Matching Items (12)
Description
Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra was conceived in February of 2013, and conceptually it is my attempt to fuse personal expressions of jazz and classical music into one fully realized statement. It is a three movement work (fast, slow, fast) for 2 fl., 2 ob., 2 cl., bsn., 2 hrn., 2 tpt., tbn., pno., perc., str. (6,4,2,2,1). The work is approximately 27 minutes in duration. The first movement of the Concerto is written in a fluid sonata form. A fugato begins where the second theme would normally appear, and the second theme does not fully appear until near the end of the solo piano section. The result is that the second theme when finally revealed is so reminiscent of the history of jazz and classical synthesis that it does not sound completely new, and in fact is a return of something that was heard before, but only hinted at in this piece. The second movement is a kind of deconstructive set of variations, with a specific theme and harmonic pattern implied throughout the movement. However, the full theme is not disclosed until the final variation. The variations are interrupted by moments of pure rhythmic music, containing harmony made up of major chords with an added fourth, defying resolution, and dissolving each time back into a new variation. The third movement is in rondo form, using rhythmic and harmonic influences from jazz. The percussion plays a substantial role in this movement, acting as a counterpoint to the piano part throughout. This movement and the piece concludes with an extended coda, inspired indirectly by the simple complexities of an improvisational piano solo, building in complexity as the concerto draws to a close.
ContributorsSneider, Elliot (Author) / Rogers, Rodney (Thesis advisor) / DeMars, James (Committee member) / Hackbarth, Glenn (Committee member) / Solis, Theodore (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The ability of musicians to perform well in multiple musical styles is increasingly common and necessary. This paper profiles two trombonists who have gone well beyond the ability to function in multiple genres, and are instead considered significant artists. Tony Baker and Alex Iles were chosen to be profiled for this project because both have achieved recognition as solo artists in the genres of classical music and jazz and have performed on international stages as soloists. They also have significant ensemble experience in both classical and jazz settings and are active teachers as well. Both hold-high profile positions that have helped grow their reputations as performers: Mr. Baker as a professor at one of the largest music schools in the United States, the University of North Texas, and Mr. Iles as a highly in-demand freelance musician in Los Angeles. This paper presents interviews with both trombonists that investigate their development as musicians and soloists in both classical music and jazz. They are asked to describe the benefits and challenges of performing at a high level in both styles, and how these have affected their musical voices. Common traits found in their responses are examined, and recommendations are created for musicians seeking stylistic versatility.
ContributorsLennex, William (Author) / Pilafian, J. Samuel (Thesis advisor) / Bush, Jeffrey (Committee member) / Ericson, John (Committee member) / Hackbarth, Glenn (Committee member) / Holbrook, Amy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Musical interpretation is challenging when one's goal is to evoke an emotional response from an audience. In order to develop a well-informed interpretation of Mozart's Fantasia in D minor K. 397, a study was conducted on the historical background of the piece and various performances by well-regarded performers. Fantasias are written works, but improvisatory by nature. Mozart's fantasias were influenced by C. P. E. Bach's, which included sudden changes in emotion. An Emil Gilels performance provided a classically trained approach, while Mitsuko Uchida's performance provided an emotional approach. Colin Tilney and John Irving performances elucidated the sound of the instruments that Mozart would have been composing with. Altogether, the research culminated in an interpretation of the D minor Fantasia that endeavored to capture the essence of fantasy, improvisation and emotion.
ContributorsMo, Gina Nan (Author) / Emmery, Laura (Thesis director) / Creviston, Hannah (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
There are many different methods of learning the guitar and teaching it to oneself. I explored classical methods as well as learned by tablature. I compared it to how I have learned the piano and other things in past such as languages and sports. This paper narrates the process but also give advise for someone teaching themself any subject matter. Here are the main points: (1) Choose something you are passionate about (2) Use what you already know, and apply strategies that have worked before (3) Try learning the subject in different ways (4) Build a strong foundation of fundamentals (5) Take advantage of various resources (6) Do not be afraid to make mistakes (7) Perseverance will pay off. I found that I preferred the tablature method but learned a lot from both. I plan on continuing to improve at both methods and want to expand my learning to songwriting.
ContributorsCoelet, Collin Patrick (Author) / Schildkret, David (Thesis director) / Halick, Mary (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
A piece of music consisting of a single movement was composed with baroque and classical elements. The piece is written in common time in D minor, and the key, along with the slow tempo, give the piece a somber mood. It is written for a string quartet: violin I, violin II, viola, and cello. The prominence and complexity of each of the four parts is evenly balanced so as not to give the impression that certain parts are more important. The piece is centered around a theme, which each of the parts plays in some form in the piece. This structure was largely inspired by Bach's Art of the Fugue, which introduces a theme (first played unaccompanied and unmodified in Contrapunctus I) and adds different variations in later movements. Like Bach's Art of the Fugue, the theme is passed between the four parts with new modifications in each introduction. After the completion of the theme, the progression was composed without specific inspiration to keep the piece as original as possible. To maintain a baroque style, the parts were composed separately and viewed as independent melodic lines. Ensuring that the lines were harmoniously interdependent was one of the largest challenges in this project. The piece was originally composed by hand on notebook paper, but a majority of the work was done using the professional music writing program Dorico. Dorico was an incredibly useful tool in this process because it easy to learn and allows users to try it free for a month.
ContributorsMunson, Cody (Author) / Rogers, Rodney (Thesis director) / Fritz, Gregory (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This research project was written simultaneously with a composition for double
bass and piano that centers around improvisational concepts. The composition is intended for intermediate to advanced musicians to have an opportunity to practice improvisational performance and, hopefully, further their understanding and improve their ability to make convincing and creative musical decisions.
Improvisation, an aspect of music that has a deep tradition in Western Classical music, is often feared by classical musicians. The lack of improvisation in classical music, the idea that it is a specialized skill, and the lack of encouragement from studio teachers contributes greatly to this fear. In addition, teachers themselves often fear teaching and utilizing improvisation in performance for these same reasons. The introduction of improvisation into both the student’s and the teacher’s studies and daily practice can be beneficial in the development of meaningful performance and understanding music theory concepts.
This paper will introduce improvisation into daily practice that will educate both the student and the teacher and cement the understanding of theoretical concepts and standard repertoire. Various improvisation games (creating new material and improvising from traditional classical music) will be introduced. This study will begin with a brief survey of the tradition of improvisation in Western classical music from the Middle Ages to the present.
bass and piano that centers around improvisational concepts. The composition is intended for intermediate to advanced musicians to have an opportunity to practice improvisational performance and, hopefully, further their understanding and improve their ability to make convincing and creative musical decisions.
Improvisation, an aspect of music that has a deep tradition in Western Classical music, is often feared by classical musicians. The lack of improvisation in classical music, the idea that it is a specialized skill, and the lack of encouragement from studio teachers contributes greatly to this fear. In addition, teachers themselves often fear teaching and utilizing improvisation in performance for these same reasons. The introduction of improvisation into both the student’s and the teacher’s studies and daily practice can be beneficial in the development of meaningful performance and understanding music theory concepts.
This paper will introduce improvisation into daily practice that will educate both the student and the teacher and cement the understanding of theoretical concepts and standard repertoire. Various improvisation games (creating new material and improvising from traditional classical music) will be introduced. This study will begin with a brief survey of the tradition of improvisation in Western classical music from the Middle Ages to the present.
ContributorsHedquist, Benjamin Patrick (Author) / Rotaru, Catalin (Thesis advisor) / DeMars, James (Committee member) / Koonce, Frank (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
The combination of soprano, trumpet, strings and continuo was used with much frequency by Baroque composers in their cantatas, oratorios and operas of the time, giving the trumpet a very important place as a solo instrument from 1600 to 1750. The discovery of two pieces by Neapolitan Baroque composers Domenico Sarro (1679-1744) and Gennaro Manna (1715-1779) enlarges the already important body of known works for this instrumentation. Presenting them in performance editions is a valuable contribution to this repertory. Making performance editions available to performers is always an important and exciting task, especially if they exhibit features that have rarely been seen in this combination of instruments and voices. This is specifically the case with Manna's Tuba Sonora Exclama, which shows many interesting features of the Early Classical style. Both works were discovered by the author in a digital archive sponsored by the Ministry of Heritage and Culture for the Italian Government. The original copies of these works are held at two Neapolitan libraries: Biblioteca Statale Oratoriana del Monumento Nazionale del Girolamini (Manna's piece), and Biblioteca del Conservatorio di musica San Pietro a Majella (Sarro's Per abbattere il mio core, from his opera Partenope.) The manuscripts, obtained in digital format, are well preserved and easy to understand. Along with the scores prepared for this document, some historical background about each composer, a discussion of the use of the trumpet as a solo instrument in arias with voice, and descriptions of the pieces are presented. Other important information, such as editorial procedures and critical notes, is also given.
ContributorsAraya, Luis Miguel (Author) / Hickman, David R (Thesis advisor) / Pilafian, Samuel (Committee member) / Hill, Gary W. (Committee member) / Rogers, Rodney (Committee member) / Bailey, Wayne A (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Using two interviews with local Phoenix professional chamber musicians, this document aims to compare their experiences across musical styles to find common ground and understand the value of chamber music as a professional and educational tool.
ContributorsGrahmann, Robert (Author) / Libman, Jeffrey (Thesis director) / Compitello, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music, Dance and Theatre (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
A manuscript of a symphony kept on the bookshelves of a library is like a great painting hidden away in a museum where no one can see it. Music needs to be performed to be appreciated and embedded into a culture. The work of a composer must be made accurately easily accessible to musicians and the public for the work to be widely disseminated. This critical edition marks an effort in this direction to shed light on a major work of Mexican composer José Francisco Vásquez Cano (1896-1961).José F. Vásquez was one of the most prolific Mexican composers and accomplished conductors in the first half of the 20th century, yet there is little widespread knowledge about his life and works. This critical edition of the first movement of Symphony No. 2 (1929) will create a path to further performances and recordings, so that future generations in Mexico and abroad can acquire a wider appreciation of this composer’s role in the wider Mexican cultural heritage.
This edition aims to show with transparency every critical decision made based on the score’s manuscript and presently available set of instrumental parts. Due to the continued efforts of José J. Vásquez (the composer’s son) to promote the recovery and performance of his father’s music, I have had access to a black and white scan of the full score’s manuscript, and high-definition color scans of 29 parts for each instrument, allowing me to accurately pinpoint possible errata in the manuscript. The critical commentary along with the digitized score aim to offer future conductors and performers access and insight into this important work by an invaluable composer.
ContributorsHernández Bolaños, Francisco José (Author) / Meyer, Jeffery (Thesis advisor) / Caslor, Jason (Committee member) / Schildkret, David (Committee member) / Wells, Christi Jay (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Catholic education is an education in the scriptural and traditional teachings of the Church as well as knowledge of the world in. As the main educational aid to the Catholic family, Catholic schools have an obligation to provide an environment in which students are not just taught doctrines through rote memorization or for the sake of passing an exam, but to come to understand the Catholic faith for the sake of knowing and living it out. In America today, Catholic education looks eerily like public education, a system of schools that is notoriously failing the American people and students. While Catholic schools compete with public schools in college and career readiness, they are failing to educate students effectively in the doctrines of faith and morality, neglecting to prepare them to enter society with at the very least a non-relativistic worldview, let alone a Catholic one.The modern progressive model of education employed in American public schools has been adopted by Catholic schools en masse. This pedagogical model undermines Catholic education because it is based in philosophies that espouse that education is for the sake of becoming a good worker, that man does not need supernatural help to work towards his perfection, and that morality is relative. Research shows that this model has not served Catholic students well; they are just slightly more likely to believe in Catholic teachings than their public counterparts. One major facet necessary for renewing the spiritual and academic rigor of Catholic education is re-implementing the classical liberal arts in the Catholic schools. Classical liberal education is an education in the great books and languages of the Western tradition with the intention to seek the fullness of truth, goodness, and beauty. The Catholic and classical traditions both hold a view of man as teleological, an understanding that truth can be known, and that moral training is essential to a proper education. Re-adopting a classical liberal education would bring a synergistic pedagogical method and curriculum to Catholic schools, working with Catholic doctrine to reinforce understanding of man and the world in which he lives.
ContributorsVibbert, Magda Carolina (Author) / Sheehan, Colleen A (Thesis advisor) / Shelley, Trevor (Committee member) / Doody, John (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023