Luis Serrano Alarcón is one of the most important and relevant composers of our time. He is sought after as a composer, lecturer, and conductor throughout the world. His works have been performed in over 30 countries worldwide by some of the leading musical ensembles in the United States, Europe, and Asia, as well as being highly decorated by winning many prestigious composition contests including the International Band Competition Contest of Corciano, Italy. Born in Valencia, Spain, Alarcón is relatively self-taught in composition, which is a testament to his natural-born gift for composition. His compositional output ranges from the traditional Spanish pasodoble to chamber music, solo pieces, and sophisticated masterpieces for orchestra and wind ensemble. His work Duende: Four Preludes for Symphonic Wind Ensemble was commissioned by the University of St. Thomas Wind Ensemble, Minnesota (USA) in 2010. From its premiere, it became an extremely popular piece among wind band conductors. Duende’s appeal can be attributed to its fusion of Spanish popular music, the symphonic energy of Manuel de Falla’s scores, Iberia by the Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz, and the presence of jazz and Latin music. A detailed conductor’s guide will be provided in this document that includes but not limited to an analysis of form and structure for each movement, conducting considerations, and rehearsal suggestions and techniques. Last but not least, an in-depth exploration into the composer’s background, Spanish musical influences, and the Spanish Band movement and traditions has been conducted. Through this process, an uncovering of intriguing and relevant points of interest have come to the surface. Alarcón’s music sounds the way it does and appeals to the masses because of the juxtaposition of its infectious, Spanish musical elements, as well as its traditional symphonic music components. Moreover, the long and historical past, culture, and traditions of Spanish Bands creates an enormous influence and motivation to compose for the wind band genre. More than two-thirds of all municipalities in Valencia, Spain have musical societies that serve as sponsors for the bands and other ensembles, provide music education, and function as a social center to the townspeople. They are also supported by the Valencian Federation of Musical Societies, all branches of government, the business community, and the media. The musical ensembles participate in both non-competitive and competitive performance activities. Non-competitive performances include concerts, wind band festivals, honor bands, and massed bands. Wind band competitions are sponsored at the municipal, provincial, regional, and international levels. Many of these performance types are combined for special celebrations like patron saint holidays, including Las Fallas and Moros y Cristianos.

The purpose of this study is to provide an introduction and analysis of Harvest Festival, a work for piano four hands by Taiwanese composer Yann-Jong Hwang. This work incorporates elements of traditional Taiwanese music that is largely unfamiliar to performers and listeners beyond the border of Taiwan. With the exception of Professor Hwang’s own journal article on this piece, this project is the only study of Harvest Festival available in the United States or Taiwan. This research will be meaningful to both performers and piano teachers as an encouragement to include Yann-Jong Hwang’s work within their concert repertory. This document examines the background of Yann-Jong Hwang; briefly introduces Taiwan, the Amis tribe, and the Harvest Festival event; provides a structural analysis of all four sections of Harvest Festival; and concludes with an appendix consisting of a complete score of Harvest Festival.

The articulation of Portuguese nasalized vowels poses some articulatory problems accompanied by negative acoustic effects for the performance of Brazilian art songs. The main objective was to find strategies that permit the singer to conciliate an idiomatic pronunciation of these vowels with a well-balanced resonance, a desirable quality in classical singing. In order to devise these strategies, the author examined sources dealing with nasalized vowels from varied perspectives: acoustic properties of vowel nasalization, phonetic and phonological aspects ofBrazilian Portuguese (BP), historical views on nasality in singing, and recent vocal pedagogy research. In addition to the overall loss of sonority, the main effect of nasalization is felt mainly in the first formant (F1) region of oral vowels, due to the introduction of nasal formants and antiformants, and to shifts in the tongue posture. Several sources report the existence of a nasality contour in BP, by which a nasalized vowel starts with an oral phase and transitions gradually to a nasal phase. The author concludes that the basic approach to sing nasalized vowels in BP is (1) to find the tongue posture corresponding to the oral vowel congener (the “core vowel”), and (2) to adjust the nasality contour in such a way that the oral portion remains prominent in order to keep the resonance balance consistent during the emission of the vowel. Once the core vowel is determined, standard vowel modification choices can be made according to voice type and the musical context in which the vowel is being sung. Some challenging excerpts from Brazilian art songs are examined, with suggestions for the application of the discussed strategies.

‘Poetry’ insisted Ezra Pound, ‘is a composition of words set to music’: his Cantos remembered ‘Uncle Willie’ downstairs composing, singing poetry to himself. This study examines the nature and effects of W.B.Yeats’s idiosyncratic but profound sense of music. For his poems were compositions set to music. They were saturated with musical themes; syntactically he professed to write for the ear rather than the eye; and he flung himself repeatedly into the breach between music and words, composing ballads, songs, and plays with music, and performing poetry with musical instruments. My thesis is that nature of poetry, spoken, read or sung, obsessed Yeats, and I hold it self evident that such an acutely self-conscious poetry will articulate this obsession: to use his own imagery, will bear the scars of its own birth. What follows is a study of meaning, obsession, and influence, beginning with what Yeats knew and how he came to poetry: his father’s and his own vocalizations of the musical preoccupations of Scott and Shelley, viewed through the annotations of ‘the first book [he] knew Shelley in’ and the solipsistic singers and instrumentalists of his early verse. The theme of chapter two is Ireland: the musical resonances of Anglo Irish ballads and Irish verse are viewed through Yeats’s aurally-oriented canon-formation, as we examine his instinctual recitations and deliberate approach to Irish folksong through the mediation of Douglas Hyde. The aesthetics of Wagner, Pater, and the French symbolistes frame the third chapter, which describes how poetry might approach the condition of music in the motivic organization of The Wind Among the Reeds. In chapter four the impact of Nietzsche’s profoundly musical philosophy is correlated for the first time with the exact moments of Yeats’s discovery of his texts, as Yeats’s plays and poetry move from ‘Apollonian’ languor to ‘Dionysian’ energy, from dream to song and dance. My final chapter uncovers the long history of the practical experiments Yeats made to perform poetry with a ‘psaltery’, and their resonating afterlife in subsequent poetry and poets. No musician himself, Yeats’s musical sense has until now been entirely dismissed: this study shows how central it is to his art and to an understanding of the dominant aesthetic of the age.

The purpose of this study was to develop a guide to help teach commercial music style imitation, Styles selected were ragtime, dixieland, Whiteman, Goodman, Miller, bop, Berry, Presley, Motown, hard rock, horn band, soft rock, straight ahead big band, Ellington, Basie, country rock, bluegrass, Country-Western, Mantovani, Boston Pops, and Love Unlimited Orchestra. Melody, harmony, rhythm, voicing, instrumentation, form, special effects, performance techniques, electronic alteration, and articulation were discussed for each style. A table summarizing each discussion, and an arrangement and recording of the same melody in each style were included, The guide appears successful, judging from commercial writers' estimations, The work will probably aid writers, performers, researchers, and publishers. Similar works could be done on other commercial and ethnic styles.

This essay will use the views of two African American newspaper columnists, E. Belfield Spriggins of the Louisiana Weekly and Dave Peyton of the Chicago Defender, to argue that though New Orleans and Chicago both occupied a primary place in the history of jazz, in many ways jazz was initially met with ambivalence and suspicion. The struggle between the desire to highlight black achievement in music and the effort to adhere to tenets of middle class respectability play out in their columns. Despite historiographical writings to the contrary, these issues of the influence of jazz music on society were not limited to the white community. Tracing these columnists through the years of 1925-1929, a critical point in the popularity of jazz, reveals how considerations of black innovation and economic autonomy helped alter their opinions from criticism to ownership.

A tese por nós defendida no texto que se segue tem como objetivo o estudo de dois importantes gêneros musicais, a modinha e o lundu, cujos processos de elaboração iniciam-se a partir da segunda metade do século XVIII no seio da sociedade luso-brasileira. Com o intuito de possibilitar uma reflexão mais abrangente do assunto, muito caro à historiografia musical em língua lusófona, são levados em consideração aqui, aspectos históricos, estilísticos e identitários. A fim de abordarmos de modo adequado a complexidade de nosso objeto de estudo, calcamos nossa metodologia, sobretudo, no estudo da história, articulado à musicologia histórica, à musicologia sistemática e à etnomusicologia. Partindo do reconhecimento de que os gêneros em questão, objeto de nosso estudo, estão ligados às transformações ocorridas no mundo luso-brasileiro e na transformação das concepções estéticas internacionais, procuramos identificá-los com o que acabou por denominar-se estética do sentimento ou sentimentalismo e com o estilo clássico que se desenvolveu na Europa durante o século XVIII, tanto na poesia quanto na música, e que paulatinamente forjaram outras formas de produção e recepção, identificadas com um novo modo de sociabilidade burguesa que dominará o século das luzes. Por outro lado, buscamos, igualmente compreender em que aspecto a cultura popular participou, contribuindo de modo significativo, para a formação desses gêneros e, por conseqüência como se dá este impacto na expressividade musical, manifesta já no período de sua formação. A partir do estudo da historiografia, buscamos estabelecer como a modinha e o lundu participam das discussões sobre uma pretensa identidade nacional, ainda calcada em pressupostos positivistas e nacionalistas do século XIX, pressupostos estes que se mantém em parte significativa na literatura do século XX. Finalmente, ao discutirmos sobre a performance, utilizando como fontes registros musicais a partir da década de 1950, procuramos identificar correntes estéticas e ideológicas presentes nesses registros, os quais denominamos paradigmas interpretativos. / The thesis we put in the following text aims to study two important musical genres, the modinha and lundu, whose process of preparation to start on the second half of the eighteenth century in Luso-brasilian society. In order to provide a more comprehensive discussion of the subject, the historical, stylistic and identity aspects that are very important to the historiography of music in Portuguese speaking countries, are taken into consideration here. In order to observe address the complexity of our object of study, we based our methodology especially in the study of history, combined with historical musicology, systematic musicology and also to ethnomusicology. Acknowledging that the genres in question, the object of our study are related to the transformations in the Luso-Brazilian society and in the international aesthetic conceptions, we identify them with what turned out to be called the aesthetic sentiment or sentimentalism, and the classical style that developed in Europe during the eighteenth century, both in poetry and music, and that built, gradually other modes of production and reception, identified with a new way of bourgeois sociability that will dominate the century of the enlightenment. On the other hand, we seek also to understand what aspect of popular culture participated for the formation of these genres, and consequently how is this impact on musical expression common to both already evident in the period of their origin. From the study of historiography related to the genres in question, as we seek to establish how modinha and lundu have participated in the discussions about national identity, yet steeped in positivist and nationalists thoughts of the 19th century that remains in significant part of the the literature of the 20th century. And finally, when we discuss about the performance, using sources such as musical recordings from the 1950s, sought to identify aesthetic and ideological currents present in these records, which we shall call interpretative paradigms.

Trataremos de posturas composicionais e interpretativas que abordam a questão da fisicalidade presente na atuação instrumental, em situações nas quais as potencialidades do conjunto executante - instrumento são levadas a situações limite. Isso se dará levando-se em consideração as seguintes variáveis: características intrínsecas do instrumento; interação do intérprete com o instrumento; elementos mecânicos de interferência nessa relação. Serão abordadas, especialmente, obras dos compositores Helmut Lachenmann, Iannis Xenakis, Brian Ferneyhough, Aaron Cassidy e Simon Steen-Andersen. Também será abordada a produção artística do autor do trabalho. / In this work we deal with music, both from the composition as well as from the performance viewpoints, in which the potentials of the relationship between performer and musical instrument are taken to limit situations. This is done with an analysis of the following elements: specific and intrinsic characteristics of an instrument; interaction between performer and instrument; mechanical elements of interference in this relationship. We will approach, specially, works of Helmut Lachenmann, Iannis Xenakis, Brian Ferneyhough, Aaron Cassidy and Simon Steen-Andersen. Recent musical pieces of the author of this work will also be mentioned.

A dissertação apresenta pesquisa sobre o Estado do Conhecimento na produção recente (2007-2012) de teses e dissertações relacionadas à performance pianística, defendidas em programas de Pós-Graduação em Música, no Brasil. Diante do crescimento quantitativo e qualitativo evidenciado na produção em questão, o presente trabalho tem como propósito oferecer uma discussão e análise crítica do conteúdo das pesquisas selecionadas, inserindo-se num contexto acadêmico caracterizado por uma ampla discussão sobre o formato de pesquisas em Performance Musical. Uma vez que a investigação em Performance Musical encontrase ainda em consolidação, no Brasil, pretendemos discutir acerca da contribuição de determinadas propostas para esta subárea. A fim de oferecer uma visão crítica sobre os rumos tomados pela pesquisa em performance pianística, adotamos uma metodologia baseada em modelos de pesquisa do tipo \"estado da arte\", bem como técnicas de análise de conteúdo. A dissertação oferece uma visão panorâmica e análise dos principais temas, tendências e métodos de pesquisa identificados. Os resultados apresentam perspectivas de pesquisa emergentes que têm atraído os investigadores, tais como a Pesquisa Artística e estudos vinculados à Musicologia Empírica. Mostra o distanciamento de pesquisas quanto à apresentação de considerações sobre a relação do estudo com a performance musical. Destaca o aspecto interdisciplinar em produções recentes relacionadas à performance pianística. / This dissertation presents a research on the state of knowledge in recent production (2007- 2012) of theses and dissertations related to piano performance, defended in Music Graduate Programs in Brazil. Given the qualitative and quantitative growth evidenced in the scientific production in question, this dissertation aims to provide a critical discussion and analysis of its context, inserting in an academic context characterized by an extensive discussion on the configuration of the research in musical performance. Since research in Musical Performance is still undergoing a process of consolidation in Brazil, we intended to discuss about the contribution of selected proposals to this subarea. In order to offer a critical view of the directions taken by research in piano performance, we adopted a methodology based on models of \"state of knowledge\" as well as content analysis techniques. It also presents some emerging perspectives on this field such as artistic research and studies related to empirical musicology. It shows the gap of some researches on the presentation of considerations about the relation between the study developed and music performance. The results highlights the interdisciplinary aspect on the recent production related to piano performance research.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T16:25:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gabriel da silva.pdf: 2740848 bytes, checksum: e34d0fbd5b2ce6b0fcbb7b730dc1d720 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-03-31 / The use of studios of recording of simple (or home-made) composition, the calls home studios, it has been growing significantly in Brazil due to the reduction in price of certain technological devices used in its context. For example, sound cards, microphones, monitors, mixes and hardware. The home studio is a music production environment that uses different technologies to design a music product, educational or sound. Its use has converged to the development of musical productions that have helped to promote different artists, or even tools used in its context. This work has the use of home-made composition in the teaching of musical performance as main point. It shows literature review, the structure of the home studio and the development of computer software to point suggestions to use homemade composition in the teaching of musical performance. This work converges to the musician (performer/teacher/student) to promote a discussion about the teaching of music with a computer and it indicates ways to use technological devices in teaching music. It concludes that the use of home studio in the teaching of music performance tends to be very productive and its environment can serve as a workstation that allows the music s teachers to try it on different forms of interaction with new technologies, and indeed have in hands an effective and inexpensive structure that could achieve teaching objectives. We hope that this work can contribute to optimize teaching resources applied to the teaching of music performance and expand the literature on teaching music in Brazil. / A utilização de estúdios de gravação de composição simples (ou caseira), os chamados home studios, tem crescido significativamente no Brasil devido ao barateamento de certos aparatos tecnológicos empregados em seu contexto. A exemplo, placas de som, microfones, monitores, mesas e componentes de hardware. O home studio, ou estúdio caseiro, é um ambiente de produção musical que utiliza de diferentes tecnologias para conceber um determinado produto musical, pedagógico ou sonoro. Sua utilização tem convergido para o desenvolvimento de produções musicais que tem ajudado a divulgar diferentes artistas, ou mesmo ferramentas empregadas em seu contexto. Esta pesquisa por sua vez, tem por objetivo principal discutir a utilização do home studio no ensino da performance musical. Para tanto, parte da revisão da literatura, da estrutura do home studio e do desenvolvimento de aplicativos computacionais para apontar sugestões de uso de estúdios caseiros no ensino da performance musical. Cada atividade apontada é discutida e contextualizada, sendo algumas exemplificadas. A pesquisa ora apresentada converge para o músico (performer/professor/estudante) no sentido de promover uma discussão sobre a relação ensino da música com a informática e por indicar caminhos de uso de aparatos tecnológicos no ensino de música. Conclui-se que a utilização do home studio no ensino da performance musical tende a ser bastante proveitosa e que este ambiente pode servir como uma estação de trabalho que permita ao professor de música experimentar diferentes formas de interação com novas tecnologias, e de fato, ter em mãos uma estrutura eficaz e barata que permita atingir objetivos de ensino. Espera-se que este trabalho possa contribuir para otimizar os recursos pedagógicos aplicados ao ensino da performance musical, bem como expandir a literatura sobre ensino de música no Brasil.