Department of Music
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Item Transformation and generic interaction in the early serial music of Igor Stravinsky(2003) Richards, WilliamThis dissertation investigates the compositionally continuous and discontinuous serial and non-serial formations found at or near the musical surface in works selected from Stravinsky’s early serial music, draws these formations into relationships through the analytical apparatus of an original transformational system, and explores their interactions through the model of generic set-class space. Ultimately, a dynamic model of the pitch structure for each of these works emerges that transcends order relationships embedded within the linear formations.Item "The best laid plans of Marx and men": Mitch Podolak, revolution, and the Winnipeg Folk Festival(2008) MacDonald, Michael B.Mitch Podolak said, “Pete Seeger and Leon Trotsky lead to everything in my life, especially the Winnipeg Folk Festival.” This article discusses the creation of the Winnipeg Folk Festival (WFF) in 1974 as Podolak’s first attempt to fuse his ten years of Trotskyist political training with his love for folk music. His intention was to create a Canadian folk festival which would embody the politically resistant nature of the Trotskyist international movement for the purpose of challenging the Canadian liberal capitalist democratic system on a cultural front. Heavily influenced by the American Communist Party’s use of folk music, Podolak believed that the folk song and its performance were socially important. This importance, he believed, stemmed from the social cohesion that could be created within a festival performance space. This space, when thoughtfully organized, could have the ability to create meaning. The relationships between the artistic director, the folk singer, the folk song and the festival audience become intertwined to dialectically create the meaning of the song and the space simultaneously defining folk musicItem Lunar winter(2008) Richards, WilliamThis is the title track for a self-produced electronica album I did in 2008 [Lunar winter]. I call my style of electronica "eclectronica." Soul Dog is my electronica name (visit my site: souldogmusic.com). This track and others of my self-produced electronica/eclectronica were published (CD) as part of the MacEwan produced POP CITY 4 (2009).Item Singing me into this land: the territorialization of a spiritual ecosystem(2009) MacDonald, Michael B.The fear of environmental catastrophe is very real in our daily lives. Dealing with fear at times means combating it. A small pagan community in Washington State gathers together up to eight times a year to ritualize their connection to nature. These rituals use music as a magic to transform the consciousness of the participants. Becoming one with nature in a spiritual-ecosystem allows the forces of nature to become animate and real. This is the magic of music.Item Back to the garden: territory and exchange in western Canadian folk music festivals(2010) MacDonald, Michael B.Until now folk music festivals in western Canada have not been systematically surveyed nor has their operation been theorized as a mode of creative production. This work develops a historically grounded approach to folk music as a means of social production and challenges the idea that folk music is only a music genre. I conclude, using a theoretical approach developed by Deleuze and Guattari, that contemporary folk music festivals make use of social capital to establish a folk music assemblage. This assemblage provides an alternative, non-centralized, and increasingly global alternative for the flow of music capital. Folk music is no longer a style of music but a mode of doing business in music that is socially oriented and politically and economically potent.Item Eighty-eight drums: the piano as percussion instrument in jazz(2011) Van Seters, TomEvidence of a link between piano and drumming performance practices in western music dates back to at least the mid-nineteenth century. The modern construction of the piano had yet to be fully standardized when percussive techniques were being applied to its keyboard. Since that time, pianists and drummers (especially those involved with the creation of groove-based music) have grown closer and closer, participating in what remains a richly symbiotic relationship. This study examines parallels between piano and drumming performance practices in jazz. In this context, drumming is acknowledged as an important inspiration guiding the expression of rhythm and percussive attack by non-drummers, pianists in particular. Historical connections between pianism and drumming in jazz are addressed through an examination of those legacies that are widely believed to derive from West African drumming, European march and dance traditions, and various aspects of the so-called "Latin tinge" from the Caribbean and South America. Playing techniques are compared in part based on the premise that similarities in musical output flow naturally from congruencies in instrumental architecture. Percussive action unites pianists and drummers, as do shared abilities to create rhythmic layers through the independent functioning of multiple limbs. A discussion of ensemble roles reveals conceptual links, especially with regard to time-keeping, "comping," and mutual approaches to the creation of groove and swing. Transcriptions are employed to illustrate instances of widely adopted drumming-like gestures from the history of jazz with special attention paid to rhythmic counterpoint, complementation, and rudimental sticking patterns used by jazz pianists since the 1960's. Though a statistically small sample, interviews with ten professional jazz pianists support the essential findings of the study. Questions are raised throughout regarding the effectiveness of traditional jazz pedagogy in emphasizing the importance of drumming to non-drummer instrumental praxis.Item American goddess: a modern apotheosis(2011) MacDonald, Michael B.Since the 1970s America has inherited Britain's place as the world center of modern paganism. One of America's significant contributions to neopaganism is the transformation of Wicca into a feminist spiritual practice. Some American feminist witches have suggested that the roots of witchcraft may be found in goddess polytheism. American goddess worship seems to differ, however, from other named-goddess worship elsewhere in the world, in that the goddess of much American paganism has no single name or identity... Exploring the development of goddess worship in the United States since 1970 will show how this nonhierarchical, nondogmatic, spiritual practice has developed into very personal and community spiritual practices that celebrate the goddess. [Taken from work]Item Jazz harmony: pitch-class set genera, transformation, and practical music(2012) Richards, WilliamContemporary jazz musicians draw from a rich and varied collection of techniques and strategies used towards the realization of harmonic succession, voicing and voice-leading, and linear improvisation. While musicians recognize the distinctiveness of various jazz chord-scales and harmonies, they also talk about “source scales” and chord families, and describe processes that apply to the manipulation of chord progressions including chord and chord-scale substitution, interpolation, and reduction. Aligned to jazz theoretic discourse, this paper presents a model of set-class space in which scales and chords typical of the jazz language coalesce into pc-set genera and form inter-generic relations through transformation. The model suggests a holistic, theoretical definition of jazz harmony and offers musicians a way of thinking about relations among scales and harmonies in terms of a transformational system that resides in transformational space, which in turn can be employed systematically and imaginatively towards the creation and interpretation of jazz music.Item Nomadic(2012) MacDonald, Michael B.A short piece on the concept of "nomadic" as it applies to the works of Gilles Deleuze.Item Hip-hop citizens: local hip-hop and the production of democratic grassroots change in Alberta(2012) MacDonald, Michael B.The purpose of this chapter is to capture my involvement with the young artists and presenters who are involved in emancipatory forms of hip-hop in Edmonton. The first part of the chapter documents how I became connected with the research partners in this project and an overview of some of the obstacles inhibiting the hip-hop community in Edmonton and impoverished sections of Edmonton. Next, I highlight how we became aware of how neoliberalism is responsible for inhibiting the development of the hip-hop scene in Edmonton as well as the development of 118 Ave. Third, I flesh out how the research team formulated a research methodology and pedagogy to revitalize the hip-hop scene in Edmonton and our urban community itself. Finally, I suggest how this project impacted the individual members of the research team, the hip-hop community, and this urban context. At the same time, I also highlight some of the obstacles of sustaining a cultural ecology that has the potential to raise critical awareness, inside and outside of the hip-hop world, of what causes oppression and how to dismantle it.Item Flow(2012) MacDonald, Michael B.A short piece on the concept of "flow" as it applies to the works of Gilles Deleuze.Item Fold(2012) MacDonald, Michael B.A short piece on the concept of "fold" as it applies to the works of Gilles Deleuze.Item Minor(2012) MacDonald, Michael B.A short piece on the concept of "minor" as it applies to the works of Gilles Deleuze.Item Wildness, eschatology, and enclosure in the songs of Townes Van Zandt(2013) MacDonald, Michael B.An analysis of songs by Townes Van Zandt chronicling late twentieth-century American culture amid significant social and economic change.Item Knowing Pandora in sound: acoustemology and ecomusicological imagination in Cameron's Avatar(2013) MacDonald, Michael B.Using the music in James Cameron's Avatar, and drawing upon four case studies on ethnomusicology, this chapter reflects upon a way of knowing-through-sound called acoustemology.Item Kingdom(2014) Brenan, CraigPerformed by: Craig Brenan, trombone; John Ellis, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet; Connor Learmonth, bass clarinet, clarinet; Raymond Baril, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, clarinet; Adrienne Lorway, clarinet, bass clarinet; Dave Morgan, trumpet, flugelhorn; Ted Poor, drums. Conducted by Allan Gilliland. Composition by Craig Brenan. Arranging assistance from Florian Ross. Recorded February 2014 by Stew Kirkwood at Sound Extractor Studio. Mixed by Jim Brenan, Spencer Cheyne, Craig Brenan. Mastered by Florian Ross. Produced by Craig Brenan.Item Dogleg(2014) Brenan, CraigPerformed by: Craig Brenan, trombone; John Ellis, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet; Connor Learmonth, bass clarinet, clarinet; Raymond Baril, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, clarinet; Adrienne Lorway, clarinet, bass clarinet; Dave Morgan, trumpet, flugelhorn; Ted Poor, drums. Conducted by Allan Gilliland. Composition by Craig Brenan. Arranging assistance from Florian Ross. Recorded February 2014 by Stew Kirkwood at Sound Extractor Studio. Mixed by Jim Brenan, Spencer Cheyne, Craig Brenan. Mastered by Florian Ross. Produced by Craig Brenan.Item The uninvited(2014) Brenan, CraigPerformed by: Craig Brenan, trombone; John Ellis, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet; Connor Learmonth, bass clarinet, clarinet; Raymond Baril, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, clarinet; Adrienne Lorway, clarinet, bass clarinet; Dave Morgan, trumpet, flugelhorn; Ted Poor, drums. Conducted by Allan Gilliland. Composition by Craig Brenan. Arranging assistance from Florian Ross. Recorded February 2014 by Stew Kirkwood at Sound Extractor Studio. Mixed by Jim Brenan, Spencer Cheyne, Craig Brenan. Mastered by Florian Ross. Produced by Craig Brenan.Item Rocket sauce(2014) Brenan, CraigPerformed by: Craig Brenan, trombone; John Ellis, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet; Connor Learmonth, bass clarinet, clarinet; Raymond Baril, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, clarinet; Adrienne Lorway, clarinet, bass clarinet; Dave Morgan, trumpet, flugelhorn; Ted Poor, drums. Conducted by Allan Gilliland. Composition by Craig Brenan. Arranging assistance from Florian Ross. Recorded February 2014 by Stew Kirkwood at Sound Extractor Studio. Mixed by Jim Brenan, Spencer Cheyne, Craig Brenan. Mastered by Florian Ross. Produced by Craig Brenan.
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