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Deep Listening for Environmental Stewardship
In the practice of Deep Listening, American composer Pauline Oliveros pioneered various ways to grow awareness of spaces and their changes. In workshops with author Ione and dancer Heloise Gold, Oliveros explored modes of listening to keenly observe sounds, movement, and dreams. In this paper I argue that this multifaceted listening practice may serve an environmental purpose and reduces hierarchies and anthropocentricity through its inclusivity and consideration of the nonhuman. Further, the new power dynamic encouraged by Deep Listening highlights ecological listening, focusing on the relationship between all living beings, their sounds, and the nonliving environment. Watch the pre-recorded presentation here. Multi-Sensory Listening This paper argues that, in addition to aural listening, other modes such as visual, imagined, and embodied listening exist. It discusses sound artist Christine Sun Kim’s drawing “The Sound of Passing Time” and composer Dieter Schnebel’s book MO-NO: Musik zum Lesen (MO-NO: Music to Read), works in which the artist challenges traditional understandings of listening and attempts to engage performers and audiences in multi-sensory listening. Deep Ecology in Music This paper and presentation examines how the philosophy of deep ecology is reflected in Western classical music. Specifically, it studies how pieces of music that reduce hierarchies by blurring the lines between the composer, performer, and audience illustrate deep ecology. Pauline Oliveros's Sonic Meditations and Margaret Noble's Time Strata serve as examples. Ellington's Use of Birdsong This paper explores the implications of Duke Ellington’s use of bird song in his piece “Sunset and the Mocking Bird” from The Queen’s Suite. It does not argue that Ellington’s approach to bird song in his music was novel, but instead analyzes it in the contexts of Ellington’s personal collaborative approach and cultural ideas suggested by his musical referencing of animals. This work builds on existing discussions of Ellington’s creation of urban soundscapes and engages an ecomusicological view to revisit environmental reflections in his work. Interspecies Music This analytical paper uses theorist Christopher Hasty’s method of projection to compare rhythm and meter in nightingale and humpback whale songs (in response to claims of interspecies similarities). Analyzing animal songs with the same framework used to analyze human classical music shows the importance and value of animals and their sound world, and it may ultimately help humans better understand the nonhuman world. Sonic Creativity by Nonhumans This paper focuses on the intrinsic conceptual frameworks of intellectual property law in the United States, specifically the concept of creative author and its gendered and speciesist underpinnings. It argues that animal rights are speciesist in the treatment of nonhuman authorship, much in the same way feminist scholars have identified the gendered nature and hierarchies of IP law. It suggests that nonhuman animals could be authors and their sounds and music could be examined as intellectual property, especially if understood as alternative “ways of knowing” which place nonhuman creativity in their appropriate cultures. |
CURRENT MUSICOLOGICAL RESEARCHDrawing on work in the environmental humanities,
acoustic ecology, sound studies, phenomenology, and ecofeminism, Anne-Marie explores sound, listening, and placekeeping. She investigates the cultural role of environmental sound, embodied engagement with sonic environments, and the benefits of listening to the more-than-human world. 
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MASTER'S THESIS
| Living Tradition in Music |
Abstract:
Tradition in music produces a foundation to which later composers must respond. I have defined ‘traditional’ musical elements as preexisting musical material with a history of and associations with established practices and prominent composers. This thesis explores how modern composers use these traditional elements, specifically in twenty-first century wind ensemble music, and what that usage means for the music. Harold Bloom, T. S. Eliot, and Richard Taruskin have written on responding to tradition, and three pieces are analyzed according to these writers’ ideas. David Maslanka’s Symphony No. 9, Michael Gandolfi’s Flourishes and Meditations on a Renaissance Theme, and Kathryn Salfelder’s Cathedrals are the case studies, as each piece is based on a ‘traditional’ element: Maslanka uses a Bach chorale tune; Gandolfi, a Renaissance theme; and Salfelder, a Gabrieli canzon. The Bloomian responses of clinamen, tessera, and apophrades appear in the works of the composers, showing their responses to tradition.
Tradition in music produces a foundation to which later composers must respond. I have defined ‘traditional’ musical elements as preexisting musical material with a history of and associations with established practices and prominent composers. This thesis explores how modern composers use these traditional elements, specifically in twenty-first century wind ensemble music, and what that usage means for the music. Harold Bloom, T. S. Eliot, and Richard Taruskin have written on responding to tradition, and three pieces are analyzed according to these writers’ ideas. David Maslanka’s Symphony No. 9, Michael Gandolfi’s Flourishes and Meditations on a Renaissance Theme, and Kathryn Salfelder’s Cathedrals are the case studies, as each piece is based on a ‘traditional’ element: Maslanka uses a Bach chorale tune; Gandolfi, a Renaissance theme; and Salfelder, a Gabrieli canzon. The Bloomian responses of clinamen, tessera, and apophrades appear in the works of the composers, showing their responses to tradition.
OTHER RESEARCH TOPICS
The Flute in Ecomusicology
This lecture recital was given on the flute and ecomusicology (the interaction of nature, culture, and music) in contemporary flute repertoire through using nature, imitating nature, commenting on nature, interacting with nature, and being inspired by nature.
David Maslanka: Responding to Beethoven
This paper looks at how David Maslanka, a current composer, reflects and reacts to the influence of Beethoven in his works. His works in both the symphonic and wind band genres serve as examples of these elements; this paper uses Symphony No. 4 as a representative example.
Musical Identity in the United States
This paper deals with musical identity, specifically in a national sense, as seen through the popular music genre, and discovers if there is an inherently American identity reflected in pop music through the use of examples from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. By focusing on popular songs and covers, a “North American” culture and identity is theoretically observed. The concentration is on the song “Hurt,” originally by Nine Inch Nails in 1994 and covered by Johnny Cash in 2003. With the song “Hurt” as evidence, this paper proposes that there is not an American identity reflected in pop music because NIN and Johnny Cash, as iconic artists, fail to exhibit an overarching American identity. What they do exhibit are artistic individualities, which are defined by audience perception.
Debussy and Takemitsu: Similarities between Syrinx and Voice
Claude Debussy’s ties with Japan are nothing new, and his influence on Tōru Takemitsu is well known. This paper explores this relationship and, specifically, how Takemitsu’s flute solo Voice (1971) compares with Debussy’s flute solo Syrinx (1913).
This lecture recital was given on the flute and ecomusicology (the interaction of nature, culture, and music) in contemporary flute repertoire through using nature, imitating nature, commenting on nature, interacting with nature, and being inspired by nature.
David Maslanka: Responding to Beethoven
This paper looks at how David Maslanka, a current composer, reflects and reacts to the influence of Beethoven in his works. His works in both the symphonic and wind band genres serve as examples of these elements; this paper uses Symphony No. 4 as a representative example.
Musical Identity in the United States
This paper deals with musical identity, specifically in a national sense, as seen through the popular music genre, and discovers if there is an inherently American identity reflected in pop music through the use of examples from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. By focusing on popular songs and covers, a “North American” culture and identity is theoretically observed. The concentration is on the song “Hurt,” originally by Nine Inch Nails in 1994 and covered by Johnny Cash in 2003. With the song “Hurt” as evidence, this paper proposes that there is not an American identity reflected in pop music because NIN and Johnny Cash, as iconic artists, fail to exhibit an overarching American identity. What they do exhibit are artistic individualities, which are defined by audience perception.
Debussy and Takemitsu: Similarities between Syrinx and Voice
Claude Debussy’s ties with Japan are nothing new, and his influence on Tōru Takemitsu is well known. This paper explores this relationship and, specifically, how Takemitsu’s flute solo Voice (1971) compares with Debussy’s flute solo Syrinx (1913).
TUTORING/PROOFING
Anne-Marie is also available to help in the area of music history. This could be useful in many ways, including the writing of academic papers and the application of historical knowledge to increase interpretation of music for performance. She is also able to help with the editing of papers on historical topics.
Interested in tutoring or editing help? Click here and please provide your information.
Interested in tutoring or editing help? Click here and please provide your information.