Matching Items (14)
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- All Subjects: pedagogy
- All Subjects: Opera
- Genre: Academic theses
- Creators: Feisst, Sabine
- Creators: Holbrook, Amy
- Creators: Doan, Jerry
Description
The teaching of singing remained remarkably stable until, at the end of the twentieth century, advances in the understanding of voice science stimulated dramatic changes in approach to vocal pedagogy. Previously, the technology needed to accurately measure physiologic change within the larynx and breath-support musculature during the process of singing simply did not exist. Any prior application of scientific study to the voice was based primarily upon auditory evaluation, rather than objective data accumulation and assessment. After a centuries-long history, within a span of twenty years, vocal pedagogy evolved from an approach solely derived from subjective, auditory evidence to an application grounded in scientific data. By means of analysis of significant publications by Richard Miller, Robert Sataloff, and Ingo Titze, as well as articles from The Journal of Singing and The Journal of Voice, I establish a baseline of scientific knowledge and pedagogic practice ca. 1980. Analysis and comparison of a timeline of advancement in scientific insight and the discussion of science in pedagogical texts, 1980-2000, reveal the extent to which voice teachers have dramatically changed their method of instruction. I posit that voice pedagogy has undergone a fundamental change, from telling the student only what to do, via auditory demonstration and visual imagery, to validating with scientific data how and why students should change their vocal approach. The consequence of this dramatic pedagogic evolution has produced singers who comprehend more fully the science of their art.
ContributorsVelarde, Rachel (Author) / Doan, Jerry (Thesis advisor) / Campbell, Andrew (Committee member) / Solis, Theodore (Committee member) / Elgar Kopta, Anne (Committee member) / Britton, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Pre-collegiate clarinet instructors are often challenged to teach students both fundamental skills and repertoire with limited instructional time. Insufficient time may cause fundamental skills to be addressed at the expense of repertoire or repertoire study may limit time spent on fundamental development. This document provides a suggested repertoire list that categorizes pre-collegiate clarinet literature based on the fundamental skill addressed in each included piece. Teachers can select repertoire that allows students to concurrently refine a fundamental skill while preparing a piece for performance. Addressed fundamental topics include embouchure, expanding the range into the clarion and altissimo registers, articulation, breathing, intonation, finger technique, and musicality.
Clarinet method books and treatises were studied to determine which fundamental concepts to include and to find established teaching techniques recommended by pedagogues. Pre-collegiate clarinet instructors were surveyed to determine which pieces of clarinet repertoire were frequently studied in their private lesson curriculum and why, and if they used specific pieces in order to isolate a fundamental skill. Literature found in repertoire lists, repertoire books, on-line catalogs, and from the survey results was examined. Repertoire was selected for inclusion if it contained passages that were analogous to the established teaching strategies.
Clarinet method books and treatises were studied to determine which fundamental concepts to include and to find established teaching techniques recommended by pedagogues. Pre-collegiate clarinet instructors were surveyed to determine which pieces of clarinet repertoire were frequently studied in their private lesson curriculum and why, and if they used specific pieces in order to isolate a fundamental skill. Literature found in repertoire lists, repertoire books, on-line catalogs, and from the survey results was examined. Repertoire was selected for inclusion if it contained passages that were analogous to the established teaching strategies.
ContributorsAustermann, Kelly R (Author) / Spring, Robert (Committee member) / Gardner, Joshua (Committee member) / Holbrook, Amy (Committee member) / Russell, Timothy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The focus of this in-depth study is to look at the gestation, performance history, and reception of Giacomo Puccini's evening of three one-act operas called Il Trittico and differentiate the particular components, Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi to analyze them for their individual stylistic elements of Italian Opera. These were the styles of verismo, pathos and sentimentality, and opera buffa. As substantiated by written criticism, the audience and the critics did not fully comprehend the hidden meaning behind the individual works of Il Trittico. Puccini, enigmatically, had chosen to present one last glimpse of outmoded Italian operatic traditions. In order to evaluate Il Trittico's importance in the history of Italian opera, this study will first review the musically changing landscape in Italy during the early to mid-nineteenth century, then the second part of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth-century when German, French, and eventually Russian music were starting to influence audience taste. Puccini who, over the course of his compositional life, absorbed and incorporated these different styles realized that long held Italian operatic tradition had reached a fork in the road. One path would ensure Italian composers a place in this new order and the other a stagnant dead end.
Even though Puccini's triptych garnered primarily negative reviews, the basis for this negativity was the perception that Il Trittico had broken with the historically traditional Italian musical styles. Though the present study acknowledges that break to a degree, it will also present a historically based rationale for the deviation, one left largely unnoticed by Puccini's critics. In the end, this author plans to realize their symbolic importance as a farewell to three uniquely Italian styles and a departure point for a new operatic tradition. Looking forward to the centenary of the work, this author seeks to illuminate how Puccini reached the pinnacle of firmly rooted genres of Italian opera. Ultimately this might help to unravel the enigma of Il Trittico while it continues to secure its rightful place as one of the masterpieces of the Puccini canon.
Even though Puccini's triptych garnered primarily negative reviews, the basis for this negativity was the perception that Il Trittico had broken with the historically traditional Italian musical styles. Though the present study acknowledges that break to a degree, it will also present a historically based rationale for the deviation, one left largely unnoticed by Puccini's critics. In the end, this author plans to realize their symbolic importance as a farewell to three uniquely Italian styles and a departure point for a new operatic tradition. Looking forward to the centenary of the work, this author seeks to illuminate how Puccini reached the pinnacle of firmly rooted genres of Italian opera. Ultimately this might help to unravel the enigma of Il Trittico while it continues to secure its rightful place as one of the masterpieces of the Puccini canon.
ContributorsScovasso, Stephen (Author) / Oldani, Robert W. (Thesis advisor) / Feisst, Sabine (Committee member) / Norton, Kay (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
ABSTRACT The purpose of this research project is to provide participants with a personal experience in opera, to change their perceptions and provoke further interest in the art form. By introducing community opera into a society, we can educate and perhaps expand the acceptance of opera in a population. This document uses The Survey of Public Participation of the Arts by the National Endowment for the Arts in order to provide an accurate account of the declining attendance of opera. Only through education and exposure can we improve opera attendance. In order to create opera appreciation the researcher introduced an applicable opera performance situation in a small community. The process in which the opera was implemented has been evaluated and separated into the following eight components: preparation, rehearsal, set construction and props, pamphlets, budget, advertising, dress rehearsal, and performance. Each will be considered separately. The benefits of that community program and the process in which the opera took place are included in this research.
ContributorsYekel, Amy Louise (Author) / Doan, Jerry (Thesis advisor) / Mills, Robert (Committee member) / Dreyfoos, Dale (Committee member) / Rogers, Rodney (Committee member) / Kopta, Anne (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
To be a versatile violinist, one needs interdependence of aural, visual and kinesthetic skills. This thesis introduces aural, visual and kinesthetic learning modalities, and explores the way each is used in the Suzuki, Paul Rolland, Orff, Kodály, and Dalcroze methods, as well as in Edwin Gordon’s Musical Learning Theory. Other methods and pedagogical approaches were consulted and influential in developing the curriculum, such as the teaching of Mimi Zweig, but were not included in this paper either because of an overlap with other methods or insufficient comparable material. This paper additionally presents a new curriculum for teaching beginning violin that incorporates aural, visual, and kinesthetic learning in a systematic and comprehensive manner. It also details a sequenced progression to learn new repertoire and develop proficiency with rhythm, solfège, reading and writing musical notation, and left- and right-hand technique.
ContributorsTang, Tee Tong (Author) / Swartz, Jonathan (Thesis advisor) / Schmidt, Margaret (Committee member) / Feisst, Sabine (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Since its inception, the American Broadway industry has flourished and grown to include numerous vocal styles and techniques. The early twenty-first century has seen a rapid increase in demand for collegiate courses and instructors pertaining to music theater. It has therefore become necessary for voice instructors to be equally comfortable teaching both music theater and classical techniques such as bel canto. This document serves as a resource for instructors seeking more information on defining and teaching vocal styles in music theater including legit, mix, and belt. The first two chapters address the following three questions: 1) What is bel canto and how does the technique function? 2) What is music theater as a vocal style and how do colloquial terms such as legit, mix and belt function within music theater? 3) Are the technical ideas behind bel canto and music theater really that different? The third chapter offers a curriculum for a semester-long course (a hybrid between a song literature class and a performance-based seminar) called Singing Music Theater Styles: From Hammerstein to Hamilton. This course shows the rich development tracing techniques of bel canto through techniques used in contemporary music theater. This document concludes with an annotated bibliography of major sources useful to both the instructors wishing to teach this course and the performers looking to expand their knowledge of singing music theater.
ContributorsBruton, Sara (Author) / Weiss, Stephanie (Thesis advisor) / Feisst, Sabine (Thesis advisor) / Dreyfoos, Dale (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
In 2006, composer James DeMars conceived of an opera when he began setting the Aztec legend known as Nican Mopohua, the “legend of Guadalupe.” Many inherent challenges arose as DeMars began to compose his first opera. His unfamiliarity with operatic writing and production, a preference for the aural elements of opera over visual ones, inexperience with dramatic textual writing, and insecurity in his ability to have it produced, encouraged him to detour from his operatic vision altogether and instead write an oratorio. Yet, his original operatic concept revealed itself through the music and text enough to encourage him and others to believe that his oratorio, Guadalupe: Our Lady of the Roses, could be produced on the operatic stage. Despite the oratorio’s success, DeMars persisted in realizing his original operatic vision and began the arduous task of rewriting his opera in 2012. To overcome the challenges, he relied heavily on the input of an “Operatic Advisory Council.” This group of dedicated colleagues and experts in the field of opera revealed to DeMars certain essential elements of opera that were absent from the oratorio, and through the course of three years advised and instructed the composer as he transformed his oratorio into an opera – something rarely attempted in the operatic repertoire. In this document, Chapter 1 discusses the formation of the Council, its members, and the expertise they offered. Chapter 2 presents the areas of concern the Council had during the process. Chapter 3 discusses the methods by which DeMars rectified the flaws in the oratorio’s visual aspects, the vocal writing, and the dramatic elements that needed attention. It also presents musical and textual examples of the adjustments and additions DeMars made during the transition, and discusses their effect on the opera’s staging, vocal writing and drama. The changes DeMars made under the guidance of the Operatic Advisory Council ultimately resulted in an operatic version of Guadalupe, which premiered at Arizona State University in November 2015.
ContributorsPeck, Andrew David (Author) / Britton, David (Thesis advisor, Committee member) / Dreyfoos, Dale (Committee member) / Holbrook, Amy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Voicing, as it pertains to saxophone pedagogy, presents certain obstacles to both teachers and students simply because we cannot visually assess the internal mechanics of the vocal tract. The teacher is then left to instruct based on subjective “feel” which can lead to conflicting instruction, and in some cases, misinformation. In an effort to expand the understanding and pedagogical resources available, ten subjects—comprised of graduate-level and professional-level saxophonists—performed varied pitch bend tasks while their tongue motion was imaged ultrasonographically and recorded. Tongue range of motion was measured from midsagittal tongue contours extracted from the ultrasound data using a superimposed polar grid. The results indicate variations in how saxophonists shape their tongues in order to produce pitch bends from F6.
ContributorsLemoine, Ryan Cole (Author) / Gardner, Joshua T (Thesis advisor) / Creviston, Christopher (Thesis advisor) / Feisst, Sabine (Committee member) / Spring, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Opera education is a relatively new addition to opera companies in the United States, introducing children and adults to opera and spreading the message that operas are dramatic stories told through music. This paper focuses on the opera education group OperaTunity and its relationship with the company Arizona Opera, which is based in Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. The majority of the paper consists of a history of Arizona Opera, the establishment of its Opera Education Department, and the inception and activities of OperaTunity. The information in this account comes from interviews with personnel involved with OperaTunity and from documents pertinent to the program. This study also examines the reception and success of the group in Arizona and includes examples of educational materials to provide to teachers who are introducing children and adults to opera. This account of the history and activities of OperaTunity is intended to aid future educators and opera companies in developing opera education programs.
ContributorsMiller, Rhea Ann (Author) / Holbrook, Amy (Thesis advisor) / Kopta, Anne E (Committee member) / Mills, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Although opera is the last musical genre one typically associates with Latin America, Mexican composer Daniel Catán (1949-2011) found surprising success across the United States and overseas with his opera Florencia en el Amazonas (1996). Catán blends colorful music with literary elements to create a representation of Latin American culture through language, drama, scenery, and music. Among these elements is realism mágico (magical realism), a significant characteristic of Latin American literature. Indeed, the plot of the opera is influenced by Gabriel García Márquez's novel, El amor en los tiempos del cólera (Love in the Time of Cholera, 1985), as well as the poem "Mariposa de obsidiana" (Obsidian Butterfly, 1951) and the short story "La hija de Rappaccini" (Rappaccini's Daughter, 1953), both by Octavio Paz. To create his protagonist in the opera, Florencia Grimaldi, Catán combines the dramatic qualities of several European soprano heroines. This figure's character development is conveyed largely through her Act I, Scene 2, aria, "Florencia Grimaldi," and her Act II, Scene 17, aria, "Escúchame." An overview of the opera places these two arias into context, and their musical content and text-setting are closely examined in relation to the character of Florencia. Finally, how Daniel Catán creates a soprano heroine from the Latin American perspective is discussed.
ContributorsFlores, Andrea, D.M.A (Author) / FitzPatrick, Carole (Thesis advisor) / Dreyfoos, Dale (Committee member) / Holbrook, Amy (Committee member) / May, Judy (Committee member) / Ryan, Russell (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013