<p>One of the main goals of this study is to develop analytical strategies that can meaningfully represent the contributions of women in hip-hop music. In the last five years, a number of music scholars have begun to explore ways of analyzing and theorizing rap's music, but, by and large, the music of women rappers has received little critical attention in the musical academy. Furthermore, musicological studies of rap music have generally avoided examining dance, gesture, and other visual aspects of performance, privileging instead the lyrics and especially the technological aspects of rap (i.e. sampling technology, layering of musical and rhythmic tracks). As a result, those (male) artists who have explicitly political agendas and exploit complex technology tend to receive the most critical attention.</p> <p>By specifically considering the music of women rappers, this study attempts to challenge discourses that treat hip-hop culture and rap music as disempowering to women and as an exclusively male cultural activity. In addition to analyses of musical tracks and lyrics, this study also locates complexities in additional aspects of performance, particularly complexities produced through the use of vocal timbres and physical imagery. Thus dance, language, gesture, clothing, music, and voice are considered with respects to the ways that women construct and negotiate feminine identities, and challenge disempowering gender, ethnic, and socioeconomic stereotypes.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>Only very recently have scholars embarked on tapping the potentially rich wellspring of Jewish heritage music called klezmer. Since its revitalization starting in the 1970s, klezmer has effectively leaped from obscurity to institutionalization in a transformation of remarkable speed. Its vast appeal now testifies to the significance it bears in a myriad of cultural and social spheres-anything from religion and literature to consumerism and tourism. However, because klezmer remains a relatively new area of study, only the major centers of musical activity have enjoyed the privilege of serious observation and theorization.</p> <p>This thesis attempts to examine klezmer at a more intimate level, in some of the localities that have been, as yet, unexplored, but which maintain a vital position in the continuity and life of the music and its culture. An overview of klezmer, its revival, its contemporary context, and some of its key theoretical issues is followed by an investigation into the heart of its educational establishments-known colloquially as klezmer camps. These institutions allow for a practical application of the concept of the "hyper-real" proposed by French theorist Jean Baudrillard, since their foundations and structures, which often strive to simulate an older tradition, create instead a new kind of culture with an elusive underpinning. This idea is carried further in the ensuing exploration of klezmer culture in the city of Montreal, Quebec. Through individual interviews and the direct observation of the scene and its participants, recurring conceptions of rootedness and gender in klezmer are probed from theoretical standpoints, revealing highly complex relationships between klezmer enthusiasts and their city, background, language, and even each other. As result, klezmer culture is positioned as the product of influence by various local phenomena as well as by more broad, mythical, and even global developments.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>Women in the field of music have always occupied a tenuous position between Madonna and whore. I Despite music being cast as feminine, women who were performers, composers, or have occupied musical positions of power have with few exceptions been marginalized from scholarly discourse. Clara Schumann was perhaps the first and most acknowledged exception, heralded as one of the foremost virtuosi of her time. Her unusual education and her treatment by journalistic critics facilitated this acceptance.</p> <p>From her early training to her mature career as a concert pianist, Clara Schumann's management by her father is not indicative of a normal upbringing for a girl of the mid-1800's. Friedrich Wieck's specialized piano method empowered Clara with the same skills that male music students received. This transgressive sidelining of her gender, as encouraged by her father, was the first stage in the subversion of societal conventions and expectations of gender evident in her life.</p> <p>In examining concert reviews from the 1850's, we find a continuation of the negotiation of Clara's gendered identity, especially in light of theoretical insight by Judith Butler into the performativity of gender. Reviews by notable writers Eduard Hanslick and Franz Liszt offer different sides of the same gender coin. Clara was identified male either by her masculine playing or as a survivor of a potentially destructive, masculinized educational tyranny.</p> <p>Focusing on Clara's letters and diaries, critical accounts of her performances, and a variety of secondary sources, this thesis will examine female virtuosity, using Franz Liszt and Jenny Lind as examples to support an alternative approach to virtuosity for women. In doing so, this study will clarify the effect of gender upon virtuosity in the nineteenth century as well as contribute new insights into Clara's attitude toward virtuosity.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>Open works represent a significant deviation from traditional methods of musical composition and presentation. This thesis examines their evolution, explores their defining characteristics, presents methods by which they may be analyzed, and reflects upon their impact on musical aesthetics and criticism.</p> <p>The open work's development in the twentieth-century is documented in Chapter One, with particular emphasis placed on extra-musical, artistic, and cultural events which influenced its emergence. Chapter Two is devoted to defining the open work in terms of form and content. In doing so, it is shown that there are two types of open work.</p> <p>Chapter Three presents an analysis of two open works: Earle Brown's <em>Available Forms I </em>and John Cage's <em>Variations III</em>. Chapter Four positions the open work in terms of its philosophical perspective, demonstrating that while openness represents a re-alignment of the traditional musical process, it does not deprive the listener of critical or evaluative resources.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>With its almost exclusive focus on the economics of the music industry, the early-21st century debate over digital music piracy has obscured other vital areas of study in the relationship between popular music and the Internet. This thesis addresses some of these neglected areas, specifically issues of agency, representation, discipline, and authority; it examines each of these in relationship to the formation and maintenance different online music communities. I argue that contemporary online trends related to music promotion, consumption, and criticism are, in fact, part of a much larger socio-cultural re-envisioning of the relationships between artists and audiences, artists and the music industry, and among audience members themselves. The relationship between music and the Internet is not only subversive on the level of economics.</p> <p>I examine these issues in three key areas. Independent women's music commnunities challenge patriarchal authority in the music industry as they use online discussion forums and web sites to advance their own careers. The tension that exists between the traditional for-profit music industry and the developing ethic of sharing in the filesharing community creates the conditions whereby we can imagine alternative ways that music can circulate in culture. "Citizen media," such as blogs and "open source" encyclopaedias, allows for those who otherwise had no avenue for presenting their thoughts and ideas to engage in public discourse. Traditional understandings of authority and expertise are subject to revision as new ways of assessing authority develop for online sources. This is also evident in the struggles of "old-media" groups in reconciling their established publishing and editorial practices with emergent online practices.</p> <p>This thesis foregrounds the work of individuals by drawing extensively from interviews, personal blogs, and online discussion forums. In this way, the monolithic "grand narratives" of the Internet, such as the filesharing "battle" or the democratic potential of online discourse, are shown to be the product of many individual subjectivities, each of whom contribute to authoring the online environment.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>The music critic is usually portrayed as a lone wolf in the musical world - an independent and mysterious figure slipping silently in and out of concerts, and pronouncing judgement from afar. However, her work cannot occur in isolation, and the interactions of the critic with her publication, her readers, and her subjects create a network of relationships, each with their own dynamic effect on the critic and her writing. These relationships function as an exchange of capital, as described in Bourdieu's Field of Cultural Production. The publication is lent capital by having skilled writers, and the critic is given a powerful position from which to reach her readers. The readers, functioning as an imagined community built around a common subject interest, grant the critic capital, and therefore authority, by being influenced by her work.</p> <p>The two imagined musical communities discussed here - classical and world music -share a position as marginalized musical genres. Their places within western culture could be portrayed as opposites, as classical music maintains a privileged position as a cultural achievement for the west, and world music is both a relatively young genre, and one that is separated and Othered simply from its label as a homogenizing and encompassing genre category. Within each of these genres, the critic is faced with different challenges - navigating the social issues which surround the categories, understanding how best to address their musical communities, and then further, how to write appropriately for the publications which support them. Each publication plays a different role in the discourse surrounding the music, and each also has a different set of requirements and opportunities for the critic.</p> <p>Through a combination of practical work and academic analysis, this thesis seeks to demonstrate some of the challenges facing a young critic in the field, and the dynamic relationships that govern a critic's work and musical world.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>The purpose of this thesis was to conduct three experiments in order to ascertain a perceptual account of Schenker's analysis of a Handel <em>Aria</em> and to test Lerdahl's premise that listeners experienced in Western tonal music perceive tension globally rather than locally. Data were obtained by recording perceptual judgements of tension, phrase structure, and pitch space at 83 stopping points across the <em>Aria</em> and three Schenkerian levels of analysis (background, middleground, and foreground). Of particular interest is viewing this data in the light of Schenker's <em>organicism</em> philosophy. Listeners in all three experiments are experienced musicians and university music students. In experiment 1, tension ratings correlate among listeners at all levels of analysis and perceived tension varies with stopping point. Thus, the experience of tension and relaxation requires minimal harmonic and melodic information. The phrase structure data obtained from experiment 2 demonstrates that more surface material is required in order to make judgements of phrase structure. Experiment 3, using Krumhansl's probe tone method, shows that even with the minimal information of Schenker's background level, listeners experienced in Western tonal music consistently perceive a hierarchical pitch space similar to Krumhansl's probe tone profile. The application of Lerdahl's <em>Tonal Pitch Space Theory</em> demonstrates a reliance of the experienced listener on local tension rather than on inherited tension in this short, completely diatonic piece.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>In recent years, interest in the indie rock subculture has exploded, both in the popular press and among popular music scholars and culture theorists.</p> <p>This is an ethnographic study of the indie rock scene in Hamilton, Ontario. Hamilton represents a microcosm of what is happening in other local indie scenes. The geographical, historical and cultural locality of Hamilton creates a sense of shared identity among individuals connected by the common interest in indie rock.</p> <p>This study focuses on how independent rock's network of social practices and economic institutions works to locate subjects within Hamilton's local network while connecting them to the larger framework of interlocal scenes. Aspects of the local and interlocal are explored through narratives of indie aesthetics, style, fashion, institutions, cultural practices, authenticity and investment. Cultural practices, including the production and consumption of indie rock are examined through the lens of Bourdieu' s concept of cultural capital, which exposes constructions and configurations of class, generation, ethnicity, and gender.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Emanating from a large, gaseous star forming the center of the universe - commonly referred to as the sun - light colors the world. Light is a mystifying, transient element, a source of energy and life that has transfixed mankind for centuries. Also seduced by the wonders of light (and color) is contemporary artist, Spencer Finch. He has embarked on a quixotic mission of trying to measure, capture, and replicate the temporal qualities of light and color. His interest lies in capturing the fleetingness of the moments he experiences. To some extent Finch is successful in his impossible quest. Even in failure, his artworks become a vehicle for exploring the intricacies of human vision and perception. Mixing scientific inquiry and art, Finch utilizes remnants of the past - iconic sites and figures, famous literary texts, etc. - to reflect on personal memories and experiences. His artwork is a means of working out his own questions and ideas about vision and perception. By grounding his work in the known, Finch allows the viewer to enter and understand his works. Viewers are offered a unique chance to consider the ways in which the world is seen and understood. In the end, Finch hopes he is able to offer an almost out-of-body, or maybe just deeply insightful, experience in which vision is called into question, allowing an insight into understanding what it means to perceive. / Art History

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