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 UNUSUAL SONG TEXTS: SELECTED 20TH- AND 21ST-CENTURY AMERICAN ART SONG REPERTOIRE USING NON-POETIC TEXTS(2023) Chan, Koon Ee (Alex); Sloan, Rita; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)As art songs in America developed from Stephen Foster’s popular songs to classical music giants like Samuel Barber and Leonard Bernstein to composers of today’s musical landscape, the genre has changed tremendously to reflect the current state of the world in which we live. Composers have turned to different sources of text, opening up an infinite possibility of choices. Songs that use non-poetic texts have since entered the American song repertoire, making them more accessible for both the performers and the audience alike. During my studies as a collaborative pianist, I began to explore some of these works of this nature, and became very interested in performing more of them. This dissertation, I explored some of the works of this nature and showcased an array of available repertoire. These include text sources such as the dictionary, letters, a diary, a cookbook, speeches, and so forth. Selected works by the following composers were performed: Bruce Adolphe, Dominick Argento, Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Celius Dougherty, Stacy Garrop, Juliana Hall, Jennifer Higdon, Lee Hoiby, Richard Hundley, Gabriel Kahane John Kandar, William Kenlon, Lori Laitman, Libby Larsen, Patrice Michaels, Ned Rorem, and Kamala Sankaram. The differences between using poetry and prose to compose an art song were discussed using several examples. A survey was also conducted with some of the composers of today to get some insight into how they approach composing with prose texts, and these questionnaires are attached in the appendix of this document. My excellent collaborators for this project were Olivia O’Brien, Henrique Carvalho, Amanda Densmoor, Colin Doyle, Jessica Harika, Alfonso Hernandez, and Bill Townsend. The three recital programs comprising this dissertation were presented on April 14th, 2021, September 21st, 2022, and February 28th, 2023. Recordings of these three recitals can be found in the Digital Repository at the University of Maryland (DRUM).Item Not Leading Lady Material(2015) Morse Jans, Megan Adrielle; Bradley, Karen; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Title of Document: NOT LEADING LADY MATERIAL Megan Morse Jans, Master of Fine Arts Dance, 2015 Directed By: Professor Karen Bradley, Head of MFA Dance Program; Head of Dance Performance and Scholarship, School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies This thesis is a reflection on the creation, cultivation, process and performance of Megan Morse Jans' original work Not Leading Lady Material, an interdisciplinary dance-theater piece presented in a style evocative of the cabarets of the Weimar Republic. The performance included song, storytelling and dance, and thematically explored intimacy, identity, and social/political disruption all while eliminating the fourth wall and inviting the audience on a journey through personal narrative. This paper examines the navigation and weaving together of different expressive disciplines, as well as the challenges presented in the performance of both original and copyrighted material. The result was a dynamic performance that engaged the audience in an evening of laughter, participation, and vulnerability.Item Distant Light: Songs on Texts by Richard Boada(2010) Collier, Robert E.; Wilson, Mark E; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Distant Light: Songs on Texts by Richard Boada is a collection of songs for baritone voice, piano, alto saxophone, and percussion (vibraphone and marimba). The texts do not present a continuous narrative, but they share common themes. Most are set in the rural South and deal with the conflict between nature and industrial development. This piece functions as a cohesive whole, but each song could be performed separately and would be effective out of the context of the entire work. Distant Light is made up of eight songs and is approximately 23 minutes in duration.Item Relative Salience of Envelope and Fine Structure Cues in Zebra Finch Song(2010) Vernaleo, Beth A.; Dooling, Robert J.; Neuroscience and Cognitive Science; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the perceptual salience of several acoustic cues in zebra finch song. Birdsong has long served as an animal model of speech development. Both are learned during a sensitive period, and require auditory feedback for learning and maintenance. Zebra finch song is commonly studied due to its stereotyped nature. Song syllables are complex, containing multiple cues that are modulated over millisecond time scales. Using psychoacoustic methods, male zebra finches were tested on discrimination of changes to their own and conspecific songs. Females and budgerigars were also tested, since they have auditory experience with song, but do not sing. Three types of synthetic songs were created to determine which acoustic cues in song were most salient to birds. Same-seed noise songs were made of syllable envelopes filled with the same piece of random Gaussian noise. This removed spectral structure but kept song envelope cues intact. Random noise songs were made of each syllable envelope filled with a unique piece of noise. This provided more complex fine structure to the same song envelope. Lastly, Schroeder songs were made of Schroeder harmonic waveforms with the same duration as song syllables. In Schroeder waveforms, spectrum and envelope are constant, but phase changes occur across frequencies. Two types of song changes were tested: single interval duration doublings and single syllable reversals. All birds were much more sensitive to syllable changes than to interval changes. For natural song, there was a duration effect on performance for male zebra finches only. Performance on syllable reversals shorter than 100 milliseconds was positively correlated with syllable duration. In Schroeder song, where only fine temporal structure changes with reversal, all three groups showed a duration effect. Thus, females and budgerigars may focus less on fine structure in natural song than males. In the absence of song spectral structure, birds relied on syllable envelope cues for reversal discrimination. Thus, removal of a single cue from song did not greatly affect reversal discrimination. However, birds performed best when all cues were present. This is reminiscent of human speech, in which multiple redundant cues are used for speech recognition.