Wandering Into the Dusky Plains is a work composed for winds, percussion, and a string quartet in seven movements. It was written to fulfill a portion of the requirements to receive a Master' degree in Music composition from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. The composition of the work was completed in December of 2006. All of the orchestration was done during the process of composition and edited later by the composer using Finale 2007. The MIDI realizaton of the score was completed using Logic Express 7.2, Garritan Personal orchestra sound software library, and Virtual drumline sound software library. This paper will present an analysis of this work and compare it to several pieces of music in recent history that provided some influence on the construction of this piece. The form of the piece, along with melody, harmony, rhythm, and texture will be examined and compared to the following works: Bela Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and Bagatelle Op. 6, No. 2, Claude Debussy's Nocturnes: No. 1, Nuages (Clouds), Gunther Schuller's Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee, Paul Hindemith's Mathis Der Maler, Maurice Ravel's Bolero, Serge Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5La Creation du Monde.

<p>Inspelning av examenskonserten saknas. 2012-11-28</p>

<p>ABSTRACT</p><p>Four Seasons for Ensemble of Chinese Instruments: Dizi, Suona, Gaoying Sheng, Zhongyin Sheng, Percussion, Pipa, Zheng, Erhu and Zhonghu was created in 2012-2012. Loosely inspired by Basho's haiku, Four Seasons comprises four movements. </p><p>The composition is characterized by the application of Asian principles of heterophony and single tone timbre with the context of Western contemporary music. I explore for the first time the application of Chou Wen-chung's variable modes theory. In addition, Four Seasons are suggested by twelve I Ching hexagrams corresponding to the twelve months. </p><p>Each movement of Four Seasons features one soloist or small groups of soloists, as in concerto grosso. Setting up different instrumental combinations in four movements, the piece also uses timbre and sonority to depict the vivid colors of the four seasons.</p> / Dissertation

An assortment of 1,551 retail cuts were purchased from eleven cities across the United States to study their physical and chemical composition. Information with regard to external fat thickness, package weight, price per kilogram, and total package price were collected at the retail store. Cuts were purchased and later dissected into four different separable components, separable lean, external fat (carcass and cut), seam (intermuscular) fat, and bone and heavy connective tissue. Chemical fat analyses were conducted on the separable lean component of each dissected cut. Dissection data showed that cuts originating from the round had the highest means for separable lean percentages, resulting in the lowest means for separable fat percentages. Cuts from the rib were found to have the highest separable fat percentage means, thus the lowest separable lean percentage means. Chemical fat data mirrored dissection data, with round cuts having the lowest means for percent extractable fat for the separable lean (only) and rib cuts producing the highest means. In general, ground beef packages had a lower percentage of extractable fat than the fat percentage that was declared on the retail package label. This study was designed to acquire data on cuts presently available at the retail level and compare their composition to data presented in the National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference. It must be noted that separable fat percentages are not available for many of cuts sampled for this survey. Additionally, data reported in the Nutrient Database encompasses only retail cuts trimmed to 1.25 cm, 0.6 cm, 0.3 cm, and 0.0 cm. Cuts from this study consistently had fat thickness measurements between 0.0 cm and 0.3 cm; thus, there is no nutritional information in the Nutrient Database for beef cuts trimmed to these levels.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 289-292). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2001. / CD's not included. Includes bibliographical references.

The multi-faceted nature of twentieth-century music is anything but familiar to listeners who are accustomed to hearing Western music based on ideas steeped in the classical tradition. The emergence of new tonalities and atonality as well as new temporalities challenged and revolutionized commonly accepted notions of musical sound and musical motion. The surge of new music characterized by the treatment of sound as independent entity, the absence of functional tonality and the dissolution of metric order has created new demands on the perceptual-cognition abilities of the listener. The perception of atonal musical works has been a subject of interest for many scholars in the field of music cognition. The findings of recent studies addressing this issue have pointed to the presence of salient features as an aid to the comprehension of relationships between musical events in an atonal composition. Salient features which effectively serve as structural cues include change/contrast and repetition, with the latter emerging as the most frequently used and easily acknowledged form of salience. An examination of the role of repetition in the music of the post-serial American composer George Crumb sheds light on how repetition, a common ingredient in many conventional models of organization, is able to operate in atonal pieces as structural cue to patterns underpinning the musical form. The investigation further reveals the possible role of repetition, where it is associated with timbre, as clue to structural direction in compositions that subscribe to the contemporary notion of musical motion. / published_or_final_version / Music / Master / Master of Philosophy

Music composition is the most direct form of expression for a composer to reflect wholeheartedly upon his knowledge, upbringing and musical preferences. Being a composer, who bears the most direct role in the making of music, has the responsibility to understand and acknowledge how the music of his own culture has developed from the past, and how it has been impacted by other cultures. Such awareness prevents music from narrowing down into one single type, and instead gives rise to many new musical possibilities. In order to examine the composer’s role and to explore musical possibilities of the modern time, this thesis begins with an introduction that investigates the effects of globalization on four areas of music, namely 1) the music of traditional cultures, 2) the music of popular cultures, 3) music in the technological world, and 4) cross cultural music. Understanding these areas more thoroughly may lead to new ideas in artistic creation, and can help myself to shape my own personal style built upon a firm cultural foundation. Thirteen new works, written in very different styles during my candidature, are presented in 13 chapters respectively. These chapters are arranged chronologically. Each chapter provides a descriptive explanation for my creative motives and reveals the process in writing the works. To show my works chronologically not only demonstrates how I gradually developed as a composer over the past few years, it also serves as a witness to show how a composer who lives in the cultural hub of Hong Kong reflects his feelings and thoughts about the world in a creative way. / published_or_final_version / Music / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Music / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Mathematics / Master / Master of Philosophy