This dissertation explores the influence of melody on harmonic function in pop and rock songs from around 1950 to the present. While authors define the term "function" in several ways, none consider melody in their explanations, and I contend that any discussion of harmonic function in rock must include melody. I offer a novel perspective on function by defining it through what I call tension-as-anticipation, and I define a "melodic function" that accounts for the sense of tension and relaxation a melody creates within a particular moment in a track. My dissertation defines two types of melodic function—dominant and tonic—based on the melody's goal-directed scale-degree content, position within a phrase, and relation with the harmony. Dominant-melodic function results in two musical phenomena that I call the "imposed dominant" and the "dominant remainder." An imposed dominant occurs when a dominant-melodic function is initially dissonant with the harmony and resolves over a tonic. A dominant remainder occurs when a dominant-melodic function occurs over a harmonic resolution to the tonic, creating a slower dissipation of tension. Tonic-melodic function produces a phenomenon I call the "tonic anticipation," where a melody outlines a tonic mode over a pretonic harmony, creating a maximum sense of tension-as-anticipation. By including melody in considering harmonic function, we can more adequately describe the cycles of tension and resolution found in pop styles.

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The following essay aims to examine the use of lyrical themes linked to religion. The music styles in focus in this study are death metal and melodic death metal in Sweden. The study is based on 14 Swedish bands that are or have been active during the last 30 years. In this study I ask which themes connected to religion are used in the lyrics from the middle of the 80’s till today and how the use of themes changes during this time period.       My hypothesis was that since metal’s function and purpose is to break boundaries and test the social limits the lyrics inevitably must change over time to continue to draw attention and provoke. The lyrics have been studied with qualitative text analysis and put in a timeline divided in four eras to see the changes over time and how they are expressed. Each era is divided into different categories and themes that are found in the lyrics.       This study shows that the lyrics in the chosen genres connected to religion change over time, in accordance with my hypothesis. The main lyrical themes are Satanism, Anti-religion and religion critics, Christian themes, Esoterism and mysticism and Mythology. The lyrical themes have changed from dealing primarily with Satanism and anti-Christianity/religion in the 80’s and early 90’s to more complex lyrics about esoterism, mysticism, spiritism, and mythology today.

xxiii, 507 p. / This dissertation contextualizes melodic variation within a cultural, historical, and cognitive framework. This work discusses how traditional musicians learn how to vary melodies by observing norms of social and musical behavior exhibited by senior musicians. The core of this dissertation is the transcription and analysis of fifty source recordings of fifty different Irish musicians playing one tune each dating from between 1904 and 2007. Though the transcriptions of the recordings exhibited a high instance of melodic variation (48.2% of the measures), only a small percentage of variation fell on set accented tones (an average of 7.3%). The considerable invariance of set accented tones suggests that part of what constitutes the concept of a tune in an Irish musician's mind relates to the pitch of these key tones. I introduce the term aesthetic conservatism to designate a philosophical approach to performance practice that seeks to maintain both the dance genre and tune identity. I argue that aesthetic conservatism may be a by-product of archetypes and exemplars created through transcriptions and recording technology. This conservatism may also be a function of famine-induced fear of cultural dissolution or inferiority with respect to more prominent music-making supercultures. I call on the philosophy of aesthetic conservatism to explain why few set accented tones are varied. Of the measures that were varied, 74% of those variations involved the addition, subtraction, or redistribution of ornamentation. To catalogue the variety of variations within this sample, I propose a taxonomy that is designed to account for the number of notes in a measure and to assess intervallic differences over successive repetitions of a tune. Finally, I propose a theory to explain the cognitive processes that allow a musician to vary a melody. I suggest that in the mind of a traditional musician there is both a tune schema and a variation schema. These are flexible models that are distinct and separate but that interact within a short span of time because of the exceptionally efficient anatomy of a musician's brain. / Committee in charge: Anne Dhu McLucas, Chairperson; Lori Kruckenberg, Member; Stephen Rodgers, Member; Glen Waddell, Outside Member