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Many scholars have discussed Austrian music theorist Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935). While discourse has mainly focused on Schenkerian analysis, recent scholarship has started to examine the role of Schenker as a person (e.g., Schenker as a Jewish individual, Schenker as a racist, etc.), and how these identities influenced his views on music. Yet, within these new explorations and discussions, the aspect of disability and Schenker as an individual with a disability have not been as seriously examined. After examining his biography through the lens of disability in the introduction (Chapter 1), this thesis discusses disability's influence on Schenker through two additional chapters. The second chapter explores disability within the social context of fin-de-siècle Vienna and attempts to deduce, from the opinions of Schenker’s contemporaries, what Schenker's own views on disability might have been. The third chapter then demonstrates, through statistical analyses, that disability affected the everyday mechanics of writing for Schenker and how this in turn influenced his style of prose. The thesis concludes (Chapter 4) that there was a correlation between Schenker’s disability and the different writing styles observed in his earlier work and his later, post-disability work. By shedding light on Schenker’s disability, the thesis aims to provide a platform for future discussion on this subject, either in the field of musicology, music theory, or disability studies.

Bibliography: leaves 206-220.

This work presents a new approach to human-swarm interactions, a discipline which addresses the problem of how a human operator can influence the behavior of large groups of robots, providing high-level information understandable by the team. While there exist potential advantages of introducing a human in the control loop of a robot swarm, how the human must be incorporated is not a simple problem. For the intervention of a human operator to be favorable to the performance of the team, the means and form of the information between the human and the robot swarm must be adequately defined: we need to design which device will be provided to the operator to interact with the swarm and how the information will be shaped so that both the human and the robot team understand it. Coordination of multi-robot systems involves the generation of involved motion patterns for the individual agents that result in an overall organized movement. We introduce in this thesis a new human-swarm interaction modality based on music theory, a discipline studied for centuries and capable of creating complex sound structures. In particular, we have focused on understanding how we can apply rules and structures from music theory to an operator's input so that each command both specifies the goal location to be visited and the geometry to be adopted by the swarm. We interpret the sequence of locations to be visited by the swarm as a musical melody, identifying each note with a certain location in the robots' workspace. Once the objective path is defined in the form of a melody, we can apply rules from harmony, a discipline of music theory, to create chords that harmonize the input melody. The interest in using these chords lies fundamentally in that they are structured combinations of pitches, heard simultaneously. These inherent structures will be used to determine the geometry that should be displayed by the team. The developed multi-robot control is applied to a team of differential drive mobile robots through an electronic piano.

The central claims of this study are that Maria Schneider relies on normative rhythmic structures from the jazz tradition, and that her expressive deviations from those norms are comprehensible to experienced listeners in real time. The study proposes a non-recursive model of hypermeter wherein the measure is formed through entrainment, the four-bar sub-unit is formed through recognizable qualia at the measure level, and the eight-bar level is formed through the expectation for sub-units to group into pairs. I introduce the “structural phrase” as a unit that, while normatively hypermetrical, is distinct from the issue of hypermeter in its formal aspects and its ability to diverge from hypermetrical organization. Structural phrases mediate our sense of place in the music, and they most often begin with an audibly clear attentional peak that I call the “structural phrase onset.” I posit that experienced listeners understand how structural phrases operate in Schneider’s compositional style through awareness of the relative frequency of each structural phrase type. Based on data gathered from a corpus of twenty-four pieces, comprised of 1,105 structural phrases, I find that 61% of Schneider’s structural phrases are normative. Further, the influence of the normative structural phrase supersedes its literal appearance on the surface of an acoustic signal, serving as the conceptual background for nine dialogic deviations: 31% of structural phrases are deviational yet operate in direct dialogue with the norm. Only three deviation types, accounting for 8% of structural phrases, are entirely independent of the normative organization. Structural phrases function as shallow-level formal units that group into deeper levels. This study categorizes Schneider’s formal approach as a hybrid between two practices: (1) traditional big band arranging, in its emphasis on improvised solos and idiosyncratic features such as the “ensemble feature” section; and (2) sonata form, in its motivic-thematic emphasis, freely unfolding sectional organization, and broadly three-part design. I refer to the three parts at the deepest structural level as “three-Spaces,” including Exposition, Solo, and Recapitulation Spaces. These Spaces are comprised of seven types of sections at a lower structural level: introduction, expositional, transition, soloistic, ensemble feature, recapitulative, and coda sections. Three “formal division criteria” specify how these sections audibly signal divisions between the deeper-level Spaces. An in-depth analysis of Hang Gliding explores how rhythm at multiple structural levels interacts with other parameters such as pitch, orchestration, and dynamics, to shape a composition’s dramatic arc.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Frederick Burrack / Phillip Payne / The purpose of this study was to discover whether differences exist in rhythm pattern achievement of the three rhythm systems Takadimi, 1 e & a, and 1 ta te ta in introductory level aural skills classrooms. Participants (N = 27) were first-level aural skills students in three Midwest colleges. Data were collected by implementing a demographics questionnaire to obtain a descriptive profile of the participants, Gordon’s (1989) Advanced Measures of Music Audiation (AMMA) test to obtain the music aptitude level of the participants, and a researcher-designed pretest and posttest. A significant difference was unable to be determined of rhythm pattern achievement between the three systems. However, results revealed improvement of rhythm reading between the pretest and posttest for all rhythm systems. A significant difference was unable to be determined in achievement between students with low and high aptitude following instruction in a particular rhythm system. The improvements in rhythm reading suggest that progress and achievement can be independent of using any of the three rhythm systems, but further investigation with a larger sample is recommended.

The purpose of this experiment is therefore (1) to design a test to measure the skill of a heterogeneous group of college music students and (2) to administer and evaluate an aural training program which could be used to develop efficiently aural intelligence. The students used in this experiment were intentionally chosen with varying abilities in order to permit comparisons. A careful record was kept of their ages, musical experiences, major instruments (voice, piano, violin, and other orchestral instruments), amount of training, skill and technique, and theory grades.

The purpose of the following study is to make a stylistic analysis, on the basis of form, harmony, melody, and rhythm, of the Concerto For Two Pianos and Orchestra by Harl McDonald, a twentieth-century American composer.

Due to technological advancements, the role of the musician has changed dramatically in the 20th and 21st centuries. For the composer or songwriter especially, it is becoming increasingly expected for them to have some familiarity with music production and engineering, so that they are able to provide a finished product to employers, clients, or listeners. One goal of a successful production or engineered recording is to most effectively portray the recorded material. Music theory, and specifically analysis, has the ability to reveal important or expressive characteristics in a musical work. The relationship between musical analysis and production is explored to discover how music analysis can provide a more effective and informed musical production or recording and how a consideration of music production elements, notably timbre and instrumentation, can help to better inform a musical analysis. Two supplemental MP3 files are included with this thesis to demonstrate proposed mixing guidelines derived from the analysis.