<p> The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore elementary music teacher perspectives of subdivision and its instructional value in the general music classroom. This study aims to answer the questions: (a) How does the perceived definition of subdivision influence instruction? (b) How do elementary music teachers relate subdivision to other concepts? (e) How does training and professional development influence teacher perception? Elementary general music teachers (<i>N</i>=26) from an inner-city Title 1 school district in Central Texas participated in a descriptive survey. Results indicated that while participants explained that important relationship between subdivision and other concepts and marked it as extremely significant (88%), they ranked it seventh out of eight and allotted less than five minutes for instruction during lessons. In addition, the greatest influence on teacher perception of subdivision was the amount of training in Dalcroze Eurhythmics, Kod&aacute;ly and Orff Schulwerk, While Kod&aacute;ly teachers primarily related subdivision to rhythm, and thought that it was too complicated for young students, Orff and Dalcroze teachers were more likely to teach it in every concept. This study along with previously conducted studies suggest that elementary music teachers believe that subdivision aids in student learning. However, elementary music teachers appear to be hesitant to utilize subdivision during instruction.</p>

<p> This project report serves as a resource to provide composers with the tools to tackle the complexities of writing for the harp. This will be achieved by considering the mechanical aspects of the harp, as well as analyze the strategies celebrated composers Maurice Ravel, Henriette Reni&eacute;, and Carlos Salz&eacute;do employ in their own compositions to utilize the intricacies of the instrument to their advantage. Pieces discussed include: Ravel's <i>Introduction et Allegro,</i> Reni&eacute;'s <i> Pi&egrave;ce Symphonique,</i> Salz&eacute;do's <i>Five Poetic Studies for Harp Alone</i> and his arrangement of Claude Debussy's <i>Children's Corner Suite.</i> A list of reference and instructional books will be included in the appendix for further study.</p>

<p> Studying the choral works of the great composers of the past is always a worthy endeavor. For those aspiring to create an excellent high school choral program, it is critical to a student's musical foundation and heritage. Choral educators who teach high school are often bombarded with the most recently published new choral works, when they have a trove of excellent pieces right at their fingertips through websites like the Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL), all available at no cost. This project will explore the pedagogical reasons why this canon of public domain choral music should be taught at the high school level. A thorough guide to CPDL and an anthology of 200 works available on CPDL will provide the conductor with resources for programming this music.</p><p> Though choral music in the public domain is free to all, publishers still publish this music and adhere copyright claims. This can create mistrust of legitimate editions on CPDL; why are they available at no cost when publishers are claiming copyright on similar editions? These issues will be thoroughly discussed in this project.</p><p> For any given work on CPDL, there may be multiple editions available on the site. Choosing the right edition requires knowledge about basic editorial principles, especially for works written during the Renaissance period. A detailed discussion of these principles will provide the conductor with the tools needed to choose the best edition for his or her ensemble.</p>

<p> The purpose of this paper is to provide the conductor with a practical approach to James B. Sinclair's concert band arrangement of <i>"Country Band" March</i> by Charles Ives. Ives's collage style of composition presents many ensemble challenges, the largest of these being the preservation of textural clarity. In effort to maintain clarity in performance, the project report discusses the fundamental components of clarity, being: tempo and pulse, style and articulation, and balance and blend, as related to the piece. Interviews with conductors and Ives scholars, James B. Sinclair and Jonathan Elkus, along with the author's personal experience conducting the work, inform solutions for typical performance issues. Research also provides a proper framework for interpretation.</p>

<p> The purpose of this dissertation was to compile a list of resources to aid singers in their pursuit toward effective practicing. A survey was given to one hundred anonymous participants: fifty vocal students and fifty vocal teachers. The data collected from this survey showed that vocal students would like more resources available to aid in practicing more effectively. Additionally, the study reveals that many of the vocalise books that are in the vocal repertoire have fallen from tradition for reasons unknown, while one composer's vocalise book, Nicola Vaccai's, still remains in the teacher and student repertoire. </p><p> This study provides resources culled from journals, text books, and musical scores. Also provided is a library of vocalises, which are divided into categories on specific vocal matters. The vocalises are categorized alphabetically, by both the category and composer. The final chapter shows the results of the surveys.</p>

<p> This project report will provide a description and analysis of the original musical score, as composed and arranged by the author, for the short animated film <i>Ma&lstrok;y Tre&cedil;bacz,</i> which was produced in collaboration with the film's director, Monica Kozlowski. It will detail the process of the music's composition, including those decisions which were made whilst scoring the picture, the reasons and justifications for so doing, a scene-by-scene analysis of the film and accompanying music, background information concerning the film's origins and influences (including the historical origins of the narrative), the role of the film's score in communicating the story of the film to the audience, how certain choices in scoring impacted the direction of the film's narrative, and a short discussion of the major themes and musical motifs heard within the score (including its incorporation of the <i>Hejnal mariacki</i>).</p>

<p> Trumpeter Larry Black, now retired from a thirty-three-year career with the Atlanta Symphony, studied with legendary trumpet pedagogue Vincent Cichowicz from 1964 to 1966. During this short time, Cichowicz transformed Black from a non-collegiate student receiving lessons on a trial basis to a young professional with master's degree from Northwestern University, where Cichowicz taught from 1959 to 1998. Because Black has preserved his entire collection of lesson assignments from this period, spanning sixty-three leaves in two separate notepads, it is possible to form an impression of Cichowicz's pedagogical style. Black's data indicates that Cichowicz prioritized sound quality over musical complexity, believed that music of minimum difficulty would yield maximum progress, and stood by these convictions even in the face of time-sensitive issues such as performances or auditions. </p><p> Black's curriculum represents but one example of Cichowicz's methodology. Because Cichowicz himself wrote only generally (and briefly) about his pedagogical philosophies and chose not to outline a curriculum of musical examples in the form of a method book, it would be presumptuous to suppose that a single student's assignments could adequately compensate for this void. Consequently, this research will likely prove particularly useful to other former Cichowicz students who can measure Black's assignments against their own. The trumpet community at large should hope that one day such students might choose to publicize their own curricula, and so enlarge the existing body of data. Only then might a comprehensive view of Cichowicz's teaching, not only in theory but also in detailed practice, begin to emerge.</p>

<p> The art of western choral music has evolved over the past millennia with various traditions, including standing arrangements, having been passed down through the generations. More recently, differing methodologies of seating arrangements for choral singers have led to studies into the processes used by choral conductors to create the ideal choral sound in performance. In the past century, the advancements in mathematics and in technology have led to the development of spectrographic analysis, which allows the human speaking and singing voice to be objectively analyzed.</p><p> This study will use spectrographic analysis to examine the differences between different formations of singers to determine the effect of changing the standing arrangement of choral singers. The singers, in groups of three, are recorded in different configurations of line and triangular formations and evaluated using spectrographic analysis. These analyses include the power spectrum, long-term average spectra, linear predictive coding graph and the vowel formation display. This study shoes that a triangular formation yields some benefits that allow singers to match vowels better in certain situations compared to a linear formation. </p>

<p> This paper analyzes B&eacute;la Bart&oacute;k's <i>For Children </i> as an ideal pedagogical example of introducing contemporary musical concepts to the beginning through intermediate piano students. Contemporary concepts include non-diatonic harmonies, modal tonal centers, surprising harmonic shifts, utilizing the entire range of the piano, and changing meter, including additive meter. This paper also analyzes <i>The Contemporary Child</i>, a set of eleven pieces for the beginner through intermediate pianist. <i> The Contemporary Child</i> uses <i>For Children</i> as its inspiration in finding a way to introduce contemporary musical concepts in a manner that is simultaneously elementary yet engaging.</p>

<p> Although Johannes Brahms is one of the world's best-known composers, with many works in the standard repertoire, the majority of his output for female voices is missing from the performance canon. <i>Drei Geistliche Ch&ouml;re</i>, Opus 37, is one such set of pieces missing that is a rich example of music he wrote early in his career for women's chorus. Many of these works were influenced by the women in his life, from the Hamburg Frauenchor (for whom Opus 37 was composed) to Clara Schumann.</p><p> Due to the historical relevance and educational value, conductors should have the resources to program <i>Drei Geistliche Ch&ouml;re</i> and other music Brahms wrote for women's chorus. This project report gives a brief biographical background of Brahms, a compositional and performance history of _{Drei Geistliche Ch&ouml;re}, issues of performance practices, and a guide for how to plan and complete the rehearsal process.</p>