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This thesis explores my experience in teaching a high school music class through composition. I detail pedagogical approaches that helped to shape my lesson planning including constructivism, informal learning, and project based learning. The music education theory is put into action in a real high school setting and I explain what happened: what worked, what didn't, and what can we learn from this?
ContributorsWhelihan, Brian Peter (Author) / Tobias, Evan (Thesis director) / Schildkret, David (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
"Chronos" is a composition by the great jazz pianist, Aaron Parks. Originally arranged for a quartet consisting of piano, upright bass, drums and tenor saxophone, I sought to arrange the piece for a sextet consisting of trombone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, guitar, upright, bass, and drums. This thesis outlines my process as I transcribed "Chronos" from the original recording and then arranged it for a new ensemble. It also discusses the difficulties faced in all the phases of the project from transcribing to rehearsing and performing the work. My arrangement is included with the thesis for those who wish to analyze the music as well as a recording of a live performance of my arrangement at The Nash in downtown Phoenix on April 7th, 2015.
ContributorsMcdaniel, Sean Wesley (Author) / Kocour, Michael (Thesis director) / Haines, Ryan (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This thesis presents a new study “Fostering Student Autonomy in the Collegiate Woodwind Studio” which gathered pedagogical techniques that collegiate woodwind professors use to foster student autonomy in their woodwind studios. This study defines “student autonomy” as an end-goal of education, in which students are “self-monitoring, strategizing, and taking responsibility for and ownership of the learning process.” A survey of questions concerning student autonomy was emailed to each of the appointed woodwind studio professors at ASU. Their responses are presented and analyzed in this thesis. The author hypothesized that the professors would show some understanding of various methods that can achieve student autonomy, but the study results showed that the professors had much knowledge and specific examples on how to achieve student autonomy in their studios. All of the participants cited examples of using indirect teaching, peer-learning, student-selected repertoire with teacher guidance, student goal-setting, and practical autonomy in their woodwind studios to facilitate student autonomy. About half of the participants cited examples of using student-to-teacher rapport, technology-mediated feedback, and diversified autonomy in their studios to facilitate student autonomy. Student-selected repertoire was by far the most popular method through which to foster student autonomy. This study found that further research is needed to prove if there is indeed a positive correlation between students who compose music for their woodwind lessons and their level of autonomous learning.
ContributorsBurton, Charlotte Elizabeth (Author) / Spring, Robert (Thesis director) / Gardner, Joshua (Thesis director) / N/A, N/A (Committee member) / School of Music (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
This entire project looks at color guard from the perspective of a music educator and is meant to be a resource for other music educators, specifically, color guard instructors. Within the thesis project “A Guide to Coaching Color Guard” there are four sub-components.
The first is a historical research paper titled “The History and Evolution of Color Guard within Marching Band”. This paper defines what color guard is, identifies its origins, and outlines the major events that contributed to its development over time, leading up to what the sport and art of color guard has evolved into today.
The second component is a paper titled “Coaching Color Guard: My Experiences with Planning, Teaching, and Building a High School Color Guard Program”, which is a summarization of how a season of coaching color guard can be organized and examples of various learning opportunities a color guard coach could take advantage of during a season. Many education-specific teaching strategies are explained, such as the use of modeling, I do - we do - you do, whole-part-whole, scaffolding, sequencing from simple to complex, direct instruction vs. small groups, teaching to various learning styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic), instructor/peer/group feedback, assessment, and opportunities for student contribution and creativity.
The third component is paper titled “Color Guard Coaching Resources”, which is made up of ten different documents that are examples or resources for color guard instructors. These resources are referenced in the second component of this project and include samples of flyers, audition scoring sheets, a student handbook, participation sheet, and written choreography as well as providing a list of other outside resources as well as a list of the video tutorials.
These video tutorials are the final component of this project. There are 44 tutorial videos broken up into five categories. Each video is a step-by-step teaching video demonstrating and articulating how to spin a color guard flag. The first category consists of 10 introductory videos, which discuss terms and concepts that are overarching in all of the tutorial videos. Then, there are 23 tutorials within the category titled ‘Basic Moves’. The next category of ‘Intermediate Moves’ consists of 5 teaching videos for moves that are more difficult to execute than the basic moves. The fourth category has 5 video tutorials for ‘Tosses’. The last category is called ‘Move Sequences’ and only has 1 video. This tutorial shows how some moves have similar rotation patterns and can easily be strung together to create a choreography sequence.
The first is a historical research paper titled “The History and Evolution of Color Guard within Marching Band”. This paper defines what color guard is, identifies its origins, and outlines the major events that contributed to its development over time, leading up to what the sport and art of color guard has evolved into today.
The second component is a paper titled “Coaching Color Guard: My Experiences with Planning, Teaching, and Building a High School Color Guard Program”, which is a summarization of how a season of coaching color guard can be organized and examples of various learning opportunities a color guard coach could take advantage of during a season. Many education-specific teaching strategies are explained, such as the use of modeling, I do - we do - you do, whole-part-whole, scaffolding, sequencing from simple to complex, direct instruction vs. small groups, teaching to various learning styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic), instructor/peer/group feedback, assessment, and opportunities for student contribution and creativity.
The third component is paper titled “Color Guard Coaching Resources”, which is made up of ten different documents that are examples or resources for color guard instructors. These resources are referenced in the second component of this project and include samples of flyers, audition scoring sheets, a student handbook, participation sheet, and written choreography as well as providing a list of other outside resources as well as a list of the video tutorials.
These video tutorials are the final component of this project. There are 44 tutorial videos broken up into five categories. Each video is a step-by-step teaching video demonstrating and articulating how to spin a color guard flag. The first category consists of 10 introductory videos, which discuss terms and concepts that are overarching in all of the tutorial videos. Then, there are 23 tutorials within the category titled ‘Basic Moves’. The next category of ‘Intermediate Moves’ consists of 5 teaching videos for moves that are more difficult to execute than the basic moves. The fourth category has 5 video tutorials for ‘Tosses’. The last category is called ‘Move Sequences’ and only has 1 video. This tutorial shows how some moves have similar rotation patterns and can easily be strung together to create a choreography sequence.
ContributorsKnutson, Dakota Rae (Author) / Stauffer, Sandra (Thesis director) / Sullivan, Jill (Committee member) / School of Music (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Witching Hours is the debut studio album of Chicago-born, Phoenix-residing trumpet player John Michael Sherman. It is a consummation of his work in the Arizona State University jazz studies program both as a performer and composer. Featured on the album are several other musicians who John Michael played alongside throughout his tenure at ASU, including Chaz Martineau on tenor saxophone, Evan Rees on piano, Reid Riddiough on guitar, Vince Thiefain on bass, Matt McClintock on drums, and Dan Meadows on baritone saxophone. The album features seven pieces, all original compositions or arrangements. The first track, "Workin' My Nerves", is a blues shuffle in the key of F. This is followed by "Scarborough Fair", an arrangement of the classic English folk tune in a rock style. The title track, "Witching Hours", is an cadaverous linear composition in 7/4 which is followed by "Goliath", a pseudo-tone poem about the biblical giant. "I Should Have Known" is a pensive ballad featuring an a capella intro and cadenza, followed by the most recent composition, a minor blues-esque piece entitled "Who Said That?" The final track, "Don't Change A Thing", is an upbeat samba which was written in John Michael's first year of college. These pieces demonstrate an understanding of the jazz tradition and exhibit influences from such musicians as Clifford Brown, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, and Snarky Puppy. The album was recorded at Tempest Recording in Tempe and produced by Clarke Rigsby. Clarke is a veteran recording engineer and is the first choice of many of Phoenix's finest jazz musicians, including thesis director and head of the ASU jazz department Michael Kocour. The pieces were composed and recorded under the guidance of Mike Kocour and Jeff Libman. Witching Hours represents a culmination of John Michael's course in the Arizona State University jazz department and his endeavors as a trumpet player and composer.
ContributorsSherman, John Michael (Author) / Kocour, Michael (Thesis director) / Libman, Jeffrey (Committee member) / School of Music (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
With this thesis, I have set out to answer two fundamental questions within music: does music mean anything, and should music mean anything? In answering those questions, I also set out to create a creative project that would implement these ideas: an original concept album of music that is programmatic in nature and incorporates motivic composition, jazz improvisation, lyrics, extra-musical audio and more all in the service of telling a narrative, a story, through music. I have done research into understanding music as a language, finding that this language is primarily communicative and recreational, rather than representational, of meaning. As well, I discuss the various different ways that music composers from Wagner to Williams have created narrative meaning in their works, using examples of leitmotif and other devices, as well as tracing the contextual associations of meaning that occurs when music is perceived in certain contexts. Furthermore, I discuss the dialogue between absolute and programmatic music, and also talk about the role of jazz improvisation in adding meaning to works.
For the second part of my thesis I talk about how I came to create the creative project aspect. I discuss how and why I designed the narrative that I did, and also analyzed the music I have created to illustrate how I implemented the various methods of musical storytelling that I detail in the first part of the paper. Lastly, I discuss my plans for publication and release of the creative project.
The third part of this thesis is a sample of the creative project. There is a version of the narrative that goes along with the creative project, as well as one of the eight pieces of original music on the creative project, entitled Journey.
Overall, I found that music does have meaning, it is just meaning that society ascribes to it based off of artistic intent and context, and as to whether music should mean anything, I believe that this is a question best left to be answered on an individual basis. Music can be whatever it wants to be.
For the second part of my thesis I talk about how I came to create the creative project aspect. I discuss how and why I designed the narrative that I did, and also analyzed the music I have created to illustrate how I implemented the various methods of musical storytelling that I detail in the first part of the paper. Lastly, I discuss my plans for publication and release of the creative project.
The third part of this thesis is a sample of the creative project. There is a version of the narrative that goes along with the creative project, as well as one of the eight pieces of original music on the creative project, entitled Journey.
Overall, I found that music does have meaning, it is just meaning that society ascribes to it based off of artistic intent and context, and as to whether music should mean anything, I believe that this is a question best left to be answered on an individual basis. Music can be whatever it wants to be.
ContributorsPrice, Alexander (Author) / Gilfillan, Daniel (Thesis director) / Kocour, Michael (Committee member) / Libman, Jeffrey (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05