Musical Analysis

The authoritative catalogue of motivic material in the Star Wars film franchise.

Includes information on all leitmotifs and incidental themes as well as set-pieces, suites, and source music. Additional sections on thematic relationships, transformations, and associations, plus continually updated bibliography for primary and secondary sources. Extensive musical notation throughout.

Most recent update: March 23, 2023.

Física de la música, en líneas generales, busca extender las ventajas epistemológicas de la física, como disciplina científica, para la comprensión de la música. Este trabajo propone un sistema de conocimiento, de estructuras perceptivas que superen las limitantes subjetivas y culturales, y que permita una comprensión “objetiva” del complejo fenómeno musical. Estas estructuras son mostradas en distintos casos del análisis de partituras y sistemas musicales, respecto a la música popular y también la improvisación como se ha desarrollado en conectivos de creatividad y técnicas creativas. La estructuración perceptiva es discutida en contextos históricos, en los sistemas musicales académicos, en disertaciones adicionales sobre música contemporánea, música nativa, música popular, educación musical, sociología e ideología de la música con aportes de conocidos autores en los temas. Finalmente se hace una disertación este trabajo como postura epistemológica fisicalista, demostrando cierto paralelismo en los procederes y acuerdos con los postulados de esta ciencia. (Los anexos son de fecha posterior a la formulación del texto original en 2006; el texto original ha tenida algunas correcciones más recientes, de redacción principalmente)

Music Physics, in general terms, seeks to extend the epistemological advantages of physics, as a scientific discipline, for the understanding of music. This work proposes a system of knowledge, of perceptual structures that overcome subjective and cultural limitations, and that allow an “objective” understanding of the complex musical phenomenon. These structures are shown in different cases of the analysis of scores and musical systems, with respect to popular music and also improvisation as it has developed in connectives of creativity and creative techniques. Perceptual structuring is discussed in historical contexts, in academic music systems, in additional dissertations on contemporary music, native music, popular music, music education, sociology and ideology of music with contributions from well-known authors on the topics. Finally, a dissertation is made of this work as a physicalist epistemological position, demonstrating a certain parallelism in the procedures and agreements with the postulates of this science. (The annexes are dated after the formulation of the original text in 2006; the original text has had some more recent corrections, mainly grammatical in spanish)

Like the practitioners of other great improvisational genres such as Hindustani raga, jazz masters establish their own musical voice within a known musical rhetoric. An icon of the genre, Thelonious Monk made music both exemplary of and different from all other jazz. Using detailed transcription and analysis, this study examines one of his solo performances of the 1940s standard tune I Should Care, first by explaining the basics of jazz harmony, and then by viewing Monk’s approach alongside those of two rather more conventional pianist peers, Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans. The analysis expands to include Monk’s pianistic style, rhythm, and sense of time, concluding with assessment of his iconoclastic but distinguished jazz legacy, and his role as a model creative musician beyond genre.

This is my PhD dissertation. The third chapter might be interesting since it shows that the natural scale was the primary scale used in European antiquity (the so-called Folk Music Scale). It combined with the early diatonic scale (stacking thirds on the diatonic scale that those instruments couldn’t play) to create our modern scale. The Highland bagpipe is an ossified hybrid between the two.

The fourth chapter might be of interest to composers because it explains the rhythm of languages (especially English) and also the pitch-patterning of the spoken word which is used as the basis of melody.

The link brings you to the University of Otago library which is open and non-private. So you have to force your web browser to continue to the site.

ABSTRACT:
The purpose of this study was to investigate through archival and musicological analysis the audio recordings of Fenian lays made in the middle of the last century. These recordings were made from informants who learned the material orally; they contain cultural elements that assist in comprehending the musical mechanics of Fenian lays at a time when their performance practices were being extirpated by foreign musical influences. These elements include Indo-European (IE) thematic material, poetics, language register, pitch structuring, rhythm, and vocal techniques. Audio recordings of Fenian lays from Ireland, Scotland, and Nova Scotia, Canada were analysed in terms of their linguistic-musical material. Results show that the rhythm of the lays did not display a repetitive musical metre but the more complex structure of speech. However, rhythmic patterns did alter with volume. Also, resonance tuning was apparent. Many characteristics associated with volume in lay recordings exist in declaimed speech as well; both may be seen to act as a bridge between speech and metered song. Lay poetry appeared to be syllabic, which is unusual for a stress-timed language; this reflects an Indo-European genesis that is supported by the presence of oral formulaic language. Both stress and accent shifted pitch by poetic line to match spoken characteristics. A high language register was present, which does not indicate composition by the intelligentsia for use at court, but rather a fear-induced protective linguistic device apparent in all social classes. Moreover, the addition of delineated pitch to spoken declamation may be seen as an attempt to further increase the communicative register. The pitch structure was seen to be anachronistic, matching the linear scales played by pastoral instruments, particularly that of wooden shepherd trumpets used since at least the beginning in the Early Neolithic Age.

Con la invasión de los españoles al continente americano, el encuentro de diversos modelos epistémicos provocó la configuración de un espacio cultural –ahora llamado hispanoamericano– en ambas orillas del Atlántico. Esta tesis pretende poner de relieve los estrechos lazos que durante siglos unieron a varias culturas musicales y analizar en profundidad algunas de las formas en las que se articularon. Para ello, de entre todos los microsistemas musicales que se fueron configurando en este espacio cultural, planteo la existencia de uno que involucra, como mínimo, a un conjunto de expresiones musicales presentes en tres países distintos, México, Cuba y España. Estas son: el jarabe loco y el zapateado jarocho, el punto y el zapateo cubano, y la guajira española. Abordo su estudio en un ámbito temporal que abarca desde finales del siglo XVIII hasta la actualidad. Muestro que, a pesar de que se encuentran en tres países diferentes y que el periodo estudiado es bastante amplio, comparten características que permiten relacionarlas.
Para mostrar la existencia de dicho sistema, desde una mirada etnomusicológica utilizo dos enfoques analíticos que se complementan. Por un lado, una exhaustiva búsqueda y análisis de documentos históricos que abarcan todo el espectro temporal en estudio y, por otro, el análisis musical paradigmático –mediante el software SAAP– de un amplio corpus compuesto por partituras del siglo XIX y transcripciones tanto de grabaciones antiguas como de música viva. El resultado de ambos análisis nos proporciona claves para entender la pervivencia de analogías en territorios tan distantes. Los resultados develados en esta tesis contradicen algunos de los postulados suscritos en la investigación sobre estas expresiones musicales. Dicho contraste me lleva a plantear una reflexión final sobre el modo en que se ha construido el conocimiento musicológico en México, Cuba y España, y la vigencia que en la investigación actual siguen teniendo estas fuentes.

The harmonic-functional system is based on a conception of harmony and the chords of the tonality derived from the notion of differential hierarchy, fifth relationships and functional affinity, whose consequence is the recognition of three basic functions – tonic, dominant and subdominant– and of three other secondary or derivative functions, each with two variants, which complete the rest of useful chords as secondary tonic within a given tonality. A revision of the harmonic-functional system must begin with the very introduction of the concept of " function " in musical theory and, more specifically, in musical analysis. Secondly, it is necessary to recall and discuss succinctly the same foundation of harmony, according to several authors (Rameau, Riemann, Schönberg), although focusing only on those aspects of its theoretical tradition that concern the origin of the chord, its position within the system, its typology and relationships between chords. Finally, the paper develops a complete view of the harmonic-functional system which provides an overview of all types of chords that are studied in any academic harmony treatise, but grouped according to their function in harmonic discourse, that is, summarized under the cover of the three basic functions and their derived functions, in an organic unit that immediately gives each chord its role in speech and thus its harmonic function. In this section we will review the definition of basic functions and secondary functions, the numbering of chord sounds, movement of voices, cadential functions (dominant, dominant of the dominant and subdominant), tonicization and modulation, to end with extensions of the system that allow to use it even in the limits of the tonal system.

The musical universe of the 20th and 21st centuries is a force-field in which styles, instruments, personalities and stories can be found that are ascribable to conceptual frameworks that may differ greatly one from another. Such complexity cannot be traced back to single theories or all-encompassing interpretations, but may be tackled, philosophically, starting from certain characteristics. This book identifies nine such characteristics: namely, Extremes, Noise, Silence, Technology, Audience, Listening, Freedom, Disintegration, and New Media. Each of these permits us to open up unforeseen philosophical-cultural paths and interpret, in its multifarious variety, the developments of contemporary music, profoundly interwoven with the history of thought, culture and society.

John Williams is perhaps best known for his film music themes, most of which are based on eight-bar models that divide into discernible halves of 4+4 bars, each half usually containing two short ideas of two bars each. Though this type of thematic structuring has been the norm for the majority of Hollywood film history, Williams’s themes include variation more frequently than is typical for Hollywood films. After dividing Williams' film scores into four style periods, this chapter demonstrates that these variation-based themes occur mainly in his second period (the mid 1970s through the early 1990s) when the association includes an element of fantasy. It is argued that this thematic structure, in which the initial idea is not merely repeated or contrasted with, but varied, is a musical expression of fantasy. In this way, Williams strengthens the bond between theme and association by translating a fundamental element of the association into strictly musical terms.

This article deals with the philosophical idea of worldmaking pursued through techné, meaning the fusion of the technical means of artistic creation, theorizing, and analysis, but specifically occurring in a feedback loop involving introspection and computation (cybernetic phenomenology). The discussion ranges over a wide variety of topics, including (1) the history of music theory from Ancient Greece to the present (including a rebuttal to Daniel Chua’s (2001) account of music history); (2) emergent properties in music arising from self-organization (explored through the Ancient Chinese abstract strategy board game go); (3) the ontology of musical qualities (properties) and categories (including their relation to visual, tactile, and olfactory qualities and categories). 
Various repertoires, artists, and philosophies are referenced. The essay analyzes aspects of Ligeti’s Violin Concerto, Carter’s String Quartet No. 5, and Lachenmann’s Kinderspiel.  Connections to the author’s own previous analytical and theoretical work are also discussed in relation to his interactive algorithmic audio-visual works (such as Fluxations and FluxNOISations). The techné of these is discussed in terms of logistics as well as aesthetic influences, including Wagner, Liszt, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Crawford, Babbitt, Carter, Xenakis, Parker, Reich, Ligeti, Truax, Oliveros, Kandinsky, Miro, Pollock, Pollock, Hofmann, Rothko, Louis, Frankenthaler, Moholy-Nagy, Newman, Richter, and Brakhage.  The essay touches on philosophical ideas of Bergson, Whitehead, Deleuze, Harman, and Bogost, and more fully engages the philosophies of Nelson Goodman and Hannah Arendt in connection with artistic creation as relating to the theorizing and analysis of artistic works.     

Contact the author at jmailman@alumni.uchicago.edu
Download the article through JSTOR: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7757/persnewmusi.54.1.0005
or http://tinyurl.com/zdvkllr

The harmonic-functional system is based on a conception of harmony and the chords of the tonality derived from the notion of differential hierarchy, fifth relationships and functional affinity, whose consequence is the recognition of three basic functions – tonic, dominant and subdominant – and of three other secondary or derivative functions, each with two variants, which complete the rest of useful chords as secondary tonic within a given tonality.

A revision of the harmonic-functional system must begin with the very introduction of the concept of ‘function’ in musical theory and, more specifically, in musical analysis. Secondly, it is necessary to recall and discuss succinctly the same foundation of harmony, according to several authors (Rameau, Riemann, Schönberg), although focusing only on those aspects of its theoretical tradition that concern the origin of the chord, its position within the system, its typology and relationships between chords.

Finally, the paper develops a complete view of the harmonic-functional system which provides an overview of all types of chords that are studied in any academic harmony treatise, but grouped according to their function in harmonic discourse, that is, summarized under the cover of the three basic functions and their derived functions, in an organic unit that immediately gives each chord its role in speech and thus its harmonic function. In this section we will review the definition of basic functions and secondary functions, the numbering of chord sounds, movement of voices, cadential functions (dominant, dominant of the dominant and subdominant), tonicization and modulation, to end with extensions of the system that allow to use it even in the limits of the tonal system.

A leitmotif is a representative compositional tool which aids in storytelling. This compositional device was adopted by Richard Wagner in The Ring which premiered in 1876. A century later the leitmotif is used by John Williams in his score for the first film in the Star Wars saga – A New Hope. Due to the scores extreme popularity, Williams would continue his musical relationship with the fantastical universe for the following thirty years.  This dissertation examines the use of the leitmotif by Williams with reference to Wagner.
Motifs are representative of character, place and emotion. Parallels of certain aspects of the mythic stories which they embody exist respectively between The Ring and Star Wars – can the same be said for leitmotifs written over a century apart? The employment and deployment of selected motifs will be studied in relation to how they change, how they are representative, and how they relate to each other.
Informed by works by both music and film scholars, this dissertation will examine the effectiveness of the motifs, how they belong to the work and how their meaning is acquired and subsequently used. In essence, how is a German-romantic compositional device employed in a galaxy far, far way?

Many musical compositions from the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century retain some elements of functional tonality but abandon others. Most analytical methods are designed to address either tonal music or atonal music, but no single method completely illuminates this body of extended-tonal music. While both tonal and post-tonal theory have been extended in various ways to address this music, the use of tonal theory for analysis of this repertoire has not been completely formalized. The main obstacle for prolongational views of extended tonality is finding sufficient conditions for establishing that certain harmonies are structural in the absence of traditional harmonic function. In this regard, acoustical measures of stability, motivic connections, and chord equivalence all may form a part in determining the structural harmonies. Prolongational analyses of music may be represented by Schenkerian notation or transformational networks based on Lewin's Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations (1987). This study explores a number of specific graphing techniques, including the diatonic lattice (Jones 2002), the just- intonation Tonnetz, and mod-12/mod-7 prolongational networks. After using group theory to explore the relationship of diatonic scale theory and tuning theory to transformational and prolongational analysis, excerpts from Wolf, Wagner, and Ravel are analyzed using mod-7 transformations. In giving support for prolongational analyses of chromatic and neo-tonal music, this study provides a case for tonality-based approaches to post-functional harmony.

Neste artigo realizo uma incursão etnomusicológica pelo Calendário do Som, um corpus musical constituído de 366 composições elaboradas diariamente pelo compositor, arranjador e multi-instrumentista alagoano Hermeto Pascoal durante o período 1996-1997, e publicadas no ano de 2000. O Calendário do Som é uma obra popular sacra. Suas 366 partituras autógrafas, uma para cada dia do ano, foram compostas como um presente de aniversário para todos os seres humanos. Através da publicação, Hermeto Pascoal pretende transmitir uma mensagem fraternal de paz, como um antídoto musical para a violência, o racismo, as desigualdades sociais e o desequilíbrio ecológico no Brasil e no mundo contemporâneo. Além das notações musicais, as partituras contêm ilustrações, comentários e memórias de Hermeto Pascoal sobre sua família, músicos amigos, personagens, datas e locais, reais ou fictícios. Relacionando o texto ao contexto musical, o Calendário do Som exemplifica aspectos interligados da carreira, da personalidade e do sistema musical inovador de Hermeto Pascoal, abrangendo tanto a música enquanto som, como a esfera social da produção musical.

Este trabalho consiste em um estudo dos procedimentos modais adotados por compositores populares brasileiros, realizado por meio da análise de canções transcritas a partir de registros fonográficos. O entendimento corrente acerca de modalismo – que consiste no emprego de modos distintos daqueles utilizados no sistema tonal maior-menor – foi o ponto de partida para estabelecer o objetivo central desta pesquisa, que é buscar os possíveis padrões recorrentes e as especificidades da aplicação deste sistema de organização de alturas no âmbito da música popular urbana no Brasil – aqui entendida como a música popular produzida nas cidades, de autoria conhecida e normalmente direcionada ao consumo através dos meios de comunicação. Para tanto, fez-se necessário revisar os conceitos de modos e modalismo, bem como os sistemas teóricos a estes relacionados. Essa revisão, associada a um breve panorama da produção modal pós-tonal – concentrado na música de concerto europeia dos séculos XIX e XX, no jazz modal e na música de concerto brasileira de tendência nacionalista – serviram de base para estabelecer um padrão de análise melódica e harmônica aplicado a canções populares extraídas da discografia de oito compositores brasileiros – Luiz Gonzaga, João do Vale, Dorival Caymmi, Baden Powell, Tom Jobim, Edu Lobo, Caetano Veloso e Gilberto Gil –, selecionados devido à ocorrência significativa de práticas modais em sua obra. A compilação dos dados obtidos permitiu o mapeamento de algumas especificidades do modalismo praticado no âmbito da música popular urbana do Brasil, a partir da intuição que norteou esse trabalho: a de que o diálogo direto e horizontal que se estabelece entre música popular urbana e música de tradição oral, aliado à liberdade criativa e ao descompromisso que caracterizam o ambiente da música popular, resultam em uma abordagem bastante particular do modalismo. A despeito das singularidades observadas na produção modal de cada compositor, há pontos em comum que permitem se pensar em algo que se poderia chamar de “modalismo popular brasileiro”.

As attention on the music of Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996) has increased in the years after his death, so has the need for an analytical study of his musical style and language. This thesis surveys Weinberg’s changing style through a genre that spans almost his entire output: the string quartet. His close friendship and artistic affinity with Shostakovich helps make his music accessible to a wider audience, though closer examination reveals Weinberg’s individuality and a quite distinct language from that of his mentor. In support of this contention, a wide range of analytical approaches is deployed in this dissertation, along with a pragmatic methodology for presenting a holistic overview of Weinberg’s quartets.
Weinberg’s quartet cycle occupies an important place in twentieth-century music, with parallels to Shostakovich, Bartók, and other Soviet composers, including Myaskovsky, Shebalin, Levitin, and Boris Chaykovsky; correspondences and distinctiveness are explored in the second chapter. The third chapter surveys Weinberg’s musical narratives, with recourse to theories from Kofi Agawu, Boris Asafiev, and Jacques Derrida. Form is the focus of the fourth chapter, where ideas from Mark Aranovsky, and James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy are deployed to highlight Weinberg’s problematising of traditional forms in his music. Chapter five explores Weinberg’s multi-faceted approach to harmony, with concepts expanded from Lev Mazel, Yury Kholopov, and the neo-Riemannian school of analysis.
The picture that emerges is of Weinberg’s individuality and distinctive voice, manifested in a controlled experimentalism and a tendency towards extended lyricism. His affinity with better-known composers may prove an approachable entry-point for wider audiences, but many of the most striking elements in his quartet cycle are of his own invention. His quartets stand as an important contextual dimension for understanding Shostakovich’s cycle, and also for appreciating the broader repertoire of Soviet chamber music. As his centenary approaches, engagement with Weinberg’s music continues to increase: this thesis provides contexts and analysis-based conclusions to complement this ongoing revival.

In this paper I examine Hendrix's early recordings with a focus on his use of minor and major pentatonic scales, as well as the ways these may be blended with modal materials.  The principal songs analyzed are "Fire," "Purple Haze," and "The Wind Cries Mary."

Opera has been written for specific occasions, for particupar persons and for particular opera houses. We take as starting these that the essence of opera is not its writing or its stage conception but its performance. That means each singers performance, its immediate reception by a unique audience and the unique interaction between both parts during the show. To examine the interactions between singers and the audience we develop a methodology of opera analysis with analytics instruments derived from theatrology and musicology together. Here we prove the decisive influence of the particular operatic performance for the understanding, the interpretation and the analysis of opera. After giving a historiography of opera analysis since its systematization in the last century, we exemplified our thesis with the analysis of Il Barbiere di Siviglia from Giacchino Rossini and the analysis of Pelléas et Mélisande from Claude Debussy. Both operas are stage productions of the Choreographer and opera director: Ruth Berghaus (1927-1996). Here we develop three specific analytic tools: Gesture – Knot – Correspondence

A technique, generally ignored in tonal-music textbooks, is the writing of simultaneous outer-voice inversion (or “mirror counterpoint”)—that is, a form of note-against-note counterpoint in which the lowest voice descends by as many diatonic steps as the topmost voice ascends, and vice-versa; inner voices are then added to complete tonal harmonic progressions. The technique could be incorporated into either a counterpoint or a harmony-and-voice-leading course, and its study could generate many practical benefits for the student.
In the four principal sections of this essay, the author: (1) provides an overview of the historical development and various applications of mirror counterpoint; (2) investigates the operation’s musical attributes and compositional utilization, introducing such concepts as intra- and interkey axis modulations; (3) analyzes three mirror passages by Clementi and Brahms, in order to confirm and further explore prior observations in the contexts of extant compositions; and (4) summarizes the pedagogical benefits a student may obtain through the practice and application of the technique, which relate to the very skills and perceptions a student is expected to master during a course on the theory and practice of tonal music.

This dissertation examines the use of music and sound in the films of Alfred Hitchcock to achieve a dramatic emotional effect, and how its effectiveness has influenced the use of sound and music in post-Hitchcock cinema. It examines the specific compositional devices used by composers such as Bernard Herrmann and Miklos Rosza, and approaches to sound design present in these works. By looking at these features: it discerns the true significance of these aural features and the importance of these methods to enhance the cinematic experience constructed under Hitchcock. This work also explores how the effectiveness of these techniques, and the success of these films, has influenced cinema and soundtracks from other directors, composers, and sound designers to the modern day. In order to obtain a greater understanding of the influence that these aural techniques have on the audience of such films; a number of psychological and biomusicological concepts are explored: such as entrainment (Sonnenschien, 2001, p.97-99), listening modes (Chion, 1994, p.25-34), and the ideas of meaning and communication (Tagg, 2012, p.155-192). The research displays how the sound designers and engineers, and musical directors: such as Bernard Herrmann and Miklos Rozsa, involved in some of Hitchcock’s most renowned productions helped to achieve an effective emotional response from the audience, and also shape the use of sound and music in cinema of similar genres through the 20th and 21st centuries.

This article traces a brief history of a schema from Corelli to Mozart, here designated the Fonte-Romanesca, in order to clarify certain foundational principles in schema theory's conception of a model, particularly as it relates to the creative act. Models are not theoretical abstractions, but cultural artifacts that inform the compositional process through (near-)literal copy, (creative) imitation, variation, and problem solving—both combinatorially and developmentally. Such a re-evaluation of schema theory is simultaneously an opportunity to reflect on larger disciplinary changes surrounding the study of music from the long eighteenth century over the last few decades.

The 18th-century tradition of partimento and thoroughbass exercises has come under intense scrutiny of historians, theorists, and pedagogues during the last years. Much less attention has been paid to the vivid persistence of this tradition in the 19th century all over Europe. Not only the education of organists but especially the training of pianiste-compositeurs proved to be fertile ground for the practical training in the partimento tradition: Performances of fantasies, improvisations of cadenzas, interludes, lead-ins and ornaments were part of their daily-business. 19th-century manuals and teachers imparting the skills necessary for this kind of improvisation rely on thoroughbass and partimento exercises almost exclusively. At the same time they refrain from contemporary theories of „modern harmony“. This shall be shown in this paper with the help of three examples: Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Friedrich Hiller and Frédéric Chopin. This 19th-century tradition is of interest not only for historians and theorists; romantic partimenti also open up new approaches and perspectives for a present music theory pedagogy, which in recent years has started to challenge the customary boundaries between theory, composition, improvisation, and performance.

The Lord of the Rings film score parallels an ordered triple of races—Hobbits, Men, and Elves—with am ordered triple of harmony—major-minor diatonic, modal diatonic, and chromatic (non-diatonic). Analysis of each race in this series places them on a continuum of familiar to unfamiliar, or ordinary to fantastical.

Arnold Schoenberg's curious ascription of dissonance to the six-three chord in his Harmonielehre reveals the positing of a unity of tonal and non-tonal music in their solving of problems of unrest in the tone, the dissonance, and the musical idea, but neither his fragmentary theoretical writings nor his interpreters have fleshed this connection out. On the contrary, the notion has arisen of a " tonal problem " as a distinguishing feature of tonal music. Drawing on blending theory and metaphor theory, I elucidate this unity by explaining Schoenberg's dialectical conceptions of the tone, the means of art (made up of consonances and dissonances), the musical work (as a presentation of the musical idea), and the evolution of perception and music and by supplementing Schoenberg's analysis of the first movement of Johannes Brahms's Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, op. 60. These findings shed new light on Schoenberg's and indeed on Brahms's musical thought.

The First Book of Madrigals  by Salamon Rossi, published in 1600, includes  six madrigals  with tablature for 'Chittarrone'.
This document  represents a unique model for instrumental accompaniment  and the first example about the evolution of Chitarrone  as a continuous instrument.
The aim of this work is to demonstrate, through the analysis of madrigals with particular regard to Chitarrone tablatures, that Salamon Rossi’s book can be considered as an early example of ‘basso continuo’, in spite of general views defining the First Book of Madrigals just as an example of ‘basso seguente’.
In this study, the birth of the basso continuo and its development are presented, as well as the role of the lute in the development of accompanying practice; the history of Chitarrone is also taken into account - from its first appearance to its gradual dissemination across Europe.
The important role of Salamon Rossi in the progress of Chitarrone’s practice  is the core of this thesis, with a particular focus on the First Book of Madrigals.
In the appendix, my  transcription and analysis of six madrigals is included in order to supply a critical apparatus for the interpretation of the whole work. Indeed, the few examples of transcriptions available in the literature do not always correspond to Rossi’s original tablature. This work aims to fill a gap in the field, providing amendments to errors made in the original version.

This is the third chapter in a Ph.D. dissertation that explains the aboriginal musical structure of European music. It is formed on the natural scale and explains why music today is in the major and minor modes and has triadic harmony as an integral component.

Due to the 20th century mathematical and scientific developments of Georg Cantor, Max Karl Planck, Albert Einstein, and Werner Heisenberg, concepts once relegated to obscurity, such as irrationality, infinity, insolvability, and chaos, were brought to mainstream attention, ultimately changing the course of technological and scientific development into the 21st century. Before these seminal thinkers, concepts like numerical irrationality and infinity were considered by many to be worthless if not amoral; such attitudes can be found persisting back to the ancient Greeks under the Pythagoreans. Interestingly, the aesthetic of irrationality follows a similar historical trajectory, mostly finding relegation in peripheral movements and specific artists before the 20th century. However, the 20th century has seen the greatest and longest persisting resurgence in mathematically irrational thought within the arts. This paper compares the visual and musical experiments in irrationality, incommensurability, and infinity in the works of MC Escher and Conlon Nancarrow during the early and mid-twentieth century, showing a correlation between contemporary mathematical and physical innovations and specific aesthetic pursuits in art and music.

This article surveys the reception of Arnold Schoenberg's theoretical ideas in English-language music theory, with a primary (though not exclusive) focus on their reception in the United States. William Rothstein has chronicled how Heinrich Schenker's ideas were modified to conform to the American music-theoretical discourse ("Americanization"). The question then arises: Were Schoenberg's theoretical ideas also similarly modified? After a preliminary overview of the availability of Schoenberg's theoretical writing in English translation, four topics in Schoenberg's thought are traced, with a focus on the postwar era: 1) harmony; 2) form; 3) thematic and motivic transformation ; and 4) aesthetics. The American reception of Schoenberg's theoretical ideas has tended to focus on the music-technical dimension of his theoretical texts and has, to a significant extent, ignored the more philosophical and aesthetic aspects of his thought. It has tended to place emphasis on how music is structured and how that structure is unified; there has been less concern with why such unity is important in a broader sense. Dieser Aufsatz gibt einen Überblick über die Rezeption von Arnold Schönbergs theoretischem Denken in der englischsprachigen Musiktheorie, wobei der Fokus, wenn auch nicht ausschließ-lich, auf der Rezeption in den Vereinigten Staaten liegt. William Rothstein hat dargestellt wie Heinrich Schenkers Theorie im Zuge einer Anpassung an den amerikanischen musiktheoretischen Diskurs modifiziert wurde (»Americanization«). Dies legt die Frage nahe, ob auch Schönbergs theoretisches Denken in ähnlicher Weise modifiziert worden ist. Nach einer einführenden Über-sicht über die Verfügbarkeit von Schönbergs Schriften in englischen Übersetzungen werden vier Themenbereiche von Schönbergs Denken in der anglophonen Musiktheorie verfolgt, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf der Nachkriegszeit liegt: 1) Harmonik; 2) Form; 3) thematische und motivische Transformation; 4) Ästhetik. Die amerikanische Rezeption von Schönbergs Theorien tendierte dazu, die technischen Aspekte in seinen Schriften herauszuheben, und vernachlässigte dabei in einem signifikanten Ausmaß die stärker philosophischen und ästhetischen Aspekte seines Den-kens. Die Schönberg-Rezeption in den USA hat also ein starkes Gewicht auf Fragen musikalischer Struktur und struktureller Einheit gelegt; weniger wurde hingegen danach gefragt, warum eine solche Einheit in einem umfassenderen Sinn erstrebenswert ist. In his 1986 article entitled "The Americanization of Heinrich Schenker," William Roth-stein explores the development of Schenkerian theory and analysis in North America in the decades following the Second World War. Reflecting on how Schenker's ideas had been absorbed, disseminated, and, to a certain extent, adapted by the English-speaking academic community in the United States, Rothstein remarks: 1 I would like to thank Severine Neff and Jonathan Dunsby for reading an earlier version of this article and offering useful comments. I would also like to thank the editors of the journal and the anonymous readers for their valuable feedback and suggestions.

The paper proposes a survey through the essential theoretical contribution of J.P. Rameau, beginning with the famous "Traité de l'Harmonie", and enlarged with several other books devoted to the harmonic theoretical thinking, in which he evolves according to the scientific discoveries of the century.

What have soloists performed upon approaching the final 6‐4 chord in a Mozart concerto? The Piano Concerto no. 20 in D minor, K. 466 has attracted a considerable array of notable composers to contribute cadenzas to it than any of Mozart's other concerti, including Beethoven, Brahms, Busoni, Hummel, C. Schumann and Mendelssohn. This dissertation examines six first movement cadenzas, two from three distinct phases; improvised cadenzas on period instruments by modern interpreters, those by the Romantic virtuosi who kept the concerto in their repertoire, and to those from twentieth century recording artists. This aspect of musical performing practice appears to have been neglected, and this essay aims to bring this issue to the forefront.

For the cadenza recordings then visit https://soundcloud.com/scott-greig/2012-dissertation-cadenza

This is an unpublished thesis written in 2016 to complete the requirements for a Bachelor of Music (Honours) at Southern Cross University, Lismore, Australia. This thesis received the mark of First Class Honours.

Abstract:

All musical styles are hybrids. They can be seen as a product of the confluence of cultural groups and historical events. Recently, there has been a rise in the popularity of Ethiopian music in the Western world, particularly of the contemporary style known as  Ethio-jazz. Ethio-jazz emerged in in Addis Ababa in the 1960s and ‘70s and is a hybrid of traditional Ethiopian musical elements fused with African American jazz, soul and funk. One of the important works of Ethio-jazz is Mulatu Astatke’s 1974 LP entitled  Yekatit Ethio Jazz. As Ethio-jazz is a hybrid style, this thesis aims to identify the cultural origins of individual musical elements that are found on the record Yekatit Ethio Jazz. In addition to this it will discuss how specific historical and cultural aspects made an impact on the music composition process and the subsequent commercial success of this particular album release. This research will be conducted by employing specific methodologies across the chapters of this thesis. The first method employed is the reviewing of literature and musical sources that are currently available on this topic and related subject matter. This is followed by a historical and cultural study and an analysis of Yekatit Ethio Jazz through transcription of the recorded material and analysing musical elements found within the music. Finally an interview with Mulatu Astatke is conducted and analysed in order to address, confirm and elaborate on previous finding in the thesis.

Key words:  Ethnomusicology, musical analysis, hybridity, music theory, Ethio-jazz, Mulatu Astatke.

In B/W Paperback, and Full Color deluxe Hard Cover, the Second Edition of Charles Ives and his Road to the Stars brings a fresh approach to a broad cross section of the composer’s extraordinary musical contributions. Exposing many myths, misconceptions, faulty impressions, and falsehoods along the way, Cooke guides the reader through the unique musical language Ives created, as well as what lay behind it. For anyone interested in knowing more about this unique American icon, as well as reaching a better understanding and appreciation of his music and world, this accessible volume might be the perfect answer.

Wagner's Leitmotif and how it has influenced film music in closing the gap between the audience and the characters on screen for a more immersive experience. This paper discusses the development of film music with regards to Wagner's Leitmotif and its influence on the shaping of film music as we know today. Also it details how the Leitmotif shaped my original composition to an out-of-copyright silent film  L’île de Calypso published in 1905 and is directed by French director Georges Méliès.