Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
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- Creators: School of Music
Description
Since the early 1990's, researchers have been looking at intersections between education and music. After a highly popular study correlating listening to Mozart to temporary increases in spatial reasoning, many other researchers tried to find a link between different musical genres and learning outcomes. Using three musical treatments (Pop, classical, silence), this study had subjects (N=34) complete a reading-based task whereupon they were tested on their comprehension. Using a suite of sensors, data was collected to analyze the participants' emotions and affect while they read from an educational psychology textbook. The present study has two major focuses: They detail whether (1) changes in musical condition affect learning outcomes and (2) whether changes in musical condition affect emotional outcomes. The popular conception that listening to classical music makes you smarter was proven false long ago, but there may actually be some merit to using music to assist one in studying. While there were no significant changes in test scores depending on musical condition; frustration levels were significantly lower for those who listened to classical instead of pop music.
ContributorsPaley, Benjamin Henry (Author) / Atkinson, Robert (Thesis director) / Feisst, Sabine (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Prior to World War II, about 55,000 Jews were living in Prague, a very cosmopolitan and artistic city. They represented nearly twenty percent of the city’s population. By the end of the war, at least two-thirds of them had died in the Holocaust. The Nazis converted the small fortress town of Theresienstadt, near Prague, into a transport camp for Jews on their way to Auschwitz and other death camps. Theresienstadt was where the Nazis sent most Jewish Czech intellectuals, military veterans, artists, and members of the upper class who were well connected. It was also the camp they chose to present to the international community. For all of these reasons—Theresienstadt’s isolation, the demography of the inmates there, and the Nazis’ desire to use it to fool the international community—the Nazis allowed unparalleled self-administration and artistic freedoms.
Arguably the most noteworthy result was its flourishing musical community. Composers and performers who had worked together in Prague prior to the war were able to continue to do so freely in ways that Jewish people were not allowed anywhere else in occupied Europe. They kept the musicians in Theresienstadt—delaying their deportations to Auschwitz—longer than almost anyone else in the camp, until the threat of Soviet liberation was imminent. This thesis aims to explore the lives and works of four Theresienstadt composers: Viktor Ullmann, Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, and Hans Krása. All four of these artists were successful prior to the war, spent time in Theresienstadt, and were sent to Auschwitz on the same transport on October 16, 1944. Three of the four died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, and Klein was sent on to the Fürstengrube concentration camp, where he was shot and killed in January 1945. These composers and their music should be remembered, studied, and performed, not only for historical and moral reasons, but also for artistic ones. Their works represent some of the finest music in the German tradition written during this period. In conjunction with this paper, I have arranged Gideon Klein’s String Trio—one of the pieces profiled here—for saxophone quartet. Members of the Arizona State University saxophone studio will perform it twice in April. I hope that the performances will help make audiences aware of the strength of the music that came out of Theresienstadt, and reinforce the fact that it remains highly relevant. In this thesis, the composers’ careers before and during their time in Theresienstadt will be traced, as well as the measures they took to preserve their music, their interactions with each other, and their efforts to use hidden messages in their music. It is hoped that this document will help fill an important gap in the history of European music in the twentieth century.
Arguably the most noteworthy result was its flourishing musical community. Composers and performers who had worked together in Prague prior to the war were able to continue to do so freely in ways that Jewish people were not allowed anywhere else in occupied Europe. They kept the musicians in Theresienstadt—delaying their deportations to Auschwitz—longer than almost anyone else in the camp, until the threat of Soviet liberation was imminent. This thesis aims to explore the lives and works of four Theresienstadt composers: Viktor Ullmann, Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, and Hans Krása. All four of these artists were successful prior to the war, spent time in Theresienstadt, and were sent to Auschwitz on the same transport on October 16, 1944. Three of the four died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, and Klein was sent on to the Fürstengrube concentration camp, where he was shot and killed in January 1945. These composers and their music should be remembered, studied, and performed, not only for historical and moral reasons, but also for artistic ones. Their works represent some of the finest music in the German tradition written during this period. In conjunction with this paper, I have arranged Gideon Klein’s String Trio—one of the pieces profiled here—for saxophone quartet. Members of the Arizona State University saxophone studio will perform it twice in April. I hope that the performances will help make audiences aware of the strength of the music that came out of Theresienstadt, and reinforce the fact that it remains highly relevant. In this thesis, the composers’ careers before and during their time in Theresienstadt will be traced, as well as the measures they took to preserve their music, their interactions with each other, and their efforts to use hidden messages in their music. It is hoped that this document will help fill an important gap in the history of European music in the twentieth century.
ContributorsSchwimmer, Jack Denmark (Author) / Creviston, Hannah (Thesis director) / Feisst, Sabine (Committee member) / Creviston, Christopher (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
This paper is the culmination of my creative project for graduation from Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University. The creative portion of the project consisted of researching Québécois (or French-Canadian) composers and specifically finding music for flute and piano. I wished to find pieces that could prove valuable in expanding the standard flute repertoire. My goal with this project was to shed light on some fairly unknown and certainly under-played pieces for flute and piano by French-Canadian composers and learn those pieces for my senior recital on March 2, 2020. This summary of the research experience and the process of recital preparation is intended to be a guide for flutists who may work on these pieces in the future and musicians on any instrument who take on a similar project of introducing new pieces to their instrument’s existing repertory.
ContributorsRule, Renee Rejane (Author) / Buck, Elizabeth (Thesis director) / Feisst, Sabine (Committee member) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05