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- All Subjects: Music
- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
Description
In this paper I seek to understand how consumers value music today by investigating what consumers are willing to pay for digitally downloaded songs (such as the ones available on the iTunes or Amazon music stores) and the variety of factors that influence their willingness to pay. I conducted a survey and received over 500 responses regarding willingness to pay for single-song downloads, consumer sentiment on whether music should be free, streaming service use, and other information pertaining to music consumption behavior. Through this research I found that paid-streamers are willing to pay more for songs than those who do not pay to stream, all else being equal. Further, Free-streamers are not willing to pay significantly more or less than non-streamers. This finding is additional information to other research that suggests streaming acts as a substitute for sales. I also found that most consumers are in the middle when it comes to the debate for whether music should always be free or always be purchased. Where someone aligns on the spectrum is a statistically significant contributing factor to what that person is willing to pay for a song. My findings also suggest that consumer preferences distinguish between benefit derived from music ownership and benefit derived from the ability to listen to music. This information sheds more light on the reason behind the declining digital download market.
ContributorsRodriguez, Stefan Daniel (Author) / Mandel, Naomi (Thesis director) / Veramendi, Gregory (Committee member) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Last Hymn was created by the team of Tyler Pinho, Jefferson Le, and Curtis Spence with the desire to create an eccentric Role Playing Game focused on the exploration of a strange, dying world. Battles in the game are based off of rhythm games like Dance Dance Revolution using a procedural generation algorithm that makes every encounter unique. This is then complemented with the path system where each enemy has unique rhythm patterns to give them different types of combat opportunities. In Last Hymn, the player arrives on a train at the World's End Train Station where they are greeted by a mysterious figure and guided to the Forest where they witness the end of the world and find themselves back at the train station before they left for the Forest. With only a limited amount of time per cycle of the world, the player must constantly weigh the opportunity cost of each decision, and only with careful thought, conviction, and tenacity will the player find a conclusion from the never ending cycle of rebirth. Blending both Shinto architecture and modern elements, Last Hymn used a "fantasy-chic" aesthetic in order to provide memorable locations and dissonant imagery. As the player explores they will struggle against puzzles and dynamic, rhythm based combat while trying to unravel the mystery of the world's looping time. Last Hymn was designed to develop innovative and dynamic new solutions for combat, exploration, and mapping. From this project all three team members were able to grow their software development and game design skills, achieving goals like improved level design, improved asset pipelines while simultaneously aiming to craft an experience that will be unforgettable for players everywhere.
ContributorsPinho, Tyler (Co-author) / Le, Jefferson (Co-author) / Spence, Curtis (Co-author) / Nelson, Brian (Thesis director) / Walker, Erin (Committee member) / Kobayashi, Yoshihiro (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Computing and Informatics Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Music is part of cultures all over the world and is entrenched in our daily lives, and yet little is known about the neural pathways responsible for how we perceive music. The property of "dissonance" is central to our understanding of the emotional meaning in music, and this study is a preliminary step in understanding how this property of music is perceived. Twenty-four participants with normal hearing listened to melodies and ranked their degrees of dissonance. Melodies that are categorized as "dissonant" according to Western music theory were ranked as more "dissonant" to a significant degree across the 9 conditions (3 conditions of scale: Major, Neapolitan Minor, and Oriental; 3 conditions of wrong notes: no wrong notes, diatonic wrong notes, and non-diatonic wrong notes). As expected, the familiar Major scale was identified as more consonant across all wrong note conditions than the other scales. Notably, a significant interaction was found, with diatonic and non-diatonic notes not perceived differently in both of the unfamiliar scales, Neapolitan and Oriental. This study suggests that the context of musical scale does influence how we create expectations of music and perceive dissonance. Future studies are necessary to understand the mechanisms by which scales drive these expectations.
ContributorsBlumenstein, Nicole Rose (Author) / Rogalsky, Corianne (Thesis director) / Peter, Beate (Committee member) / FitzPatrick, Carole (Committee member) / School of Music (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
The result of hundreds of hours of work is a few minutes of music. I am mechanical engineering student with a passion for music. The objective of this creative project was to learn as much as I could about music theory, composition, orchestration, notation, recording, and mixing, and to create some music of my own. I learned a great deal in my two semesters of work. My music was focused on small ensembles of strings and piano. I created over ten hours of musical audio sketches and produced notation for four pieces for the piano and strings. The finished scores fit together with similar tones and textures, all sharing a minor tonality. The first piece, "Little Machine," is a simple, methodical piano piece created in the style of second species counterpoint. The second piece, "Searching" is a duet between a piano and a cello. For most of the piece, the two instruments share a rhythmic sense of mutual independence, yet neither part can exist without the either. "Something Lost" is a piano solo written with a variety of sections and a unifying idea that pervades through the piece. Finally, "3 Strings & Piano" is a melancholy adagio written for the piano, two cellos, and a double bass. Overall, this project has helped to prepare me for a lifetime of continued learning and composition. In the future I will continue to write music, and I hope to specifically learn more about the tools and techniques used by professionals in the industry so that I can find more efficient ways to produce my own music.
ContributorsSchichtel, Jacob (Author) / Stauffer, Sandra (Thesis director) / Tobias, Evan (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Concentrated Solar Power and Thermal Energy Storage are two technologies that are currently being explored as environmentally friendly methods of energy generation. The two technologies are often combined in an overall system to increase efficiency and reliability of the energy generation system. A collaborative group of researchers from Australia and the United States formed a project to design solar concentrators that utilize Concentrated Solar Power and Thermal Energy Storage. The collaborators from Arizona State designed a Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage system for the project. It was initially proposed that the system utilize Dowtherm A as the Heat Transfer Fluid and a tin alloy as the storage material. Two thermal reservoirs were designed as part of the system; one reservoir was designed to be maintained at 240˚ C, while the other reservoir was designed to be maintained at 210˚ C. The tin was designed to receive heat from the hot reservoir during a charging cycle and discharge heat to the cold reservoir during a discharge cycle. From simulation, it was estimated that the system would complete a charging cycle in 17.5 minutes and a discharging cycle in 6.667 minutes [1]. After the initial design was fabricated and assembled, the system proved ineffective and did not perform as expected. Leaks occurred within the system under high pressure and the reservoirs could not be heated to the desired temperatures. After adding a flange to one of the reservoirs, it was decided that the system would be run with one reservoir, with water as the Heat Transfer Fluid. The storage material was changed to paraffin wax, because it would achieve phase change at a temperature lower than the boiling point of water. Since only one reservoir was available, charging cycle tests were performed on the system to gain insight on system performance. It was found that the paraffin sample only absorbs 3.29% of the available heat present during a charging cycle. This report discusses the tests performed on the system, the analysis of the data from these tests, the issues with the system that were revealed from the analyses, and potential design changes that would increase the efficiency of the system.
ContributorsKocher, Jordan Daniel (Author) / Wang, Robert (Thesis director) / Phelan, Patrick (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
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
A look at the benefits of the integration of music in the classroom. This thesis focuses on how music supports brain development and how that affects the ways children learn the classroom. It also highlights how current teachers feel about integrating music in the classroom and the best practices used for integrating music. Lastly, this thesis contains strategies on how to integrate music in the classroom using the Common Core standards as well as personal compositions written using Common Core standards.
ContributorsAnger, Jack Vottero (Author) / Dahlstrom, Margo (Thesis director) / Stahlman, Rebecca (Committee member) / Mann, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
For the ancient Greeks, music not only was esteemed for its social and entertaining value, but also because it reflected the beauty of the gods and their creations. Music furthermore “embodied larger universal principles and served as a vehicle for higher understanding.” According to Lippmann, the ancients believed that the universe “contains a harmony that controls both spatial and temporal phenomena” and “we can come to know the divine order of harmony more readily in ourselves than in the external world.” Gaining self-knowledge and awareness of one’s place in the world are significant and music is a means of gaining this consciousness. Ancient Greeks believed that music was inspired by the Greek goddesses known as the Muses. In this paper, I argue that, by gifting humans with divinely inspired music, the Muses help humans achieve this mindfulness of one‟s place in the world and attain immortality.
ContributorsSanders, Lauren (Author) / Norton, Kay (Thesis director) / Arena, Paul (Committee member) / Bruhn, Karen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
Freewheelin': The American Counterculture in Museums is the first study to explore American museums that collect artifacts from the counterculture era at length. Examining institutions whose specialized collections and histories represent the recent, dynamic social movements of the mid-twentieth century begets particular institutional challenges and extraordinary opportunities; both factors causing the evolution of some American history museums into premier social history centers. I have focused on four institutions for research: the Beat Museum, the GLBT History Museum, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Museum of Sex. The analysis of each organization contains a brief account of the history they strive to preserve, a case study of their professional operations, and objective recommendations. Ultimately through researching the four selected institutions and museum studies at large, it was determined that certain collective features are propelling a paradigm shift in modern American history museums.
ContributorsSenjamin, Willow (Author) / Fahlman, Betsy (Thesis director) / Codell, Julie (Committee member) / Susser, Deborah (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
There are no words for the trauma of death when it strikes unexpectedly. What to say when a mother dies in childbirth? When a father figure contracts an unknown disease for no apparent cause? When a beloved pet, long mourned, may still be alive and hidden by estranged family? Generations may pass, and children may grow up, but the pain leaves marks that echo across time and the other borders we construct between our past and present. We may find strength on solitude, or prayer, or the words of a song written by someone else. In these four stories, spanning almost half a century, the marks of death and attempts to soothe or hide them are everywhere. Children on the cusp of adulthood grapple with the lives and the lies of their parents. Musicians examine the relationship of their music to the world. Legends and myths lurk in the shadows, tempting with false hope and rationalizing the unexplainable.
In “Playing the Changes,” we meet two men stranded in a small desert town in 1972, a time when their attraction to each other is still dangerous. Nile Walker is a jazz musician, running from a spurned lover and the law. Benji Garza is a once-devout Catholic, fixing cars and caring for his orphaned nephew, Hector. Walker and Garza’s affair will spin both lives and their heredity into sweeping tragedies that characters battle with lust and melody. Walker has a son he never meets, a drifter who finds connection with another lost soul at an airport in “La Petite Mort.” Hector is forced into early adulthood in “The Words,” when his ailing uncle’s health fails due to a mysterious disease not yet called AIDS. Later Tre—a young man struggling with the weight of his own lineage—meets him in “PHX.” These stories examine questions of death’s causes and its myriad effects, and offer this solution: Knowing that we cannot know everything, and living, loving, and singing anyway.
In “Playing the Changes,” we meet two men stranded in a small desert town in 1972, a time when their attraction to each other is still dangerous. Nile Walker is a jazz musician, running from a spurned lover and the law. Benji Garza is a once-devout Catholic, fixing cars and caring for his orphaned nephew, Hector. Walker and Garza’s affair will spin both lives and their heredity into sweeping tragedies that characters battle with lust and melody. Walker has a son he never meets, a drifter who finds connection with another lost soul at an airport in “La Petite Mort.” Hector is forced into early adulthood in “The Words,” when his ailing uncle’s health fails due to a mysterious disease not yet called AIDS. Later Tre—a young man struggling with the weight of his own lineage—meets him in “PHX.” These stories examine questions of death’s causes and its myriad effects, and offer this solution: Knowing that we cannot know everything, and living, loving, and singing anyway.
ContributorsCohen, Michael Lawrence (Author) / Bell, Matt (Thesis director) / Pearson, Dustin (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05