Browsing by Subject "Music history"
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Item The architecture that built "The Live Music Capital of the World" : from Paleolithic caves to the Moody Theater(2016-05) McKeeman, Ryan Keith; Benedikt, Michael; Webster, Anthoy KThis thesis provides a fresh perspective on “The Live Music Capital of the World” from the vantage of its venues, their respective ritual practices, and the aural cultural values they represent through the aural experience of their architecture. These rituals and aural experiences draw upon a canon of archetypes from the history of architecture, many of which are well known to architectural historians for reasons other than aural experience, like their building technology, for example. As this thesis investigates the cultural significance of music in architecture, the venues for live music, the first chapter provides a contextual basis for the origins of music, arguing that music’s cultural significance in general is integrated and intertwined with our sociality as human beings. Like the control of fire, music fundamentally impacted the evolution of humans, allowing early human ancestors to engage in sensually rich and abstract communication that mimicked the novel social designs of the time period. In the second chapter, this thesis establishes a canon of archetypes in architectural history from Paleolithic Caves to late-nineteenth century Romanticism, providing examples as a form of case study. These examples demonstrate pivotal instances of the social, political, religious, and cultural power of music in architecture. In every case, it is clear that music specifically (and aural design more broadly) has been embedded within architecture and ritual practice since the beginning when humans inhabited the borrowed structures of caves, even before designing and building their own structures. Finally, in chapter three, the public and semi-public soundscapes of Austin are explored utilizing the theoretical framework of aural architecture developed by Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter. In an intimate account of specific “signature” venues in Austin, this thesis identifies aural features that originate from within the canon of archetypes developed in chapter two. The evolution of Austin’s live music venues illustrates an evolving set of cultural values related to where, when and how loudly live music ought to occur in our public spaces.Item Mashups : history, legality, and aesthetics(2011-05) Boone, Christine Emily; Buhler, James, 1964-; Alm�n, Byron; Drott, Eric; Dell'Antonio, Andrew; Weinstock, JohnAs the popularity of mashups attests, individual songs and their increasingly irrelevant prepackaged albums no longer seem to constitute a finished product to many who listen to them. Instead individual songs often serve as raw ingredients for use in another recipe – the playlist, the mix, the mashup – which those who buy the songs make and exchange. The strict division between producers and consumers, which the music industry exploited very productively throughout the twentieth century, seems to be breaking down, and I conclude that the mashup models a different, more fluid relationship between musical consumption and production. In this dissertation, I examine mashups from a music theoretical point of view. I argue that the mashup represents an important musical genre with distinguishing characteristics and its own historical development. Chapter 1 defines the mashup and devises a typology that classifies the genre based on two characteristics: number of songs combined and the mode of their combination (vertical or horizontal). This typology leads to the division of the mashup into four distinct subtypes. Chapter 2 discusses significant legal challenges raised by the mashup, especially with respect to copyright. Mashups – at least in recorded form – began as an underground, largely non-commercial phenomenon, due to the cost and difficulty of obtaining permission to use another artist’s recording. I also examine various pertinent musical lawsuits and discuss their influence on the way mashup artists make and distribute their works. Chapter 3 probes the historical factors that led to the development of mashups, including sampling in hip hop music (both recorded and live), collage techniques in art music, and looping and mixing by club DJs. Chapter 4 investigates the aesthetics of the mashup. Critics in the popular press and on the internet judge mashups without specifying the musical characteristics that make a particular mashup successful. This chapter seeks to locate the aesthetic principles that govern mashup production. Using commentary by mashup artists as well as transcription and analysis of several mashups, I divide these aesthetic principles into two categories: construction and meaning. I then develop a list of characteristics that mashup artists aim for when creating their tracks.Item Pythagoras at the smithy : science and rhetoric from antiquity to the early modern period(2012-05) Tang, Andy chi-chung; Nardini, LuisaIt has been said that Pythagoras discovered the perfect musical intervals by chance when he heard sounds of hammers striking an anvil at a nearby smithy. The sounds corresponded to the same intervals Pythagoras had been studying. He experimented with various instruments and apparatus to confirm what he heard. Math, and in particular, numbers are connected to music, he concluded. The discovery of musical intervals and the icon of the musical blacksmith have been familiar tropes in history, referenced in literary, musical, and visual arts. Countless authors since Antiquity have written about the story of the discovery, most often found in theoretical texts about music. However, modern scholarship has judged the narrative as a myth and a fabrication. Its refutation of the story is peculiar because modern scholarship has failed to disprove the nature of Pythagoras’s discovery with valid physical explanations. This report examines the structural elements of the story and traces its evolution since Antiquity to the early modern period to explain how an author interprets the narrative and why modern scholarship has deemed it a legend. The case studies of Nicomachus of Gerasa, Claudius Ptolemy, Boethius, and Marin Mersenne reveal not only how the story about Pythagoras’s discovery functions for each author, but also how the alterations in each version uncover an author’s views on music.