This study investigates the perceptions of South African practitioners of Western European Art Music (WEAM), specifically as they relate to the value of WEAM in contemporary South African society. In exploring some of the connections between musical identity and national identity, it sets out to discover what value WEAM holds for a certain group of student pianists. Qualitative empirical data was collected in the form of in-depth, semi-structured interviews and questionnaire responses, and the findings point to numerous, nuanced expressions of self and varied intersections of the nation with musical identity in the life of the individual. Further, WEAM appears to represent a crucial point of identification for these individuals, in each case generating positive affirmations of the self.

This paper provides a system that helps diagnose and address the specific challenge to cellists of intonation in any passage. Learning to play consistently in tune is essential for every cellist. In the over three hundred years of cello history, teachers have tried approaching the topic from a variety of perspectives. While each technique is useful in its own right, there is scant attention to how they work together. Viewing intonation through its component sub-skills is the first step toward integrating existing exercises and paving the way for further advances in pedagogy. The following paper categorizes training techniques according to the sub-skills of playing consistently in tune. This approach makes the learning and teaching of intonation manageable and approachable to cellists at all levels. What we do before the note, How we play the note, What we do after the note, and Putting it all together are the four broad categories of sub-skills identified. Within each of these sections, relevant exercises are presented and their efficacy explained. Examples are drawn from a wide range of sources including music education, my own educational experiences, music psychology, the Alexander Technique, cello pedagogy, professional cello teachers’ responses to a questionnaire, physiology, and neuroscience. By integrating published research in these areas, this paper provides a more comprehensive understanding of intonation. Instead of a wealth of techniques each claiming to resolve the challenge of playing in tune, the introduction of sub-skills allows for a methodological approach to intonation pedagogy.

The range and use of the tenor voice in classical music has long been established since the late 19th century. It is widely accepted among pedagogues that the range is C3-C5 (with obvious exceptions depending on the fach). However, with the advent and development of the American Musical as a genre since the early 20th century, the ‘tenor’ has taken on an entirely new direction and range altogether. Several well-known sources have stated that the ‘Broadway tenor’ has a range of A2-A4. This is (as it widely accepted in the classical profession) the range of a baritone. The catalyst of these changes include vaudeville, composers, social trends, and probably most important, the invention and proliferation of the microphone. This study will analyze a cross section of repertoire in order to demonstrate this downward shift of vocal range, and demonstrate some of the main reasons why this shift occurred.

Dans ce travail, nous avons exploré certains courants qui font du choro une pratique musicale collective vivante et en expansion dans différentes villes du monde. Nous nous intéressons à la continuité des rencontres entre chorões qui, depuis les dernières décennies du XIXe siècle, cultivent cette pratique musicale en groupe, à la fois ludique, créative et collaborative, dont le processus continu d’enseignement & apprentissage se déroule pendant la réalisation même dujeu. Nous observons des chemins parcourus par ces musiciens qui expérimentent la puissance créatrice et libératrice de l’art en pleine époque de la reproductibilité technique au cœur de sociétés spectaclistes. À titre d’exemple, nous avons transcrit quatre morceaux qui représentent le corpus enregistré par le musicien Pixinguinha et les Batutas, dans lesquellesnous pouvons vérifier clairement certains des codes de jeu traditionnels encore vivants dans la musique de chorões contemporains : un jeu de ritournelles, car c’est un jeu libre et transformant. Nous avons vu que sa qualité et sa durée n’existent que dans l’action réelle de personnes, dans le récit et l’improvisation, dans le bien-être hédoniste, dans la création qui se renouvelle une génération après l’autre, toujours vivante dans la puissance de la roda musicale collaborative et amicale. / The goal of the research work hearby presented was to explore the choro as an ensemble musical practice established all over the world, gathering chorões since the last decades of the nineteenth century, emphasizing the interaction and collaborative ambience in a continuous teaching & learning process, caracteristic of its tradition. In contrast with nowadays’tendencies, which establish almost mechanical reproductions, individual paths and experiences were examined, accessing musicians’ artistic, creative and liberating power. In order to illustrate these features, music recorded by Pixinguinha and the Batutas was transcribed, where some of the traditional performance codes can be verified, which are still cultivated by living chorões, particularly the use of ritornelli as a free and life-changing way of playing. Quality and timing of execution have proven to be actually possible only in realtime performance where people engage in a stream of narration, improvisation and overall hedonist pleasure, fruit of this creative activity which has been passed on by generations, dueto the invaluable collaborative and friendly musical interaction it promotes.

‘The young Irish person has the worst of all European musical “worlds”’. This seminal statement was discovered to be symptomatic of a general malaise. The Music Education National Debate (MEND 1994-1996) was a three-phase response to Deaf Ears?, the report from which the above statement was taken. The eventual aim was to set up a forum for music education which would systematically address the difficulties in Ireland. The scope of MEND was, thus, general, ab initio. Its progress was, however, inhibited by a specific concern, which was fundamental to the whole process of reform. It soon became apparent that consensus on a philosophy of music education to inform evolving strategies would be a sine qua non. Coincidentally, this was a time of debacle in the global field, instanced by the publication of a ‘new’ philosophy of music education (David Elliott’s Music Matters [1995]) which threw down the gauntlet to the undisputed classic - Reimer’s A Philosophy of Music Education [1970/1989]. This challenge amounted to a veritable counterposition and demanded a separate, albeit derivative, study before the MEND Report could be completed. This study was to become the substance of this thesis. The aim of this work is to analyse these polar philosophies with a view to reconciling them. Beginning with some commonly held values about music education, the relevance of American music education practice to a wide range of global systems is suggested. The dominance of a western art (music) mentality is called into question by giving prominence to multiculturalism and popular music. Music Education as Aesthetic Education (Reimer) is compared with the praxial approach (Elliott). They yielded to rationalization, albeit posing residual questions of balance, relevance, and time constraints within the curriculum. The indispensability of performance and listening as a complementary pair is re-established. The ascendancy of artistic criteria in defining the music programme is affirmed. Finally the failure of the universal philosophy hypothesis is redeemed by sketching the compromises necessary to convert it to the adaptability of the contextual idea, leading the study to a conclusion of general, rather than specific, application. Note from the UPeTD Team: The final MEND (The Music Education National Debate) report can be obtained from the Academic Information Service, University of Pretoria, email: upetd@up.ac.za. The report is available as an Adobe Acrobat .pdf document. There are hyperlinks embedded within the document to facilitate internal navigation. The Appendix at the end (which is an index of the MEND debates and presentations) also contains hyperlinks. / Thesis (DMus)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Music / unrestricted

Judith Butler’s writings on gender ostensibly changed the way gender is considered with regard to an individual’s subjectivity. Her writings expressed a discursive parameter that changed the theoretical standpoint of gender from that of performance, to that of performativity. In short, the notion of gender became understood as a power mechanism operating within society that compels individuals along the heteronormal binary tracts of male or female, man or woman. Within the strata of popular culture, this binarism is seemingly ritualized and repeated, incessantly. This treatise examines how rock music, as a popular and widespread mode of popular music, exemplifies gender binarism through a notable ndrocentrism. The research will examine how gender performativity operates within the taxonomy of rock music, and how the message communicated by rock music becomes translated into a listener’s subjectivity.

Mental practice is a strategy that can be used to acquire the necessary skills for piano and other music performance. This type of practice strategy involves the use of imagery as opposed to the motor skills used in physical practice. In a preliminary review of piano pedagogy material and recent scientific literature, the benefits of mental practice were established. However, this review also revealed a lack of clarity in the use of terminology which sometimes interfered with readability. In order to better understand this problem of terminology, 33 current studies on mental practice in music performance were collected and examined for both the quantity and quality of term usage. Terms were identified and recorded using existing terminology and classification methods. Terminological records were created for each term appearing more than twice in the literature. In total, 83 records were created. Issues related to frequency of use (repetition), use of multiple terms (synonymy), lack of term definitions, and the need for clarity in term usage (semantic vagueness and ambiguity) were then analyzed using these records. This term analysis process resulted in the creation of a glossary and taxonomy. The glossary of 21 terms and corresponding hierarchical taxonomy (tree diagram) are proposed as an aid to help clarify the terminology of mental practice in music performance. Given the value of mental practice in learning to play music it is important to develop and maintain terminology that will facilitate both the understanding of existing literature and the design of future studies.

iGrooving is a generative music mobile application specifically designed for runners. The application’s foundation is a step-counter that is programmed using the iPhone’s built-in accelerometer. The runner’s steps generate the tempo of the performance by mapping each step to trigger a kick-drum sound file. Additionally, different sound files are triggered at specific step counts to generate the musical performance, allowing the runner a level of compositional autonomy. The sonic elements are chosen to promote a meditative aspect of running. iGrooving is conceived as a biofeedback-stimulated musical instrument and an environment for creating generative music processes with everyday technologies, inspiring us to rethink our everyday notions of musical performance as a shared experience. Isolation, dynamic changes, and music generation are detailed to show how iGrooving facilitates novel methods for music composition, performance and audience participation.

A ideia de se permitir que diversos músicos possam interagir remotamente utilizando-se de redes de computadores não é nova, mas nunca se popularizou. O que antes era limitado tecnologicamente devido às condições disponibilizadas por conexões de internet pela linha telefônica, hoje apresenta-se muito mais viável tecnicamente com a massicação da internet de banda larga, seja por cabo ou por tecnologias DSL. Apesar disso, encontrar um ambiente virtual em que a performance musical pareça completamente natural para o músico é uma das maiores diculdades nesta área. Embora a latência obtida na conexão entre computadores esteja vinculada principalmente à distância entre os usuários e à qualidade do serviço oferecido pelos provedores de internet, outros aspectos, como a largura de banda, podem ser controlados pelo software. Para lidar com as limitações de largura de banda no acesso à internet disponíveis comercialmente, um método de compactação de áudio eciente e que alie baixa latência algorítmica com alta qualidade sonora é imprescindível. Para evitar que atrasos muito grandes na transmissão do áudio impossibilitem uma interação musical entre os participantes, uma técnica em que a própria resposta sonora do instrumento seja atrasada localmente torna-se uma alternativa válida na busca de um ambiente para performances musicais via rede. Esta dissertação busca apresentar uma alternativa exível e de fácil utilização para que a realização de performances musicais distribuídas por usuários caseiros seja possível, mesmo que estes não tenham acesso a redes dedicadas para tal nalidade. / The idea of allowing several musicians to interact remotely using computer networks is not new but it never became popular. What was once technologically limited because of the conditions available through dial up internet connections is now much more technically feasible with the massication of the broadband internet, whether by cable or by DSL technologies. In spite of that, nding a place where the music performance feels completely natural to the musicians is still one of the biggest challenges in this area. Even though the latency obtained in the connection between computers is mainly linked to the distance between users and to the quality of the service oered by internet providers, others aspects, like the network bandwidth, can be controlled by software. To deal with the limitations on the internet bandwidth commercially available, an ecient audio coding method that has both low algorithmic latency and high sound quality becomes essential. To avoid letting large audio transmission delays make it impossible for players to have a real musical interaction, a technique where the musical instruments own feedback is locally delayed represents a viable alternative in search of a favorable environment for network music performances. This project aims to oer a exible and easy-to-use alternative so that it is possible for home users to be part of network music performances even if they do not have access to networks dedicated to this end.

Arthur Bliss’s Sonata for Viola and Piano stands as a significant achievement in early twentieth-century chamber music for viola and is the result of a fruitful collaboration between composer and virtuoso performer. Multiple scholars recognize the sonata as one of Bliss’s finest works. Despite these accolades, the work has failed to attract sustained scholarly investigation. This document provides performers with the necessary tools for a thorough and contextualized presentation of the work. The main body of this study details the technical aspects of performing the sonata: viola technique, expressive challenges, and ensemble concerns. Preceding this, I cover the relevant biographical details from Bliss’s life, examine the roots of his chamber music writing for viola by analyzing two early works, and investigate the collaboration between Lionel Tertis and Bliss in creating this work.