Time Fixtures, a composition for chamber ensemble and electronics, attempts to provide some compelling perspectives on fixing a conception of time. The electronics feature six speakers placed symmetrically around the audience that broadcast live electronic transformations and pre-constructed audio files. The ensemble consists of eleven players: flute (doubling alto flute), oboe, B♭ clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), horn, percussion, harp, piano, MIDI keyboard (doubling crotale/tangkas placed out of sight of the audience), violin, viola, and violoncello. Performance also requires a conductor as well as a technician who operates a Max/MSP performance patch and the mixing board.

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This thesis aims to offer a practitioner’s perspective of composition for the Chinese instrumental ensemble of the twenty-first century. Chinese instrumental music composition has appeared in the concert hall in China since the beginning of the twentieth century. Modeled on western classical music, modern Chinese instrumental music has undergone a series of development and reformation that aimed to merge the Chinese and western musical ideas and techniques. The very role of the composer and the notion of concert-hall practice were being emphasized, whereas various ingrained characters of traditional instruments, such as music-making conventions, instrumentation preferences, and certain ideology behind timbre, were overshadowed. Also attributed to such nature of Chinese instrumental music is that composers and performers are often in a quandary when juggling Chinese instrumental music conventions with a mindset framed by western classical music. Furthermore, in the current globalized/globalizing culture, Chinese instrumental composition is propelled by manifold musical influences. I intend to share the insight and to document the first-hand information acquired through the composition processes from a composer’s perspective. My sharing and documentation focus on the issues of incorporating idiomatic music materials from various Chinese instruments into original compositions, as well as on several matters concerning rehearsals and performances. Including six chapters, this thesis anthologizes six original works and discusses the composition strategies relevant to the distinctive instrumental combination of each. Chapter 1 presents an adaptation of a western symphonic poem for modern Chinese orchestra. Chapters 2 and 3 illustrate respectively a composition for a large Chinese wind and percussion ensemble and a composition for a large plucked-string ensemble. Chapters 4 and 5 cover two pieces of contrasting instrumentation, namely a mixed ensemble of fourteen instruments and a huqin sextet. Chapter 6 is about a multimedia composition with electronic soundtrack and installation art for seven players. / published_or_final_version / Music / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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The focal point of the work is the turntable and DJ (or Disk Jockey; one who controls the turntables). This concept not only manifests itself through the utilization of actual turntables, but also much of the acoustic material performed by the ensemble consists of "metaphoric turntables". These are contrasting layers of sound superposed over one another that are played by small groups of specific instruments within the larger ensemble. These instrumental groups simulate the sonorities generated through turntable manipulation such as warping, oscillations, crossfading, transforming, and numerous scratching techniques. The DJ (sometimes referred to as a turntablist) employs many techniques, articulations, and effects that are notated and explained in the accompanying analysis.

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Mobiles is a composition for an ensemble consisting of 12 instruments. The piece, in one movement, incorporates intuition, chance, and twelve tone techniques and reflects the relationship between motion and rest or tension and release. The structure is modeled according to principles of growth and decay, starting off slowly, building, and then dying away. Much of the material is inspired by mental images invoked from modern theories concerning chaos. Mobiles' character stems from the principal use of two motives, the chaos motif and the echo motif. Primarily, the chaos motif is representative of a state of motion while the echo motif represents a state of rest. Mobile architecture is usually characteristic of symmetry, balance, and proportion, but because of uncertainty in a natural environment, this proportion often falls short of a perfect symmetrical balance as in the case of a crystal or a fractal design. It is this kind of architecture that Mobiles portrays in its form and developmental process.

Echoes is an interactive composition for amplified chamber ensemble and computer. The entire research that led to this piece was based on the exploration of the evolution of the sound produced initially by the acoustic instruments and then interpreted by the computer. Why "Echoes"? / As a sonic phenomenon the echo has several fairly distinct dimensions. These are commonly understood to include the following: the repetition of a sound by reflection of sound waves from a surface; any repetition or imitation of words, style or ideas; the sympathetic sound response; and, in music, a soft repetition of a phrase. Note that these standard definitions include the figurative dimensions, as in the 'imitation of style or ideas.' This is no coincidence, since I am very much intrigued by the idea of a computer first imitating the actual instrument and then expanding that instrument's possibilities far beyond its timbre.

The Crying Wave is a twenty minute music composition for an amplified ensemble of fifteen instruments combined with a prerecorded electroacoustic audio component and live signal processing. The composition explores the use of fundamental electroacoustic music techniques such as additive, subtractive, and granular synthesis as models for the creation and manipulation of materials and structure in both the instrumental and electroacoustic aspects of the work. Two series of harmonies underlie the piece and serve as both harmonic and melodic resources. Procedures including additive/subtractive durations, palindrome and canon, the Fibonacci series, and antiphonal alternation of instrumental groups are used throughout the composition to provide structural coherence. The MIDI data processing software Max is employed to control a number of aspects of the work during performance, including playback of prerecorded electroacoustic audio segments on compact disc, changes of effects algorithms for digital signal processing modules, and the generation of a click track for synchronization. The following dissertation presents an analysis of the work in terms of the aforementioned concepts and techniques.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Florida, 2006. / Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains 168 pages. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references.