<p> Piano Etudes of Fr&eacute;d&eacute;ric Chopin (1810&ndash;1849) and Franz Liszt (1811&ndash;1886) remain important concert repertoire and indispensable technical studies for serious pianists to this day. Along with their musical inventiveness, the technical requirement is often novel, with new figurations, extreme range as well as extended passages calling for considerable endurance. </p><p> The element of endurance has not been singled out for examination in the literature. To rectify, this paper takes a closer look at the virtuosic etudes from three collections: Chopin's Etudes Op. 10 and Op. 25, and Liszt's 12 <i>Transcendental Etudes</i> (1852) for an analysis of passages requiring endurance, and introduces the Endurance Rating (E.I.) as a factor of duration and strain. </p><p> It is hoped that the conclusion regarding endurance will elucidate the differences and similarities between etudes of Chopin and Liszt, determine the role of endurance in contributing to technical difficulty, and assist pianists in choosing appropriate works that would reduce the risk of injury from excessive strain.</p><p>

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a historical and musical analysis that illustrates characteristic features of musical compositions from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Twentieth century styles. The structural analysis of the pieces reveal the evolution in the musical expression regarding line, texture, form, and the technical skills employed by the composers through polyphonic, homophonic, and twelve-tone procedures. The works of this recital represent four different styles: The prelude and fugue among the important forms of the Baroque style; the sonata embodying the principles of balance and unity of the Classical style; the etude and waltz as representative of the Romantic style; and the nocturne as an illustration of the transformation of the melody, harmony, and rhythm in the music of the 20thcentury.

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Fingering has been among the most controversial aspects of keyboard instruction, as it is one of the hardest to approach and systematize due to the individuality of the human hand and the multiple fingering combinations that could apply to each musical passage. Keyboard instruction books, since their first appearance in the sixteenth century, have made a continuous and systematic attempt to provide students and teachers with advice and methodologies on fingering. A historical overview of keyboard fingering instruction material of the last five centuries reveals a remarkable diversity, due not only to the various degrees of systematization of the instructional material, but also to the fundamentally different pedagogical methodologies. These differences are associated with the keyboard repertoire, performance practices, and historical and sociological contexts of different eras. Pre-Baroque and Baroque paired keyboard fingering was based on articulation demands of the keyboard repertoire of the time, which was meant to be performed predominantly on organ and harpsichord. The period of Enlightenment initiated a fundamental change in both the level of organization of the keyboard teaching material and the specific fingering instructions. Treatises of that time reflect a transition from the Baroque to the Classical style, instruments and technique. The advantage of giving a pivoting role to the thumb, that became a standard performance practice, changed the philosophy of teaching fingering. Teachers from the first half of the nineteenth century aspired to provide piano students with a technical system that would ensure the utmost finger dexterity. The output of "finger gymnastic" material has trained generations of pianists; however, soon after its conception this material was heavily criticized for its mechanical and anti-artistic character. As a result, the Romantic philosophy of teaching fingering revolved around tone production and special timbral effects. Scientific achievements in the fields of anatomy and physiology were the basis for the bulk of twentieth-century keyboard instruction books. Instead of prescribing fingering formulas and rules, the contemporary pedagogical norm is an awareness of the complexity of the playing apparatus that enables the pianist to make fingering decisions based on individual muscular abilities, tension and relaxation issues, and desired tone colors. / A Treatise submitted to the School of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Music. / Fall Semester, 2004. / October 29, 2004. / Piano Fingering, Piano Instruction, Keyboard History Instruction, Keyboard Instruction, Keyboard Fingering, Fingering, Harpsichord, Harpsichord Fingering / Includes bibliographical references. / Carolyn Ann Bridger, Professor Directing Treatise; Lubomir Georgiev, Outside Committee Member; Thomas Wright, Committee Member; Karyl Louwenaar, Committee Member.

The purpose of present study was to examine the effect of a music therapy songwriting intervention on the identification and utilization of short-term coping strategies by caregivers of loved ones with Alzheimer's disease. Participants were referred by social workers at the Alzheimer's Project of Tallahassee, and then randomly assigned to either a control group or an experimental group. Participants in both groups received individual music therapy sessions. The control group (N=12) received music therapy/counseling sessions, and the experimental group (N=12) received music therapy sessions during which individualized songs were composed and recorded for participants. Participants were pre- and posttested using the Short-Term Coping Strategies Questionnaire. Pre- to posttest data indicated that both groups were able to identify and utilize more coping strategies at the posttest, although participants in the experimental group were able to identify and reported utilizing significantly more coping strategies pre- to posttest. However, when control and experimental group data were compared, there was no significant difference between the two groups' identification and utilization of coping strategies. In addition to the Short-Term Coping Strategies Questionnaire, participants in the experimental group completed the Music Therapy Songwriting Questionnaire. Data from this Questionnaire indicated that participants listened to their songs at least "once," and reviewed the lyrics to their songs "more than once" during a week period. Results of the present study indicate that individualized songwriting has promise as a useful music therapy intervention for individuals who are dealing with the stress of caring for loved ones with Alzheimer's disease. / A Thesis submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music. / Fall Semester, 2006. / August 22, 2006. / Coping, Alzheimer's Disease, Songwriting, Music Therapy / Includes bibliographical references. / Alice Ann Darrow, Professor Directing Thesis; Jayne M. Standley, Committee Member; Dianne Gregory, Committee Member.

Jean-Benjamin de Laborde's "Abrégé d'un Traité de Composition," Livre III of his encyclopedic "Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne," represents a new historical sensibility in the field of music theory at the end of the eighteenth century. Since antiquity, music theory has been divided into two main categories, musica speculativa and musica pratica. One, or both, of these approaches to music theory form the foundation of almost every music treatise for over 2,000 years, at least until the eighteenth century. A new historicist methodology appearing during the French Enlightenment treated history as a concept that demonstrated progress; this was accompanied by another emerging viewpoint that regarded historical phenomena as independent entities worthy of study in their original cultural context. Laborde's work incorporates both of these historicist positions, and, in so doing, furnishes a third means to engage in music theory, one that has been termed musica historica in this study. Laborde's "Abrégé d'un Traité de Composition" (1780) incorporates these various aspects of music theory —musica speculativa, musica pratica, and musica historica—within it, with varying degrees of success. Laborde, a composer, writer, fermier-général, and student of Jean-Philippe Rameau, wrote the "Essai" to present all the information on musical subjects that he had discovered. He treats certain topics as speculative, others as practical, and still others as historical, but most of the material blends the three approaches in various ways, allowing Laborde the freedom of a flexible methodology. This dissertation sets Laborde's composition treatise in its historical context, investigating Laborde's life, the culture in which he wrote his treatise, his understanding of ancient music theory, his relationship to contemporary French theorists such as Rameau, Jean le Rond d'Alembert, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and how he interprets the history of his theoretical topics. By placing Laborde's "Abrégé d'un Traité de Composition" in its proper historical context, this study illuminates the work of a man who was one of a very few at the end of the eighteenth century to employ the nascent tools of modern historicism to investigate music. This dissertation concludes with a translation of Laborde's composition treatise. / A Dissertation submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2005. / October 19, 2005. / Querelle Des Bouffons, Pierre Roussier, Melody, Harmony, History of Music Theory / Includes bibliographical references. / Jane Piper Clendinning, Professor Directing Dissertation; James R. Mathes, Committee Member; Jeffery Kite-Powell, Committee Member; William Cloonan, Outside Committee Member.

I set out to experiment and justify the use of a new theory called Negative Harmony in 21st century music. Negative Harmony is a musical avenue from which composers can glean new tones within traditional music theory rules. I took inspiration from the current leading authority on the topic, Jacob Collier, as well as older scholars from the 20th century, such as Ernst Levy and George Rochberg. I conducted research on the theory by finding its relation to major and minor chords, and how these mirrored chords worked from a theory standpoint. I then composed two original works, one piano piece and one piece for SATB choir and piano. I aimed to find the best balance between the unfamiliar negative chords and the familiar positive chords. I then looked to justify the use of this theory through the writings of scholars and modern music listeners and casual music makers.

Theories of musical contour can be described as the study of the change in one musical parameter as a function of another. In my dissertation, contour theories proposed by Robert Morris, Michael Friedmann, Elizabeth Marvin, Paul Laprade, Ian Quinn, Robert John Clifford, Larry Polansky and Richard Bassein are reviewed. In general, these authors approach changes in pitch as a function of time. A commonality between these theories was shown to be the use of a system of pitch level identification based on the relative highness or lowness of the pitches, not based on actual pitch frequencies or pitch intervals in the melody. Additionally, these theories did not account for rhythmic or durational elements of the pitches as they are articulated in time. Music perception studies were cited that indicated that contour can play an important role in the recognition and memory of a melody, and that pitch interval and rhythmic components are vital elements in music understanding. Because these contour theories lacked the important musical elements of pitch and rhythm, an analytical method for the study of musical contour that incorporates both of these in its model of a melody is developed. This analytical method uses the mathematical technique of multiple linear regression to develop a model of the melody that can be graphed as representative of the contour of the actual melody. This method was used to analyze the first themes from the first movements of the nineteen piano sonatas composed by Mozart. Using regression modeling, the sonata melodies were categorized into two melody types: Type MD and Type LB. Analytical methods proposed by other theorists were then used to analyze selected melodies, and a comparison between the multiple linear regression model and these results was made. / A Dissertation Submitted to the School of Music in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctorate of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2003. / October 21, 2003. / Mathematics, Statistics, Melodic Modeling, Music Theory / Includes bibliographical references. / Jane Piper Clendinning, Professor Directing Dissertation; Kai-Sheng Song, Outside Committee Member; James R. Mathes, Committee Member; Peter Spencer, Committee Member.

Thesis (M.M.)--Boston University. A thesis presented to the faculty of the School of Fine and Applied Arts, Boston University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Music, May 1963.

The Discrete Fourier Transform, which was initially mentioned in the music theory domain by David Lewin, is an analytical tool developed by Ian Quinn, and later expanded by theorists such as Jason Yust, William Sethares, and Andrew Milne. Though it was originally designed for pitch-class spaces, Emmanuel Amiot has explored the DFT’s implementation into the rhythmic domain, and has recently used it to unravel mathematical problems in music. An explanation of the DFT model will be made available here to a reader requiring only fundamental arithmetic. Throughout this thesis, I intend to explore the DFT in the music of various composers to demonstrate applicability, and will argue for a metric conception of form.