Craft, process and art : teaching and learning music composition in higher education

This paper explores models of teaching and learning music composition in higher education. It analyses the pedagogical approaches apparent in the literature on teaching and learning composition in schools and universities, and introduces a teaching model as: learning from the masters; mastery of techniques; exploring ideas; and developing voice. It then presents a learning model developed from a qualitative study into students’ experiences of learning composition at university as: craft, process and art. The relationship between the students’ experiences and the pedagogical model is examined. Finally, the implications for composition curricula in higher education are presented.

Music for the Pria Dewasa : changes and continuities in class and pop music genres

This paper presents Rolling Stone Indonesia (RSI) and places it in an historical context to tease out some changes and continuities in Indonesian middle-class politics since the beginning of the New Order. Some political scientists have claimed that class interests were at the core of the transition from Guided Democracy to the New Order, and popular music scholars generally assert that class underlies pop genre distinctions. But few have paid attention to how class and genre were written into Indonesian pop in the New Order period; Indonesian pop has a fascinating political history that has so far been overlooked. Placing RSI in historical perspective can reveal much about the print media’s classing of pop under New Order era political constraints, and about the ways these modes of classing may or may not have endured in the post-authoritarian, globalised and liberalised media environment.

Differential cognitive responses to guqin music and piano music in Chinese subjects: an event-related potential study

目的 研究古琴(一种古老的中国乐器)和钢琴音乐对认知的影响.方法 记录和分析了中国被试在两种音乐背景(古琴音乐,钢琴音乐)下完成听觉oddball任务的行为和事件相关电位(event-related potential,ERP)数据.结果 中国被试在本土文化的音乐环境(古琴音乐)下,前额区诱导出更大的P300,这一结果和已有的相关研究是相符的.同时,不同音乐背景对ERP产生的影响在N1和LPC(包括P300和P500)上也表现出差别:中国被试在古琴音乐背景下比钢琴音乐背景下表现出更多的右前侧颞叶的参与.结论 因为古琴音乐的五声调式和汉语发音的音调具有对应关系,因此我们推断在古琴音乐下所表现出的这种特性与被试的汉语环境有关.

Crossmodal effects of Guqin and piano music on selective attention: An event-related potential study

To compare the effects of music from different cultural environments (Guqin: Chinese music; piano: Western music) on crossmodal selective attention, behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) data in a standard two-stimulus visual oddball task were reco

Crossmodal effects of Guqin and piano music on selective attention: An event-related potential study (vol 466, pg 21, 2009)

Special thanks to Christopher Blair and Mumtaz Baig for their suggestions. This work was supported by National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, 2007CB411600), National Natural Science Foundation of China (30621092), and Bureau of Science and Technology of Yunnan Province.

Solo and Chamber Music of Pulitzer Prize-Winning Composers

The Pulitzer Prize in Music, established in 1943, is one of America's most prestigious awards. It has been awarded to fifty-three composers for a "distinguished musical composition of significant dimension by an American that has had its first performance in the United States during the year." Composers who have won the Pulitzer Prize are considered to be at the pinnacle of their creativity and have provided the musical world with classical music compositions worthy of future notice. By tracing the history of Pulitzer Prize-winning composers and their compositions, researchers and musicians enhance their understanding of the historical evolution of American music, and its impact on American culture. Although the clarinet music of some of these composers is rarely performed today, their names will be forever linked to the Pulitzer, and because of that, their compositions will enjoy a certain sense of immortality. Of the fifty-four composers who have won the award, forty-seven have written for the clarinet in a solo or chamber music setting (five or less instruments). Just as each Pulitzer Prize-winning composition is a snapshot of the state of American music at that time, these works trace the history of American clarinet musical development, and therefore, they are valuable additions to the clarinet repertoire and worthy of performance. This dissertation project consists of two recitals featuring the solo and chamber clarinet music of sixteen Pulitzer Prize-winning composers, extended program notes containing information on each composer's life, their music, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composition and the recital selection, and a complete list of all Pulitzer Prize-winning composers and their solo and chamber clarinet music. Featured Composers Dominick Argento, To Be Sung Upon the Water Leslie Bassett, Soliloquies William Bolcom, Little Suite of Four Dances Aaron Copland, As it Fell Upon a Day John Corigliano, Soliloquy Norman Dello Joio, Concertante Morton Gould, Benny's Gig Charles Ives, Largo Douglas Moore, Quintet for Clarinet and Strings George Perle, Three Sonatas Quincy Porter, Quintet for Clarinet and Strings Mel Powell, Clarinade Shulamit Ran, Private Game Joseph Schwantner, Entropy Leo Sowerby, Sonata Ernst Toch, Adagio elegiaco

Major and minor music compared to excited and subdued speech.

The affective impact of music arises from a variety of factors, including intensity, tempo, rhythm, and tonal relationships. The emotional coloring evoked by intensity, tempo, and rhythm appears to arise from association with the characteristics of human behavior in the corresponding condition; however, how and why particular tonal relationships in music convey distinct emotional effects are not clear. The hypothesis examined here is that major and minor tone collections elicit different affective reactions because their spectra are similar to the spectra of voiced speech uttered in different emotional states. To evaluate this possibility the spectra of the intervals that distinguish major and minor music were compared to the spectra of voiced segments in excited and subdued speech using fundamental frequency and frequency ratios as measures. Consistent with the hypothesis, the spectra of major intervals are more similar to spectra found in excited speech, whereas the spectra of particular minor intervals are more similar to the spectra of subdued speech. These results suggest that the characteristic affective impact of major and minor tone collections arises from associations routinely made between particular musical intervals and voiced speech.

Tracing Neoclassical Influences in selected solo and chamber music for the clarinet

The musical period of Neoclassicism began in the 1920's, between the first and second world wars. It was initiated by French composers and eventually spread to other countries. One of the most important themes to emerge from the movement was to escape from the formless, rather emotional music of the Romantic era and instead, emphasize balance, order, objectivity and clarity in musical form. Many popular clarinet repertoires are enjoyed by performers and listeners because the music is enjoyable to play and easy to listen to. In particular, classically influenced clarinet music is quite interesting because it features musical elements from both the past and contemporary musical styles. For instance, some composers have integrated preexisting, more traditional styles of composition with lighter styles of modern culture such as popular music and Jazz. It is difficult to discover purely neoclassical clarinet repertoires even though many composers created their pieces during the neoclassical era. What we most commonly find are both neoclassical and non-neoclassical influences in compositions from that time period. Thus, I aim to trace the influence of neoclassicism in selected clarinet repertoires that exist today. It is my hope that increased awareness and knowledge about accessible clarinet music may encourage the general public to develop a deeper interest in a wider sphere of clarinet music, beyond what is considered popular today. The works performed and discussed in this dissertation are the following: (Recital I) Duo Concertante by Darius Milhaud; Sonata by Leonard Bernstein; Sonata for Two Clarinets by Francis Poulenc; Duos for Flute and Clarinet, Op. 34 by Robert Muczynski; Dance Preludes by Witold Lutoslawski, (Recital II) Sonatine by Arthur Honegger; Time pieces by Robert Muczynski; Suite for Clarinet, Violin and Piano by Darius Milhaud; Sonate for Clarinet, Flute and Piano by Maurice Emmanuel; Tarantelle for Flute, Clarinet and Piano, Op. 6 by Camille Saint-Saëns, (Recital III) Sonatina by Joseph Horovitz; Suite from L'histoire du Soldat for Clarinet, Violin and Piano by Igor Stravinsky; Contrasts for Clarinet, Violin and Piano by Béla Bartók The recitals that took place on December 1, 2012 and on April 25, 2013 were performed in the Ulrich Recital Hall of the Clarice Performing Arts Center in College Park, Maryland. The recital that took place on November 2, 2013 was performed at the Gildenhorn Recital Hall of the same performing arts center.

"Thought-Tormented Music": Joyce and the Music of the Irish Revival

"In this special issue's opening essay, Martin Dowling devotes almost half of "'Thought-Tormented Music': Joyce and the Music of the Irish Revival" to what he calls "the situation of music in the Irish literary revival." He focuses chiefly on 1904, which was both an intensely productive period for the revival movement and a year chock-full of crucial events and decisions for Joyce. Drawing on the works of Pierre Bourdieu and Jaques Lacan, Dowling explores the revivalists' efforts to "de-anglicize" Irish music, to remove foreign influences that distorted the "pure tradition of Irish song," and to achieve an improbable harmony between the music favoured by the disappearing Anglo-Irish aristocracy and the Irish-speaking peasantry. Inevitably, disputes occurred over what constituted "authentic" Irish music. Factions quarrelled over whether pristine Irish music existed in the Atlantic seaboard or more inland; whether "authentic" songs were sung with or without instrumental accompaniment; and whether the piano, rather than the traditional harp, was a legitimate instrument of accompaniment. Having delineated the historical and theoretical context, Dowling offers a richly detailed analysis of Joyce's story "A Mother." He reveals how almost every element in the story--from the Eire Abu Society to the Antient Concert Rooms, from the conflict between Mrs. Kearney and Hoppy Holohan to the plight of Kathleen Kearney--is charged with meaning by the subtextual conflicts of the revivalists' agenda. Dowling explains also the "authenticity" in Joyce's depiction of vocal performances of "The Lass of Aughrim" in "The Dead" and "The Croppy Boy" in "Sirens," which he calls two "true gems" of authentic Irish music." --Introduction by Charles Rossman and Alan W. Friedman, Guest Editors, pp. 409-410

Juxtaposition and Non-Motion: Varese Bridges Modernism and Electroacoustic Music

Edgard Vare` se’s Poe` me e´ lectronique can be viewed as a bridge between early twentieth-century modernism and electroacoustic music. This connection to early modernism is most clearly seen in its use of musical juxtaposition, a favoured technique of early modernist composers, especially those active in Paris. Juxtaposition and non-motion are considered here, particularly in relationship to Smalley’s exposition of spectromorphology (Smalley 1986), which in its preoccupation with motion omits any significant consideration of non-motion. Juxtaposition and non-motion have an important history within twentieth-century music, and as an early classic of electroacoustic music, Poe` me e´ lectronique is a particularly striking example of a composition that is rich in juxtapositions similar to those found in passages of early modernist music. Examining Poe` me e´ lectronique through the lens of juxtaposition and non-motion reveals how the organisation of its juxtaposed sounds encourages the experience of sound structure suspended time.

Vaughan Williams and contemporary music: composers' forum

Like many long-lived composers, Vaughan Williams suffered a decline in his reputation immediately following his death, as the emergence in the 1960s of a younger generation of composers rendered much of his work outmoded in the eyes of many critics. In recent years, however, the reception of Vaughan Williams's music among composers has improved markedly, a combination of the ebbing of the tide of high modernism and greater pluralism in contemporary music, and a growing awareness that Vaughan Williams was perhaps more modernist (or at least progressive) than had previously been thought. In interviews with four leading British composers (two of whom were part of the 1960s generation mentioned above), I investigate the nature and extent of Vaughan Williams's legacy to his successors, both musical and social. What emerges is a near consensus on Vaughan Williams's greatest works, but a diversity of views on his compositional techniques and on his place among his European contemporaries.