Jane Austen’s depictions of musical performers and listeners in her novels suggest her belief that musical performances should strengthen intimacy between people, both between listeners and performers as well as among listeners. Austen commends music for its power to increase intimacy through honest expressions of taste, which more often arise in private performances, but she warns against its power to decrease intimacy through pretentious displays of taste, which more often arise in public performances. Austen’s belief that music allows for this healthy intimacy indicates that music has great significance in society. Austen suggests that music has a greater importance to everyday life than many may originally suppose, as it is a universal connection between people. Ultimately, Jane Austen’s perspective of music’s great power both to expose pretentiousness and to cultivate intimacy should lead all of her readers to recognize and respect music’s true power and to consider seriously the importance and role of music in their own lives.

Music has consistently been documented as a manner to bring people together across cultures throughout the world. In this research, we propose that people use similar musical taste as a strong sign of potential social connection. To investigate this notion, we draw on literature examining how music merges the public/private self, the link to personality, and group identity, as well as how it is linked to romantic relationships. Thus, music can be a tool when wanting to get to know someone else and/or forge a platonic relationship. To test this hypothesis, we designed an experiment comparing music relative to another commonality (sharing a sports team in common) to see which factor is stronger in triggering an online social connection. We argue that people believe they have more in common with someone who shares similar music taste compared to other commonalities. We discuss implications for marketers on music streaming platforms.

For my honors thesis, I chose a creative project that would incorporate expertise and skills from both of my undergraduate degrees at Arizona State University: Music Performance and Music Theory and Composition. The main goal for this project was to design and experience an artistic process of musical production and create a professional musical work to release on digital platforms. The musical process included five main components: Listening, Transcribing, Composing, Recording, and Post Production. The final product is a full album, titled This is Jam Music, that consists of eight pieces and a run time of 33 minutes.

This thesis examines the theological significance and use of chant in the Divine Liturgy of Saint Chrysostom, in both Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism. An overview of the Liturgy and its chant is given while examining contemporary and historical practices. Finally, this paper also offers an overview of trends and practices used by Eastern Christian faithful in the United States.

Music streaming services have affected the music industry from both a financial and legal standpoint. Their current business model affects stakeholders such as artists, users, and investors. These services have been scrutinized recently for their imperfect royalty distribution model. Covid-19 has made these discussions even more relevant as touring income has come to a halt for musicians and the live entertainment industry. <br/>Under the current per-stream model, it is becoming exceedingly hard for artists to make a living off of streams. This forces artists to tour heavily as well as cut corners to create what is essentially “disposable art”. Rapidly releasing multiple projects a year has become the norm for many modern artists. This paper will examine the licensing framework, royalty payout issues, and propose a solution.

This project is intended to fill gaps in the professional knowledge of music educators in the state of Arizona concerning the pedagogy, content, and importance of a visual education program in the scholastic marching band. It also aims to contribute to the general pool of knowledge surrounding visual education. While music educators are often expected to begin teaching marching band immediately following their graduation, many do not ever receive proper training in the visual aspect of the marching arts. The marching band is the most visible element of a holistic educational music program, and often represents the school to the community and the educator to their administrators. While significant music training is given at the collegiate level, many educators have not had further experience in the marching arts. The author uses his experience in Drum Corps International, as well as in teaching marching band to synthesize research-based practices into a handbook of immediately applicable visual pedagogical information that would be immediately useful to any music educator.

Collaborating with others is a crucial part of growing creatively, and gaining perspective. With different artistic mediums like dance, film, music and design, there is a lot artists can learn from one another. Art is also a way to convey important messages that reflect social, political and cultural issues, and artists have become increasingly responsible for presenting these issues in a way that will provoke thought and create change. “Luna” is a series of compositions with a goal of inviting the audience into a different world. The use of sound design and electronic music production paired with piano arrangements creates a vast, sonic landscape, and the titles of each piece are related to space. The live performance of the album also involves dance, which adds another human element to the experience.