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: Norton, Kay
ContributorsZiegler, Danielle (Author) / Norton, Kay (Thesis director) / Wu, Selene (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music, Dance and Theatre (Contributor)
Created2021-12
Description
For my creative project/thesis, I gave a fully rehearsed, fully performed hour long recital using rare baseball music I researched, hunted down, studied, practiced, and then performed in a recital setting. I used my long history with and personal knowledge of Baseball, as well as my newly studied knowledge of and newly acquired skills with Musical Theater, Opera, and Voice to make a project that celebrated both my past achievements and what I learned with my performance degree these last 4 years. I, in total, learned 16 new songs and performed each of them back to back to back, with breaks in between each set and an intermission, as well as brief histories and summaries of each song or each song set. I then performed the recital on February 25th in the ASU School of Music Recital Hall, and invited as many friends, peers, colleagues, and family members as I could to attend, while also sharing the streaming and subsequent recording online as well. I was accompanied by pianist Stephen Kuebelbeck on piano, and the two of us spent hours upon hours rehearsing in addition to performing the recital itself. My thesis director, Carole FitzPatrick, helped me with all the vocal technique, song selection, memorization, recital approach, and planning out the logistics of my recital, while Dr. Kay Norton helped me with research such as song selection, history of the pieces, history of the composers, and historical context of the pieces. While this is an unconventional project, I feel like it best reflects my unconventional major. It gives me both advanced knowledge on a niche in my field of performance, provides me with rehearsed music that I love and can use and carry forward into most any concert or performance setting, and provides me with personal artistic satisfaction by combining together two worlds I dearly love and am a part of, in a creative way. It also gives me the irreplaceable experience of putting together my own recital (completely outside of class and on my own time), as recital performances will hopefully become a regular part of my life as a singing performer.
ContributorsLadley, Edward (Author) / FitzPatrick, Carole (Thesis director) / Norton, Kay (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Performance (Music Theatre) (Contributor) / Kuebelbeck, Stephen (Musician)
Created2022-05
Description
Program for performance given at Recital Hall, February 25th, 2022 at 5:00 p.m.
ContributorsLadley, Edward (Author) / FitzPatrick, Carole (Thesis director) / Norton, Kay (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Performance (Music Theatre) (Contributor) / Kuebelbeck, Stephen (Musician)
Created2022-02-25
Description
The inspiration to undertake this pilot study came after observation and reflection by the clinician-researcher, a board-certified music therapist who has used the harp as the primary instrument when facilitating sessions, on hundreds of music therapy sessions that took place at a facility for behavioral health and chemical dependency. It was observed that the use of improvised harp music as a therapeutic intervention within the context of a music therapy session seemed to relax patients who reported that they were nervous or anxious, and it was also noted that following a listening exercise that consisted of improvised harp music, patients appeared calmer and reported that they felt more comfortable. This research aims to determine if improvised harp music at the opening of a music therapy session creates a calmer environment in which to share information, compared with a guided verbal relaxation and ambient ocean drum sounds for the opening of the music therapy session. Social-behavioral research was conducted in the form of a fifty minute individual music therapy session with six subjects. Each therapy session used improvised music and verbal processing with the therapist, with three subjects in the experimental group and three in the control group. Each individual rated two different types of affective responses on scales of one to ten and completed a five-question survey at the end of the session. All the research subjects showed an increase in positive affect at the end of the music therapy session.
ContributorsRaunikar, Mary Frances (Author) / Rio, Robin (Thesis advisor) / Aspnes, Lynne (Committee member) / Norton, Kay (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Lu Pei (b. 1956) is a celebrated Chinese American composer who currently serves as a composition professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. His work is known for its varied use of Chinese folk tunes. He lived in the United States a long time, which cultivated within him abundant Western musical influences. The sound of multi-ethnic elements is greatly reflected in his own music. Writing an opera has always been his ultimate dream as a composer, and after many years of work, the opera The Third of March was completed and premiered in 2018 in Guangxi. It has received wide acclaim and has been a favorite of younger listeners. Lu Pei aims to bring young people to modern music and the Chinese opera, not only using traditional Chinese musical elements, but also adopts “reinvented” modern Western musical styles, giving a new identity to the Chinese opera is the main foci of The Third of March.
To prepare for my performer’s guide to The Third of March, I will discuss Lu Pei’s inspirations from the Guangxi Song Fairs, and the music and culture of the Zhuang people surrounding the date in the Chinese lunar calendar, March Third. For Westerners unfamiliar with Lu Pei’s music, I will briefly introduce the compositional blending of Western and Chinese musical styles with a section about Chinese composers active in the United States, Chen Yi (b. 1953), and Tan Dun (b. 1957). I will also include a brief outline of the history of Chinese opera development, and Lu Pei’s compositional concepts and the background of the opera The Third of March will be discussed.
My performer’s guide, the primary focus of this project, will begin by stressing Lu Pei’s adoption of different Chinese folk songs and Western compositional elements. These techniques clearly gave the piece a unique stylistic identity. I will give a brief overview of the Chinese language diction in International Phonetic Alphabet. Finally, the qualities of the main arias in the opera, and some of the Chinese operatic techniques for singers, and their special effects, will be explored.
To prepare for my performer’s guide to The Third of March, I will discuss Lu Pei’s inspirations from the Guangxi Song Fairs, and the music and culture of the Zhuang people surrounding the date in the Chinese lunar calendar, March Third. For Westerners unfamiliar with Lu Pei’s music, I will briefly introduce the compositional blending of Western and Chinese musical styles with a section about Chinese composers active in the United States, Chen Yi (b. 1953), and Tan Dun (b. 1957). I will also include a brief outline of the history of Chinese opera development, and Lu Pei’s compositional concepts and the background of the opera The Third of March will be discussed.
My performer’s guide, the primary focus of this project, will begin by stressing Lu Pei’s adoption of different Chinese folk songs and Western compositional elements. These techniques clearly gave the piece a unique stylistic identity. I will give a brief overview of the Chinese language diction in International Phonetic Alphabet. Finally, the qualities of the main arias in the opera, and some of the Chinese operatic techniques for singers, and their special effects, will be explored.
ContributorsBan, Banlingyu (Author) / FitzPatrick, Carole (Thesis advisor) / Norton, Kay (Committee member) / Ryan, Russell (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
In the early 2000s, a new genre of music broke into the mainstream and begandominating popular music charts. The fans called it emo, and it became known as the latest iteration of the emo genre from the ’80s and ’90s. In this thesis, I explore the relationship between fans and emo music, clarifying the genre’s variety of definitions and interpretations while also identifying the types of discourse and the “productive” fandom practices in which fans participate in online emo community. I consider how early online fandom communities were formed and examine various online emo communities as digital archives containing emo discourse, emo fan fiction, and fan-written music reviews. Analyzing such archived materials from internet sites such as Pinterest, Tumblr, and LiveJournal is an important next step in emo fandom studies because these digital archives reveal significant areas of discourse within emo communities ranging from terminology and genre classification to modes of participatory fandom like fan fiction to conversations about mental health. I consider these topics from all sides, balancing fan testimonies with media narratives and scholarly commentary. By focusing on the mental health crisis in online emo fandom, the fan content that emo fandom inspires, and different approaches to defining the genre of emo, this thesis contributes to the study of a unique musical subculture that shaped the lives of a generation of teenagers. It will also illuminate the essential role that the internet plays in the formation of subcultures and teen identities by exploring the past and present existence of this online fandom.
ContributorsWilliams, Anna Katherine (Author) / Wells, Christi J (Thesis advisor) / Norton, Kay (Committee member) / Schmeltz, Peter J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
ABSTRACT
Emilie Mayer (1812-1883) was a prolific composer whose musical works, which encompassed eight symphonies, four overtures, an opera, dozens of sonatas, eight string quartets, solo piano works, and nearly 130 songs for solo voice or vocal quartet, were performed in the foremost concert halls in Berlin and across Germany. She studied with lauded teachers: Carl Loewe (1796-1869), Adolph Bernhard Marx (1795-1866), and Wilhelm Wieprecht (1802-1872). Her talent was applauded by audiences and critics wrote favorably, despite their reservations about women composers. However, even with this unusual pedigree, Mayer’s works nearly disappeared from concert stages after her death. How did this happen? This study aims to answer this question and will delve into Emilie Mayer’s life and works in context with the prejudices against female composers at the time, in order to determine how those biases have shaped the classical canon. Included is an in-depth stylistic analysis of Mayer’s surviving seven Lieder, along-side comparisons to similar works of other composers. In addition, appendices present Mayer’s remaining Lieder in a new, modernized edition, with selected songs transposed for better accessibility for lower voices. Relative lack of female representation in modern-day concert halls and music history books correlates to previous misconceptions of female composers. Studying the works of Emilie Mayer will support her addition to the classical repertoire, help correct the male-gendered canon that persists, and help modern female composers realize their history is not confined to a footnote.
Emilie Mayer (1812-1883) was a prolific composer whose musical works, which encompassed eight symphonies, four overtures, an opera, dozens of sonatas, eight string quartets, solo piano works, and nearly 130 songs for solo voice or vocal quartet, were performed in the foremost concert halls in Berlin and across Germany. She studied with lauded teachers: Carl Loewe (1796-1869), Adolph Bernhard Marx (1795-1866), and Wilhelm Wieprecht (1802-1872). Her talent was applauded by audiences and critics wrote favorably, despite their reservations about women composers. However, even with this unusual pedigree, Mayer’s works nearly disappeared from concert stages after her death. How did this happen? This study aims to answer this question and will delve into Emilie Mayer’s life and works in context with the prejudices against female composers at the time, in order to determine how those biases have shaped the classical canon. Included is an in-depth stylistic analysis of Mayer’s surviving seven Lieder, along-side comparisons to similar works of other composers. In addition, appendices present Mayer’s remaining Lieder in a new, modernized edition, with selected songs transposed for better accessibility for lower voices. Relative lack of female representation in modern-day concert halls and music history books correlates to previous misconceptions of female composers. Studying the works of Emilie Mayer will support her addition to the classical repertoire, help correct the male-gendered canon that persists, and help modern female composers realize their history is not confined to a footnote.
ContributorsSadownik, Stephanie Beth (Author) / Weiss, Stephanie (Thesis advisor) / Norton, Kay (Thesis advisor) / Ryan, Russell (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
The call to crusade in 1145 prompted a movement fueled not only by religious writings and sermons, but by calls to arms in secular song. During the mid-twelfth to thirteenth centuries, French Trouvères and Occitan Troubadours wrote over one hundred crusade songs, the majority of which are rife with propaganda and support for the crusades and the attacks against the Saracens and the East. The crusade song corpus not only deals with sacred motivations to go overseas, such as the crusade indulgence present in papal bulls, but also summons biblical figures and epic persons as motivation to crusade.
Previous scholars have not adequately defined the genre of a crusade song, and have overlooked connections to the crusading rhetoric of the genre of crusade literature. I offer a precise definition of crusade song and examine commonalities between crusade literature and song. During the crusades, troubadours and trouvères wrote crusade songs to draw support for the campaigns. The propaganda in these songs demonstrates that the authors had an understanding of current events and may have had some knowledge of other crusading literature, such as papal calls to crusade, crusade sermons, the Old French Crusade Cycle, and various crusade chronicles. These documents show how the themes and allusions present in crusade song have broader connotations and connections to crusade culture in Medieval Europe.
Previous scholars have not adequately defined the genre of a crusade song, and have overlooked connections to the crusading rhetoric of the genre of crusade literature. I offer a precise definition of crusade song and examine commonalities between crusade literature and song. During the crusades, troubadours and trouvères wrote crusade songs to draw support for the campaigns. The propaganda in these songs demonstrates that the authors had an understanding of current events and may have had some knowledge of other crusading literature, such as papal calls to crusade, crusade sermons, the Old French Crusade Cycle, and various crusade chronicles. These documents show how the themes and allusions present in crusade song have broader connotations and connections to crusade culture in Medieval Europe.
ContributorsChoin, Victoria (Author) / Saucier, Catherine (Thesis advisor) / Cruse, Markus (Committee member) / Holbrook, Amy (Committee member) / Norton, Kay (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019