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In this thesis, I have investigated how to work creatively with melodies in the process of composing music. The starting point of the project was to transcribe phrases from different solos and to be assigned with newly composed ones from musicians around me. The melodies were applied to different composing methods. The methods were there to have a way of making music of the melodies and to put them in a context. The purpose of the work was to investigate how the use of these melodies and melody-based methods were affecting my composing. How could I create new musical possibilities in my composing by working like this? How could I in the process use the knowledge to develop harmonic possibilities and concepts on my main instrument? The work resulted in four newly composed pieces and concepts in how to improvise with melodies. I made the conclusions that the combination of variation, patience and a non-valuable working environment was a fruitful way to stay inspirated and creative. / <p>Medverkande musiker:</p><p>Joanné Nugas - sång</p><p>Malte Bergman Byström - bas</p><p>Noa Svensson - trummor</p><p>Björn Eriksson - piano</p><p>Oskar Nilsson - gitarr</p><p>Ebba Åsman - trombon</p><p>Björn-Atle Anfinsen - trumpet</p>

In this thesis I have explored the double bass as a lead instrument in a jazz trio setting by learning, rehearsing and performing melodies. The purpose was to explore the double bass’ melodic potential by approaching the instrument not as a comping instrument but as a lead instrument. My aim was to find different approaches to playing melody on the double bass; find ways to make the melody accessible for me when improvising; examine how the group can support the double bass as a soloist; examine what happens to the music when the bass plays lead; examine how a focus on melody can affect my comping. I studied different melodies and adapted them to the double bass using different techniques. I also created exercises to incorporate the melody of a song into my improvisation. My work was presented as a concert with most of the songs’ melodies played by me. Amongst other things, I found that having the double bass play the melody can lead to a more dynamic performance since the group must be careful not to overpower the bass.

This monograph provides an in-depth examination of the background, musical, and performance issues related to Duke Ellington’s wordless melodies, as well as epigrammatic biographies of Ellington and three female vocalists whose voices he employed as instruments: Adelaide Hall, Kay Davis, and Alice Babs. As early as the twenties, Ellington innovatively used the voice as a wordless instrumental color—an idea he extended into both his secular and sacred works. His iconoclastic instrumentalization of the soprano voice in compositions such as “Creole Love Call”, “Minnehaha”, “Transblucency”, “On a Turquoise Cloud”, and “T.G.G.T.” merits consideration by scholars and performers alike; these artistically complex melodies offer valuable insights into Ellington’s organic and collaborative compositional process. Although Ellington’s wordless melodies for the soprano voice have fallen on the periphery of discussions on twentieth-century American music, perhaps out of sheer obscurity, the need for alternative teaching and performance materials gives rise to a host of topics for further study regarding these pieces. Assimilating Ellington’s programmatic and mood pieces for the instrumentalized soprano voice into the canon of chamber repertoire opens a new arena of scholarly and artistic endeavor for the trained singer. Therefore, central to this study are the following considerations: context, pedagogical challenges (range, tessitura, vowels, phrase length, etc.) nature of accompaniment and instrumentation, form, and the nature of Ellington’s vocal writing as it pertains to the wordless obbligato and concert works featuring the wordless voice including, “Minnehaha,” “Transblucency,” “On A Turquoise Cloud,” and “T.G.T.T.” aka “Too Good To Title.” This study evaluates Ellington’s technique of casting the wordless female voice in unique musical contexts via musical analysis, as well as pedagogical and interpretive assessments of selected Ellington pieces,. The resultant amalgam of musical identities, both instrumental and vocal, fostered creative polyphony and epitomized the coined “Ellington Effect.” The following analysis centers on a chronological survey of Ellington’s wordless melodies performed and recorded by Adelaide Hall, Kay Davis, and Alice Babs. The goal of this project is to present a study in historical context and significance, style, device, and pedagogical/performance considerations of those works that employ the flexibility, technique, and aural training of the studied singer with instrumental jazz idioms in a cross-genre context.

Nikolai Karlovich Medtner (1880-1951) was a Russian composer, pianist and pedagogue. While active during the period of Modernism, he was one of the last descendants of the nineteenth-century tradition. Without a doubt, Medtner was considered one of the most brilliant successors of the Russian piano school, though his compositions did not particularly bring him a great deal of popularity in his time. Nonetheless, his unique style of writing has always attracted a small circle of musicians and admirers, and more recently, there has been a remarkable resurgence of interest in Medtner’s music. In the 2000s, several recent prizewinners of the International Tchaikovsky Competition – Daniil Trifonov, Dmitry Masleev, and Lucas Debargue – have shown their special interest in Medtner’s music, and this has drawn public attention to Medtner’s major piano works. However, discussions regarding performance practice and interpretation in playing Medtner have only recently begun. Although dissertations focused on Medtner’s music began to appear in the 1960s, primary sources have been examined by only a limited number of scholars, due to geographic and linguistic barriers. This dissertation aims to formulate and answer performance practice issues to develop a practical approach to learning and performing Medtner’s piano compositions. Since the primary sources related to op. 38 are comparatively abundant, and the work contains several pieces of contrasting character, Forgotten Melodies can serve as a good model for developing an informed approach to interpreting Medtner’s piano music. Analyses of three major types of material are provided to trace the chronological development of ideas in op. 38: sound recordings of Medtner’s own playing; written records by the composer and his student; and the score Medtner had on which he noted down his ideas. In addition to Medtner’s publication The Muse and the Fashion, unpublished diaries and essays found at the Medtner Archive (‘Fond Metnera’) of the Glinka National Museum of Musical Culture (Moscow, Russia) have also been examined.

This study probes the state of psalm-singing in the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church) in South Africa and Namibia during 2007-2008. First, the history of psalm-singing, from its Old Testament origin to its contemporary use in South Africa, is researched. Highlights of its development, as well as low points where congregational psalm-singing all but died out, are researched in order to establish the causes of the current situation. The essence of the study involves an empirical study to determine the frequency of use and functionality of psalms. The results of different approaches all show that to a large extent, psalms have fallen in disuse in this church and that, with the exception of only a small number of psalms, they are becoming extinct. However, in criticism against the Liedboek van die Kerk (Songbook of the Church) (2001) a number of important problems were emphasised, according to which conclusions and recommendations are made. The most prominent cause of the problem is identified as the cultural difference between the existing psalm tradition and the intelligibility of the members of the church. The reason for this problematic situation is traced back to the one-sided application of fixed norms. Based on these, research is done to determine which factors should be taken into account in terms of the receptiveness of church-goers to accommodate these norms as adaptable norms. These factors are explained, ways to apply them are discussed and recommendations are made accordingly. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Music))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

This study probes the state of psalm-singing in the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church) in South Africa and Namibia during 2007-2008. First, the history of psalm-singing, from its Old Testament origin to its contemporary use in South Africa, is researched. Highlights of its development, as well as low points where congregational psalm-singing all but died out, are researched in order to establish the causes of the current situation. The essence of the study involves an empirical study to determine the frequency of use and functionality of psalms. The results of different approaches all show that to a large extent, psalms have fallen in disuse in this church and that, with the exception of only a small number of psalms, they are becoming extinct. However, in criticism against the Liedboek van die Kerk (Songbook of the Church) (2001) a number of important problems were emphasised, according to which conclusions and recommendations are made. The most prominent cause of the problem is identified as the cultural difference between the existing psalm tradition and the intelligibility of the members of the church. The reason for this problematic situation is traced back to the one-sided application of fixed norms. Based on these, research is done to determine which factors should be taken into account in terms of the receptiveness of church-goers to accommodate these norms as adaptable norms. These factors are explained, ways to apply them are discussed and recommendations are made accordingly. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Music))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

This thesis investigates the issue of the application of cognitive analysis techniques for Western art music to folk dance melodies for violin, with a view to enabling the development of a computer tool that can aid in the identification and exploration of the stylistic characteristics of the origin of the melodies. The following questions are addressed: Can cognitive music analysis techniques for Western art music be applied successfully to folk dance melodies for violin? Is it possible to define an integrative analysis approach in this context drawing from existing approaches? To what extent can decision tree induction aid in the classification and interpretation of the analysis results? How might the musical data for analysis be represented on computer? What is the best approach to program development for an automated music analysis tool in this context? A series of experiments using samples of American and Irish melodies are presented that verify the use, in this context, of the cognitive analysis approaches of Lerdahl and lackendoff and Narmour. Statistical approaches have also been investigated, since research has shown that such methods can reflect the way in which listeners mentally organise the music that they hear. To enable the analysis to be carried out in an algorithmic way, an experiment using human subjects to further the work of Lerdahl and lackendoff was required. An integrative analysis approach has been identified that can be carried out in an algorithmic way therefore lending itself to future implementation on computer. In order to interpret the results of the analysis process, a decision tree induction tool (SeeS) based on Quinlan's CS algorithm was employed. SeeS was able to classify the melodies based on the attributes derived from the analysis. The decision trees and rules derived by the tool enabled the identification of features of the melodies that pertain to their origins, thus enabling a deeper understanding of the stylistic variations of the melodies. A further experiment indicated that the cognitive analysis approaches and subsequent classification with SeeS compares favourably with the classification abilities of human subjects after a small amount of training in the musical context. Further inductive learning techniques (decision tree induction using Friedman's CART, and neural networks) have been applied to the problem of classification andinterpretation of the analysis results, and although the neural network classified the musical samples with greater accuracy (illustrated using ROC analysis), decision tree induction has been shown to be a more appropriate method in this context. Approaches to music representation and subsequent program development have been investigated, reSUlting in a proposal for future computer implementation of a music analysis tool using the Humdrum toolkit as a means of representation, and a declarative language for the program development.

The purpose of my research was to develop and strengthen my personality in music as a vocalist, so I would be able to freely let it out during any musical encounter. My base for the research was a duet with guitarist Mikael Máni Ásmundsson, but it was during a rehearsal with him that I realised for the first time I even had a musical personality – that I liked. Before, I had often felt uncomfortable and tense when playing music and not sure who I was as an artist. I limited myself to working with West Coast jazz, jazz standards, and lyrical improvisation, and I used various methods such as transcribing, ear-training in multiple forms, and improvisation exercises, to develop my musical personality. The research resulted in a nine-song album that Mikael Máni and I created in 2020 under the artist-name Tendra. That album is my examination project. I learned a great deal from the experience. I gained self-confidence, independence trust and calmness during this journey, and at last I feel comfortable with who I am as an artist – my musical personality has finally moved in.

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which Melodies to Assist Social Interaction (MASI) would affect the social skills performance of the educable mentally retarded. The study employed a pretest-posttest control group design with an N of 27 mentally-retarded subjects. It also employed a one-group pretest-posttest design with an N of 8 non-mentally retarded subjects. All of the subjects received a pre- and post-score for their social skills performance level. Nineteen of the mentally-retarded subjects and all eight non-mentally retarded subjects received the MASI social skills teaching program as part of their regular curriculum. The pre- and post-treatment performance was analyzed by a correlated means t-test. An analysis of covariance was used in which the posttest means were compared using the pretest means as a covariate. It was concluded that MASI did not have an impact, positive or negative, on the social skills performance level of the subjects.