Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item The Voluble Viola: Music for Viola Inspired by Text and Poetry(2019) MacDuff, Timothy Joseph; Murdock, Katherine H.; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This project is an exploration of music that draws inspiration from text or works that utilize programmatic themes. The vision for this project comes from Ernest Bloch’s Suite 1919 in which the composer created the music with a programmatic element in mind, but made the decision to not include extra-musical material in the title of the work or its movements. Bloch wrote quite eloquently about his extra-musical inspiration in his notes about the piece, but leaves the performer the option of relaying this information to their audience. I was not aware of the program notes Bloch wrote the first time I heard this work. My perception of the music changed after I read Bloch’s intended titles for each movement, as well as his written words about the colorful and evocative scenes he was imagining when writing the piece. The music came alive and moved me in a different way once I knew of Bloch’s inspirations. From this experience, I wanted to further my understanding of how a composer uses music to depict non-musical images or scenes when using text as a source, and how these extra-musical elements serve the performance and affect the expressive power of music. The first program focuses on poetry and literature set to instrumental music, featuring two poetic oboe, viola, and piano trios by August Klughardt and Charles Martin Loeffler, as well as Prokofiev’s musical portrait of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Vocal chamber music and the exploration of text as part of the performance is the theme of the second program, including works by Johannes Brahms, Frank Bridge, Charles Martin Loeffler, and Benjamin Britten. The final program interprets music titled “Fairytales” by Robert Schumann, as well as further examining poetic settings by Vincent Persichetti and Toru Takemitsu. The recitals were performed on November 2, 2018, February 22, 2019, and April 28, 2019 at the University of Maryland School of Music’s Ulrich Recital Hall, and I was assisted by oboist Michael Homme, mezzo-soprano Gabriela Estephanie Solis, clarinetist Dane Clark, and pianist Andrew Welch. The CD's for this dissertation recording project are available on compact discs which can be found in the Digital Repository at the University of Maryland (DRUM).Item EXAMINING TRANS-SYMBOLIC AND SYMBOL-SPECIFIC PROCESSES IN POETRY AND PAINTING(2013) Loughlin, Sandra; Alexander, Patricia A; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)There is a growing interest in multiliteracies and the processes by which nonlinguistic and multisymbolic compositions are understood. However, as indicated by Unsworth (2008), there is currently no "trans-disciplinary" theoretical framework robust to these examinations. This study investigated the degree to which the Trans-Symbolic Comprehension framework (TSC; Loughlin & Alexander, 2012; Loughlin et al., 2013) might serve this purpose. The TSC posits that every act of comprehension, text or otherwise, entails both trans-symbolic and symbol-specific processes. Trans-symbolic comprehension processes are general processes that are necessary for understanding information encoded in a variety of compositional forms (e.g., text, paintings, musical score, physical formula), while symbol-specific processes are particular to a given symbol-system (e.g., text-specific processes). This study used the symbol systems of language and visual array to determine the viability of the TSC framework. Offline and online comprehension processes measures were administered before, during, and after studying a poem and a painting to capture the comprehension processes used by 12 English and 12 Art education majors. Verbal protocol analyses of these data resulted in the identification of 7 poem and 8 painting comprehension processes, which manifested in 48 associated subprocesses. The 48 comprehension subprocesses were then compared to determine degree of trans-symbolism. It was determined that a significant portion of the comprehension processes and subprocesses were shared; that is, iterative manifestations applied to both poem and painting. However, processes that did not appear to iterate were also identified (e.g., inferring mood). The discovery of these apparent trans-symbolic processes and symbol-specific processes is in line with the predictions of the TSC framework. Implications of this study for education research are discussed, specifically with respect to the burgeoning literature on nonlinguistic literacies. Preliminary implications for educational practice are also drawn in relation to the growing praxis of teaching literature, including poetry, through visual art in middle and high schools, and ongoing policy efforts to expand this type of instruction.