A mixed methods portrait of the perceived benefits of unaccompanied ensemble singing on the development of the musical skills of undergraduate students

Thesis (D.M.A.)--Boston UniversityThe purpose of this investigation was to establish an understanding of the role that a cappella ensemble singing plays in the musical development of undergraduate ensemble singers based on the perspective of students, music teachers of three to five years experience, and faculty directors from four-year colleges and universities geographically located within the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Eastern Division, including the six New England states plus Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Research questions asked: In what ways is a cappella ensemble singing perceived to contribute to the musical development of college student musicians? Are there measureable differences in the perceived benefits of traditional and contemporary genres of a cappella ensemble singing between undergraduate students and faculty directors? Findings suggested that benefit exists in both traditional and contemporary a cappella ensemble singing. Descriptive research was employed in an exploratory, mixed-methods design as described by Creswell and Plano (2007). Phase one consisted of 18 face-to-face, open-ended, semi-structured interviews, five observations, and three student focus-groups. Broad themes emerged, including ensemble experience, genre, hearing and precision, personal attributes, promotion and support, vocal technique, reflecting increased proficiency in intonation, sight singing, tonal memory, rhythmic precision, musical expressivity, vocal range and flexibility, and increased confidence and sense of responsibility. A Web-based survey, consisting of questions informed by the qualitative research, comprised the second phase, comparing the perceptions of students (n = 59) and faculty directors (n = 11) on the benefits of both traditional and contemporary a cappella ensemble singing. Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Tests were employed to test ordinal data for statistical differences between and within groups relative to traditional and contemporary a cappella ensemble singing. Statistical differences (p < .05) were found between the responses of students and faculty directors in musical expressivity, vocal range and flexibility (contemporary), and in attitudes regarding the importance of contemporary a cappella ensemble singing for music education students. Statistical differences emerged among student responses regarding intonation, sight singing, musical expressivity, rhythmic precision, independence, level of challenge, commitment, and among faculty directors regarding the importance of the contemporary genre for music education majors

The solubility and oxidation state of nickel in silicate melt at low oxygen fugacities: Results using a mechanically assisted equilibration technique

The solubility of Ni in a silicate melt has been measured using a new, mechanically assisted equilibration technique over a wide range of controlled ƒO2 values. The melt composition corresponds to the 1 atm eutectic in the system CaAl2Si2O8-CaMgSi2O6 + 10 wt% CaO. The experiments were performed at 1300°C and over an ƒO2 range of 10−8.5 to 10−13.75, and over a temperature range of 1270 to 1390°C at a constant gas mixing ratio ( ). The experiment consists of a sample of melt contained within a crucible of Ni metal and held in a 1 atm gas mixing furnace. A Ni spindle is entered into the sample from above and continuously rotated at a constant angular velocity using a viscometer head. The stirring of the sample serves to accelerate the approach to equilibrium between the liquid sample and the metal crucible (and spindle). This arrangement allows relatively rapid equilibration of Ni content following changes to higher or lower ƒO2 values. Samples of the melt may be taken at any time for analysis and thus the equilibrium solubility of Ni in the silicate melt may be determined from unambiguous experimental reversals. The Ni contents of samples, analysed both by INAA and by ICP-AES, range from 25 to 5300 ppm. The data presented in this paper indicate that the oxidation state of Ni in the investigated melt is Ni2+ over the entire range of ƒO2 investigated. This conclusion contrasts with recent reports in the literature of an inflection in the ƒO2 dependence of Ni solubility, which has been interpreted as solution of neutral Ni at low ƒO2 (Morse et al., 1991; Colson, 1992; Ehlers et al., 1992). We also present data for the temperature dependence of Ni solubility in the investigated melt. The solubility decreases with increasing temperature at constant ƒO2. The present results are in good agreement with the metal-loop-equilibration experiments reported by Holzheid et al. (1994)

Thomas Merton’s Troubling Questions On Violence: From Auschwitz to Vietnam

This paper presents some of the major “questions” and points of inquiry concerning war and peace, ethics and conscience, language and duplicity directed at secular governments and religious institutions by the Catholic monk and writer Thomas Merton (1915-1968). In a series of essays penned during the 1960s this popular spiritual writer shook his more conservative readers with his strongly worded attacks on the passivity of religious institutions in the face of extremely violent wars, genocidal campaigns and nuclear terrorism sponsored by the governments with which they were aligned. Merton draws lessons for his own era from the trials of Auschwitz personnel to the ruthless conventional and atomic bombings by the Allies, and uses them to raise troubling questions about attempts to justify the insanity of nuclear escalation and the vicious quagmire that was Vietnam. And in the midst of raising moral questions, Merton examines the language used to distort the reality of Auschwitz, Dresden and Hiroshima, of first strike capabilities and the “free fire zones” of Vietnam. This paper also attempts to demonstrate something of the prophetic fire and philosophical coolness of Merton’s thought as well as its literary power. The final section suggests that Merton’s questions are as troubling and germane today as they were when initially raised

The central limit theorem on spaces of positive definite matrices

A central limit theorem is obtained for orthogonally invariant random variables on Pn, the space of n × n real, positive definite symmetric matrices. The derivation requires the Taylor expansion of the spherical functions for the general linear group GL(n, R). This extends from the case n = 3 a result of Terras (J. Multivariate Anal. 23 (1987), 13–36)