Strategies for Developing Individual Education Programs for Public School Music Students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Dyslexia explores the need for curriculum modifications, accommodations, and remediation techniques for beginner band students with specific learning disorders (SLDs) under the umbrella of Individual Education Programs (IEPs) or 504 plans for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and/or dyslexia. ADHD and dyslexia are the most common of the neurodevelopmental disorders, often affecting a student's ability to stay focused and attentive; remain quiet and well behaved; comprehend written, visual and/or oral instruction; organize thoughts and materials; exhibit good time management; execute fine and gross motor skills; retain and recall information; decode symbols; process information quickly and correctly; maintain healthy, interpersonal relationships; and overcome anxiety. In order to provide inclusive instruction, music educators should understand how to identify these (often comorbid) conditions and the musical challenges these students might encounter, including time/pulse, notation, rhythm, posture, fingerings, and sight-reading. A guide for instrumental directors and private instrumental teachers, "How to Accommodate or Modify Musical Instruction for a Student with ADHD and/or Dyslexia" is included in this dissertation to provide useful information, multisensory techniques, and suggestions to help students with these learning disabilities achieve better success in the music classroom.

Polymetric writing is an integral technique in contemporary compositional practice. Dan Welcher and Yo Goto are principal employers of this practice in the wind band medium. Their methods endure even the results of modern scholarship showing limited human perception of polyrhythmic events. This dissertation provides a comprehensive metric analysis of excerpts from the music of Welcher and Goto. Five examples are explored from major band works of each of the two composers. The analytical process in the study utilizes the metrical concept set forth by Maury Yeston, so that a comparison can be made between the rhythmic components of the competing meters. The results of the study show that both Welcher and Goto, in all ten excerpts, create polymetric sections containing elements that surpass the aural limits proposed by modern scholarship. Additionally, through identification of the misaligned metric layers causing each polymeter, pedagogical considerations are offered to aid performance of each identified excerpt.

Virtual Stage is a project to use Virtual Reality (VR) technology as an audiovisual performance interface. The depth of control, modularity of design, and user immersion aim to solve some of the representational problems in interactive audiovisual art and the control problems in digital musical instruments. Creating feedback between interaction and perception, the VR environment references the viewer's behavioral intuition developed in the real world, facilitating clarity in the understanding of artistic representation. The critical essay discusses of interactive behavior, game mechanics, interface implementations, and technical developments to express the structures and performance possibilities. This discussion uses Virtual Stage as an example with specific aesthetic and technical solutions, but addresses archetypal concerns in interactive audiovisual art. The creative documentation lists the interactive functions present in Virtual Stage as well as code reproductions of selected technical solutions. The included code excerpts document novel approaches to virtual reality implementation and acoustic physical modeling of musical instruments.

The idea of reducing popular and musically satisfying operatic or orchestral works to smaller instrumental forces is not uncommon, but the idea of reducing large scores for the exclusive use of orchestral excerpt pedagogy is. Although there are a multitude of excellent resources detailing how select excerpts from both the clarinet and bass clarinet orchestral repertoire should be performed, no resources for clarinetists or bass clarinetists provide a piano reduction of orchestral scores. Through piano reduction of orchestral scores, bass clarinetists have access to a resource that simulates the experience of playing in an orchestra. Bass clarinetists using a piano reduction will learn the pitch tendencies of the instrument. Consequently, the performer will discover ways to study excerpts in-tune with other instruments that will not compromise for the shortcomings of the bass clarinet. Use of piano transcriptions will also aid with recognition of important moving lines, harmonic textures and rhythmic ostinatos that might otherwise be overlooked by score study and listening alone. Finally, many of the excerpt transcriptions provided are taken from several bars before the primary bass clarinet excerpt, unlike many excerpt books currently available. This provides bass clarinets a more contextual view of an excerpt by facilitating the need to count rests correctly and play solo entrances in the correct style and affect presented by the preceding orchestral material.

This research explores the need for a unique, self-help manual to provide music students with diagnoses of dyslexia under the umbrella of specific learning disorder (SLD) and/or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) a positive way of coping with their musical tendencies. Dyslexia and ADHD are the most prevalent, comorbid neurodevelopmental disorders with symptoms affecting academic, social, and/or personal life. Musical symptoms could include difficulties in any of the following areas: notation reading; time, pulse, and rhythm; posture; fingering coordination; memorization; sight-reading; organization of thoughts, time, and materials; spatial and directional awareness; focused attention; retention of new concepts; positive attitude; and the ability to process written and/or oral information quickly and accurately. This dissertation includes scientific information related to the conditions; an analysis of musical tendencies; pedagogical approaches; personal anecdotal stories that serve to illustrate scientific concepts; and a self-help manual. The manual, "Music, Dyslexia, and ADHD: A Self-Help Manual for Students with Exceptionalities," is a colorful, accessible resource that begins to fill the self-help gap in the musical instruction literature for students with dyslexia and/or ADHD. It offers useful information, multisensory/multimodal techniques, and coping strategies to empower students with these learning differences to achieve more rewarding, independent success throughout their musical studies.

Leo Ornstein's most significant piano oeuvre, the Seventeen Waltzes, stand out as a unique example of a pianism as a foundation for the composer's musical thoughts. The purpose of this document is to provide musical and technical suggestions based on Ornstein's pianistic patterns, which will help pianists understand the composer's complex writing and form a coherent interpretation. The guide covers the main avant-garde musical devices used by Ornstein such as tone clusters, polymeter, and polyrhythm. A comparison process within the collection will help performers to address Ornstein's unmarked waltzes by underlining the composer's similar ideas and traits.

The United States Military Academy Band, also known as the West Point Band is the oldest active band in the United States Army and the oldest unit at the United States Military Academy, and is considered to be one of the finest military musical organizations in the world. The band has also been instrumental in facilitating the creation of new works for wind band.As the commissioning of new music has been essential to the expansion of the wind band's repertoire, several major commissioning projects were undertaken in the mid-twentieth century by various organizations, including the West Point Band, the Goldman Band in conjunction with the League of Composers and later the American Bandmasters Association, Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma, the American Wind Symphony, and the College Band Directors National Association. These commissioning projects and many others have contributed hosts of new quality works to the repertoire of the wind band. The West Point Band's 1952 commissioning project celebrating the Sesquicentennial of the United States Military Academy was among the first of these mid-twentieth century commissioning projects to seek out prominent composers of the day and have them write works for wind band. The project contributed several seminal pieces to the wind band's repertoire, including Morton Gould's Symphony for Band: West Point. In 1996, as tribute to both the Academy and to the earlier commissioning project, the West Point Band sought to celebrate the Academy's 2002 bicentennial in a similar fashion by commissioning well-known composers to contribute substantial wind works. These pieces would be premiered and recorded by the West Point Band over a number of years, including a gala Bicentennial Celebration concert at Carnegie Hall in March 2002. The purpose of this study is to create a consolidated written record of the wind music composed for the West Point Band as part of the band's Bicentennial Wind Commissioning Project, and to describe the process and circumstances by which this music was created and premiered. The continuing development of a quality original repertoire is important to the wind band community as a whole, and commissioning composers to write wind band music is the primary means by which new music is acquired. By any account, the twenty-six works produced through the West Point Band's Bicentennial Commissioning Project constitute a significant contribution to this repertoire. As this project and many of these pieces are not well known, it is the author's intent to bring increased attention to this commissioning project and to this music.

Latin American art song is a genre primarily of the first half of the twentieth-century, when popular folklore served as the voice and inspiration of many poets and musicians. The nationalist movement served as a means of expression, each Latin American country with its own identity. There is great benefit for singers to study Spanish diction at an academic level, since it is a language already familiar to most U.S.A residents. There is a significant amount of unknown repertoire that would be very useful in the singing studio because of the language's open vowels. This repertoire can also serve as a confidence-builder to young Spanish-speaking singers at the beginning of their training. I will be focusing on the (s), (ll), and (y) sounds as pronounced in the diverse regions of Latin America; in particular, why they matter when coaching singers, and the articulators involved in each. The purpose of this study is to discuss diction differences in the repertoire, expound on its benefits for voice pedagogy, all while informing about varied options for recital programming.

Muzio Clementi's symphonies were first performed in London between 1786 and 1796. After an extended hiatus from 1796 to 1813, his symphonic works appeared on programs again from 1813 to 1824. Clementi's career as a symphonist corresponds closely with trends in London's concert life. The reception of Clementi's symphonies during his lifetime has frequently been misinterpreted by scholars who oversimplify the use of "science" in musical discourse of the day and fail to consider the positive connotations of this adjective, so frequently applied to Clementi. Musical discourse at the time addressed the science and art of music emphasizing a composition, or its composer's, science, harmony, effects, genius, and the audience's response. Though an unstated ideal, reviews evince a preference for balancing scientific and artistic display. Reviews of Clementi's symphonies suggest he initially struggled to balance the technical and artistic qualities of his compositions but succeeded, according to reviews, in finally doing so in 1796. After his early efforts, Clementi was consistently praised as worthy to stand among the current and most prestigious composers of the continent: Haydn and Mozart initially, and Beethoven and Rossini later.

This research investigates a microcosm of the free jazz/free improvisation environment of the 1970s in "Waterfall," from the album Dave Holland/Sam Rivers Vol. 1. This recording features Dave Holland and Sam Rivers exhibiting highly developed improvisational language and effortless interaction. The purpose of this investigation is to create pedagogical material for bassists who are unfamiliar and/or uncomfortable with performing in an improvisational style that exists separately from the rigid, instrumental role hierarchy of common practice jazz. An analysis of musical elements including melody, rhythm, form, and energy through systems of musical contour, musical forces, and form analysis reveal constituent patterns that can be isolated. These patterns are codified and presented as pedagogical suggestions to assist in the practice of free improvisation.