Abstract (Part I)Part I: Radical Part-Writing Techniques in Beethoven and Beyond: Defining Elements of Musical Arcs

My music theory dissertation explores non-normative contrapuntal techniques in the works of several composers, from Beethoven through Shulamit Ran. In Western art music from the 18th century onward, counterpoint generally functions as a way to maintain independence between voices and to drive the melodic and harmonic action forward, both toward local cadences and toward long-range structural “landmarks.” Using musical examples, I observe and analyze how composers subvert the conventional functions of counterpoint via part-writing procedures that 1) undermine the foundational independence between voices, or 2) weaken harmonic and formal momentum. These unconventional part-writing techniques have a variety of impacts on the pieces in question, ranging from small structural deformations and deviations within a classical template to innovative narrative trajectories.

Abstract (Part II)Part II: Works Inspired by Sephardic Folk Songs

The composition portion of my dissertation is a collection of seven works based on selected Sephardic folk songs. The pieces in the collection, written for a variety of instruments and ensembles, are as follows:

1) A solo flute piece based on the song “La Prima Vez” 2) A piano four hands piece, also based on “La Prima Vez” 3) A piece for wind trio and electronics based on “La Rosa Enflorece” 4) A work for sinfonietta (13 musicians) based on “Lavava y Suspirava” 5) A piece for dancers, cello, and piano based on “Los Caminos de Sirkedji” 6) A work for SATB choir based on both “Mama, yo no tengo visto” and “Puncha, puncha” 7) A sound installation, made in Logic Pro X, based on “Al Pasar por Casablanca.”

My pieces explore many aspects of the songs on which they are based, including the songs’ modal, melodic, rhythmic, and textual parameters, as well as their respective cultural contexts. Generally speaking, I avoid the traditional theme and variations structure in favor of a freer approach to variation and form.

The Philippines contains a highly diverse musical history rich in avant-garde compositional practices. Composers such as José Maceda and Jonas Baes have been significant contributors composing pieces for several decades that have progressed their praxis specific to this region. These Filipino avant-garde practices were first developed by Maceda while he worked as an ethnomusicologist, leading him to search for non-Western “musical truths” through the discovery and development in his own compositions by incorporating elements from indigenous Philippine and Southeast Asian cultures. Filipino composers in the generations after Maceda, such as Jonas Baes, would follow this path and help further the practice of avant-garde composers in the Philippines. This dissertation investigates and analyzes this traditions in two representative compositions: Basbasan (1983) by Jonas Baes, and Colors Without Rhythm (1999) by José Maceda. These pieces are placed in perspective with the cultural and historical elements that lead to their inceptions, while analyzing compositional techniques that are unique to these composers and the region of the world that they are from.

The first chapter of this dissertation is concerned with the cultural materials of AIDS, as understood through Joseph Cady’s framework of immersive style. This framework was conceived to describe strategies found in the literary output of gay men living with AIDS before the development of effective medical treatment. Immersive style is characterized by a confrontational attitude, shifting time-space, and the centering of People Living With HIV/AIDS. This chapter expands immersive style to include the literary work of other marginalized identities that exist in tension with structures of power, as seen in the writing of Tory Dent and Essex Hemphhill. It can likewise be found in performance, such as the direct actions of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power, and music, like Diamanda Galás’ Plague Mass, ultimately laying a foundation that is built upon by the later chapters.The second chapter of this dissertation examines the use of doubling in Reza and Salar Abdoh’s lipsynch theater piece, Quotations from a Ruined City. Dis/re/embodied doubles include the action of lipsynch to text or songs. Twinned doubles deal with the mirroring and diffusion of voice and identity across characters. Singularities resist the double, but in the case of “Mario’s Monolog,” it resurfaces through juxtaposed incongruities and immersive style. The third chapter of this dissertation proposes a framework for excessive form, devised from the combination of camp, immersive style, and late style, and discussed through the work of Abdoh. Excessive form uses a surplus of irreconcilable materials to overwhelm the auditor, rendering the work impenetrable to analysis while subverting the assumed values of genre and form.

Part I: “Throw Little Things Off”: Affording Emotional Meanings in Björk’s Hyperballad This dissertation explores ways of affording emotional meaning(s) in popular recorded song through a case study of Björk’s song Hyperballad (1995). I argue that emotional meanings in song are a product of craft, of choices that can be analyzed at the level of the song track, even as we acknowledge that music is an inherently cultural and socially-situated act. By being exact in our usage of words like “emotion” and more specific about what attributes of a song track afford various affective responses, we can produce rich interpretations that are fair to all parties involved, restoring agency to the singer-songwriter as a skillful producer of signs and to listeners as interpreters of those signs. As a jumping-off-point, I address existing research that finds that Rolling Stone—an influential popular music institution with near-hegemonic consecrating power—has often tended to construct women artists' songs in terms of “emotional authenticity” even when legitimating them as canonic, glossing the songs’ emotional potency and convincingness as either unexplainable or provable via autobiographical verification. Given this history and popular music scholarship’s relative youth as a discipline, I contend that we need more thoughtful, thorough scholarship analyzing emotion in popular song—in order to better understand emotional meaning in music for its own sake, but also to reflect the value in studying supposedly “feminine” aesthetic traits that have often been marginalized. I take Björk’s song Hyperballad from the 1995 album Post as an unusually apt case study for this purpose. I conduct a reception history of Post and Hyperballad, showing that the song is often received as powerfully emotional by fans and critics, and addressing issues of genre and technology that crucially impact how listeners construct meanings within Björk’s idiosyncratic style. I also analyze what Post’s cover conveys about what we can expect to hear on the album, arguing that Björk’s visual choices position the album’s persona as communicating directly with us listeners. The cover also suggests that we are in for experiences of intense emotion, in which the dial is “turned up to 11.” My interpretation of Hyperballad utilizes the persona-environment (melody-accompaniment) distinction that popular musicologists Philip Tagg and Allan Moore employ, as well as research from music psychology and other disciplines, to address all the sounding layers of the song. Ultimately, I argue that the persona-environment relationship in Hyperballad can be understood in terms of changing states of consciousness. By attending to the detail of the song track at any given moment, including sounds’ relationships with one another both locally and across the full duration of the form, we can interpret Hyperballad as enacting the processes of emotional self-regulation the persona explicitly refers to in the lyrics. Finally, the dissertation zooms out to consider broader social and moral implications, arguing that songwriting is a form of emotional labor and song listening is a form of emotional play. Both activities are integral to being human, with very real implications for development of empathy, emotional intelligence, and overall mental health.

Part II: “I Hope You Stay Soft”: A portfolio of works exploring vulnerability through music & self-authored text

Part II presents and discusses a portfolio of compositions that explore vulnerability through compositions featuring self-authored text. In composing, writing, and at times performing these pieces, I examine various ways in which text and music can interact to address questions about vulnerability, intimacy, and “confession.”