Computer assisted music instructment tutoring applied to violin practice

Master'sMASTER OF SCIENC

The Paganini Variations: A Study of Selected Works by Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Lutoslawski, and Muczynski

Caprice in A minor, Op. 1, No. 24 for solo violin by Niccolo Paganini has been a great inspiration for many composers. This study investigates five compositions that are based on the Paganini theme: Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Lutos?awski, and Muczynski. Although these five composers utilized the same melodic material as their compositional source, their works are stylistically much different, from a typical nineteenth century idiom used by Liszt to the jazz-inspired harmony used by Muczynski.;Each chapter includes a general background and analytical aspects of the individual work, and is followed by performance guidelines. The performance guidelines not only deal with technical problems such as fingering, phrasing, hand distribution, but also provide stylistic suggestions when needed

A consideration of guitar fingering : implications for the preparation of a musical interpretation for performance and the process of writing music for the guitar

Most guitarists would agree that fingering lies at the heart of classical guitar performance. It is a process that eventually becomes intuitive in experienced performers, but one which requires years of playing, analysis and practice to develop. Despite its being a fundamental aspect of guitar playing, and an often critical inclusion in notated scores, guitar fingering nevertheless remains significantly under-represented in literature on guitar technique. Didactic methods for example, where notated fingering instructions are often abundant, mostly tend to reinforce the all-too-common conception that fingering denotes a rudimentary series of numbers and letters on a score that direct a player to employ a particular finger in the realisation of a given note. This observation is all the more startling when one considers how important fingering in guitar music can be; on an instrument where nearly any given pitch can be played in multiple positions and on different strings, fingering is surely an influential and significant factor of guitar technique that warrants research and discussion. This thesis considers aspects of guitar fingering that bear a decisive influence on the end musical product (i.e. the music that is heard). This study suggests that guitar fingering is a procedural activity that connects the act of interpreting music for performance with the process of writing the music itself. In doing so, this thesis provides a contextual framework to allow the performer to add breadth to his or her interpretive outcomes. This study also provides practical advice to non-guitarist-composers who wish to explore the highly interactive nature of guitar fingering on substantive musical attributes such as articulation, accentuation, phrasing and sonority. These considerations of guitar fingering are the products of practice-led research. Findings and conclusions arise from the author's experiential research as a performer and composer/arranger. Case studies of selected works from the guitar repertoire provide deep analysis of issues arising from guitar fingering as it relates to performance interpretation. A further case study of an original arrangement facilitates the exploration of fingering in the process of writing guitar music. This thesis is accompanied by a full-length CD recital that provides a broad contextual demonstration of the research findings. Additionally, short audio samples accompany the dissertation text to illuminate issues arising from guitar fingering that are illustrated through notated score excerpts. In addition to providing a substantial contribution to guitar literature on the subject of fingering, this study also makes a significant contribution to the relatively new area of practice-led research, where in the present thesis the empirical observation of creative practices generates new insights into the procedural activity of guitar fingering

A Performance Guide for Óscar Navarro’s Concerto No. 2 for Clarinet and Orchestra, or Wind Band: Use of Flamenco Structure within a Classical Form

The purpose of this document is to provide clarinetists with a performance guide for Óscar Navarro’s Concerto No. 2 for Clarinet and Orchestra, or Wind Band. A biography of the composer, as well as an annotated bibliography of Navarro's works for clarinet, illustrates his expansion of the repertoire and significance as a contemporary composer. An analysis examines Navarro’s integration of flamenco, minimalism, and New Age styles in the context of this concerto. An interview with the composer via email furthers the understanding of his compositional process. The final portion of the document examines the use of extended techniques, trill fingerings, and challenging passages to provide the performer with practice strategies

Technical efficacy for violin improvisation: How not to run out of fingers

This thesis addresses technical and philosophical approaches to improvising on the violin. Violin technique has predominantly been developed and taught within the classical repertoire music context, within which it is rare to improvise. This study argues that significant elements of classical violin technique inhibit improvisation. It does this by responding to a community of improvising violinists that have developed alternative technical approaches that are idiosyncratic and minimally documented, codified or disseminated. The interface between jazz harmony (and related styles of harmonic language such as New Acoustic) improvisation techniques and fingerboard navigation systems on the violin has not been comprehensively studied. This thesis explores this interface by unpacking the endemic constraints of the violin, responding to related technical and stylistic assumptions, and the technical needs of jazz style improvisation. It elucidates the systems and approaches used by professional improvising violinists to overcome these factors within melodic line improvisation over fast harmonically rich chord progressions found in bebop, post bebop, progressive bluegrass and new acoustic music. This study uses interviews and performances from leading improvising violinists to elicit how their approach to shifting and use of positions relates to the harmonic and melodic content of their improvisations. The collected data was analysed using grounded theory, and resultant theories presented back to the participants to check for efficacy. The primary goal of this study is to develop an efficacy-based technical and mental approach to improvising on the violin, by integrating the harmonic needs of jazz style improvisation with left-hand navigation schemes on the violin. The results show that there are key common features shared by the artists interviewed, and that these philosophical, technical and psychological responses to the needs of improvisation are based on efficacy. These concepts break significantly from traditional classical violin technique and are practiced by violinists with and without classical training. Key findings of the study include how the fingerboard is navigated using constant effortless shifting between and combining of adjacent positions while maintaining the same contact point of the thumb, how locational security is found by audiating harmonically rather than applying physical patterns on the fingerboard, how audiation is connected with fingerings intuitively rather than by applying pre planned systems or patterns, and how these skills are developed. These findings were inducted from the implicit knowledge of practising artists using grounded theory and have not been previously made explicit, applied to pedagogy in a formal way or adequately discussed in the relevant literature, making these findings significant within a variety of fields. Grounded theory provided the ideal framework for this practise-based research project to gather, sort and induct theories from data, allowing previously overlooked phenomena to manifest within the otherwise tightly codified tradition of violin technique. Alongside a submitted thesis, the study includes transcriptions and video tutorials showing examples of key techniques and approaches discovered. This the-sis articulates the principles of this efficacy based technical response to improvising on the violin, and shows the need for further study in pedagogy, detailed mapping of specific artist's navigation styles, comparison with the navigation systems of other string instruments, and comparison with other genres of improvised music such as Baroque, Carnatic and Arabic music

In what sense can instruments and bodies be said to form spaces?

My recent work is an exploration of the physical and conceptual mechanisms that interface people with instruments. Central to this investigation is a conception of the performer/instrument assemblage as a symbiosis of two parallel and interdependent systems: one – the performer – moves through space established by the other – the instrument. Each system possesses its own intrinsic properties and characteristics; each possesses capacities to affect and be affected by one another. The music emanates from this contiguous interaction. Instrument surface is understood as a compositional resource itself, a topological façade, defined by ordinal distances, that guides gestures along its contours. Within these fluctuating constellations of spatial coordinates, I consider all the relevant ways a body can move, and establish some general combinatory rules that inform the convergence of forces within the body. The traditional subjects of compositional contemplation such as form, duration, dynamic, etc. are not attributing features to the work per se but emerge as results from spatiotemporal relations of (bodily) movement’s correspondence with (instrumental) surface and mechanism. This liberation of movement is understood as a liberation of timbre, and the inherent indeterminacy of this relationship is embraced. As such, I would hypothesize that sound is, to an extent, freed from the subtractive tendencies of perception that might otherwise subvert it into generalized typological categories. Once liberated from the imagination, sound can bypass the brain and directly engage the nervous system

APPLICATIONS OF TAO OF BASS, Vol. I, IN ORCHESTRAL AND SOLO DOUBLE BASS REPERTOIRE

This dissertation is not only an exploration of left-hand techniques found in Tao of Bass, Vol. 1, but also an inside of the performance and didactic approach of Dr. Marcos Machado to organize and create its content. That said, one of the objectives of this dissertation is to focus on developing an awareness of the didactic strategies in Tao of Bass created to develop the utmost proficiency in double bass performance. I expect to prove this objective in my dissertation by acknowledging how Tao of Bass encompasses a didactic approach that is universal and academically relevant to prepare for professional performances. In my state of research, I will establish a professional repertoire frame and apply to it Tao of Bass didactics. While applying these, I will focus on left-hand techniques contained to perform applications and a path to master both the left-hand technical aspects and the excerpts. In my conclusions I will prove that my ideas have a professional and academic value to the double bass community. In the process of my research, I will establish didactic connections to other pedagogues to discuss parallelisms and innovations by comparing and contrasting with Machado’s didactic. Moreover, I strongly believe that this dissertation will contribute positively to the double bass community. It is my desire and expectation that the material analyzed and discussed in this dissertation will help future double bass pedagogues and performers

Stringprovisation : A Fingering Strategy for Jazz Violin Improvisation

Second, updated edition only in digital formatIn modern jazz improvisation, violinists frequently employ only a limited part of the fingerboard. This often results in performances in which most of the wider, more expressive violin range remains unemployed. Among the key issues of left-hand violin technique are fingering, shifting, and position playing. These are infrequently discussed in the pedagogical literature for jazz violin. This study presents a fingering strategy that focuses on these technical matters. The strategy is targeted to formulaic modern jazz improvisation and is communicated through applications of idiomatic musical patterns. The strategy excludes the use of open strings and relies instead on schematic fingering. This fingering approach reflects well, for example, the tactile and kinesthetic aspects of violin playing and with it idiomatic patterns can be effectively performed in all keys and violin positions. In support of the strategy, related approaches from the pedagogical literature of classical and jazz violin are examined. Relevant guitar and mandolin methods are discussed in detail as well. In Part I, the research method resembles comparative research, however also essentially including some elements of practice-based research. Part II presents the fingering strategy mostly in terms of practicebased information. This strategy draws from the author’s wide experience in and knowledge of jazz violin performance and pedagogy. The strategy appears to provide a significant alternative fingering approach through which modern jazz can be effectively improvised across the entire violin fingerboard. This study proposes that a particular approach to the application of schematic fingering may be ideal for jazz violin improvisation

A Comparison of the Ivan Galamian and Rachel Barton Pine editions of the Sonata No. 3 in C Major for Solo Violin by Johann Sebastian Bach, BWV 1005

Study of the Sonatas and Partitas by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685—1750) is an inevitable avenue of the violinist’s artistic journey. The most commonly studied version of the Sonatas and Partitas is the edition published in 1971 by the renowned 20th century pedagogue Ivan Galamian. In recent years, interest and observance of historical performance practice has increased. As such, new editions and treatises of the Sonatas and Partitas have been published featuring historically-informed interpretations, including one such edition by Rachel Barton Pine in 2017. Of the Sonatas and Partitas, the Sonata No. 3 in C Major BWV 1005 tends to be considered as one of the most challenging of the set. This document will therefore compare the classic fingerings and bowings of the Ivan Galamian and the historically-informed approach of Rachel Barton Pine of the Sonata No. 3 in C Major. There are two major factors that lead to the differences. First, violinists of the early 18th century tended to utilize first position while contemporary violinists use a wider variety of positions. Second, bowing styles were better suited to a different bow, as evidenced by the bowings included in the autograph manuscript. The Pine edition tends to remain closer to the bowings indicated in the autograph manuscript, where the Galamian edition makes a number of changes that better suit the modern bow. The fingerings and bowings are the chosen criteria for comparison as they account for the two most significant areas of editing that are found in both editions. Both editions offer unique and illuminating insight, which merits in-depth study. Ideally, a violinist would adopt ideas from both editions (and styles) in forming their own interpretations of the Sonata No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1005