This study explores text and music relations in Canadian composer Violet Archer’s “The Twenty-Third Psalm” by analysing the text of Psalm 23, Fibonacci numbers, melodic contours, motives, and the role of the accompaniment. The text focuses on David’s faith in God and his acceptance of God as his shepherd on earth. The four other approaches allow us to examine the work on three different structural levels: background through Fibonacci numbers, middleground through melodic contour analysis, and foreground through motivic analysis and the role of the accompaniment. The measure numbers that align with Fibonacci numbers overlap with some of the melodic contour phrases, which are demarcated by rests, as well as with the most important moments at the surface level, such as the emphasis on the word “death” through recurring and symbolic motives. The piano accompaniment further supports these moments in the text.

This study explores text and music relations in Canadian composer Violet Archer’s “The Twenty-Third Psalm” by analysing the text of Psalm 23, Fibonacci numbers, melodic contours, motives, and the role of the accompaniment. The text focuses on David’s faith in God and his acceptance of God as his shepherd on earth. The four other approaches allow us to examine the work on three different structural levels: background through Fibonacci numbers, middleground through melodic contour analysis, and foreground through motivic analysis and the role of the accompaniment. The measure numbers that align with Fibonacci numbers overlap with some of the melodic contour phrases, which are demarcated by rests, as well as with the most important moments at the surface level, such as the emphasis on the word “death” through recurring and symbolic motives. The piano accompaniment further supports these moments in the text.

This study explores text and music relations in Canadian composer Violet Archer’s “The Twenty-Third Psalm” by analysing the text of Psalm 23, Fibonacci numbers, melodic contours, motives, and the role of the accompaniment. The text focuses on David’s faith in God and his acceptance of God as his shepherd on earth. The four other approaches allow us to examine the work on three different structural levels: background through Fibonacci numbers, middleground through melodic contour analysis, and foreground through motivic analysis and the role of the accompaniment. The measure numbers that align with Fibonacci numbers overlap with some of the melodic contour phrases, which are demarcated by rests, as well as with the most important moments at the surface level, such as the emphasis on the word “death” through recurring and symbolic motives. The piano accompaniment further supports these moments in the text.

Max Reger was a prolific composer on the threshold of modernism. The style of his extensive musical output was polarizing among his contemporaries. A criticism of Reger's music is its complex and dense musical structure. Despite writing tonal music, Reger often pushes the boundaries of tonality so far that all sense of formal organization is seemingly imperceptible. In this dissertation, I offer what I observed to be a new way of discerning Reger's motivic relationships and formal structures within and between movements. There are three primary tools and methods I incorporated to make these observations: Schoenberg's developing variation; melodic contour analysis as discussed by Elizabeth West-Marvin and Diana Deutsch; and Janet Schmalfeldt's motivic cyclicism stemming from internal themes. In this dissertation I examine five different musical works by Reger: D minor Piano Quartet, Clarinet Quintet, Piano Concerto, String Quartet, op. 121 and E minor Piano Trio, op. 102. My analysis shows how Reger relies on melodic contours of his motives to connect musical moments across entire movements and entire works with multiple movements. These motives are developed and often mark structurally significant moments providing the organization often perceived as missing in Reger's music.

This study explores the topic of music theory pedagogy in conjunction with the Kodály concept of music education and its North-American adaptation by Lois Choksy. It investigates the compatibility of the Kodály Method with post-secondary instruction in tonal harmony, using a theoretical framework derived from Kodály’s methodology and implemented as a teaching strategy for the dominant-seventh chord. The customary presentation of this concept is authenticated with an empirical case study involving four university professors. Subsequently, Kodály’s four-step instructional process informs a comparative analysis of five university-level textbooks that evaluates the sequential placement of V7, examines the procedure by which it is presented, and considers the inclusion of correlated musical excerpts. Although divergent from traditional approaches to tonal harmony, Kodály’s principles and practices are pedagogically effective. By progressing from concrete to abstract, preceding symbolization with extensive musical experience, conceptual understandings are not only intellectualized, but are developed and internalized.

This study explores the topic of music theory pedagogy in conjunction with the Kodály concept of music education and its North-American adaptation by Lois Choksy. It investigates the compatibility of the Kodály Method with post-secondary instruction in tonal harmony, using a theoretical framework derived from Kodály’s methodology and implemented as a teaching strategy for the dominant-seventh chord. The customary presentation of this concept is authenticated with an empirical case study involving four university professors. Subsequently, Kodály’s four-step instructional process informs a comparative analysis of five university-level textbooks that evaluates the sequential placement of V7, examines the procedure by which it is presented, and considers the inclusion of correlated musical excerpts. Although divergent from traditional approaches to tonal harmony, Kodály’s principles and practices are pedagogically effective. By progressing from concrete to abstract, preceding symbolization with extensive musical experience, conceptual understandings are not only intellectualized, but are developed and internalized.

This study explores the topic of music theory pedagogy in conjunction with the Kodály concept of music education and its North-American adaptation by Lois Choksy. It investigates the compatibility of the Kodály Method with post-secondary instruction in tonal harmony, using a theoretical framework derived from Kodály’s methodology and implemented as a teaching strategy for the dominant-seventh chord. The customary presentation of this concept is authenticated with an empirical case study involving four university professors. Subsequently, Kodály’s four-step instructional process informs a comparative analysis of five university-level textbooks that evaluates the sequential placement of V7, examines the procedure by which it is presented, and considers the inclusion of correlated musical excerpts. Although divergent from traditional approaches to tonal harmony, Kodály’s principles and practices are pedagogically effective. By progressing from concrete to abstract, preceding symbolization with extensive musical experience, conceptual understandings are not only intellectualized, but are developed and internalized.