This thesis is the sum of two parts. The first is a research paper that investigates the cultural phenomenon of the drummer boy during the American Civil War. Much attention and ink has been devoted to the drummer’s rudiments and battlefield role. I argue that upon surveying the wartime American culture more broadly, the drummer boy was not just a messenger, but a Christ figure for his time; I source contemporary articles, poems, songs, and novels to evidence this claim. The second section of my thesis is a reflection and analysis of my Masters Recital program. Here, I take time to reflect on the personal meaning of this particular performance and provide a brief analysis for each composition in turn

This dissertation identifies select power structures in society and considers their influence on the modern classical musician, labeled the classical interpreter. This is extended by offering insight on the social group of percussion players that has codified the continued existence of the classical interpreter percussionist throughout the 20th century. Live interpretation of another person’s work is a key aspect of the classical interpreter’s practice, and the mediation of this event is examined both theoretically and practically. This is done so through the lens of participatory internet practices, and heavily relies on the archival and dissemination properties of YouTube.

In this dissertation, I will analyze and discuss the three pieces presented in Breaking News, a program of original percussion works I presented on January 13, 2008 in the Mandeville Recital Hall at the University of California, San Diego. This program represents my musical investigations of percussion as influenced by various aspects of television news, including its form, speech and content. The first work, Another Border Crossing, is a solo for Persian tombak and pre-recorded sound that draws from both traditional Persian music and an Iranian newscast. News Between Copies, which focuses on local American news anchors, is a solo featuring a metal plate instrument sculpture with video and pre-recorded sound. Last on the program, Cloudy But Sunny is a percussion trio accompanied by video and pre-recorded sound that navigates through three simultaneous half-hour US newscasts. In addition, I will illustrate the musical and social reasons why the news became my source for musical inspiration. As a part of that discussion, I will trace the development of this program by addressing specific works that reflect my previous exploration of speech and the news. I will also explain how the work from this program carries over and influences other areas of my musical efforts, such as my approach to other composers' work and my multi-disciplinary collaboration. It is through these analyses that I will examine my identity as a percussionist in light of the issues and demands of the Breaking News program.

In today's world of too much information, context -not content- is king. This proposal is for the development of an unparalleled sonic analysis tool that converts audio files into musical score notation and a Web site (API) to collect manage and preserve information about the musical sounds analyzed, as well as music scores, videos, and articles on music. By combining currently available software with custom created programs in a novel way, this project revolutionizes the field of music by empowering general and expert users with the ability to put information in a context never before imaginable. Applying the Wikipedia model, user created data will be available through a Web site to users at all times for no cost. The data will be searchable through innumerable variations of custom filters -like those of a travel Web site- and employ a newly conceived poetic search engine that has question-answering capabilities currently unavailable. Eventually, this database will become the largest source of information (including sounds, scores, articles, and recordings) on musical instruments and scholarship in the world.

This project defines innovation by radically changing the way researchers search and obtain information, therefore, changing the way they think about information, and changing the way they create with information. In summary, the project leverages what computers do best - organize, store and analyze data - permitting humans to spend more time doing what they do best - art.

The following document offers an intensive study of the interpretive challenges posed by the late music of Morton Feldman, focusing on Bass Clarinet and Percussion (1981) and For Philip Guston (1984). A single dynamic marking, coded rhythmic organization, and extreme duration create an interpretive dilemma unprecedented in Western classical music. Indeed, the relatively simple surface of this music quickly gives way to a staggering complexity. This study stages several interpretive explorations of this musical scenario; many interpretive perspectives are considered in order to construct a dynamic context, multiple approaches toward rhythmic organization are assessed for their musical implications, and in the face of unprecedented duration, the notion of interpretive control is reevaluated.

This dissertation investigates the turn to “open form” and “indeterminacy” among composers worldwide in the 1950s and 1960s. Looking first to the music of Anton Webern, this study traces the origins of a musical aesthetic that prioritized compositional systems and became a foundation for the exploration of open form techniques after World War II. The remainder of this study focuses on John Cage’s flexible, score-producing tools, Fontana Mix, Cartridge Music, and Variations II, examining the ways these works define themselves in spite of their inherent multiplicity. Their complex relationship with interpretation and performance is examined through the realizations of John Cage and David Tudor in addition to my own recent experiences as an interpreter of this music.

Among Objects seeks to explore the concepts and structures of thought that underlie Western percussion ontology. As an artform, percussion is often understood as not being rooted to a material practice, but instead defined based on practitioners’ intentions and relationships to any number of materials, from conventional instruments to so-called “found sounds.” This dissertation, itself invested in the ethical dilemmas of the art form, seeks to complicate this understanding. I begin, through a phenomenological lens, by analyzing the structures of action and consciousness that make such an ontology possible. I then illustrate, through the concept of touch, the contingent bodily and material elements that support these structures and mediate this action: conditions that are often overlooked in accounts of the artform. I argue that the predominant ontology of action is shaped by certain orienting structures of power, and that percussion’s ontology must be understood based on the consequences of these orientations. I proceed to imagine and outline a metaphysics of percussion rooted not in subjective action but in a form of inter-objective self-interpretation. Within this framework, the percussive work or event creates a more complex object of which the human is just one component part, rather than master or sovereign. The dissertation closes with a discussion of how, given this alternative metaphysics, the relationship of percussion to violence takes on a different form: no longer something that one commits only by choice, but something that is immanent to the embodied, material, and cultural practices of the artform. Given this understanding, I argue for an embodied, object-oriented ethics to help create and maintain a more habitable percussive world.

This document explores the process of learning, performing and recording three pieces for percussion and tape: Kontakte by Karlheinz Stockhausen, windowed 1 Version 1 by Johannes Kreidler, and 700 Club by Patrick Hart. Topics covered will be the challenges posed by these pieces, their philosophical implications, the differences between the stage and the recording studio, and meditations on information overload. The recordings are included and should be listened to as texts.

This thesis is in three parts. The first part is a research paper which investigates the ways by which Roscoe Mitchell’s piece, Sound (1965), is a landmark of experimentalism while retaining important influences of the broader jazz tradition. The second part is a piece titled Many Centers for solo drum set, composed and performed in April 2018. The third part is a short album titled Time Studies, recorded in June 2018.

This dissertation examines the ways that my formal training and education as a percussionist have provided a logical foundation for three separate vectors of activity in my professional life: conducting, teaching and curating. The document aims to demonstrate the unexpected ways that lessons on instruments historically considered to be at the periphery of classical music culture have provided me with a unique perspective on this art form’s past, present and future. I describe my background and its effect on my recent activities as a conductor (both of classical and avant-garde repertory), my philosophies as a lecturer in percussion at the California Institute of the Arts, and my sensibilities as the artistic director of Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles.