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"Music for the End of the World": Sound, Nature, and the Anthropocene

Description: In this document, I discuss the creative process of a piece for instruments, electronics, and video titled Music for the End of the World in the context of the Anthropocene and music's relationship with it. The document is divided into two parts: Part I, divided into three chapters, is a critical essay and Part II, the score for Music for the End of the World. In the first two chapters, I present the conceptual basis for the creation of the piece and discuss relevant musical references. In the … more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Macedo de Castro Lima, Marcel
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

"Utterances": Approaching a New Acousmatic Praxis

Description: This dissertation is a thorough examination of the problems modern composers of electronic music face when writing or discussing acousmatic music as derived from Pierre Schaeffer. By taking a close examination of Schaeffer's own writings on the subjects of reduced listening and acousmatic sounds, I illustrate the difficulties and inconsistencies in Schaeffer's philosophy and the problems that his reliance on Husserl's phenomenology creates. Further examination of criticisms of Husserl from Derr… more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Smith, Jonathan Andrew
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Resonant Ecologies: Exploring Interrelationships between Ecological Disciplines and Music Composition

Description: The histories of acoustic ecology, field recording, and soundscape composition are intertwined. This combination of disciplines has lead to the potential for powerful insights, but an over-emphasis on music composition using recorded sound has to led to some problematic tendencies in the study of soundscapes. I begin by tracing the development of acoustic ecology and related disciplines, leading to a proposal for a practice of acoustic ecology that centers the study of all sounds from an ecolog… more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Gerard, Garrison C.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Metaphor and Mimesis in an Animal Soundscape

Description: Metaphor and Mimesis in an Animal Soundscape serves as a supplementary document for two pieces of contemporary concert music; HOWL, for viola, saxophone and fixed media, and Pastorale for viola and fixed media. Both works quote the second movement of Antonio Vivaldi's violin concerto, La Primavera. This quotation is used to support a musical program which explores the larger topic of metaphor in music. In addition, both pieces play with contemporary trends in music including, but not limited to… more
Date: May 2023
Creator: Whiting, Willyn R.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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"Idle Flux": A Composer/Choreographer Collaboration

Description: The following thesis documents the collaboration process behind Idle Flux, a collaboration between Samuel A. Montgomery, a graduate composer at University of North Texas, and Emily Jensen, a graduate choreographer at Texas Woman's University. Comprising an 18-minute stereo fixed media composition and choreography for seven dancers, Idle Flux seeks to challenge the traditional spatial relationship between audience members and performers through restructuring seating and stage arrangements while … more
Date: May 2023
Creator: Montgomery, Samuel A.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Everything and the Kitchen Sink; or, Towards an Understanding of a Creative Practice, "Codex Symphonia," Metamodernism, and Rhizomic Composition

Description: Creativity is not a hierarchical, but an intertextual, rhizomic process, pulling from a vast array of interests, experiences, and influences. These feed into each other, to inform and motivate artists as creating persons in an ongoing process we call the creative act. Anytime an artist sets out to make something, they are experiencing a dynamic yet concentrated moment of energy in the chaotic cloud of creativity. To demonstrate this, I explore several ideas that inform my piece, Codex Symphonia… more
Date: May 2023
Creator: Reeder, Kory
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Developing a Pedagogical Model for Twentieth Century Flute Repertoire

Description: Modern flute pedagogy tends to focus on repertoire which utilizes or builds upon tonal and Romantic stylistic conventions, largely ignoring works that disregard or reject these conventions until later in student's education. This lack of stylistic diversity in commonly studied works from the first half of the twentieth century can be problematic when students are approaching avant-garde or modernist repertoire for the first time, as they are unfamiliar with the style and technical needs of the … more
Date: August 2022
Creator: Maker, Anne Marie Dearth
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

"Stateside: An opera in one act" on the Experiences of the Military Spouse

Description: Based on the poetry of Jehanne Dubrow, professor of English at the University of North Texas, Stateside: An opera in one act uses the mythology of Penelope and Odysseus to tell a story of a modern day military wife. David T. Little's opera Soldier Songs, Sarah Kirkland Snider's song-cycle Penelope, and Stateside are dramatic musical works influenced by the genre, instrumentation, and formal structures of popular music that broadly deal with the emotional and internal elements of military life. … more
Date: August 2022
Creator: Whelan, Rachel Lanik
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Guide to the Performance and Study of "Dialogue de l'ombre double" (1985) by Pierre Boulez (1925-1916)

Description: Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) composed Dialogue de l'ombre double for clarinet and live electronics in 1985. This same year, Alain Damiens of Ensemble InterContemporain premiered and recorded the work with the help of Andrew Gerzso of Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM). The piece alternates between pre-recorded and live sections that are performed with varied levels of amplification and reverberation creating a dialogue between the parts. Boulez also includes detail… more
Date: August 2022
Creator: Miller, Brooke Laurie
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Spatial Strings: An Analysis of the Visual and Musical Elements in Dieter Schnebel's Spatial Sound Composition "String Trio"

Description: Dieter Schnebel's String Trio from 2007-2009 is a spatial sound composition that features unique visual components within a traditional string trio setting. This research provides performers and audiences a more thorough understanding of the String Trio and its evocative aesthetic qualities, by identifying and organizing the ways in which the visual and musical material interact. To provide context for String Trio, a brief overview of Schnebel's compositional style and influence on avant-garde … more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Newton, Kourtney Grace
Partner: UNT Libraries
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"…Threaded Through": The Multitextuality of Site-Specific Music Composition

Description: The two fields of acousmatic music and site-specific conceptual art take strikingly different approaches to the notions of space and place. In this document, I describe how these two areas of aesthetic research diverge and relate to each other, focusing on how their unique approaches can be implemented in the practice of site-specific music composition. The first part of this document surveys the distinctive features of each of these fields, describing the particular differences between them in… more
Date: August 2021
Creator: Vaughn, Mark, 1987-
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Seven Nocturnes for Solo Piano: An Original Composition with Critical Essay and Suggestions for the Performer

Description: The present dissertation consists in an original composition for solo piano, titled Seven Nocturnes (2020). The score is preceded by a critical essay in which I discuss the overall aesthetic and formal qualities of the work, its musical, philosophical, theoretical, and historical background, as well as specific performance suggestions for future interpreters. Particular emphasis is given to the work's experimental use of musical time and original approach in relating expanded time with directio… more
Date: May 2021
Creator: Schwan, Thomas, 1985-
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Multi-Dimensional Approach towards Understanding Music Notation through Cognition

Description: Composition has been conceptualized as a method for communicating a way of thinking (i.e., cognition) from composers to performers and audience members. Music notation, or how music is represented in a visual format, becomes the vehicle through which such cognition is communicated. In the past, research on notation has been approached either categorically or as a taxonomy, where it is placed into separate categories based primarily on visual elements, including its symbols, conventions, and pra… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Leinbach, Cade
Partner: UNT Libraries
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"The Last Leaf" for Sopranino Saxophone: A Performance Guide and Interview with Chaya Czernowin

Description: Despite being one of the instruments outlined in Aldophe Sax's original patent for the saxophone, and commercially available since 1849, the sopranino saxophone was generally unaccepted as a fully-fledged instrument until the late 20th century, existing solely as a novelty or a rare member of the saxophone ensemble. As such, there are few saxophonist who utilize the instrument, and the literature for the sopranino saxophone exists primarily in the contemporary idiom. Of the contemporary works … more
Date: December 2019
Creator: Richards, Alexander
Partner: UNT Libraries
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