<p> Throughout his career, Alexander Scriabin created a bridge between traditional romantic harmony and modernistic, chromatic tendencies that ultimately led to the post-tonal era. Scriabin&rsquo;s middle period after Opus 32 displays several examples of his progressive harmony. However, Scriabin&rsquo;s transition into harmonic exploration is quite apparent in his <i>Fantasy in B minor </i>, which was written three years before his middle period is observed. This may demonstrate that Scriabin was developing his harmonic techniques much earlier in his career. </p><p> Furthermore, the thorough documentation of Scriabin&rsquo;s color associations shows that Scriabin conceived his music with a strong integration of sound-color awareness. Many moments in the <i>Fantasy</i> appear to possess relationships between sound and color, which can be found in expanded harmonic techniques and multi-timbral textures within the pianistic writing. This essay will first discuss the existing research completed on Scriabin&rsquo;s harmonic tendencies within earlier works, and then analyze the similar techniques used in the <i>Fantasy</i>. Using previous knowledge gathered about synesthesia, this essay will then examine the connections between Scriabin&rsquo;s perspective on composition and his connection to synesthesia. </p><p> In summary, Scriabin&rsquo;s unconventional voice leading, chromatic harmonic progressions, and altered tertian voicing, will be analyzed in Opus 28. Afterwards, synesthetic and multi-textural analysis will be demonstrated for the purposes of observing Scriabin&rsquo;s exploration of the pianistic soundscape and synesthetic-inspired compositional techniques.</p><p>

The project analyzes the relationship and role that music plays in building tension in horror movies. To investigate the topic, three types of film music were identified: traditional, ambient, and soundtrack. Subsequently, nine horror scenes were chosen that were believed to induce tension, with three being traditional scores, three being ambient scores, and three being soundtracks. Each traditional and ambient score and soundtrack clip was from a different horror subgenre that included supernatural, body, and slasher horror. The music of these nine clips was then analyzed using spectrograms to create tension arcs that were compared to the visuals in the scene. An experiment was then conducted that took these nine scenes and separated them into three variables that included sound+video, video only, and sound only. Participants were placed into one of three groups associated with these variables at random, and were asked to rate their feelings of tension in each clip via a tension slider. Their responses were then compared to a theoretical curve that was created from the analysis of the clips. The results showed that there was a small correlation between the theoretical response and the responses between sound & video. There was another small correlation between sound+video and sound. This showed that music created tension in a similar way to the complete scene, except for in the case of soundtracks, and that music is possibly a larger contributor to tension than the visuals of a scene.

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No description available.

Robert Morris’s (1993) Contour-Reduction Algorithm—later modified by Rob Schultz (2008) and hereafter referred to as the Modified Contour Reduction Algorithm (MCRA)—recursively prunes a contour down to its prime: its first, last, highest, and lowest contour pitches. The algorithm follows a series of steps in two stages. The first stage prunes c-pitches that are neither local high points (maxima) nor low points (minima). The second stage prunes pitches that are neither maxima within the max-list (pitches that were maxima in the first stage) nor minima within the min-list (pitches that were minima in the first stage). This second stage is repeated until no more pitches can be pruned. What remains is the contour’s prime. By examining how the reduction process is applied to a given c-seg, one can discern a hierarchy of levels that indicates new types of relationships between them. In this thesis, I aim to highlight relationships between c-segs by analyzing the distinct subsets created by the different levels obtained by the applying the MCRA. These subsets, or sub-csegs, can be used to delineate further relationships between c-segs beyond their respective primes. As such, I posit a new method in which each sub-cseg produced by the MCRA is examined to create a system of hierarchical comparison that measures relationships between c-segs, using sub-cseg equivalence to calculate an index value representing degrees of similarity. The similarity index compares the number of levels at which two c-segs are similar to the total number of comparable levels. I then implement this analytical method by examining the similarities and differences between thirteen mode-2 Alleluias from the Liber Usualis that share the same alleluia and jubilus. The verses of these thirteen chants are highly similar in melodic content in that they all have the same prime, yet they are not fully identical. I will examine the verses of these chants using my method of comparison, analyzing intermediary sub-csegs between these 13 chants in order to reveal differences in the way the primes that govern their basic structures are composed out.

The goal of the thesis is to explain intonation perception and cognition, as well as the vocal mechanism and techniques, to help aural-skills instructors teach vocal intonation skills to students who struggle with intonation. The thesis explores comprehensive information on intonation perception and cognition and introduces basic vocal technique for an over-all understanding of the skills involved with accurate vocal intonation.

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The traditional major-minor tonality and the means for its establishment have been developed and used for the last four centuries, until all the possibilities of musical ideas within the given frame of tonal coherence seem now to be exhausted. Today we see a violent change, affecting the basic vocabulary of music as well as musical grammar and syntax. The possibilities of the major-minor tonality seem to be overgrown and appear to be no longer sufficiently flexible to serve the creative spirit of present-day music as basis for musical expression. Thoughtful composers and theorists, however much they may differ in their background and in their attitude toward different traits of modern music, agree in the realization that musical composition is at a crucial point of development all of over the world.

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No description available.