• Refine Query
  • Source
  • Publication year
  • to
  • Language
  • 2
  • Tagged with
  • 19
  • 12
  • 4
  • 3
  • 2
  • 2
  • 2
  • 2
  • 2
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Music events as contemporary spectacle : U2's '360°' tour : a collective experience of rock, rituals and resistance

Williams, Michael January 2017 (has links)
This thesis is concerned with how fans experience, create meaning from, and contribute to the creation of a spectacle. Existing theorizations of spectacle are limited and often undifferentiated. Furthermore, there is little knowledge of how an event becomes a spectacle. This research addresses these gaps. In particular, it aims to develop a better understanding of the concept of spectacle and process of spectacularization in the context of a rock music event. It investigates the contribution of the spectators to the creation of spectacle, arguing that the spectators of U2’s ‘360°’ tour (2009W2011) as human agents are more than passive consumers of commercial entertainment. A comprehensive theoretical framework, drawing on the concepts of community, identity and power, helps to address questions of belonging and identity, embodied experiences and politics. Adopting a social constructionist philosophical position, the research draws on a blend of netnography, ethnography and critical sociology. Rich qualitative data were collected in three phases, including preliminary online research of selected U2W related websites, in depth semi structured interviews with 26 fans, and U2’s Show director, and a qualitative content analysis of documentary material. Three overarching, partly overlapping and prominent themes emerged from the interview data: community and identity, enchantment, and politics. Thematic analyses of the findings revealed that U2’s concerts gave individuals a sense of belonging to a global community of fans. They also provided an enchanting, liminal space, which offered transcendent experiences and increased fans’ awareness of certain socio political issues, although this was highly regulated and choreographed. Despite the temporary and episodic nature of U2’s shows, the community was real for many of the fans, and was perpetuated online. This research contributes to re defining an re theorizing the spectacle in the context of rock music events. Consequently, any contemporary attempts to define modern spectacles in the context of rock music events need to include the notions of community, enchantment, and politics, and account for visual, artistic, spiritual and spatial aspects as well as scale.
2

Metalcore : a case study

Puckey, Nicola January 2011 (has links)
Metal has, in the last ten years, become the focus of a considerable amount of scholarly interest. It was first researched as a subgenre of rock, but it soon outgrew this home and became a fully-fledged music genre of its own. Its subgenres multiplied and developed considerably and academic research on metal has increased alongside this growth. What started with academic books and articles on the metal phenomenon in its entirety soon could not cope with the scale of metal. The research, as with the metal genre, began to fragment, and researchers started focusing upon specific aspects of the songs, scene and/or culture. This thesis is positioned within this approach to metal studies as it was designed to provide information on a particular aspect of metal. It focuses upon the nature of the metalcore subgenre of metal. It has considered a variety of aspects of the metalcore scene and culture in an attempt to define what metalcore is; what constitutes it and how this is represented in the scene. It also evaluated the creation, maintenance and reproduction of the metalcore ingroup and its position in relation to the metal culture. A major aim of this thesis was to use research methods that have not previously been used in this field of study. The methodology has taken influences from Social Identity Theory, Critical Discourse Analysis, and a particular conceptualisation of register. It also incorporated influences from a research approach that had been used in many other pieces of metal research: ethnography. While this is not an ethnographic research project, aspects of it have been influenced by ethnography. Important elements of the methodology of the thesis include interviews, participant observation, the collection and analysis of magazines, books and documentaries relevant to metal and metalcore, and also the observation and analysis of many online spaces important to these music cultures. Specifically, a large part of the data collection and analysis process focused on the websites MySpace, Facebook and YouTube. The analysis evaluated how elements of capital associated with the metalcore and metal cultures can be emblematic of the registers of those cultures. It considered this in connection with the ingroup nature of these groups. it has demonstrated the different values these emblems can have as parts of the ingroup/culture/register, and how the same emblems function differently within different cultures to form distinct registers. This research has exposed these distinct registers, and made them accessible to those who are not part of these cultures.
3

The masks of anarchy : a theoretical study of the intersections between punk and alternative comedy

Bonello Rutter Giappone, Krista January 2012 (has links)
Punk's place within pop-cultural history is assured, yet in the claims made for its 'serious' and revolutionary role, the part played by the comic in its critical function remains relatively under-explored. This thesis aims to investigate this dimension in greater depth, pursuing the intersections further into punk's own influence on the subsequent growth of alternative comedy. As with any movement that emphasises 'newness' and change, punk and alternative comedy defined themselves against a ' past' and a 'dominant'. The cultural context and their [disengagement [from]with it will be explored through a theoretical analysis which takes in both the parodic aspect, and punk's attempted reconfiguration of the very terms of ' history' and relation to context - space, time, memory, past, future. Punk will be considered as both a 'post modem' phenomenon, and as mounting a challenge to postmodernism. One major area of change, touching upon shifting boundaries of power in performance, is that of the performer-audience dynamic. The techniques available to alternative comedians will be seen to be indebted to the altered dynamic enabled by punk. The deconstruction of hierarchies will be discussed in tandem with the continued struggle for dominance. The interplay of alienation and engagement, violence and play, along with the invocation of the abject, will be considered in relation to comic theory. Notions of honesty in performance emerge throughout as particularly crucial in both punk and alternative comedy's self-construction, and the implications of this for identity and onstage personae will be examined. The move from 'truth of performance' to 'performative fiction' will he considered in relation to attempted contextual reconfigurations, with the entailed question of the 'amateur's' incomplete abdication of responsibility. I will suggest that alternative comedy makes an effort to redress punk's lapses on this point, and thence to restore a sense of political responsibility.
4

The compositional processes of UK hip-hop turntable teams

Smith, Sophy January 2006 (has links)
No description available.
5

Is there a canon of rock? : canonical values, terms and mechanisms in the reception of rock albums

Jones, Carys Wyn January 2006 (has links)
This thesis addresses the issue of canon formation in the popular reception of rock music. The canon is the collection of works or artists that have been widely accepted as the greatest in their field. It is considered to be an inherently elitist concept however, this study explores symptomatic reflections of canonical values, terms and mechanisms from the canons of literature and classical music in the reception of rock music. The thesis is divided into three parts: the first explores the concept of the canon as theorised by Harold Bloom, John Guillory, Charles Altieri, William Weber and Marcia Citron, among others in the fields of literary criticism and musicology. Part 2 searches for these canonical ideas and ideals in the reception of rock music as represented by ten albums: Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, The Beatles' Revolver, The Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground & Nico, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St., Patti Smith's Horses, The Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks: Here's the Sex Pistols, and Nirvana's Nevermind. Part 3 explores the resulting questions raised by the presence of canonical facets in the reception of rock music by stating a case for and against a canon in rock music. The thesis concludes that in the reception of popular music we are not simply trying to organise the past but mediate the present, and any canon of rock music must now negotiate a far more pluralized culture, and possibly accept a greater degree of change, than has been evident in the canons of classical music and literature in the last two centuries.
6

Pipe up the volume : the role of the flute in progressive rock

Guy, Rebecca January 2007 (has links)
In this thesis I investigate the use and the effect of the flute within rock music. I focus upon the period 1965-1975, the era that saw the development of progressive rock - a genre in which the importation of instruments from other musical traditions formed an important compositional device. My primary concern is how the flute-playing styles and techniques to be found in rock music are linked to the flute's pre-existing musical and cultural roles, and the potential semantic implications for listener experience. Accordingly, the thesis begins by examining aspects of the flute's history, its functions in various musics, and its acquired cultural connotations (such as, for example, the military and the pastoral); from this a paradigmatic framework is developed by which the flute's effect in the more recent genre of rock can be analysed. Following this, the flute's multiple routes into progressive rock music are traced, analysing the role it plays in the diverse musical repertoires - including art music, jazz and Celtic folk music - that fed into the soundscape of the genre. The playing styles and techniques of some individual flute players are then analysed in detail, using as case studies four prominent flute-using bands; Jethro Tull, Genesis, Focus and King Crimson. I discuss how the roles the flute has played in progressive rock can be related to aspects of the socio-cultural background of the genre, and close by summarising the effects of the flute's identified musical and semantic connotations as observed across the four case studies. The thesis as a whole provides new insight into the evolution of flute-playing techniques, the compositional processes and cultural context of progressive rock, and the genre-bridging communicative potential of instrumental timbre.
7

The other leading note : a comparative study of the flat second pitch degree in North Indian classical, Ottoman or Arabian influenced, Western, heavy metal and film musics

Moore, Sarha January 2014 (has links)
This cross-cultural and cross-genre study considers the flat second pitch degree (♭2), a semitone above the tonic, in its significant functional role in tonal musics. The ♭2 appears variously in Indian raga, Ottoman and Arabian influenced music, and in Western music, including heavy metal and film musics. This study aims to balance the exploration of difference in connotations of the ♭2 across cultures with an understanding of commonalities in its use and significance. With the ♭2 as a central focus, I deploy combined methodologies to ask what structural use and connotations it has in various musics, and how it speaks to ideological worldviews such as Orientalism. Through interview, music analysis and literature study I investigate the melodic and harmonic use of the ♭2, its metaphorical associations and meanings past and present. I find that the ♭2 has as strong a ‘yearning vector’ as the major seventh ‘leading note’. Across many world music genres there are nuanced and complex connotations, with metaphors of verticality underpinning many interpretations of the falling cadence ♭2–1. To the Western listener the ♭2 usually signifies anxiety, reinvented in metal as positive and transgressive. Together with the Western signification of the ♭2 as Oriental, a hybrid may be created. I argue that this hybrid may portray the ‘East’ as a negative Other, as exploited in film’s ‘unheard’ soundtracks. In traditions such as Oriental metal and Bollywood, in contrast, hybrid connotations may support articulations of powerful, modern identities. By showing that the ♭2 is used in different yet comparable ways in multiple genres, I bring different harmonic practices, metaphorical associations and ideologies into the foreground, highlighting expanded significations across cultures. By focusing sharply on a specific musical feature as it appears in various contexts, this study aims to provide a well-defined site for disciplinary debates on cultural boundaries.
8

'Better decide which side you're on' : authenticity, politics and post-punk in Thatcherite Britain

O'Connell, Joseph January 2014 (has links)
During her time as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1979-1990) Margaret Thatcher oversaw a great deal of political and social change, some of which proved controversial to her left-wing opponents. Her ascent to power coincided with the establishment of punk, whose music influenced a sizeable proportion of the country’s cultural and social underground, leading to great influence on popular musical producers and the growth of a recognised subculture. Thatcher’s electoral success and the widespread identification with punk were both predicated upon the rhetoric of ‘crisis’ which permeated popular discourse in the mid- to late-1970s. As such, punk came to be viewed as a cultural form with which to not only oppose this rhetoric and mainstream society in general, but also with which to restate ideas of rock ‘authenticity’ as a means to protest political situations. With reference to specific performers and protest movements, this thesis demonstrates how these performers and popular movements stated their opposition to cultural and societal norms, as well as assessing the ‘political’ success of their actions. Consequently it also questions the historical narratives which have been written on this period – particularly that of the Rock Against Racism movement and its involvement of British Asians. It also uses contemporary source material to offer fresh analyses of Live Aid and the Labour Party-supporting Red Wedge group, as well as challenging the performances and presentation of musicians who made direct challenges to Thatcherite policy in their songwriting.
9

"Punk goes pop" : a post-semiotic theory of gestural transformation as signifier of style, meaning, and authenticity

Upton, Robert John Peter January 2017 (has links)
The study of gesture offers a promising extension of semiotic theory. Naomi Cumming (2001), Robert Hatten (2004), and David Lidov (2005), and others have laid the foundations for a critical examination of gestures in music. Their work is, however, married to notated scores of the Western art music tradition: a fact that Giles Hooper (2013) regards as an ironic circling back towards music conceived through implicit analytical-structuralist assumptions. In this thesis, I re-evaluate and develop current models of gesture into a theory of gestural transformation. I explore its practical applications as a tool for interpreting popular music by comparing two or more recorded performances of the same song to establish which alterations may transform perceptions of style, meaning, and authenticity. The small number of musicological studies that analyse recorded tracks are complicit in distorting the relative influence of particular musical features when defining musical meaning; these include analyses by David Brackett (2000) and Keir Keightley (2001). In confining discussion of the sonic artefact to readily definable aspects such as instrumentation, harmony and lyrics, these analyses oppose the common-sense view that musical meaning is contingent on the listener’s perceptual-imaginative interpretation of how a musical unit is performed. To explore an alternative analytical method, I focus on case studies drawn from the "Punk Goes ..." series of compilation albums, in which contemporary punk- rock artists re-record popular songs. These albums contain cover-versions by bands such as A Day To Remember, Woe, Is Me, and We Came As Romans, and demonstrate numerous approaches to creating a cover-version. This allows for a comprehensive application of the gestural transformation theory. The analyses within this thesis challenge assumptions that equate musical phrases with fixed nodes of musical meaning, suggesting instead that the interpreted manner of performance is more significant than syntactical concerns. In addition, the analyses investigate a new concept of play that exposes the problems with established musicological taxonomies and plays a significant part in the construction of stylistic, subcultural, and personal authenticities.
10

From the dawn of the Sabbath ... metal was born

Cope, Andrew Laurence January 2007 (has links)
The early 1990s saw the publication of important academic works on the subject of heavy metal music. These works were seminal in that they were the first to recognise and interrogate, in any substantial way, a topic that had been, until then, valued only as a cultural/sociological subject. Those ground-breaking works included Robert Walser's 1993 publication Running with The Devil: Power, Gender and Madness in Heavy Metal and Deena Weinstein's Heavy Metal: The Music and its Culture first published in 1991. Both works however, present heavy metal in broad terms, creating a wide paradigm that includes bands with widely differing musical syntax and aesthetic concerns (e.g. Cradle of Filth to Bon Jovi). These generalisations, being based on the perceived commonality of such concepts as power-chords and gendering, form something of a paradox that has been unquestioningly embraced by subsequent authors and so sustaining that opinion. I have challenged these generalisations and asserted that hard rock and heavy metal are distinctly different generic forms in both musical syntax and aesthetic. Moreover, I have argued that both Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin were pivotal in the formation of heavy metal and hard rock respectively and that the first six albums of both bands were particularly significant to the generic evolution of both forms of music. Heavy metal has evolved and become an established form of music over the last three and a half decades but vitally retains the central coding established in Black Sabbath's early work, not least the consistent utilisation of key intervals such as the tritone and flat 2nd, modal riffs, down-tuned guitars, aggressive performance techniques, episodic structuring and anti-patriarchal themes. By contrast, Led Zeppelin made significant contributions to the evolution of hard rock through a re-working of blues-based themes and syntax and the development of an eclectic repertoire. This work deconstructs that evolutionary process, highlighting the distinct nature of both forms.

Page generated in 0.0667 seconds