Department of Music

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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14078/18

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Browsing Department of Music by Title

Now showing 1 - 20 of 35
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    African rhythm as the foundation of contemporary bass performance
    (2018) de Toledo, Rubim
    Jazz and contemporary bass playing is a varied and deeply elaborate landscape. If jazz, American popular music, Caribbean, and Latin musical genres are taken into consideration, the breadth of bass styles is too broad to encompass in one lifetime. However, when the roots and traditions of these styles are examined, many common musical devices appear. With even more examination, these musical qualities can be seen and linked to West African ancestry. In this thesis, I outline several of these qualities and demonstrate these concepts from the perspective of modern bass performance. As well, I discuss the core rhythms in contemporary bass playing that have been retained from West African music. In conclusion, I present a handful of practical practice exercise to aid the bassist in internalizing some of the concepts discussed in the thesis. With such a broad topic it is clear to me that, while I present a unique perspective on contemporary bass performance, the study of African retention in bass performance goes far beyond the scope of a master’s thesis. It is my goal to open a gateway to a new awareness on the roots of contemporary bass playing and aid the bassist to build an authentic and profound connection to the ancestry of the art form.
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    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]
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    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.
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    Citizen science on the Bras D'Or
    (2016) MacDonald, Michael B.
    Citizen Science is a community based approach to ecology research. One afternoon in the summer of 2016 Bras D'Or Watch organized an opportunity for the general public to learn how to do citizen science. This short film introduces citizen science and some of the interesting scientific questions that face the Bras D'Or Lakes, Cape Breton Island's UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (blbra.ca). 3:35 minutes. Retrieved from: http://www.michaelbmacdonaldfilms.ca/
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    Cultural studies of youth culture: aesthetics as critical aesthetic education
    (2014) MacDonald, Michael B.
    This chapter presents a study of Hip Hop Kulture aesthetics, and lays out a call for students, teachers and community arts practitioners to engage in a practice of critical aesthetic education.
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    Dogleg
    (2014) Brenan, Craig
    Performed 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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    Dream #7
    (2014) Brenan, Craig
    Performed 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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    Eighty-eight drums: the piano as percussion instrument in jazz
    (2011) Van Seters, Tom
    Evidence 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.
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    Flow
    (2012) MacDonald, Michael B.
    A short piece on the concept of "flow" as it applies to the works of Gilles Deleuze.
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    Fold
    (2012) MacDonald, Michael B.
    A short piece on the concept of "fold" as it applies to the works of Gilles Deleuze.
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    Furious
    (2014) Brenan, Craig
    Performed 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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    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.
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    Jazz harmony: pitch-class set genera, transformation, and practical music
    (2012) Richards, William
    Contemporary 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.
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    Kingdom
    (2014) Brenan, Craig
    Performed 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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    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.
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    Letters to Attawapiskat
    (2016) MacDonald, Michael B.; Cipher5
    The story of tragedy at the Attawapiskat First Nations brings up issues of colonization, truth and reconciliation in a very personal way for a group of hiphoppas in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. A film by Michael B. MacDonald; A CIPHER5 Production; 31:11 minutes. Retrieved from: http://www.michaelbmacdonaldfilms.ca/
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    Lunar winter
    (2008) Richards, William
    This 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).
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    Megamorphesis: the hip hop quest for enlightenment
    (2016) MacDonald, Michael B.
    Every week Dre Pharoh and iD meet with young Edmonton hiphoppas at a local community centre. Together they make a knowledge cypher called Cipher5 where they work towards developing both skills and better selves. This is a film about one of those meetings where they talk about HipHop Kulture and build a new hip-hop track about their transformation to a higher self, Megamorephesis. A Cipher5 production; a Michael MacDonald film; 29:46 minutes. Retrieved from: http://www.michaelbmacdonaldfilms.ca/
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    Minor
    (2012) MacDonald, Michael B.
    A short piece on the concept of "minor" as it applies to the works of Gilles Deleuze.