This paper delineates meaningful relationships of passions, emotions, feelings, affections, nuances and aural perceptions of expressions and utterances, for understanding human artistic possibilities historically and contemporarily in the fraternal arts of music and poetry, with reference to sounds, silences, sequences, rhythms, rhymes, repetitions, retards, accelerations, tempos, harmonies, melodies, forms, etc., in four poetic and three musical compositions uniquely created by its author.

I study certain passages of music for which I struggle to perceive a clear rhythm. I attribute this difficulty to an inability to infer or impose a beat. I show how, by listening to these “vague” rhythms repeatedly, I have been able to use movement to impose my own beat onto the auditory surface, and, by doing so, hear the rhythm with more clarity. What’s more, I show how I have been able to impose different beats on different listening occasions, and, as a result, hear different rhythms. I share my experience by presenting videos in which I move to the same music in different ways, priming the listener to have different rhythmic experiences depending on which video is being viewed. I discuss the techniques used to create these effects, as well as the features of the acoustic signal which make this kind of manipulation possible. In light of these discussions, and in dialogue with the work of other theorists, I examine certain issues of music cognition and music aesthetics, including the issue of musical “complexity”. I finish by considering whether the experience of rhythm could be manipulated to an even greater degree, and, to that end, present the “even-note illusion”, which uses a click-track to remove the lilt from a non-periodic stimulus.

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Wong, Helen Kin Hoi. / "December 2009." / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-108). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgements --- p.iii / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 1. --- Luther´ةs Ideas about Music: A Historical Precursor to Musica Poetica --- p.7 / Luther´ةs Educational Background --- p.7 / Luther´ةs Aesthetic --- p.11 / The Greek Doctrine of Ethos --- p.12 / Biblical Reference to Music --- p.13 / Luther´ةs Parting with the Church Fathers --- p.15 / The Place of Music within Luther´ةs Theology --- p.16 / The Function of Music within the Lutheran Theology --- p.17 / Chorales --- p.19 / The Use of Polyphonic Music in the Lutheran Liturgy --- p.21 / Luther´ةs Views on the Importance of Music in Education --- p.23 / Chapter 2. --- The Rise of Musica Poetica in Sixteenth-Century Lutheran Germany --- p.25 / Definition of Musica Poetica --- p.33 / "Heinrich Faber: De Musica Poetica, 1548" --- p.38 / "Gallus Dressier: Praecepta Musica Poeticae, 1563" --- p.39 / "Seth Calvisius: Melopoiia Sive Melodiae Condendae Ratio, Quam Vulgo Musicam Poeticam Vocant (Erfurt, 1592)" --- p.41 / "Joachim Burmeister: Hypomnematum Musicae Poeticae, 1599" --- p.42 / Chapter 3. --- Musica Poetica in the Lutheran Latin School: Rhetorically Inspired Compositional Instruction --- p.46 / Teachers of Musica Poetica --- p.46 / Students of Musica Poetica --- p.49 / The Pedagogical Method of Musica Poetica: / Praeceptum-Exemplum-Imitatio --- p.54 / Praceptum --- p.56 / Exemplum --- p.60 / Imitatio --- p.61 / Chapter 4. --- Conclusion - Understanding Musica Poetica in Sixteenth-Century Lutheran Germany --- p.67 / Religious Functions as Expressive Goals --- p.67 / "From Context to Method, or Vice Versa" --- p.68 / Bibliography --- p.70

This study's thesis is that instances of pastoralism in the works of Frank Bridge from 1914 to 1930 demonstrate a gradual darkening of his pastoral vision, and evince his increasingly complex relationship with the genre of pastoral music that flourished in English music in the early twentieth century (referred to in this study as 'the English pastoral tradition'). The study traces the change from the sensual and romantic idyll of Summer (1914-15), through progressively more ambiguous and darker manifestations of pastoral, and eventually to a bleak anti-pastoral vision in Oration (1930). This trend reflects Bridge's increasingly ambivalent relationship with the English musical establishment, his own radical change of musical language during these years, and significant changes in his personal circumstances. It also reflects the decline of romanticism and the rise of modernism in English music, a paradigm-shift that happened around the time of World War I, considerably later than in the music, literature and visual art of continental Europe. Chapters 1 to 3 examine the English pastoral tradition from three different contexts. Chapter 1 suggests that the English pastoral tradition may be understood as a genre, and describes a number of 'family resemblances' that run through and characterise it. Second, the English pastoral tradition is placed in the context of pastoral art from Classical times to the twentieth century, with a focus on pastoral in English literature. Finally, chapter 3 examines the social and cultural context of the English pastoral tradition and explores resonances between English society in the early twentieth century and the meaningstructures that underpin pastoral. The remaining chapters comprise a series of analytical discussions of six of Frank Bridge's works: Summer (1914-5), the first of the Two Poems (1915), Enter Spring (1926-7), There is a willow grows aslant a brook (1927), Rhapsody-Trio (1928) and Oration (1930). While a variety of analytical techniques are employed, the approach is broadly semiotic and focussed on musical meaning. Each analysis traces the relationships between signifying structures in the works and various musical and non-musical strands of the contextualising cultural discourse. As a result the works become the starting points for relatively wide-ranging discussions in which pastoralism in the music of Frank Bridge is understood as a site at which ideas of English nationalism and international modernism engaged with one another. Frank Bridge's place in this discourse, as revealed in the analyses of his works, becomes increasingly ambivalent and modernist.

This dissertation uses Béla Bartók's 1943 Concerto for Orchestra as a focal point for investigating conceptual models of music based on early twentieth-century notions of organicism. In particular, this project brings together two traditions--one structural, one narrative--in an attempt to integrate motivic allusion and programmatic discourse, and places this piece within a metadiscourse of musical 'Fate' stories that continually point back to Beethoven. Based largely on the work of George Lakoff, chapter 1 is an overview of modern category theories that rejects objectivism and establishes a philosophical view of meaning that is shaped by our conceptual models. Chapter 2 is a comparison of the writings of Schoenberg and Bartók that invoke organicist values of musical development and variation. Stemming from Bartók's claim that Schoenberg's Op. 11 showed composers the "new ways and means" of modern composition, this chapter speculates on potential influences and involves a reinvestigation of Schoenberg's Op. 11, No. 1. Chapter 3 examines the difference between strict hierarchical models of music and metonymic reductions. Following a critique of Fred Lerdahl's recent attempts to apply his Chomskian prolongational model to post-tonal and atonal music, this chapter traces the integration of motivic parallelism and key architecture in tonal music as a primary organizing feature of musical form, foreshadowing their use by Bartók as replacements for the structural functions of harmony. Chapter 4 investigates the relationship of musical motives and post-Beethovenian narratives of fate/overcoming and fate/death in music by Bizet, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, and Richard Strauss, providing a context for Bartók's motivic and programmatic allusion to--and transformation of--that very tradition. Chapter 5 draws the material from the previous chapters together in a structural-programmatic reading of the Concerto for Orchestra that situates it as a transformation of the evolving traditions that inform it. / text

Thesis (M.C.A.-Res.)--University of Wollongong, 2007. / Typescript. Includes 2 computer discs in front pocket of v. 2. Vol. 2 entitled: Creative component. Includes bibliographical references.

The specific problem prompting this investigation is the creation of a method of music criticism. The purposes for the investigation are three in number. First and foremost, the purpose of the investigation is to develop an unrestricted method of music criticism. The development of such a method fulfills the second reason for the investigation. Although Mortimer Adler and the Paideia Group have clearly stated the classes and pedagogy to be utilized in a Paideia curriculum, they have done little to suggest specific class content. This study resolves the content problem for one class. It is recommended that the music masterworks class be treated as a course in music criticism. Through such treatment of the class, students will meet the goals of the Paideia Group and develop the tools for societal reconstruction. Finally, the goal of establishing a method of music criticism harmonious with the educational philosophy of reconstructionism is the end to the previous two "means" purposes.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this project, contextual readings of four works by Arnold van Wyk are developed. They are the Symphony No. 1 in A Minor, the First String Quartet, the Duo Concertante and the Missa in illo tempore. These readings are grounded in richly detailed descriptions of the compositional processes, drawing on material such as sketches, autographs, diaries, correspondence and reception documents, as well as in structural analyses of Van Wyk’s music and of certain peer compositions. Each reading is set in a separate theoretical frame, resulting in a multi-perspectival consideration of Arnold van Wyk’s music that partakes in a range of current disciplinary discourses. The First Symphony is discussed in the discursive context of English Sibelianism, and Arnold van Wyk’s dialogue with Sibelius’s symphonic works is investigated through comparisons of Van Wyk’s and Sibelius’s applications of two-dimensional sonata form and tragic reversed sonata form. The reading so developed sheds new musical light on the difficulties of Van Wyk’s position as a colonial composer residing in the centre of a crumbling Empire. The compositional process of Van Wyk’s First String Quartet is described in juxtaposition with the compositional process of Bartók’s Sixth String Quartet, and the similarities and differences of the two narratives and the two compositions highlight a second aspect of Van Wyk’s colonial identity, namely the ambiguity of his return to South Africa from England, neither of which place could signify “home”. The reading of the Duo Concertante focuses on the Elegia from that work, interpreting the piece as part of a network of intertextual connections, including Van Wyk’s model for this piece, Martin Peerson’s (1580-1650) The Fall of the Leafe, Gerald Finzi’s Elegy for Orchestra Op. 20, entitled The Fall of the Leaf, as well as Van Wyk’s own theme for the Rondo of the Duo, to which he made various musical references in the Elegia which are associated with the concept of “prophecy”. This intertextual reading considers Van Wyk’s continuing problematic identification with the English musical culture and tradition, compounded by his uncomfortable place in the stifling cultural establishment of apartheid South Africa. Van Wyk’s Missa in illo tempore is interpreted in a post-apartheid context. The work purports to react to the conditions in London in 1945 at the end of the Second World War (when Van Wyk first started to work on it) as well as the conditions in apartheid South Africa in 1977-1979 (when he completed the work as a commission for the Stellenbosch Tercentenary Festival). The reading considers the ethics of art that intends to respond to situations of suffering, drawing on post-Holocaust art scholarship as a theoretical frame. In developing interpretations of compositions that have never been studied in such detail or with such theoretical rigour before, the thesis makes a significant contribution to Arnold van Wyk studies, and in its application of a range of methodological tools in order to construct poetic hermeneutic readings that are grounded in musical and contextual materials, it also represents a meaningful methodological innovation. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie projek word kontekstuele lesings van vier werke deur Arnold van Wyk ontwikkel. Hulle is die Simfonie Nr. 1 in A Mineur, die Eerste Strykkwartet, die Duo Concertante en die Missa in illo tempore. Hierdie lesings is gegrond in ryk-gedetailleerde beskrywings van die komposisieproses, waarby materiaal soos sketse, outograwe, dagboeke, korrespondensie en resepsiedokumente gebruik word, asook in strukturele analises van Van Wyk se musiek en van sekere eweknie-komposisies. Elke lesing word in ʼn afsonderlike teoretiese raamwerk gestel, sodat ʼn veelperspektiewelike oorweging van Arnold van Wyk se musiek resulteer wat deelneem aan ʼn verskeidenheid hedendaagse dissiplinêre diskoerse. Die Eerste Simfonie word bespreek in die diskursiewe konteks van Sibelianisme in Engeland, en Arnold van Wyk se dialoog met Sibelius se simfoniese werke word ondersoek deur vergelykings van Van Wyk en Sibelius se toepassings van twee-dimensionele sonatevorm en tragies-omgekeerde sonatevorm. Die lesing wat sodoende ontwikkel word, werp nuwe musikale lig op die moeilikhede van Van Wyk se posisie as koloniale komponis woonagtig in die sentrum van ʼn verkrummelende Ryk. Die komposisieproses van Van Wyk se Eerste Strykkwartet word beskryf in jukstaposisie met die komposisieproses van Bartók se Sesde Strykkwartet, en die ooreenkomste en verskille van die twee narratiewe en die twee komposisies belig ʼn tweede aspek van Van Wyk se koloniale identiteit, naamlik die dubbelsinnigheid van sy terugkeer na Suid-Afrika uit Engeland, twee plekke waarvan geeneen die betekenis van sy “tuiste” kon dra nie. Die lesing van die Duo Concertante fokus op die Elegia uit daardie werk, en dit interpreteer die stuk as deel van ʼn netwerk van intertekstuele verbindings, insluitende Van Wyk se model vir hierdie stuk, Martin Peerson (1580-1650) se The Fall of the Leafe, Gerald Finzi se Elegie vir Orkes Op. 20, getiteld The Fall of the Leaf, asook Van Wyk se eie tema vir die Rondo van die Duo, waarna hy verskeie musikale verwysings in die Elegia gemaak het wat geassosieer word met die konsep van “profesie”. Hierdie intertekstuele lesing beskou Van Wyk se aangaande problematiese identifisering met Engelse musiekkultuur en –tradisie, vererger deur sy ongemaklike plek in die verstikkende kulturele establishment van apartheid Suid-Afrika. Van Wyk se Missa in illo tempore word in ʼn post-apartheid konteks geïnterpreteer. Die werk stel sigself voor as reaksie op die toestande in Londen in 1945 teen die einde van die Tweede Wêreldoorlog (toe Van Wyk die eerste keer daaraan begin werk het) asook die toestande in apartheid Suid-Afrika in 1977-1979 (toe hy die werk voltooi het as ʼn opdrag vir die Stellenbosch Drie-Eeue Fees). Die lesing oorweeg die etiek van kuns wat ten doel het om te reageer op situasies van lyding en gebruik post-Holocaust kunsstudies as teoretiese raam. In sy ontwikkeling van interpretasies van komposisies wat nog nooit in soveel besonderhede of só teoreties nougeset bestudeer is nie, maak die tesis ʼn beduidende bydrae tot Arnold van Wyk studies, en in sy toepassing van ʼn verskeidenheid metodologiese hulpmiddels om poëtiese hermeneutiese lesings te konstrueer wat gegrond is in musikale en kontekstuele materiale, verteenwoordig dit ook ʼn betekenisvolle metodologiese vernuwing.

Justifications for music education have been studied only by examining historical trends in statements of aesthetic versus utilitarian values, and not from the perspective of evaluating the justifications' usefulness. A number of prominent writers in the music education field, while supporting aesthetic values as important for music education, have expressed doubts about the effectiveness of aesthetic justifications when used for convincing outsiders of the importance of music in the public school curriculum. These doubts, along with a preponderance of aesthetic justifications in the recent music education literature, led to the present study, which conducted a theoretical examination of the usefulness of aesthetic justifications for music education. The study addressed three research problems, namely: (1) the attitudes of the clientele groups of the public schools in terms of their values toward music as a subject in the schools; (2) the attitudes of the groups within the music education profession in terms of their values for music in the public schools and for the profession itself; and 3) the likelihood that justifications based upon "aesthetics" as a system of values would be accepted by the groups both inside arid outside the music education profession. A philosophical-sociological perspective was chosen for the theoretical analysis because the problems of the study concern the manner in which values are accepted or rejected by groups of people. The particular sociological theory chosen combined the symbolic interaction theory of George Herbert Mead and the sociology of knowledge as described by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann. Conclusions: Problems arise in justifying music education using aesthetic theory because (1) the symbolic universe of aesthetic theory is complex and is not well-understood by music educators or the clientele of the public schools; and (2) aesthetic theory represents gestures of a reference group with norms and values not usually found in the music educator or clientele groups.