Florentiner "Grand march italiana" op.214 / Julius Fucik -- Overture to Colas Breugnon / Dmitri Kabalevsky -- Second suite in F for Military Band / Gustav Holst -- Lauds (Praise high day) / Ron Nelson. / text

This thesis aims to offer a practitioner’s perspective of composition for the Chinese instrumental ensemble of the twenty-first century. Chinese instrumental music composition has appeared in the concert hall in China since the beginning of the twentieth century. Modeled on western classical music, modern Chinese instrumental music has undergone a series of development and reformation that aimed to merge the Chinese and western musical ideas and techniques. The very role of the composer and the notion of concert-hall practice were being emphasized, whereas various ingrained characters of traditional instruments, such as music-making conventions, instrumentation preferences, and certain ideology behind timbre, were overshadowed. Also attributed to such nature of Chinese instrumental music is that composers and performers are often in a quandary when juggling Chinese instrumental music conventions with a mindset framed by western classical music. Furthermore, in the current globalized/globalizing culture, Chinese instrumental composition is propelled by manifold musical influences. I intend to share the insight and to document the first-hand information acquired through the composition processes from a composer’s perspective. My sharing and documentation focus on the issues of incorporating idiomatic music materials from various Chinese instruments into original compositions, as well as on several matters concerning rehearsals and performances. Including six chapters, this thesis anthologizes six original works and discusses the composition strategies relevant to the distinctive instrumental combination of each. Chapter 1 presents an adaptation of a western symphonic poem for modern Chinese orchestra. Chapters 2 and 3 illustrate respectively a composition for a large Chinese wind and percussion ensemble and a composition for a large plucked-string ensemble. Chapters 4 and 5 cover two pieces of contrasting instrumentation, namely a mixed ensemble of fourteen instruments and a huqin sextet. Chapter 6 is about a multimedia composition with electronic soundtrack and installation art for seven players. / published_or_final_version / Music / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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The focal point of the work is the turntable and DJ (or Disk Jockey; one who controls the turntables). This concept not only manifests itself through the utilization of actual turntables, but also much of the acoustic material performed by the ensemble consists of "metaphoric turntables". These are contrasting layers of sound superposed over one another that are played by small groups of specific instruments within the larger ensemble. These instrumental groups simulate the sonorities generated through turntable manipulation such as warping, oscillations, crossfading, transforming, and numerous scratching techniques. The DJ (sometimes referred to as a turntablist) employs many techniques, articulations, and effects that are notated and explained in the accompanying analysis.

Interest in the delta operator as a tool in the development of robust approaches to modelling and control has been revived in the last decade, principally following the work of Goodwin (1985). The use of this discrete differential operator provides improved numerical properties particularly when modelling or implementing control at high sampling frequencies or under finite wordlength restraints. The delta operator also provides for the alliance of continuous time designs and discrete time application, linking traditional control theory with modern implementation through digital computing. In this thesis, a delta operator Simplified Refined Instrumental Variable (SRIV) approach to model estimation is employed, together with model order identification tools, to provide delta operator models for use in control and forecasting. The True Digital Control (TDC) design theory is adopted to develop a delta operator Proportional-Integral-Plus (PIP) controller. The construction of realisable control filters enables implementation of the PIP controller, the structure of which can prove operationally significant. A number of refinements to the standard PIP controller are developed and applications are presented for engineering and environmental examples. The development of a recursive delta operator Kalman filter is presented and incorporated within a forecasting framework. The resulting algorithm is applied to historical data to generate real time stochastic forecasts of river flows from an effective rainfall-flow model.

There are fifty-one instrumental pieces by Philips, many of which occur in versions for ensemble, keyboard and lute. The sources have a wide geographical and chronological span. This research is based upon an extensive first-hand examination of the sources of Philips's instrumental music, and a detailed comparative study of the textual variants of each piece. The thesis divides into three parts. In the first, a biographical chapter relates Philips's instrumental music to the changing nature of his employment. Then the main sources of his instrumental music, the manuscripts copied by Francis Tregian, are discussed at length. The remaining keyboard sources are considered, followed by consort and lute sources. In Part 2 the technique of intabulation is shown to be central to Philips's keyboard style. A distinction is made between arrangements made by Philips of his own works, those made by him of other composers' works, and settings of his music made by others. A case study of the 'Dolorosa Pavan' is used to illustrate how widely Philips's music was disseminated, and allows us to establish a stemma of sources which helps us to elucidate - and improve - our understanding of their inter-relationships. A second case study attempts to establish the origins of the pavan dated by Tregian to 1580: the original 'model' on which the keyboard piece is based has not survived. The thesis ends with an attempt to place Philips's instrumental repertory in the context of his contemporaries, using Philips's music as a 'touchstone' to refer to relationships (mostly stylistic) with other composers. Part 3 comprises transcriptions of Philips's instrumental pieces. The texts of each source for a piece are given in parallel with the minimum of editorial adjustment: Part 3 is intended to be a reference tool, not an edition.

Thesis (M.M.)--Baylor University, 2008. / Includes composer notes and performance instructions. Includes bibliographical references (p. 14).

Thesis (M.M.)--University of Michigan, 1938.

Thesis (M.M.)--University of Michigan, 1957.

Thesis (M.M.)--University of Michigan, 1938.