Skoo-Bee-Dee-Boo-Bop-Scat: The Impacts of Vocal Jazz Improvisational Techniques on the Secondary Choral Student and Secondary Choral Program

Despite evidence that vocal jazz improvisation techniques are valuable tools for increased ear training and vocal technique knowledge, the specific impacts of vocal jazz training for the secondary school chorister have yet to be fully expressed. The singing and musicianship benefits of improvisational techniques matter because they impact the young choral singer and the individual student experience in and contribution to the school choir program. This study expressed the impacts of vocal jazz improvisational pedagogy for the secondary school vocalist as a member of the school choir program and the individual student musician. Guided by Eisner’s model of arts-based research, this qualitative grounded theory research study, as prescribed by Creswell, explored diverse viewpoints concerning the pedagogical and educational benefits of exposing secondary school choir students to vocal jazz improvisational techniques. Perspectives on the benefits of vocal jazz improvisational training have developed through a body of existing literature. To illustrate the benefits of vocal jazz improvisational techniques, this study reflected on the experiences seen in the literature. This study combined a qualitative grounded theory research model including surveys of music educators and bespoke interviews with field experts. The study results showed that students who are given the opportunity to explore vocal jazz improvisation exhibit enhanced musical skills, increased performance bravery, and a broader cultural perspective. In the appendices, the researcher included a collection of vocal jazz improvisational exercise templates for use in the field. Additionally, the researcher also developed a vocal jazz improvisation listening guide for emerging jazz vocalists and a collection of existing instructional videos. These resources are also included in the appendices. This study and appendix resources could advance music education training for future music educators and increase the preparedness of choral teachers through the use of jazz pedagogy

Transfunctionality: a compositional approach for expanding the horizons of acoustic instruments

This PhD in music composition explores a compositional approach referred to as 'Transfunctionality', where traditional acoustic instruments were paired with 'Expanded Instrument Systems' (EIS). These technological peripherals allow performers access to sonic expression in a live setting that would be inaccessible by other means. I've sought to classify such performance technologies not as 'add-ons' or 'performance elements', but as integral parts of that which is considered to be the 'instrument'. This aesthetic consideration has led me to work closely with musicians to create EIS that offer musically meaningful live interactions. Writing music for EIS is labour intensive, niche and a challenging musical balance to achieve. This convergence of the classical musician and performance software is perhaps unduly rare in today's concert halls. While seeing my work through to completion I've found myself pitted against barriers of both practicality and perception. The interplay between software and acoustic instrument can be fascinatingly varied, with both elements potentially serving to inform the other. This thesis consists of a written dissertation, audio recordings, scores and performance technology

The Author-Performer Divide in Intellectual Property Law: A Comparative Analysis of the American, Australian, British and French Legal Frameworks

Western intellectual property frameworks have at least one feature in common: performers are less protected than authors. This situation knows many justifications, although all but one have been dismissed by the literature: performers are simply less creative than authors. As a result, the legal protection covering their work has been proportionally reduced compared to that of their authorial peers. This thesis investigates this phenomenon that it calls the 'author-performer divide'. It uncovers the culturally-rooted principles and legal reasoning that policy-makers and judges of Australia, France, the United Kingdom and the United States have developed to create in the legal narrative a hierarchy between authors and performers. It reveals that those intellectual property systems, though continuously reformed, still contain outdated conceptions of creativity based on the belief in ex nihilo creation and over-intellectualised representations of the creative process. Those two precepts combined have led legal discourse to portray performers as their authors' puppets, thus underserving of authorship themselves. This thesis reviews arguments raised against improving the performers' regime to challenge the preconception of performers as uncreative agents and questions the divide it supports. To this end, it seeks to update the representations of creativity currently conveyed in the law by drawing on the findings of other academic disciplines such as creativity research, performance theories as well as music, theatre and dance studies. This comparative inter-disciplinary study aims to move current legal debates on performers' rights away from the recurring themes and repeated arguments in the scholarship such as issues of fixation or of competing claims, all of which have made conversations stagnate. By including disciplines beyond the law, this analysis seeks to advance the legal literature on the question of performers' intellectual property protection and shift thinking about performative forms of creativity

\u27Smile when you call me hillbilly\u27 : the modernization of country music and the struggle for respectability, 1939-1954

This study parallels changes occurring within country music and southern society in the years between 1939 and 1954. In doing so, it demonstrates how the period wimessed the modernization of country music, its evolution from a regional folk art form aimed at an audience composed primarily of white rural southerners to a nationwide phenomenon seeking to expand its audience and gain respectability on both a regional and national level. This transformation occurred within the context of changes in audience demographics and listeners\u27 preferences initiated by social and cultural developments. An investigation of changing performance styles demonstrates the process of acculturation into the American mainstream undergone by country music and its audience in the 1940s and early 1950s, while an examination of changes in the genre\u27s lyrical subject matter reveals southerners\u27 ambivalent feelings towards nationalization and the modernization of the South. While many embraced the economic benefits of modernization, others begrudged the social and economic consequences. Dividing country music into six sub-genres (Progressive Country, Western Swing, Post-War Traditional, Honky Tonk, Country-Pop and Country-Blues) provides the means for discussing these varying viewpoints as well as explaining country music\u27s expanding appeal. Analyzing over five thousand sound recordings from the era, this dissertation provides an understanding of the characteristics of the sub-genres and offers insights into reasons for fluctuations in their popularity. Additionally, this study presents the first in-depth examination of changes occurring within country music in the 1940s and early 1950s and explains why the modernization of the genre took place in the decade after World War II

The Music Sound

A guide for music: compositions, events, forms, genres, groups, history, industry, instruments, language, live music, musicians, songs, musicology, techniques, terminology , theory, music video. Music is a human activity which involves structured and audible sounds, which is used for artistic or aesthetic, entertainment, or ceremonial purposes. The traditional or classical European aspects of music often listed are those elements given primacy in European-influenced classical music: melody, harmony, rhythm, tone color/timbre, and form. A more comprehensive list is given by stating the aspects of sound: pitch, timbre, loudness, and duration. Common terms used to discuss particular pieces include melody, which is a succession of notes heard as some sort of unit; chord, which is a simultaneity of notes heard as some sort of unit; chord progression, which is a succession of chords (simultaneity succession); harmony, which is the relationship between two or more pitches; counterpoint, which is the simultaneity and organization of different melodies; and rhythm, which is the organization of the durational aspects of music

The civics of rock: sixties countercultural music and the transformation of the public sphere

For the counterculture of the 1960s and 70s, rock music was not only mass entertainment, but also a form of public life. While many scholars have argued that rock was incompatible with civic participation, this book claims that in music scenes such as San Francisco, in poster art and dancing, on the radio and in print publications, rock served as a flash point for dilemmas of citizenship and civil society. As frequently as it deteriorated into escapism and hedonism, rock also created an atmosphere of inquiry in which the young might listen, think, move, and feel their way through issues of public and civic interaction, such as identity, belonging, power, and democracy. Even when exported by the American military to Vietnam or when circulating to youth movements worldwide, far from eclipsing public life, rock music transformed it into a mass-mediated mode of association that prefigured the civics of global society

Bowdoin Orient v.139, no.1-26 (2009-2010)

https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/bowdoinorient-2010s/1000/thumbnail.jp

Convention and constraint in the operation of musical groups: two case studies

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the ways in which Howard Becker's notions of convention and constraint operate in the functioning of selected musical groups. In particular, areas under investigation include the interrelated networks of media, venues, and support personnel, as well as the aesthetic criteria and commercial objectives of the individual musical groups. The investigation begins with an autobiographical description of my musical background with details of personal and musical involvement as a participant observer in this project. Discussion continues with an evaluation of several theoretical approaches to the study of musical sounds, culture and groups. Subsequently I present preliminary fieldwork studies and a description of my general findings in terms of Music-related factors and Non-Musical factors. This leads to a detailed discussion of the basic research design used in the two case studies. The first case study investigates a professional jazz group engagement in Switzerland. This chapter establishes the major parameters of the research design. The chapters which follow investigate additional factors that are incorporated in the research design. These factors include: the law of contract, management of artists, and the songwriting process. The final chapter is devoted to the case study of a semi-professional rock band which takes into account, over a period of years, the effects of personnel change, musical change, developing consciousness of the legal aspects of the music business and various attempts at establishing a professional musical career. Finally, the thesis concludes with a summary discussion of the entire research project and a critique of the research design