloistic freedom on the part of the both the oboe and violin soloists. Finally, recordings of the technically-challenging twentieth-century excerpt, the “Prélude” solo from le tombeau de Couperin by Ravel, show how standards of musical perfection have been raised overtime as a result of the recording industry. Preference is given to recordings from countries with strong traditions in oboe performance, such as the United States, England, Germany, and France. To give a clear picture of performance trends, I study approximately ten recordings per decade. A large-data recording study such as this has never been attempted of orchestral excerpts for the oboe. Findings common to all three excerpts over time include: a decline in small-group, rhetorical phrasing; a decline in national schools; tempos becoming slower in the mid-twentieth century and faster towards the end of the twentieth century; and strongest similarities in playing styles of oboists with a shared pedagogical lineage.
Temple University--Theses

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2005.
Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 957-975). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

This paper provides an overview of the inspiration, research, and creative process involved in the composition of EverWind for orchestra and electronics. EverWind is based on field recordings from the American Southwest. The composition uses pitch material derived from spectral analysis of the recordings, and it incorporates a fixed media element using the field recordings that are then electronically manipulated to various degrees; this fixed media element is played alongside the orchestra. The paper also analyzes John Luther Adams' Dark Waves for Orchestra and Electronics and R. Murray Schafer's Music for Wilderness Lake in order to place EverWind within the broader musical context.

Many audio signals of historical interest are stored on degraded analog media, such as phonograph records. Degradation is often associated with audible disturbances that can be annoying for listeners. Audio restoration uses digital signal processing technology to reduce artifacts associated with noise in audio signals. Click restoration, in particular, addresses corruption by impulsive noises. This project developed click restoration software using a well-known autoregressive model-based method for the detection and suppression of clicks. The restoration results were subjectively assessed by expert listeners who rated the audio quality associated with phonograph recordings restored by the autoregressive method and compared to a commercially available well-respected hardware restoration device. This thesis document reviews previous work in audio restoration, describes the design and implementation of the restoration software, explains the evaluation procedure, gives results, draws conclusions, and provides suggestions for future work.
De nombreux signaux musicaux d'intérêt historique sont stockés sur des supports analogues dégradés, tels que les enregistrements phonographiques. La dégradation est souvent associée à des gênes sonores qui sont désagréables pour l'auditeur. La restauration audio utilise les technologies de traitement du signal numérique pour réduire ces artefacts associés aux bruits des signaux audionumériques. La restauration des clics, en particulier, s'attaque à la corruption du signal par des bruits impulsifs. Ce projet a permi de développer un logiciel de restauration de clics, lequel utilise une méthode fondée sur le modèle auto-régressif bien connu pour détecter et supprimer les clics. Les résultats de la restauration ont été évalués subjectivement par des auditeurs experts, qui ont comparé la qualité sonore associée aux enregistrements phonographiques restaurés par la méthode d'autocorrélation avec celle d'un système matériel de restauration très respecté et disponible commercialement. Cette thèse revisite les travaux précédents sur la restauration audio, décrit la conception et la mise en œuvre du logiciel de restauration, explique la procédure d'évaluation, indique les résultats obtenus, dresse les conclusions et propose des suggestions de travaux futurs.

This study takes as its stimulus the unusual dynamic markings in Beethoven’s String Quartet, Op. 130. Presenting an immediate interpretational problem for performers this leads to questions of execution and how this influences the character of the music. Whilst both analysts and performers use evocative metaphors to describe musical character, the explication of how this is achieved through performance has been little explored in academia. The study focuses on the intersection between metaphors found in the literature surrounding Beethoven’s late quartets and the performance choices made in eight renowned string quartet recordings. The ambiguity of Beethoven’s late style and unusual nature of his dynamic indications offer a fascinating case study of this intersection. The methodology uses metaphor as an analytical frame work through which discussions about performance decisions take place, suggesting one metaphor or another, usually in a spectrum of variations. This sees dynamics as a potential stimulus for manipulation of not just volume, but also vibrato, rubato, articulation, portamento and other factors often framed by the choice of tempo. Different treatments of these performance techniques suggest varying metaphorical characterisations. These are summarised through verbal descriptions of the performer’s choices with reference to the score. Chapter 1 focuses on two awkward dynamic markings that dominate the first movement: the hairpin crescendo to piano and rapid alternations of forte and piano in fast music. Chapter 2 focuses on hairpin swells which create not only unusual disruptions in the middle movements but also expansive lyricism in the Cavatina movement. Chapter 3 moves from localised dynamic markings to longer passages which are characterised by unusual dynamic stasis and descriptive terms in the Cavatina. This study shows how these dynamics have been interpreted in many different ways, through the variety and interaction of a number of different performance techniques. Far from establishing fixed definitions for these dynamics, this opens up possibilities for more expressive freedom for performers, not less.

Sitting at a rarely examined intersection between aging, disability, and popular culture, this project explores how the aging body becomes the disabled body in the context of popular music. In what follows, I trouble the distinction between bodies and mediation, between lived-experience and cultural product, and I argue that the voice of the aging artist engages with his lived-experience even as he performs socially-constructed conceptions of aging and disability. I read Johnny Cash’s 2002 cover of Trent Reznor’s “Hurt” on American IV: The Man Comes Around as a performance of the singer’s age and disabled condition. Through pain- saturated lyrics, music filled with unresolved tension, a damaged voice, and a video that puts his aged body on display, Cash performs a disability script that presents his age and personal health as disabling burden. I explore how country music, Cash’s performance past, and strategies pursued by his producer, Rick Rubin, all contribute to a performance that is both successful popular song and a manifestation of the singer’s declining condition. The project invites subsequent explorations of the intersection of age and disability in popular music, and highlights several artists whose voices and performances of old age and disability demand attention. The project aligns with an interactive approach to disability research, breaking down the dialectic between social and individual priorities in disability studies and foregrounding how each influence the overall performance.

This thesis is an investigation into the instrumental social music of the Eastern European Jewish immigrant community in New York during the early decades of the twentieth century. A professional tradition with roots in medieval Germany, klezmer music had developed in the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe during the course of several centuries and was brought to North America by immigrants beginning in the late nineteenth century. European klezmorim had formed a socio-economic group which fulfilled a ritual function within traditional Jewish society at weddings and other celebrations. like Yiddish culture in general, the Jewish instrumentalists adapted to the New York environment, creating a synthesis during the period 1880-1950which contained both Eastern European and American attributes. This study begins with the hypothesis that there is a unique style and repertoire created and interpreted by the klezmorim, of which key stylistic aspects can be identified. Utilising a three-prong approach - historical, ethnographic and musicological - it provides a focused study based on the recordings of the clarinettists Naftule Brandwein (1884-1963)and Dave Tarras (1895-1989) made during the years 1922-1929 and, at the same time, places their music within a larger socio-cultural context. Drawing on musical parallels to Harshav's theory of polylingualism in Yiddish, the study treats the various genres within the overall category of metric dance tunes as a single field, investigaqng key stylistic elements at the syntactical and improvisational leve1s. It focuses in particular on issues of modality, compositional process, improvisation and ornamentation. A dynamic approach to modality presents a new way of looking at oral musical traditions which contain elements of both modal systems and Western tonality. The study both confirms the importance of ornamentation as being crucial in defining style in oral traditions and suggests certain categories of ornaments may also serve a structural function. Building upon Nettl's concept of a "point of departure" upon which musicians base their improvisations, those of Brandwein and Tarras may be regarded as being based on a myriad of points of departure at every level of detail which, when aggregated, made up the performance. Finally, through investigating the interface between syntactical and improvisational elements, a new way of looking at improvisation is suggested - one which blurs the boundary between the compositional and the performative.

This thesis is an ethnographic analysis of a collection of field recordings of music from sub-Saharan Africa: The Sound of Africa series made and published by Hugh Tracey between 1933 and 1973. I analyse the aims, methods, value and potential use of this collection, now held at the International Library of African Music (ILAM), in order to address a gap in the ethnomusicological literature and to begin to develop a critical framework for an evaluation of field recording and aural ethnography. An archival analysis of the collection enables me to trace the scope and intended uses of Tracey’s recordings. Identifying a primary intended audience that has not to date been engaged, I argue for the need to develop a new way to circulate recordings among a source community that has never before been reached through institutional archival practice. I use a small sample of Tracey’s archival Xhosa recordings and develop a method of sound elicitation designed to take the recordings back to urban Xhosa communities in the townships located near ILAM. By circulating archival recordings using local mechanisms in township communities, rather than institutional archival methods, I assess the potential relevance of historical recordings to an urban source community more than fifty years after the recordings were made. Having collected and analysed contemporary Xhosa responses, I consider the limitations and the potential for the recordings to connect with indigenous audiences and generate value. I argue that non-analytical responses to historical recordings may contribute to ethnographic understanding, to people’s own sense of Xhosa identity, and to archiving practice in future. Such responses may help increase our understanding of the relationships between music collectors in the field and the people recorded, whether fifty years ago, today or in future.

In this paper, I explore the early musical language of McCoy Tyner. Today, Tyner is recognized mostly for his use of quartal harmony and pentatonic scales despite having made recordings in his early career that reflect a more mainstream approach. In an effort to expand how Tyner is represented, I argue that Tyner's early style was characterized by a graceful balance of tradition and innovation, a masterful blend of bebop syntax with pentatonic melodies and quartal harmonies. The recordings that I analyze and discuss are: "Effendi," "Cousin Mary," and "Newport Romp." I transcribed and analyzed selected portions of these recordings in order to better understand his early musical language as a soloist from 1962 to 1963. A portion of this paper is focused on the early reception of Tyner, which acknowledged him as an accomplished mainstream player with a firm grasp of the jazz tradition. Ultimately, my analysis shows that Tyner's early style was a balance of tradition and innovation, incorporating bebop syntax, pentatonic melodies, and quartal harmonies.

In the 1960s, Gustav Mahler's music received renewed interest in America. While certain champions of Mahler from this period, such as Leonard Bernstein and Bruno Walter, have attracted scholarly attention, other conductors have been largely overlooked, including Maurice Abravanel (1903–1993). During Abravanel's directorship of the Utah Symphony (1947–1979), he consistently programmed Mahler's music, making the orchestra the first American orchestra to record all of Mahler's symphonies. Although the concerts contributed meaningfully to Utah's musical life and some of the recordings were well-received by critics in and outside America, they remain marginalized in accounts of Mahler's music in America. To bridge this gap, the dissertation examines primary sources, including concert and record reviews, program notes, correspondence, and interview transcripts to present the history, reception, and influence of Abravanel's Mahler journey with the Utah Symphony. By examining the musical past of a Western city and considering musical and extramusical factors, this dissertation demonstrates that local and technological histories influenced musical decisions, all of which in turn played a role in the growth of the Utah Symphony and planted Mahler's music in the community. The examination reveals that Abravanel's Mahler carried different meanings for different parties. The recordings, with low prices and superior sound, were recommended by critics and welcomed by audiophiles and music lovers. Abravanel's interpretations were commonly criticized as dispassionate, yet were embraced by those who did not prefer Bernstein's more involved, dramatic readings. Through the recordings of Mahler's music, the Utah Symphony gained national and international acclaim. In Salt Lake City, Mahler became a familiar name, and his music remains integral to the city's music culture. As of the completion of this dissertation, the Utah Symphony is nearing the end a two-season (2014–2016) Mahler cycle and has recorded two symphonies by Mahler under music director Thierry Fischer. The McKay Music Library of the University of Utah is digitizing Abravanel's Mahler scores and documenting memories about Abravanel's endeavors with the Austrian composer's music. The concerts, recordings, and efforts to preserve history again bring the collective memories of Abravanel's Mahler back to the community.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2009.
Title from PDF t.p. (viewed June 30, 2010). Additional advisors: Stephen A. Watts, Paul A. Richardson, John T. Tarvin. Includes bibliographical references (p. 36-38).

The pilot study used in this thesis examined the attitudes and perceptions of a small group of students at the University of North Texas. The participants in this pilot study (n=22) were administered an online music file sharing survey, a Defining Issues Test (DIT), and participated in a small focus group. This thesis also outlined the history and progression of online music piracy in the United States, and addressed four research questions which aimed to determine why individuals choose to engage in the file sharing of copyrighted music online.