Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

2696

Date

2016

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Musical Arts

Major

Music

Concentration

Composition

Committee Chair

John Baur

Committee Member

Janet Page

Committee Member

Kenneth Kreitner

Committee Member

Scott Lane Hines

Abstract

Blue Moon is inspired by a National Geographic documentary on various life forms, that might exist under the specific atmospheric conditions predicted in a hypothetical solar system with two suns; the system includes the planet Aurelia and its moon, “Blue Moon,” on which extraterrestrial life could exist. The piece depicts the musical impressions created by the visual aspects of the exoplanet.The piece uses various superimpositions of triads and altered triads as substitutions of tonic, dominant, and subdominant functions, thus providing chordal resolution alternatives. The piece utilizes pitch material ideas reached by the early twentieth century, but mostly abandoned by academia, as well as by many progressive composers, after the emergence of twelve-tone technique. Synthetic scales, polytonality, and polychordality are the foundation of the pitch material. Techniques such as repetition and process are the compositional basis of the piece.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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