Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 192-204). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

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Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The field of gesture based research and the interaction between human and computer with the focus falling on musical applications, is well established internationally. However, in South Africa, research in this field appears dormant. The reasons for this state of affairs are complex and can be argued from different angles covering socio-economical, philosophical and educational perspectives. This document describes the design, creation and implementation of an operational gesture interface environment which holds the potential to be expanded in the future. The implementation draws on cost-efficient hard- and software in the design of elementary to more advanced musical and even non-musical virtual environments (VEs) harbouring potential for further research and performance. Hard- and software available at Stellenbosch University’s Konservatorium were used together with selected free downloadable software from the internet in creating VEs, which to a degree simulate other techniques of sound manipulation. The choice of software was guided by the availability of support and prominence in terms of usage. Software basically had to incorporate hand movement tracking and the mapping of data to manipulate several parameters. Three independent systems, each representing a different VE, were studied, experimented with and programmed in order to validate the thesis. The first system manipulates a complete electronic musical instrument. The second system incorporates the simulation of a real-life musical performance and the third system focuses on manipulating specific sequencing software by a basic alternative computer mouse implementation. The outcome of this thesis provides an environment within which several programming techniques are treated and combined to form a template for teaching this field, and future development and research. These techniques incorporate the manipulation of digital audio, deal with a digital communication protocol, basic computer graphics and other necessary programming algorithms. In addition, the thesis strives to provide an outline for the understanding, design and implementation of a VE installation. The three systems will be installed for operation during a presentation of this thesis. Together with the three operative systems, this document strives to act as an initial platform from which exciting futuristic research and activity can be launched. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die gebied van beweging gebaseerde navorsing en die interaksie tussen mens en rekenaar waar die fokus op musikale toepassings val, is internasionaal stewig gevestig. In Suid-Afrika egter, blyk navorsing op hierdie gebied sluimerend te wees. Die redes vir hierdie stand van sake is kompleks en kan vanuit verskillende hoeke wat sosio-ekonomiese, filosofiese en opvoedkundige perspektiewe insluit, beredeneer word. Hierdie dokument beskryf die ontwerp, skep en implementering van ‘n operasionele bewegings koppelvlak omgewing met potensiaal tot uitbreiding. Die implementering baseer op kosteeffektiewe hardeware en programmatuur in die ontwerp van eenvoudige tot gevorderde virtuele omgewings (VOs) vir musiek, en selfs nie-musikale dissiplines met die potensiaal tot verdere navorsing en implementering binne die musikale uitvoeringspraktyk. Hardeware en programmatuur beskikbaar aan die Konservatorium is gebruik tesame met ‘n seleksie van gratis programmatuur op die internet beskikbaar om VOs wat ander klankmanipulerings tegnieke simuleer, te skep. Die keuse van programmatuur is gelei deur die beskikbaarheid van ondersteuning en gewildheid en inkorpeer die volg van hand beweging asook die verspreiding van data om verskeie parameters te manipuleer. Drie onafhanklike sisteme wat elk ‘n ander VO voorstel, is bestudeer, mee ge-ekperimenteer en geprogrammeer om die tesis te valideer. Die eerste sisteem manipuleer ‘n volledige elektroniese musiekinstrument. Die tweede sisteem inkorporeer die simulasie van ‘n werklike musikale uitvoering en die derde sisteem fokus op die manipulasie van spesifieke sequencing programmatuur sonder die hulp van ‘n muis. Die uitkoms van hierdie tesis verskaf ‘n omgewing waarbinne heelparty programmerings tegnieke bespreek en gekombineer word in ‘n aanpasbare templaat vir die onderrig van hierdie veld asook toekomstige ontwikkeling en navorsing. Hierdie tegnieke inkorporeer die manipulasie van digitale klank, die omgang met ‘n digitale kommunikasie protokol, basiese rekenaargrafika en verdere noodsaaklike programmerings algoritmes. Verder streef die tesis daarna om ‘n raamwerk vir die begrip, ontwerp en implementering van ‘n VO daar te stel. Die drie sisteme wat in hierdie tesis bespreek word, sal operasioneel geïnstalleer word gedurende ‘n demonstrasie daarvan. Saam met die drie werkende sisteme streef hierdie dokument daarna om te dien as platform waarvan af opwindende futuristiese navorsing en aktiwiteite geïniseer kan word.

This thesis comprises a portfolio of creative musical work and a written commentary. The creative work seeks to rework musical strategies through technology by challenging aspects of how music is traditionally performed, composed and presented. The portfolio of submitted work is divided into five main projects. The first project is E-tudes, a set of four compositions for live electronics and six keyboard players. The second project is a composition called On Violence, for piano, live electronics, sensors and computer display. The third project is Zizek!?, a computer-mediated-performance for three improvisers that serves as an alternative soundtrack to a documentary about Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek. The fourth project is a collection of small experimental pieces for fixed media called FreuPinta. The fifth project consists of a selection of different improvisations that I devised or participated in using a computer environment I developed for live improvisation. Throughout the portfolio recent technological advancements are considered not for their use in implementing pre-existing models of music-making but rather for their potential to challenge preconceived notions about music. The written commentary gives the theoretical tools necessary to understand the underlying reasoning, preoccupations and concerns behind the submitted work as well as providing supplementary information about the musical results and the computer programmes developed as part of this research.

The research contained within this PhD project forms part of the Pedagogical ElectroAcoustic Resource Site project of the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre of De Montfort University Leicester. This thesis contributes to current research in music education and musicology related to electroacoustic music. The purpose of this research was to investigate the influence of teaching on the change in inexperienced listeners’ appreciation of electroacoustic music. A curriculum was developed to introduce electroacoustic music to 11 to 14 year old students (Key Stage 3). The curriculum was based on concepts distinguishing between electroacoustic music using (mainly) real-world sounds and generated sounds. The curriculum is presented in an online learning environment with an accompanying teacher’s handbook. The learning environment represents the prototype for the pedagogical ElectroAcoustic Resource Site offering online learning, blended learning and classroom-based learning. The website was developed following user-centred design; the curriculum was tested in a large-scale study including four Key Stage 3 classes within three schools in Leicester. In five lessons music using real-world sounds (soundscape and musique concrète) was introduced, which included the delivery of a listening training, independent research and creative tasks (composition or devising a role-play). The teaching design followed the methods of active, collaborative and self-regulated learning. Data was collected by using questionnaires, direct responses to listening experiences before and after the teaching, and summaries of the teaching written by the participants. Following a Qualitative Content Analysis, the results of the study show that the participants’ appreciation of electroacoustic music changed during the course of these lessons. Learning success could be established as well as a declining alienation towards electroacoustic music. The principal conclusion is that the appreciation of electroacoustic music can be enhanced through the acquiring of conceptual knowledge, especially through the enhancing of listening skills following the structured listening training as well as the broadening of vocabulary to describe the listening experience.

This thesis examines the impact technology has on the music industry. Despite decrease in physical sales and piracy, statistics indicate that consumer requests for music content are strong. Although sales of physical product have decreased, the demand for digital music has dramatically increased. The current market players and technology innovations provide new opportunities to deliver music to the consumer. It is imperative to balance the divergent interests of consumers and artists, while ensuring profits for all parties involved. / by Jazmine A. Valencia. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, FL : 2008 Mode of access: World Wide Web.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Music Johannesburg 2016 / Recently, scholarly work in the field of film sound design has emphasised the crucial significance of sound in film. Writers such as Mark Underwood (2008), Larry Sider (2003) and Danijela Kulezic-Wilson (2008) have expressed the view that film sound design ought to be approached from a musical perspective substantiating this position through analytical discussions on the relatively musical use of sound design in scenes from films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) and Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000). Building upon the work of these and other scholars, this thesis investigates the varying ways in which music and foley sound design relate and interact within a film seeking to categorise with some specificity the various ways in which foley sound design can ascend beyond its ordinary remit and in so doing function in lieu of film music as well as in cooperation with it. I consider examples from, amongst others, The Godfather, parts one (1972) and two (1974) by Francis Ford Coppola and The Matrix (1999) by Ana and Lana Wachowski. In each chapter of part one of the thesis (which I call Take 1), I explore a particular aspect of the way in which foley makes known its capacity to function quasi-musically. Chapter one looks at Walter Murch’s concept of the metaphoric use of sound and how, through this technique, foley sound can be applied so as to fulfil roles more accustomed to film music in its stead. Chapter two details some of the ways in which film music and foley interact within a film. A crucial element of this discussion is the on going debate between scholars such as Michel Chion who disavow the existence of a soundtrack and others such as Rick Altman who contradict Chion on this matter. Chapter three looks at how otherworldly diegetic contexts help to encourage creativity in designing and applying foley sounds so as to further enhance its pre-discussed ability to act in film music’s stead while chapter four focuses on the voice as the soloist within the melee of sounds that constitute the film soundtrack. Part two (or Take 2) of the thesis consists of compositions written in response to some of the theories and concepts explored in the first part of the thesis including a ‘dramatic string quartet’ in which I attempt to realise in a musical composition some of the ideas discussed in all four of the chapters. I conclude the thesis by reflecting on the main insights uncovered throughout the thesis in addition to reflecting on the process of composing the pieces in relation to the relative success of the performances thereof. / GR2017

This dissertation addresses the convergence of ethics, labor, aesthetics, cultural citizenship, and the circulation of knowledge among experimental electronic instrument builders in New York City and Berlin. This loosely connected group of musician-inventors engages in what I call “DIY music technology” due to their shared do-it-yourself ethos and their use of emerging and repurposed technologies, which allow for new understandings of musical invention. My ethnography follows a constellation of self-described hackers, “makers,” sound and noise artists, circuit benders, avant-garde/experimental musicians, and underground rock bands through these two cities, exploring how they push the limits of what “music” and “instruments” can encompass, while forming local, transnational, and virtual networks based on shared interests in electronics tinkering and independent sound production. This fieldwork is supplemented with inquiries into the construction of “DIY” as a category of invention, labor, and citizenship, through which I trace the term’s creative and commercial tensions from the emergence of hobbyism as a form of productive leisure to the prevailing discourse of punk rock to its adoption by the recent Maker Movement. I argue that the cultivation of the self as a “productive” cultural citizen—which I liken to a state of “permanent prototyping”—is central to my interlocutors’ activities, through which sound, self, and instrument are continually remade. I build upon the idea of “technoaesthetics” (Masco 2006) to connect the inner workings of musical machines with the personal transformations of DIY music technologists as inventors fuse their aural imaginaries with industrial, biological, environmental, and sometimes even magical imagery. Integral to these personal transformations is a challenge to corporate approaches to musical instrument making and selling, though this stance is often strained when commercial success is achieved. Synthesizing interdisciplinary perspectives from ethno/musicology, anthropology, and science and technology studies, I demonstrate that DIY music technologists forge a distinctive sense of self and citizenship that critiques, yet remains a cornerstone of, artistic production and experience in a post-digital “Maker Age.”