The seven compositions that comprise this dissertation are represented by the following files: text file (pdf), seven video performances (mp4), and corresponding zipped files of custom software and affiliated files (various file types). / This Digital Portfolio Dissertation presents seven compositions including text documents that explain the synthesis techniques, data mapping and routing, visual elements, the software used, all software needed to reproduce these works, and a video recording of all seven compositions. The unifying thread in my seven works is magic. The sense of magic in a live performance is the connection between artist and audience that lies beyond the immediate understanding of any work. I use this insight to create a new world inspired by sound and visuals. I perform each of these works by combining my understanding of data-driven instruments and my experience as a classically trained musician. The combination of sound design, visual composition, and a sense of magic allows me to realize these seven works. My goal is to contribute to the extensive library of electroacoustic works through my performance of my music with data-driven instruments.

In garages, practice rooms and classrooms, young people are composing music in rock and pop bands; engaged in working together in the shared enterprise of group music making. This study aims to contribute to scholarly knowledge through describing, analysing and interpreting the collaborative compositional processes (song writing) of three teenage rock bands. A theoretical model was developed and is applied to an analysis of the compositional processes of each group. Communication within each of the bands is analysed in terms of musical, nonverbal and verbal communication. The teaching and cooperative learning that occurred within each of the bands is presented, and each band is described in terms of a community of practice. An analysis of the compositional processes reveals that the three bands employed similar methods to generate ideas and construct their songs. However, when the data are viewed from a number of other theoretical perspectives, it is clear that two of the bands composed collaboratively, working together within mutually supportive, highly focussed and respectful communities; and that the third band’s songs were the work of a single composer, achieved through the cooperation and participation of the other band members. The young people in all three bands were highly engaged in selfdirected music learning, finding meaning and identity in the process.

This research study investigates how music technology can enhance and develop the musical ideas of students, focusing on the creative processes involved in computer-assisted composition and multimedia composition. The study investigates the Creative Multimedia Music Project, a module of the Associate of Arts (Music) Degree where students are using computers as music workstations. The aims of the study are (a) to evaluate the use of music technology for composing; (b) to describe the creative process of composing and investigate how the students comprehend this; and (c) to analyze the relationship between the creative process of the musical treatment and the visual image in multimedia composition. The study is conducted in an exploratory, self-directed environment where the students make musical decisions about their compositions. From the preliminary survey, 10 out of 45 music-major students (Year Two) from the Associate Degree Music Program at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) were selected. Composition activities took place over 15 sessions. The first phase focused on computer-assisted composition and the second phase focused on multimedia composition. The students attended lectures on alternate weeks. This gave them enough time to compose in the laboratory or at home, allowing them to explore, make decisions, and evaluate decisions. Data were collected from four sources: (1) written reports including a musical analysis of the creative process, (2) one-to-one interviews conducted during and after the creative process (15 questions were asked in each phase), (3) self-reflective journals that students maintained during their creative process, and (4) MIDI file observations after the creative process had occurred. After data collection, commonalities between each of these data sources were analyzed. This highlighted that during the creative process, a developmental pattern emerged that extends Webster's model (2003) of creative thinking in music. The relationships between the findings and the lite rature review were articulated to reinforce the creative thinking model, trends, and perspectives from different sources. Through an analysis of these students' creative processes and the strategies they adopted while composing with music technology, research projects such as this one may provide composers, music technologists, and music educators with insights into how students approach the task of composing using music technology. The findings might prove as a useful guidance to music educators on how to structure computer-assisted composition and multimedia composition programs for different age groups from school to university.

I denna undersökning studeras hur digitala verktyg används på två högstadieskolor i årskurs 8 och hur dessa verktyg möjligtvis kan inverka på elevers musikskapande. Undersökningen är av kvalitativ art och grundar sig på deltagande observationer och semistrukturerade fokusgruppsintervjuer i projekt där elever på olika sätt skapar musik med digitala verktyg. Den genomsyras av ett medieekologiskt- och sociokulturellt perspektiv där empiri grundar sig på utsagor och erfarenheter från tio observationstillfällen och sex intervjuer. I undersökningen framkommer det att digitala verktyg används sällan och i begränsad omfattning i musikundervisningen på de två skolorna. Digitala verktyg erbjuder en direktlänk mellan det klingande ljudet och den visuella representationen, något som ligger i linje med tidigare forskning. Framstående i resultatet är också att flera av eleverna upplever att teknologin på olika sätt står i vägen för dem i musikskapandet. Undersökningen visar också att användandet av digitala verktyg skapar nya förutsättningar för musikskapande och samarbete och att teknologin möjliggör ett mer individanpassat musikskapande som motiverar fler elever. När vi använder digitala verktyg för att skapa, spara och kommunicera ett musikaliskt budskap visar undersökningen att eleverna blir beroende av dessa verktyg för att klara uppgiften. Tillgången till teknologin blir på så vis en förutsättning för att eleverna ska lyckas. Forskningsresultatet visar även att uppgiften som eleverna får inverkar och styr i deras val av produktioner, något som är avgörande för huruvida eleverna uppfattar de digitala verktygen som hjälpmedel i musikskapandet. Både lärare och elever i denna undersökning beskriver en rädsla och oro för en undervisning allt för präglad av digitala verktyg. De menar att det skulle minska utrymmet för ensemblespel och ta bort känslan i musiken som de får från att spela riktiga instrument tillsammans med andra.

The song cycle, Two Orchestral Songs, is a setting of two texts by Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen (1941–1987) from her 1969 collection, The Shadow-Maker. The texts are symbolic in nature and discuss the question of personal sacrifice. In “The Sacrifice,” the narrator observes leaves falling in autumn and compares this “necessary death” against the “unnecessary” sacrifices that we make when we lay down our most beautiful aspects, our “golden selves,” at the “altars of the world” in order to please some external arbiter (the “shapeless ghost”). However, much like a man raking leaves in autumn, these dropped aspects get gathered up by “the Gardener” (a metaphor for Time), and we are left questioning whether our deliberate sacrifices enabled us to achieve the divine end to which we were intended. “How Weeps the Hangman,” employs similar imagery of leaves representing the “season’s sacrifice” of “pain, love, glory, blood.” The titular metaphor of the Hangman, however, draws on tarot imagery, specifically the twelfth Major Arcana card known as The Hanged Man, which depicts a man hanging upside-down by one foot from a cross or living tree; the man’s facial expression is usually neutral, not an expression of suffering. The card is interpreted in various ways as meaning sacrifice, letting go, surrender, and acceptance. In MacEwen’s poem, the narrator places herself (and us) on the way to the scaffold to offer up our seasonal sacrifices, but the lingering question focuses not on the object (us, The Hanged Man), but on the agent of change, the hooded Hangman who “does his duty to you and me.” She wonders what pain our own whimpering in the sacrificial process causes to him, whether he and the “embarrassed tree” weep at our losses. The musical language of this composition employs extended tonal key areas based on synthetic scales, in particular the four transpositionally related enneatonic scales. The harmonies are largely tertian in structure, with added tones and superimposed sonorities creating an effect of bitonality. The imagery of dropping leaves is recreated musically by the prominent use of descending seconds and descending thirds in the melodic and accompanying parts.

The song cycle, Two Orchestral Songs, is a setting of two texts by Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen (1941–1987) from her 1969 collection, The Shadow-Maker. The texts are symbolic in nature and discuss the question of personal sacrifice. In “The Sacrifice,” the narrator observes leaves falling in autumn and compares this “necessary death” against the “unnecessary” sacrifices that we make when we lay down our most beautiful aspects, our “golden selves,” at the “altars of the world” in order to please some external arbiter (the “shapeless ghost”). However, much like a man raking leaves in autumn, these dropped aspects get gathered up by “the Gardener” (a metaphor for Time), and we are left questioning whether our deliberate sacrifices enabled us to achieve the divine end to which we were intended. “How Weeps the Hangman,” employs similar imagery of leaves representing the “season’s sacrifice” of “pain, love, glory, blood.” The titular metaphor of the Hangman, however, draws on tarot imagery, specifically the twelfth Major Arcana card known as The Hanged Man, which depicts a man hanging upside-down by one foot from a cross or living tree; the man’s facial expression is usually neutral, not an expression of suffering. The card is interpreted in various ways as meaning sacrifice, letting go, surrender, and acceptance. In MacEwen’s poem, the narrator places herself (and us) on the way to the scaffold to offer up our seasonal sacrifices, but the lingering question focuses not on the object (us, The Hanged Man), but on the agent of change, the hooded Hangman who “does his duty to you and me.” She wonders what pain our own whimpering in the sacrificial process causes to him, whether he and the “embarrassed tree” weep at our losses. The musical language of this composition employs extended tonal key areas based on synthetic scales, in particular the four transpositionally related enneatonic scales. The harmonies are largely tertian in structure, with added tones and superimposed sonorities creating an effect of bitonality. The imagery of dropping leaves is recreated musically by the prominent use of descending seconds and descending thirds in the melodic and accompanying parts.

Thesis (M.A.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2001. / Bibliography: leaves 262-278.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (v. 1, leaves 126-134).

The sound ascending is a musical theater work for two actors, four singers and piano. This project was a collaboration with playwright, Jason Tremblay. The story is a loose adaptation of Orpheus descending, by Tennessee Williams. Displaced from the rural, American South, most of our story takes place in Mazer, Afghanistan. Jason and I attempted to create an untraditional model. The work lies somewhere between a musical, oratorio and a song cycle. We both walked away with mixed feelings about the success of the work, following a preliminary premiere. I believe that the work is successful in its drama and storytelling. But in such a confined presentation, the work needs more diversity of material and character strength. Although complete for now, Jason and I plan on revising The sound ascending in the coming year. Most significantly, this project has been a learning experience. We both take away valuable lessons about writing and collaboration. / text

An original composition in five movements for voice and a chamber orchestra of eleven instruments. The first movement is an overture; the second and fifth movements have text by Sara Teasdale; the third and fourth movements have text by Edna St. Vincent Millay.