Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Compositional techniques of the 20th century'

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-08T17:06:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CARLA.pdf: 10276 bytes, checksum: 93734ab8b9630d946c4c9872657fecd3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-04<br>Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior<br>This dissertation, using interdisciplinary elements, talks about the relationship between text and music in the songs of the composer Frederico Richter, a native of Rio Grande do Sul, Who is still active and whose expressive work can be divided into five phases into which the composer has used several compositional techniques of the twentieth century. The song genre is present in three of these five phases and for this work two compositions were analyzed due to be considered most representative of each phase. The analytical process took place on both musical and textual perspective, bearing in mind that these are the formative elements of the songs. This work also presents biographical aspects and the trajectory of the composer, also a brief history of the song genre where it is possible to view how it changed through history, emphasizing the Brazilian songs. It also aims to contribute to the literature on the subject<br>Esta dissertação, utilizando-se de elementos interdisciplinares, discorre sobre a relação entre texto e música nas canções do compositor Frederico Richter, natural do Rio Grande do Sul, ainda atuante e cuja expressiva obra pode ser dividida em cinco fases nas quais o compositor utilizou-se de diversas técnicas composicionais do século XX. O gênero canção está presente em três destas cinco fases e para este trabalho foram analisadas duas obras consideradas representativas dentro de cada fase. O processo analítico deu-se tanto sobre a perspectiva musical quanto textual, tendo em vista que estes são os elementos formadores da unidade que seria a canção. Este trabalho apresenta ainda aspectos biográficos e acerca da trajetória do compositor e um breve histórico do gênero musical canção onde é foi possível visualizar sua modificação através da história, enfatizando a canção brasileira e contribuindo assim para a bibliografia sobre o assunto

Introduction: Although the hackneyed adage "one picture is worth a thousand words" defies proof and begs argument, the basic value of illustration in graphic communications is beyond dispute. Without attempting to put a relative value on illustration as compared with words, we can still be aware of the special effectiveness of images, in accomplishing communication goals. The roots of illustration go hack to prehistoric pictorial art of engraved or painted figures done on stone. The hand print can be interpreted as one of the first attempts at drawing. Prehistoric pictorial art depicted visually what could not be expressed by word or gestures some had religious significance, some the presence of myth, others plainly diadactic, showing daily life, social communication, the magic of the hunt, death, birth, group life and sexual symbolism. Little is known of the vast lapse of time between prehistoric art and the imagery that man devised in the service of developing civilisations at the dawn of history. With steadily increasing demands upon his skills, the artisan's mastery of the tools and materials progressed, so that by the beginning of recorded time he was in possession of the potential elements for printmaking. Yet the importance of communication, as we know it today, only developed centuries later with the motivating force of religion. The print could tell its story to those who could not read or write but could quickly grasp the meaning of a picture.

The thesis foregrounds the distinctive contribution Dirk Bogarde made to contemporary writing in a second career that developed in parallel to his screen commitments. It dispels the notion that Bogarde followed a familiar path as an actor who wrote books. Instead it establishes his reputation as an innovative writer whose formal technique was substantially influenced by the textual systems of cinema and the cross-fertilisation from acting to writing. In examining the formative factors that steered Bogarde towards authorship, the thesis addresses the role of performance as a generative factor in the evolution of the novels, establishing a discursive link with Bakhtinian dialogism, and specifically, transgredience as a formal imperative. Secondly, it affords a critical insight into why the major concerns with staging and performativity preoccupy his writing career. The thesis claims that Bogarde was an empirically dialogical writer whose use of camera-eye narration fostered the proliferation of competing discourses across the fiction. This formal dynamic is centred on the relationship between stages and dialogism, which incorporates the work of Erving Goffinan as a complementary critique to Bakhtinian theory with its emphasis on self-presentation. The concern with socially-constructed behaviour leads the thesis to address the associated issues of stereotyping and 'otherness', which in terms of body politics is articulated by the mono logic drive to confine the sexual 'other' to a fixed representation. Bogarde's ability to draw on cinematic and performance techniques identifies an area of expertise unavailable to most other writers. This is an unusual repository of skills to bring to writing which is why the thesis makes the claim for his singular achievement as a contemporary author. There are fruitful points of intersection to be explored in this respect with the work of Christopher Isherwood, whom Bogarde read and admired, as a basis for further research. It is hoped that the thesis will play its part in opening up new possibilities for Bogarde's writing to be re-visited by future critics.

This study contributes to practical discussions on the composition of dynamic music for video games from the composer’s perspective. Creating greater levels of immersion in players is used as a justification for the proposals of the thesis. It lays down foundational aesthetic elements in order to proceed with a logical methodology. The aim of this paper is to build upon, and further hybridise, two techniques used by composers and by video game designers to increase further the reactive agility and memorability of the music for the player. Each chapter of this paper explores a different technique for joining two (possibly disparate) types of gameplay, or gamestates, with appropriate continuous music. In each, I discuss a particular musical engine capable of implementing continuous music. Chapter One will discuss a branching-music engine, which uses a precomposed musical mosaic (or musical pixels) to create a linear score with the potential to diverge at appropriate moments accompanying onscreen action. I use the case study of the Final Fantasy battle system to show how the implementation of a branching-music engine could assist in maintaining the continuity of gameplay experience that current disjointed scores, which appear in many games, create. To aid this argument I have implemented a branching-music engine, using the graphical object oriented programming environment MaxMSP, in the style of the battle music composed by Nobuo Uematsu, the composer of the early Final Fantasy series. The reader can find this in the accompanying demonstrations patch. In Chapter Two I consider how a generative-music engine can also implement a continuous music and also address some of the limitations of the branching-music engine. Further I describe a technique for an effective generative music for video games that creates musical ‘personalities’ that can mimic a particular style of music for a limited period of time. Crucially, this engine is able to transition between any two personalities to create musical coincidence with the game. GMGEn (<b>G</b>ame <b>M</b>usic <b>G</b>eneration <b>E</b>ngine) is a program I have created in MaxMSP to act as an example of this concept. GMGEn is available in the Demonstrations_Application. Chapter Three will discuss potential limitations of the branching music engine described in Chapter One and the generative music engine described in Chapter Two, and highlights how these issues can be solved by way of a third engine, which hybridises both. As this engine has an indeterminate musical state it is termed the intermittent-music engine. I go on to discuss the implementation of this engine in two different game scenarios and how emergent structures of this music will appear. The final outcome is to formulate a new compositional approach delivering dynamic music, which accompanies the onscreen action with greater agility than currently present in the field, increasing the memorability and therefore the immersive effect of the video-game music.

Since the end of World War II many Scandinavians have emerged as important choral music composers. This study focuses on two Norwegian composers, Knut Nystedt and Egil Hovland. Two works by Nystedt, "Thou O Lord," and "Praise to God," and one work by Hovland, Missa Misericordiae, are analyzed to determine the most important features of the compositional styles of Nystedt and Hovland. The analysis reveals that factors such as the Norwegian national romantic movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, ancient music styles such as Gregorian chant, twentieth century techniques such as neoclassicism and dodecaphony, and recent reforms in Norwegian Church music have influenced the compositional style of both men. The evidence suggests that although Nystedt and Hovland have many similarities in compositional style both men have developed a highly individual musical language that is accessible yet challenging to the listener, conductor, and choir.

Orientador: Regina Helena Pereira Johas<br>Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes<br>Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-16T14:23:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Guideroli_IlmaCarlaZarotti_M.pdf: 37001017 bytes, checksum: c43b5a3b57dfe1e23b24169201dd8910 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010<br>Resumo: A pesquisa Entre Mapas, Entre Espaços: Itinerários Abertos consiste no mapeamento de minha produção plástica no período entre o início de 2008 e o início de 2010. É formada por quatro livros de artista intitulados Lugares Imaginários I, II, III e IV e Espaços Afluentes, composto por dezoito imagens digitais divididas entre as séries Rotas Imaginárias, São Paulo, Intersecções I, Paisagens Mapeadas, UnHorizont e Paisagem Oceânica. Ambos partilham o mesmo campo de investigações, composto de três eixos norteadores que sustentam pensamento e processo criativo. O primeiro destes eixos trata de TranSituAções, conceito que abrange as diferentes maneiras de conceber espaço e lugar, apresentado a partir da reflexão de autores que discutiram este tema. O segundo eixo estrutura a proposição Espaços Empilhados, tratados a partir da definição do virtual segundo Pierre Lévy e do conceito de remix cunhado por Lev Manovich e citado, por sua vez, por autores brasileiros que destrincharam o assunto, como André Lemos e Marcus Bastos. O terceiro e último eixo aborda a questão dos mapas, sendo que a primeira parte compreende uma breve história da cartografia com seu surgimento e características específicas; e a segunda parte consiste na investigação dos mapas deturpados, ou seja, como alguns escritores, artistas e cineastas fizeram uso dos mapas convencionais, tirando deles a função utilitária de localização em relação ao lugar físico. O corpo prático reflexivo aqui apresentado pretende situar meus trabalhos dentro de questionamentos pertinentes ao nosso tempo, e inserir tal pesquisa como resultado de uma investigação que não se encerra, mas continua infinitamente<br>Abstract: The research Among Maps, Among Spaces: Open Itineraries consists in mapping my artistic practice from the beginning of 2008 until the beginning of 2010. It is composed of four artist's books entitled Imaginary Places I, II, III, and IV, and Affluent Spaces, composed of eighteen digital images divided in the series Imaginary Routes, São Paulo, Intersections I, Mapped Landscapes, UnHorizont, and Oceanic Landscape. Both works share the same investigations, composed of three guiding axes that support thoughts and the creative process. The first axis approaches TranSituActions, a concept that comprises different ways of conceiving space and place, presented from the reflection of authors that investigate this theme. The second axis structures the proposition Heaped Spaces, treated from the definition of virtual according to Pierre Lévy and the concept of remix, coined by Lev Manovich and cited by Brazilian authors that explained the subject, like André Lemos e Marcus Bastos. The last axis approaches the question of maps: the first part comprehends a brief history of cartography with its appearance and specific characteristics and the second one consists of investigating the corrupted maps, that is, how some writers, artists and filmmakers used conventional maps, extracting from them the utilitarian function of localization in relation to a geographic place. The practical-reflexive body presented here intends to place my works inside relevant questions to our time, and introduce such research as a result of an investigation that does not close but continues infinitely<br>Mestrado<br>Artes<br>Mestre em Artes

This thesis sets out to investigate new notation symbols, systems, and string techniques in some one hundred 20th century string quartets, selected from a variety of composers. The analysis includes compositions that have, through contemporary aesthetic ideals, extended musical and technical resources and stimulated the development of compositional methods in such a way as to influence later works in the genre. k The thesis divided into two parts : Histoiy and Research Part One is a brief history of 20th century music, and includes the development o f the string quartet from earliest times up to the mid-century. Part Two researches string techniques and notation from the turn of the century up to 1990. The historical perspective demonstrates that after World War n, with the emergence o f the electronic age and a changing social and intellectual climate, traditional concepts were being challenged. Composers facing the dilemma affecting music in general, and the string quartet in particular, had to adapt to radically developing techniques and styles. Sounds and syntax o f a different type were initially, but unsuccessfully, sought to unify the divergent thinking o f the time. Ultimately, the developmental paths took shape from the problem itself and different approaches emerged to master the multi-faceted dimensions available to composers. Part Two investigates music syntax from the viewpoint of recording new symbols, notation systems and string techniques. Quartets of the first half of the century show that both the dissolution and the extension o f traditional processes were contained, importantly, within the continued use of conventional notation. The impact and significance of these quartets within the context of 20th century development cannot be ignored. However, the quartets researched post-1960 demonstrate that composers have enlarged all parameters of the genre through the extension of traditional resources and by radical innovation. This research demonstrates that the emergence of new symbols and string techniques in the second half of the century has been largely on an arbitrary basis. Nevertheless^ broad classification of these elements is undertaken.<br>Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology<br>D.Mus. (Musicology)

This paper explores the historical progression of the technological development of records and radio and its impact on popular music. It also includes the production technologies that create recorded music, the development of records, cassettes and CDs, and areas of reproduction that have an association with popular music including the sound technologies of radio, film, television, background music, and the juke-box. This paper is not a cultural or social study, but is primarily an historical account of media technology in music production and delivery. Certain social and cultural consequences and issues are included as background and sidebars to the primary topic. The technology of live performance has been omitted because it alone represents a body of material large enough for an entire paper. Western society now travels through a sea of music emanating from countless hidden sources. Such music delivery systems provide a continuous musical score for most people's personal histories. Sound, fragments of sound, and the very processes by which sound is created and manipulated have become products and commodities. The technology has allowed anyone to participate in the creation and hearing of music. This paper traces the history of the various technologies that, in so many respects, have provided a catalyst for that which is created, and the means by which music is listened to in the 20th Century. With rare exception, each new invention, delivery system, or process has had both supporters as well as detractors. Throughout this paper, both the positive as well as the negative effects of these developments will be explored.<br>Master of Arts (Hons)

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering, 2017<br>The images from the African articles dataset presented challenges to the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) tool. Despite successful binerisation in the Image Processing step of the pipeline, noise remained in the foreground of the images. This noise caused the OCR tool to misinterpret the text from the images and thus needed removal from the foreground. The technique involved the application of the Maximally Stable Extremal Region (MSER) algorithm, borrowed from Scene-Text Detection, and supervised machine learning classifiers. The algorithm creates regions from the foreground elements. Regions are classifiable into noise and characters based on the characteristics of their shapes. Classifiers were trained to recognise noise and characters. The technique is useful for a researcher wanting to process and analyse the large dataset. They could semi-automate the foreground noise-removal process using this technique. This would allow for better quality OCR output, for use in the Text Analysis step of the pipeline. Better OCR quality means less compromises would be required at the Text Analysis step. These concessions can lead to false results when searching noisy text. Fewer compromises means simpler, less error-prone analysis and more trustworthy results. The technique was tested against specifically selected images from the dataset which exhibited noise. It involved a number of steps. Training regions were selected and manually classified. After training and running many classifiers, the highest performing classifier was selected. The classifier categorised regions from all images. New images were created by removing noise regions from the original images. To discover whether an improvement in the OCR output was achieved, a text comparison was conducted. OCR text was generated from both the original and processed images. The two outputs of each image were compared for similarity against the test text. The test text was a manually created version of the expected OCR output per image. The similarity test for both original and processed images produced a score. A change in the similarity score indicated whether the technique had successfully removed noise or not. The test results showed that blotches in the foreground could be removed, and OCR output improved. Bleed-through and page fold noise was not removable. For images affected by noise blotches, this technique can be applied and hence less concessions will be needed when processing the text generated from those images.<br>CK2018

In this dissertation two solo violin compositions Nelle Mani d’Amduscias (1996) and Luamerava(2000) by the South African composer Hendrik Hofmeyr are analysed regarding the programmatic, compositional and idiomatic content. The Luamerava uses an adapted African legend that is inscribed at the beginning and according to the composer imitates the African mbira or finger piano. The Eurocentric Nelle Mani d’Amduscias is Italian for “into the hands of the (medieval) devil”. Both pieces are analysed under the headings form, melody and motives, rhythm, harmonies and violinistic aspects, always connecting to the programmatic content of the titles. Described by the composer as a pre-sketch to Raptus, some similarities with Nelle Mani d’Amduscias are noted. Mythes by Szymanowski provided a source of inspiration for Nelle Mani d’Amduscias and similar compositional techniques are observed. The title Nelle Mani d’Amduscias is musically illustrated with symbolic elements. These include the tritone, or Diabolus in Musica, the use of which was discouraged by religious medieval theorists, the trill, which is reminiscent of the Devil.s Trill Sonata by Tartini, and a difficulty level that is reminiscent of a Paganini Caprice. This further links to rumours surrounding the violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini of being in league with the devil, due to his unprecedented performing brilliance. Medieval elements are also considered. The use of mirror image interval patterns and the use of the octatonic scale are discussed as themes. The use of the vertical 2:3 rhythm, an unusual technique on the solo violin, is noted. Luamerava is analysed in connection with the characteristics of mbira music and African music. African and mbira compositional devices that are noted include call and response, melodic shape, mbira counterpoint and the use of ostinato, hocket, canon, hemiola, additive rhythms and African dancing in the Danzante. The chord sequence of mbira music of the Shona of Zimbabwe is compared to the harmonies used in the Danzante. The performance of the Western tradition is compared to that of the African mbira tradition. A short comparison noting the similarities and differences of the two works is provided in the conclusion. Copyright<br>Dissertation (MMus)--University of Pretoria, 2006.<br>Music<br>Unrestricted

Bc. Kateřina Řeháková Searching for staging tradition of Bohuslav Martinů's opera Julietta on Czech stages Abstract The master's thesis depicts all productions of Bohuslav Martinů's opera Julietta on Czech stages since the world premiere in Prague in 1938 till the last one, performed in Brno in 2009. It describes staging techniques and their transformations and shows how the productions make use of other productions' methods or how they are original. The pivotal production was the very first from 1938 produced by conductor Václav Talich, stage director Jindřich Honzl and set designer František Muzika who - in harmony - created a performance, which was considered perfect by the composer himself. Jindřich Honzl came up with the crucial staging dilemma which impacted next directors as well: to stage Julietta rather as a dream or more as a realistic story? The directors who were able to find a balance were more successful.