The document provides an annotated bibliography of the compositions for clarinet by Dr. Nguyen Phuc Linh, one of Vietnam's foremost contemporary classical musician. Brief biography of Nguyen and his music aesthetic are also included. The dissertation also provides an overview of Vietnamese music and instrumental music.

Sangpuy Katatepan Mavaliyw is a Taiwanese Aboriginal pop artist of the Pinuyumayan ethnic group. His albums have been acclaimed by Aboriginal listeners and Han-Taiwanese mainstream music critics for capturing the traditional Aboriginal sound and evoking the presence of the ancestors. In this thesis, I explore why Sangpuy's songs are understood to evoke ancestral spirit imaginary using a semiotic approach. I compare his music to traditional Pinuyumayan music such as pa'ira'iraw and shamanic songs to demonstrate how he uses similar musical gestures to evoke the sense of ancestral spirits. Other sonic elements such as the inclusion of the soundscape of a Pinuyumayan village provides a direct link to the lived experiences of the Pinuyumayan. I also position Sangpuy's music in the broader context of nationalism in Taiwan and how Sangpuy uses his music to negotiate Aboriginal issues such as land rights and environmentalism. Through this analysis, I demonstrate how Taiwanese Aborigines are incorporating their Indigenous ideology into popular music to carve out a space for themselves in Taiwanese society and garner more support for Indigenous rights in Taiwan.

The Evening Service settings of great British composers like Charles Stanford, A. Herbert Brewer, Charles Wood and Herbert Howells are well known and performed often throughout the world. However, little is known about the body of settings created by American composers. There are currently approximately 75 American composers dating from 1890 to the present, with Evening Service settings in print. Joel Martinson, based in Dallas, Texas, is an American composer, church musician, concert organist, and presenter. Although Martinson has composed four Evening Service settings (Evening Service for the St. Mark's School 1996, Evening Service for the Incarnation 2000, Evening Service for Church of the Nativity 2002, and Evening Service for the Transfiguration 2015), these works are not widely known outside of Dallas and small Anglican circles, nor is the value of his contributions to Anglican Evensong repertoire recognized. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that Martinson's four settings make a valuable American contribution to Anglican repertoire through his neo-classical style and creative counterpoint. The four settings are modern and challenging but remain approachable for both choir and audience.

The 10 Etudes for Guitar by Giulio Regondi represent the pinnacle of technical achievement for nineteenth century guitar performance. Dense textures, large stretches, fast scales and arpeggios, and obscure modulations are used in combinations that were unrivalled among his contemporaries. The etudes were not published until the late twentieth century and have not had generations of guitarists solving their challenges and teaching them to younger generations of students. Right-hand fingerings are virtually non-existent in published versions, but a thorough study of period sources yields several strategies; examples from each etude are provided. Modern right-hand scale philosophy, such as playing scales with "a," "m," and "i" in the right-hand are addressed and further example provided to give players several solutions to choose from. Right-hand fingering implies articulation and several interpretations are analyzed for each etude where they exist. Left-hand fingerings are sporadically present in modern editions but are often lacking in the most difficult passages. Stretching techniques from other string instruments can be applied to the guitar and one technique in particular can be applied to the most difficult stretches in Regondi in numerous instances. For some of the most challenging textures several solutions are given. The etudes of Regondi can prepare the guitarist for challenges found in playing music that is not written for the guitar or even by guitarists which consists of a substantial portion of the modern concert guitarist's repertoire. His music pushes what is possible on the guitar and borderlines what many would call idiomatic. This paper establishes a small number of techniques that will allow players to solve any challenge presented in the etudes from multiple technical viewpoints.

Multiple articulation is a technique that is becoming commonplace in the saxophone literature. This study provides a detailed explanation of how produce the technique. Its application to saxophone literature is explored with musical examples and commentary by the author. A compilation of pedagogical viewpoints regarding multiple articulation from educators spanning the last century is provided.

The purpose of this study was to investigate factors contributing to the longevity of four early-career (5 to 10 years of experience) K–5 elementary general music teachers in Title I schools situated in four regions of the United States. The central research question was: How did early-career elementary general music teachers in Title I schools describe the opportunities and challenges that contributed to their decisions to continue teaching? Using Deci and Ryan's theory of self-determination as a theoretical framework, I analyzed how the four teachers reflected on the degree to which they each possessed autonomy, competence, and relatedness through recounting their perspectives, stories, and experiences. Although the participants shared many commonalities, they also experienced challenges and opportunities unique to their teaching environments. Results were mixed regarding their levels of autonomy and relatedness, but all four teachers possessed a high level of competence, which was likely a contributing factor to their longevity and potential to continue teaching. Nurture and care for children also emerged as a prominent theme from the results, which required the application of a separate theoretical framework. Noddings's theory of the ethic of care served as a lens for examining the myriad ways each participant demonstrated love, care, and concern for her students. All four teachers strongly expressed the important role their love of working with children and seeing them grow, progress, and learn played in their desire to continue teaching. Of all the contributing factors, the participants' ethic of care seemed to be the most significant influence on their decisions to continue teaching. They also spoke extensively about the role of their love for music as a subject. Conclusions address implications for the field and recommendations for future research.

The purpose of this study was to specify and test a model detailing (a) gender, (b) previous elective music experience, (c) school, (d) music self-concept, and (e) music values as predictors of music enrollment and the initial juncture of school-sponsored elective music participation. In the event that a model with adequate fit was retained, a further purpose of this study was to calculate the direct, indirect, and total effects of each predictor, thereby determining each predictor's relative contribution towards explaining variance in elective music enrollment. Participants included fifth-grade students (N = 148) from two elementary schools. Data were gathered via administration of the Motivators of Elective Music Participation Questionnaire, and by accessing middle school elective enrollment records. The proposed expectancy-value model of elective music participation demonstrated excellent fit and was retained for interpretation. Overall, the model accounted for 34.4% of the variance in elective music participation. The greatest total predictor of elective music participation was previous elective music experience, followed closely by music values. Music self-concept, gender, and school played negligible roles in predicting whether students opted in or out of sixth-grade music electives.

The early stage of piano students' training is one of the most important, because it is then that they establish their habits for life. Those who teach beginners need clear principles for developing a solid technical foundation and for preventing bad technical habits. One of the most difficult principles to inculcate in young students is that of tone production and quality. The primary purpose of this study is to provide a pedagogical guide to help piano teachers teach tone production to elementary-level students. To accomplish this purpose, the strategies of the twentieth-century pedagogues Josef Lhévinne, Josef Hofmann, and Heinrich Neuhaus are examined, and applied to the elementary-level piano literature. This study offers practical training suggestions to teachers of elementary piano students as well as musical examples from high-quality piano literature to accompany these suggestions.

Relations between music education structures and teacher agency are under-researched and under-theorized, and scholars have indicated that the traditions and competitions of school bands in the U. S. may constrain educator agency. The need for research on teacher agency in competitive environments is compounded by policy trends toward administrators' use of festival scores in music educator evaluations. The purpose of this instrumental case study was to investigate band teacher agency in a highly competitive music education environment. I used the chordal triad of agency as the primary theoretical framework. Participants were four mid-career band educators in Texas, and I collected data through interviews, observations, journal entries, website review, and email correspondence. Throughout the data, participants' agency largely reproduced existing structures. Findings coalesced around (a) participants' core values of music, students' development, hard work, and competition, (b) an inductive, cohesive collection of band teaching norms despite participants' employment in schools of varying urbanicity and student demographics, (c) power sources that transmitted values and directed teachers' agency, and (d) a compelling story of one participant's generative agency that contrasted with the rest of the data. I provide directions for further research on music teacher agency and suggest implications for band educators, professional music education organizations, and music teacher educators.

Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944) was a remarkably successful French composer and pianist for a woman in the early part of her career, although her reputation waned rapidly after her death. Concertstück (1888), a single movement for piano and orchestra, was her only work in this medium. It requires many traditional piano skills and therefore can serve admirably as a comprehensive technical and artistic study. This dissertation includes a formal analysis of this piece, a discussion of each type of specific piano technique it requires, and practice suggestions.