Many incoming students have studied piano prior to entering college and receive much of their theory training through music study with a piano teacher. The National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) designed a website page for potential students to answer the question, "How should I best prepare to enter a conservatory, college, university as a music major?" Theoretical concepts they suggest can be grouped into three main categories: Basic Music Theory Rudiments, Ear-Training Skills, and Form and Harmony. This research examines five piano theory method books (Alfred Premier Piano Course, Bastien Piano Basics, Faber Piano Adventures, Harris Celebrate Piano!, and Kjos Fundamentals of Piano Theory) to assess their effectiveness in presenting the theoretical concepts NASM recommends they should know. The five books used for this study provide a basic foundation for many of the concepts undergraduates will be expected to know as they enter college theory courses.

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The piano first came into existence about 1709, but until the 1770's it was probably used most successfully as an accompanying instrument because of the small volume of tone it could produce. In its earlier stages the piano was not capable of producing even as big a tone as a large. sized harpsichord, During these seventy years piano builders experimented a great deal with the piano and its mechanisms, As with any instrument, some ideas were kept and improved, and others were tried and then discarded.

This thesis begins by describing the piano's history and development and then goes into how Claude Debussy used the piano in his music and the style in which he composed for the piano.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

A dissertation submitted for the degree of Master of Music in the Wits School of Arts, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg, 2014 / Kevin Volans’s music has generated much international recognition and attention. As a result, his influence is increasingly evident in the work of younger composers. As yet, little research has delved deeply into Volans’s music at the technical level. His piano etudes consist largely of transcriptions, paraphrases and variations of a wide range of his previous work. So, as a microcosm of his oeuvre, they provide the ideal opportunity to understand his unique compositional voice. A twofold, overarching question informs this study. What historical conditions produced Kevin Volans’s etudes and how are they constructed? In response to this question, this dissertation presents a written analysis of Kevin Volans’s piano etudes using the notions formulated by Michel Foucault (1926-1984) in his genealogies. The genealogical theoretical framework accommodates a multiplicity of analytical approaches while providing the tools to synthesise a plurality of findings. The author has used Foucault’s genealogical model to underpin the analysis of both the historical context surrounding the etudes and the scores themselves. The goal is to gain a thorough understanding of the musical material of the etudes in terms of the ideological landscape which produced them. Part one of the dissertation lays out the broader epistemic conditions which produced the etudes. The initial two chapters trace nodes of influence in parallel spheres: the ideological and musical landscape of Volans’s life and issues surrounding the genre of the piano etude are juxtaposed to set the scene for the textural analysis. The third chapter of part one traces the transcription sources and outlines the most distinguishing characteristics of the etudes. Together, these spheres yield the epistemic conditions within which the textural analysis can take place. The three chapters in part two focus on the scores of the etudes. They each deal with the organisation of the material by applying slightly different existing and modified analytical parameters. Chapter 5 analyses the stratified, almost sedimentary forms evident in the etudes. By mapping out levels of non-hierarchically layered groupings of material in the etudes, strong reference points within the structure of each are identified. Chapter 6 takes a semiotic viewpoint, reading the musical images through the lens of metonymy, metaphor and allegory. The final chapter seeks to understand the organic and mechanical composition techniques used in the etudes. The conclusion reunites the scattered findings of the preceding chapters by tracing the genealogical web of power relations between them. This web of power relationships represents both the internal and external dynamics at play within Volans’s etudes.

Enquanto Schoenberg considerou Brahms um \"progressista\", parte de seus contemporâneos - por exemplo, Wagner - o classificava como conservador. A razão para tal rótulo era o apreço que Brahms tinha pelas formas clássicas e barrocas. Diferente dos outros românticos, estatisticamente o allegro de sonata é o procedimento composicional mais recorrente em todos os movimentos de sua obra. Além disso, chegou a dominar com maestria a arte de escrever fugas, cânones e outros gêneros barrocos, incorporando-os na sua linguagem musical com naturalidade. Este trabalho vem apresentar como a obra pianística de Brahms se situa perante seus contemporâneos - mais especificamente com relação à forma - e quais as motivações pessoais e sociais que o fizeram adotar essa postura estética. Um breve resumo de suas obras é apresentado seguido de uma análise das Variações sobre um tema de Haendel para demonstrar como sua obra dialoga com o arcaico e o moderno, sendo ao mesmo tempo antiga, clássica e romântica. / Schoenberg once said Brahms was a \"progressive\", while his contemporaries - Wagner, for instance - would classify him as a conservative. The main reason for that was that Brahms enjoyed classic and baroque forms. Apart from the other romantic composers, allegro de sonata is statistically the most recurring compositional procedure in all movements of his output. Besides, he conquered how to write fugues, canons and other baroque genres, inserting them naturally in his musical language. This thesis presents how Brahms\'s piano works relate with those of his contemporaries - more specifically regarding form - and what was his personal and social motivation to adopt this aesthetical position. A brief about his works will be presented followed by an analysis of Variations on a theme by Haendel, in order to demonstrate how his output makes a dialogue with the old and modern, being at the same time antique, classic and romantic

Paul Wittgenstein (1887-1961) made significant contributions to the piano literature for the left hand through numerous commissioned works as well as his own transcriptions. In the transcriptions, Wittgenstein preserved the texture of two-hand music, aiming for the simulation of the original works. This requires special techniques in the performance by the left hand alone. This dissertation investigates technical means and performance problems associated with the transcriptions as well as Wittgenstein's own recordings of selections from his works.

By transcribing songs from the standard repertoire, and some selected jazz musicians' improvised solos over these songs, I have studied how transcribing affects my own artistic expression. Some of the musicians I have been inspired by are Barry Harris, Paul Chambers and Oscar Peterson. The songs I’ve chosen come from the standard jazz repertoire of the 1940's and 50's. The question in this work was whether it was possible to derive my own playing and improvising at my degree concert from the material I had studied during the course of this project.   The idea for this project came from my interest in transcribing as a method for developing my artistic expression as a jazz pianist. Furthermore, I had grown tired of using some commonly used sources of sheet music and chord progressions, such as the mobile application iReal or various fake books containing jazz standards, like the well known Real Book. The song sketches these contain can in some cases give a very misleading picture of the original versions of the songs.   First, I did a transcription of an early version of each song, to use as a reference point. Then, I transcribed solos by the selected musicians, as well as parts of my own solos recorded at both the very beginning of the project and at my degree concert. I then analyzed the transcriptions regarding phrasing, tone material and sound.   In the process of transcribing solos, I have tried to mimic the original recording as much as possible. Various tools were used, such as mobile applications, to make loops and change the tempo to help with transcribing.   By going back to transcribing early versions of jazz standards, I hope to have gained an increased understanding of the jazz genre that I love to play and listen to. Working with transcribing has also made me reflect on the piano from a historical perspective.   In this text, I discuss the challenge of staying neutral to the transcribed material during the degree concert. Did I play phrases because they were part of my vocabulary or because I remembered them from the transcriptions? I further discuss the issue of the time limit of the project, which made it difficult to assess the results of the work.   Transcribing my own solos has been very rewarding. It has helped me to concretize what I want to practice. For example, through transcribing I recognize how limited I am in certain keys compared to others.   In addition to some specific phrases, much of Barry Harris's overall playing has been integrated into my own, and he is also the musician who have had the greatest impact on my own style of playing, of the three I’ve studied for this project. / <p>Medverkande musiker:</p><p>Jonny Ek - Piano</p><p>Jonathan Leidecker - Trummor</p><p>Tomas Sjödell - Kontrabas</p><p>Repertoar:</p><p>A Weaver Of Dreams (John Elliot, Victor Young)</p><p>I Can't Give You Anything But Love (Jimmy McHugh, Dorothy Fields)</p><p>Almost Like Being In Love (Frederick Loewe, Alan Jay Lerner)</p><p>The Very Thought Of You (Ray Noble)</p><p>East Of The Sun (Brooks Bowman)</p><p>My Foolish Heart (Victor Young, Ned Washington)</p><p>I'll Remember April (Gene de Paul, Patricia Johnston, Don Raye)</p><p>Nobody Else But Me (Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein)</p><p>The Song Is You (Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein)</p><p>Georgia On My Mind (Hoagy Carmichael, Stuart Gorell)</p>

En France, l’idée d’un piano-orchestral voit le jour durant la première moitié du XIXe siècle. Dès les premières décennies, de nombreux commentateurs reconnaissent dans l’instrument à clavier la capacité de restituer en son sein l’ensemble symphonique. Les écrits instaurent une relation étroite entre le piano et l’orchestre. Dans l’inconscient collectif, le piano ne tarde pas à devenir un « petit-orchestre complet » comme tend à le prouver le discours qui utilise ce qualificatif en tant que référence commune. Dans l’ombre de cette pensée s’élabore l’idée de la pénétration d’une « figure orchestrale » dans l’œuvre pianistique et naît alors l’idée d’un piano-orchestral. L’enjeu principal de cette thèse sera de tenter de définir le piano-orchestral français à travers un travail lié à la réception. Nous faisons en effet l’hypothèse que certaines œuvres pour piano ou certains éléments de celles-ci invitent l’auditeur à effectuer un transfert d’idées entre le piano et l’orchestre ou à reconnaître l’ensemble symphonique au clavier. Le piano-orchestral serait alors une écoute de l’œuvre pianistique. En tant que phénomène lié à laréception de l’œuvre, le piano-orchestral appartient au domaine de la verbalisation de la musique et nous avons donc choisi de l’étudier à travers le prisme du discours musical. Notre ambition étant de définir le piano-orchestral, nous avons décidéd’interroger son élaboration et ses fondements en nous concentrant sur ses prémices. Notre recherche s’étendra donc de 1835 à 1849 ; une période correspondant à la reconnaissance de l’idée jusqu’au début de sa remise en question. / In France, the idea of an orchestral piano was born during the first half of the 19th century. Since the early decades, many commentators recognized in the keyboard instrument the ability to reproduce the orchestra by itself and the writingsestablished a close relationship between the piano and the orchestra. In the collective unconscious, the piano soon became a "complete small orchestra" as the use of this qualifier as a common reference shows. In the shadow of this thought, the idea of including an “orchestral figure“ into the pianistic work was developed and thus the idea of an orchestral piano. The main challenge of this thesis will be to attempt to define the French orchestral piano through the study of its reception. Indeed, we hypothesise that some works for piano or some parts of them invite the listener to make a transfer of ideas between the piano and the orchestra or to recognize the orchestra on the keyboard. The orchestral piano would then be a listening to the pianistic work. As a phenomenon related to the reception of the work, the orchestral piano belongs to the domain of the verbalization of music and we therefore chose to study it through the prism of musical speech. Our ambition being to define the orchestral piano, we decided to question its elaboration and its foundations by focusing on its infancy. Our research will consequently extend from 1835 to 1849, a period corresponding to the recognition of the idea until the beginning of it being brought into question.