Educating Popular Musicians: Insights into Music Teaching and Learning on Higher and Further Education Programmes in Ireland

The aim of this thesis is to investigate approaches to the teaching and learning of popular music in higher and further education institutions in the Republic of Ireland. Despite the proliferation of popular music in contemporary culture, very little research has been conducted into how popular musicians are educated in Ireland. This research presents an analysis of case study data using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as a framework. The research examines how students of popular music approach their learning and whether their needs are adequately supported in higher and further education settings. The research also investigates how the study of popular music is valued at institutional level. Findings highlight the importance of informal learning, authentic learning environments, technology, performance and industry engagement amongst popular music students and tutors. Findings also show an inconsistent approach to the facilitation of these learning needs within higher and further education institutions in Ireland. Disparate attitudes between students and teaching staff in relation to the value of studying music in higher education is also evidenced in the findings. The research makes an important contribution to the field of popular music education in Ireland and provides a number of recommendations for the delivery of popular music programmes in higher and further education

Cubaneo In Latin Piano: A Parametric Approach To Gesture, Texture, And Motivic Variation

ABSTRACT CUBANEO IN LATIN PIANO: A PARAMETRIC APPROACH TO GESTURE, TEXTURE, AND MOTIVIC VARIATION COPYRIGHT Orlando Enrique Fiol 2018 Dr. Carol A. Muller Over the past century of recorded evidence, Cuban popular music has undergone great stylistic changes, especially regarding the piano tumbao. Hybridity in the Cuban/Latin context has taken place on different levels to varying extents involving instruments, genres, melody, harmony, rhythm, and musical structures. This hybridity has involved melding, fusing, borrowing, repurposing, adopting, adapting, and substituting. But quantifying and pinpointing these processes has been difficult because each variable or parameter embodies a history and a walking archive of sonic aesthetics. In an attempt to classify and quantify precise parameters involved in hybridity, this dissertation presents a paradigmatic model, organizing music into vocabularies, repertories, and abstract procedures. Cuba\u27s pianistic vocabularies are used very interactively, depending on genre, composite ensemble texture, vocal timbre, performing venue, and personal taste. These vocabularies include: melodic phrases, harmonic progressions, rhythmic cells and variation schemes to replace repetition with methodical elaboration of the piano tumbao as a main theme. These pianistic vocabularies comprise what we actually hear. Repertories, such as pre-composed songs, ensemble arrangements, and open- ended montuno and solo sections, situate and contextualize what we hear in real life musical performances. Abstract procedures are the thoughts, aesthetics, intentions, and parametric rules governing what Cuban/Latin pianists consider possible. Abstract procedures alter vocabularies by displacing, expanding, contracting, recombining, permuting, and layering them. As Cuba\u27s popular musics find homes in its musical diaspora (the United States, Latin America and Europe), Cuban pianists have sought to differentiate their craft from global salsa and Latin jazz pianists. Expanding the piano\u27s gestural/textural vocabulary beyond pre-Revolutionary traditions and performance practices, the timba piano tumbao is a powerful marker of Cuban identity and musical pride, transcending national borders and cultural boundaries

Transforming musical performance: activating the audience as digital collaborators

Digital technologies have transformed the performance practice, recording and distribution technologies, economy and sonic landscape of music in a process of change that began in the early 1980s. Recent technological developments have opened up the possibility of embodied interaction between audiences and performers, reframing music performance as a collaborative improvisatory space that affords Interactive Musical Participation. The research in this practice-based thesis looks at the relationship and experience of audience members and musicians exploring Interactive Musical Participation within the wide stylistic framework of contemporary jazz. It also studies the potential for the creation of compositional, technological and performance protocols to enable successful Interactive Musical Participation. This has been achieved through a process of mapping the methodology behind the composition, technical infrastructure, performances and post-performance analysis of a series of musical artefacts. Cook (2001 and 2009) suggests that researchers in this field should “Make a piece, not an instrument or controller” and this dictum has influenced the development of the technical infrastructure for this research. Easily accessible and low-cost digital audio workstations Ableton Live (2017) and Logic Pro X (Apple, 2019) as well as the digital protocols Open Sound Control (OSC) (Opensoundcontrol.org) have been utilised to deliver the programming and networking requirements. A major innovation stemming from this project has been the development of the Deeper Love Soundpad App, a sample playback app for Apple smartphones and iPads, in collaboration with Dr. Rob Toulson. The theoretical background to this research has been informed by actornetwork theory, the sociological approach developed by Bruno Latour (2005), Michel Callon (1986) and John Law (1992). Actor-network theory (ANT) provides a framework for understanding the mechanics of power and organisation within heterogeneous non-hierarchical networks. Mapping and analysing the ANT networks and connections created by the research performances has provided valuable data in the Interactive Musical Participatio

Father(s?) of Rock & Roll: Why the Johnnie Johnson v. Chuck Berry Songwriting Suit Should Change the Way Copyright Law Determines Joint Authorship

Father(s?) of Rock & Roll utilizes a unique and historic resource--the previously unseen deposition testimony of Chuck Berry and his piano man Johnnie Johnson--to analyze the problems with how copyright law currently determines joint authorship and to propose a new Berry-Johnson joint authorship test. In 2000, Johnson sued Berry, claiming he co-wrote the music to nearly all the significant songs in the Berry canon. Granted access to the case file, I quote and analyze key portions of their deposition testimony, using it as a case study of high-level collaborative creativity and exploring what it can teach us about how best to determine joint authorship under US copyright law. Johnson v. Berry exposes the faults in the prevailing judicial joint authorship tests, which misplace their focus on whether collaborators: (1) considered themselves authors, (2) contributed independently copyrightable expression, (3) controlled the creative work, and (4) contributed expression that has audience appeal. Father(s?) of Rock & Roll proposes a new approach, the Berry-Johnson test, centered on the creation of the work itself. This test, at its core, asks: did more than one person intend to create a single work and did they each substantially contribute to its essence? If so, these persons are its joint authors. To guide this determination, the test uses: (1) the relative impact of each contribution on the work, (2) the views each contributor had regarding the substantiality of the others\u27 contributions, and (3) industry custom. The Berry-Johnson test thereby better recognizes worthy joint authors while setting a bar high enough that courts will not explode with joint authorship litigation. Courts should adopt the Berry-Johnson test to resolve joint authorship disputes. Better yet, Congress should expressly codify it in the Copyright Act, along with a provision creating a compulsory license for authors\u27 use of their non-author collaborators\u27 independently copyrightable contributions, closing a worrisome loophole in the law highlighted by the recent Garcia v. Google case. In this way, the testimony of Chuck Berry and Johnnie Johnson should change copyright law and improve how we determine joint authorship in future collaborations

Controllers as musical instruments, controllerism as musical practice - practices of a new 21st century musical culture

This thesis consists of an ethnomusicological approach to the development of Controllers as musical instruments, and conceptualizes Controllerism as a musical practice. I make a case for a revision in organology that includes Controllers, and other instruments of the computer society, by seeking out commonalities and providing comparative analyses between historical instruments and modern Controllers. I then provide definitions of the term Controllerism; by discussing its origins, history, musical logics, strains of musical practice, and current technological explorations. By situating the Controller and Controllerism in a cultural and historical timeline, I have traced informing logics that have led to the development of this new instrument and musical practice. Ethnography has been undertaken with informants from Europe, America and Japan in order to ascertain generalized understandings of the instrument and musical practice; and participatory action research undergone in three separate artist residencies with the intent of determining common perspectives and concerns of international Controllerists. A Portuguese case-study has provided a unique glimpse, by comparison, of this emerging art-form and growing mind-set in modern music.Esta tese é uma aproximação etnomusicológica ao desenvolvimento dos controladores como instrumentos musicais, e conceitualiza o chamado Controllerism como uma prática musical. Defendo a ideia de uma revisão no campo da organologia que inclua os controladores e outros instrumentos da computer society, procurando pontos em comum e providenciando análises comparativas entre instrumentos históricos e controladores modernos. Apresentarei definições do termo Controllerism; discutindo as suas origens, história, lógicas musicais, vertentes de prática musical, e as atuais explorações tecnológicas. Situando o controlador e o Controllerism numa linhagem cultural e histórica, identifico as lógicas que levaram ao desenvolvimento deste novo instrumento e desta nova prática musical. Para tal, elaborei uma etnografia com informantes da Europa, América e Japão com o objetivo de compreender noções comuns sobre o instrumento e a prática musical; fiz também pesquisa participativa em três residências artísticas, com a intenção de determinar perspetivas e preocupações comuns entre Controllerists internacionais. Finalmente, através de um estudo de caso em Portugal, providencio uma visão única, comparativamente falando, desta forma de arte emergente e estilo de vida na música moderna

Emotion in Congregational Singing: Music-Evoked Affect in Filipino Churches

The link between music and emotion is essential for understanding the importance of music in life. A significant variety of research has focused on perceived emotion in musical sound and music-evoked emotion in listening. However, what performers experience has only recently begun to attract scholarly attention. Research in non-performance music activities, such as communal singing or simply “jamming” with friends, is sparse. This thesis aims to answer the following questions about the latter: Do singers experience actual emotion while singing? If so, do such experiences fit with prevailing emotion models? What lingering effects come from emotion in music-making? The answers to these questions may promote the understanding of music and emotion in several fields of study, such as cognitive musicology, music therapy, music in education, and congregational music studies. An examination of congregational singing addresses these questions. Two aspects of the activity suggest broader applications of the findings: communal singing does not include the elements of practice and performance inherent in choral music; and many Christian congregations sing for distinctly non-music goals, such as theological instruction, spiritual maturation, or a palpable engagement with God. Two Filipino Baptist churches with strong singing traditions agreed to an in-depth study of their congregational singing experiences to help answer the research questions. The research was shaped by the use of the Component Process Model (CPM), a framework rooted in the idea that emotion is primarily a cognitive experience. A combination of ethnographic surveys and phenomenological interviews was used to gather data about the theological expectations of and personal experiences in congregational singing. The data was then examined through the lens of the CPM. The results of the study are presented after chapters detailing emotion theories, the theological perspectives of the case study churches, methodology, and descriptions about the churches and their congregational song repertory. A final chapter presents other pertinent findings. The triangulation of emotion theory, theology of emotion, and phenomenology of emotion in performative music activity created for this thesis offers a significant approach to further study the complexity of emotion experience in communal singing and other music-making experiences

Jazz and Recording in the Digital Age: Technology, New Media, and Performance in New York and Online

This dissertation is a study of the uses of recording technologies and new media by jazz musicians in New York. It privileges the perspectives of professional musicians, gleaned through interviews and observation of their discourses and practices in live and recorded performances and in online new media spaces. Contrary to scholarly and critical approaches to jazz that privilege live performance, this dissertation argues that mediatization, through use of recording technologies, digital formats and platforms, and social media, is a vital mode of jazz performance in the digital age. Chapter 1 shows how formative encounters with jazz by musicians coming of age in the 1980s, ‘90s, and 2000s were often with recorded media, instilling in them positive attitudes towards the creative and professional opportunities presented by recording technologies. Chapter 2 presents the professional and artistic reasons why musicians make recordings, how they choose music to record, and how they fund their recording projects amid a traditional recording industry averse to developing jazz musicians. Chapter 3 describes the ways that musicians use the technologies of the recording studio, which increasingly challenge conventional distinctions between stages of recording, aligning instead with integrated practices of “production” central to studio-based genres like hip-hop, electronic music, and pop. Chapter 4 examines how musicians are using new media of distribution and promotion—often despite the exploitative practices of media companies—to release their recordings and cultivate social networks of fans and fellow musicians. Chapter 5 discusses some current trends in the style of recording-oriented jazz under the aesthetic frameworks of songs and beats and considers how these frameworks accommodate the improvised solo, a hallmark of jazz. Chapter 6 interrogates the ontology and phenomenology of jazz recording, using the framework of mediatized performance to argue against the common notion that recording necessarily impoverishes improvised music. In closing, Chapter 7 reveals how mediatized performances have enabled jazz musicians to participate in social movements that themselves are highly mediatized. This dissertation contributes to our knowledge of contemporary jazz, the ways musicians are adapting to and innovating with new technologies and media, and the relationship between recording and performance in the digital age

The Music Classroom as Epistemological Amphitheatre ? Assemblages of Adolescent Perceptions and Practices of Composing Creativities.

This empirical study has researched the perceptions and practices of adolescent composing creativities from the perspectives of three inter-related music-making communities. The research comprises three studies: young adults, year nine adolescents and music teachers. The design for the research sits within the interpretivist paradigm and uses qualitative methodologies. Each study constitutes a phenomenological case study and uses a number of methods to create data. Initial findings from the first two case studies were shared with the participants in study three as part of embedded triangulation within the research. Research methods included observation, semi-formal interviews, focus group interviews and smartphone voice recording evaluations. The research has aimed to make visible the multiplicity of entanglements concerning perceptions and practices of composing creativities, access routes and identities that influence interactions in the music classroom. It considers the collisions of epistemologies and ontologies that are present within the music classroom and the consequent intersections with adolescent behaviours and identities. It further considers how these aspects are entangled with socio-cultural values and the possible reproduction of social stratification within the classroom. It makes visible the ways in which teachers’ practices adapt and negotiate different musical knowledges whilst supporting adolescent development and world-view. The research concludes by exploring how findings from the study suggest future considerations for ‘liquid’ and signature pedagogies and classroom environment, alongside a broadening definition of composing creativities whilst challenging the dominance of neo-liberal influences on education. It affirms that music teachers function at the centre of a patchwork of visible and invisible forces, working reflexively and co-creatively. Finally, the research considers implications for initial teacher training and teacher professional development within a context of school partnerships.N/

A play of bodies: a phenomenology of videogame experience

Videogames require robust yet flexible methods and vocabularies of critical analysis that appreciate both the textual and embodied pleasures of players. Such analysis cannot start with the player’s intentions as an autonomous user nor with the videogame as a stable object; rather, it must account for the dynamic interplay between videogame hardware, sensorial perception, and audiovisual and haptic representations. If it is to understand how a particular videogame is engaged as both textual artefact and embodied practice, such analysis must be concerned with not just what the player does with the videogame, but what the videogame does with the player. This thesis forwards a phenomenology of videogame experience to account for how the player and the videogame incorporate each other in reflexive cycles that mediate presence, attention, perception, and agency. It does not hope to understand videogames either ‘as narratives’ or ‘as games’ but as particular amalgamations of existing and nascent media and forms—it hopes to understand videogames as videogames. It explores videogame play as a convergence of eyes-on-screens, ears-at-speakers, and muscles-against-interfaces to interrogate the limits of current game studies approaches that often obscure rich commonalities between videogames and other media forms. Drawing upon phenomenology, posthumanism, and cyborg theory, and embedded in detailed and multifaceted analyses of various videogames on different platforms as played, this thesis develops nuanced understandings of how the player and the videogame come together during play to form particular modes of embodiment through which a videogame work is both interpreted and perceived