Phone: 330-672-2004
E-mail: performingartslibrary@kent.edu
or chat below...
The Performing Arts Library is located at D-004 in the Center for the Performing Arts. Find more information about our hours.
Semiology of Musical Gestures: How Uniqueness Expresses Community Identity
Laurel Myers Hurst
Sight-Reading Pre-Adjudication: A Comparison Between Director Commentary and Adjudicator Expectations
Kate Ferguson
Does a School Music Program Influence a School's Culture?
Joseph W. Ellis
'Show Indians' /Showing Indians: Buffalo Bill's Wild West and the Bureau of Indian Affairs
RoseMarie Bank
Kinky Friedman and His Texas Jewboys in a New Historical and Geographical Perspective
Theodore Albrecht
Student and Director Perceptions of An All-County Band Festival
Travis Weller
Understanding Motivation In Practice: A Study of Influential Factors
Christopher Jones
Music Education Philosophies and Practices of Early Childhood Educators
Terri Brown Lenzo
Semiology of Musical Gestures: How Uniqueness Expresses Community Identity
Laurel Myers Hurst - Assistant Professor (Term), Kent State University
Abstract
While it may be common knowledge that music and community identity go hand-in-hand, it is considerably more difficult to determine which musical gesture or gestures embody communally-held values and foster community identity. Regarding the semiology of music John Blacking asserts, "In music, code and message are inseparable: the code is the message, and when the message is analyzed apart from the code, music is abandoned for sociology, politics, economics, religion, and so forth" (Blacking 1981, 185). This paper argues that if unique and meaningful musical gestures cannot be identified and analyzed in the musical products associated with a particular culture, then meaning is derived only from exo-semantic sources and we fail to show that music itself has any affect on community identification.
This paper is predicated upon the hypothesis that if two communities call a genre "Gospel quartet music" and one community describes its music as "Black" and the other describes its music as "Southern" then two unique musical gestures must symbolize communally-held concepts through their external form and their connotative or denotative relationship to their respective cultures. The argument will also briefly outline and demonstrate a practical method of semiological analysis applicable to performance preparation of any musical genre.
Bio
Laurel Myers Hurst is a 2010 Master of Ethnomusicology graduate of Kent State University. She serves as adjunct faculty at main and regional KSU campuses. Laurel also acquired her bachelor's degree at Kent State studying voice with James Mismas. She maintains an active voice studio and conducts choral clinics for sacred and secular choirs. Laurel has done field research among communities in crisis including the Assyrian Church of the East, Christian missionaries to pre-Communist Era China and unregistered Christian churches currently operating in the People's Republic of China. Her current research deals with conceptualization of African rhythm and its theoretical application to African-derived popular music.
Sight-Reading Pre-Adjudication: A Comparison Between Director Commentary and Adjudicator Expectations
Kate Ferguson
Abstract
Music educators believe sight-reading to be a desirable skill for an instrumental performer; however, in public school music, there is perhaps no single problem as universal in scope as sight-reading. The importance of this skill is shown by the inclusion of music sight-reading at state contests, as well as auditions within and outside of the school. From the large group performance ensemble perspective, ensemble sight-reading is usually required of school bands participating in district and/or state levels of music contests or festivals. Ratings for ensemble sight-reading achievement are often assigned that factor in to the evaluative device for the school band program. Many band directors' knowledge of how to teach sight-reading is derived from their own personal experience, both as participants in ensemble sight reading an as leaders learning by trial and error. Sight-reading has had a tremendous amount of importance placed upon it, it would only seem reasonable to pursue answers to the questions of "best practices" for the director commentary portion of sight-reading adjudication. The purpose of this study is to compare the practices of directors during the sight - reading pre-adjudication preparations time block of a large group adjudicated event to the expectations of experienced adjudicators for that same time period. This is a qualitative study. Comments made by directors during the sight-reading portion of the Ohio Music Education Association High School Large Group Adjudicated Event have been compared to the expectations of experiences sight-reading adjudicators in the Ohio Music Education Association. Research questions are: (1) From an adjudicators perspective, what are the content areas that need to be addressed by the director during the pre-adjudication time block and how much time should be spent in each area? and (2) What are the techniques used and content areas addressed by directors during the pre-adjudication time block to prepare students for the large group adjudicated event sight - reading?
Bio
Kate Ferguson is in her 13th year of teaching and 11th year as an instrumental music teacher in the Crestwood Local Schools. Ferguson earned her Bachelor in Music Education from Kent State University in August 1998, Master of Music in Music Education from the University of Akron in May 2004 and is currently pursuing her PhD in Music Education at Kent State University. Ferguson is actively involved in the Ohio Music Education Association (OMEA). Ferguson is an active OMEA Adjudicator and has also served OMEA as a member of the state board, hosting High School Solo & Ensemble and Marching Band Adjudicated Events, as well as being a member of the 2003, 2006, and 2009 Professional Conference Planning Committee. Ferguson actively performs on her main instrument, trombone, with the Brass Band of the Western Reserve. Ferguson has been on the administrative staff for Matrix Indoor Percussion Ensemble since 1999. Her professional memberships include Music Educators National Conference, Ohio Music Education Association, and Delta Omicron.
Does a School Music Program Influence a School's Culture?
Joseph W. Ellis
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to facilitate an understanding of whether or not a music program has influence upon an individual school's culture, and if so, in what ways. Most music teachers agree that their subject matter is an integral part of the school's curriculum, but are these classes truly an integral part of school life within those walls? Participants were selected because of their position within the school's structure, and a student was selected because of involvement and enrollment in all aspects of the offered music curriculum. All participants were interviewed and given the same definitions of school culture, music program, and influence so that they were able to consistently speak from their unique perspective using the same definitions for each of these concepts. From these interviews, data were coded and analyzed in regards to answering the question of whether or not a music program influences a school's culture. Results are will be reported in May, 2011.
Bio
Joseph W. Ellis is a doctoral student in the College of Education, Health, and Human Services at Kent State University enrolled in the Curriculum and Instruction program and is a music teacher at Our Lady of Peace Catholic School in Canton, Ohio. After graduating with a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Mount Union College in 2001, Mr. Ellis continued his education at Walsh University earning a Master of Arts in Education in 2006. Serving as a band director, choir director, general music teacher, elementary principal, and drama teacher over the last decade, Mr. Ellis has dedicated his life to learning and continual discovery, especially in the field of music education.
"Show Indians"/Showing Indians: Buffalo Bill's Wild West and the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Rosemarie Bank
Abstract
Scholarship about William F. Cody, "Buffalo Bill," and Buffalo Bill's Wild West has, undeniably, become an industry. As a man, a myth, a celebrity, a showman, a fraud, a frontiersman, a legend, a husband, a philanderer, a marksman, a phenomenon, a businessman, a failed businessman, a producer, and in many other aspects of life, theatre, and cultural history, more has been written about William F. ("Buffalo Bill") Cody than, perhaps, any other American. What more can possibly be said?
Among the several aspects of Cody's career and practices that have not fully come to light are the relationship between Buffalo Bill's Wild West and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. What I propose reaches beyond contract information and epistolary disputes to an exploration of the connection between the B.I.A. and American anthropologists--Morgan, Putnam, Boas--around the time of the Wounded Knee/Columbian Exposition events (c. 1890-94), with an eye to examining B.I.A. philosophy and procedures with respect to Amerindians and those of William F. Cody and Buffalo Bill's Wild West. It appears that I will be able to argue the constraints and modernism of the former against the liberty and traditionalism of the latter. The triumph of Buffalo Bill's cultural version of Amerindians set a conflicting course that cast 'show Indians' (Amerindian performers, in B.I.A. lingo) against "showing Indians" (the content of the performances they executed in Buffalo Bill's Wild West). This tension is visible in theatre history well into the twentieth century and is currently under historiographical de/reconstruction.
Bio
Rosemarie Bank has published in Theatre Journal, Nineteenth-Century Theatre, Theatre History Studies, Essays in Theatre, Theatre Research International, Modern Drama, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Women in American Theatre, Feminist Re-readings of Modern American Drama, The American Stage, Critical Theory and Performance (both editions), Performing America, Interrogating America through Theatre and Performance, and Borders and Thresholds. She is the author of Theatre Culture in America, 1825-1860 (Cambridge U. P., 1997) and is currently preparing Staging the Native, 1792-1892. A member of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre, she was Editor of Theatre Survey from 2000 to 2003 and currently serves on several editorial boards of scholarly journals in theatre. Several times a Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dr. Bank is a Professor of Theatre at Kent State University.
Kinky Friedman and His Texas Jewboys in a New Historical and Geographical Perspective
Theodore Albrecht
Abstract
Born in Chicago in 1944, Richard S. Friedman moved to Kerrville, Texas, with his parents in 1953, and graduated from high school in Austin in 1962. While majoring in psychology at the University of Texas, he maintained the musical activities that had earlier been his recreational outlet (Country/Western bands), and was dubbed "Kinky" (for his curly hair) by one of his band members. After two years in the Peace Corps in Borneo, he founded "Kinky Friedman and His Texas Jewboys" (a Country band with a social conscience) in 1971, and created a sensation, from his shocking parodies of mainstream Country music ("Asshole From El Paso") to his poignantly satirical commentary on the Holocaust ("Ride 'em, Jewboy").
For the past two decades, Kinky Friedman has been active as a novelist (detective stories, set in New York and featuring himself), political satirist, tongue-in-cheek candidate for public offices, and professional "personality."
This paper examines and evaluates Kinky Friedman's activities as a musical humorist in the historical and cultural context of Jewish heritage in modern Texas, from alcalde Adolphus Sterne in Nacogdoches in the 1820s, through the German and Jewish immigration later in the century, as well as European immigration during and after World War II, to immigrants from elsewhere in the United States in the 1950s and beyond.
Bio
Only eleven months younger than Kinky Friedman, Theodore Albrecht likewise came to Texas in 1953, was considered to be Jewish (which he wasn't) because he "talked like a Yankee," and graduated from high school in San Antonio, only eighty miles south of Friedman's Austin. Albrecht had first visited conservative Agudas Achim in San Antonio at age 12, and, during his college years, developed an enduring admiration for the congregation's Cantor Emanuel Barkan. Whereas Friedman served in the Peace Corps in Borneo, Albrecht served in the U.S. Army, though peacefully sorting mail, in an Army post office in Frankfurt, Germany.
Specializing in Musicology and orchestral conducting in graduate school at the University of North Texas, Albrecht wrote a doctoral dissertation on the German contributions to music in the state up to World War I. At the same time, he studied with historian Irby Coghill Nichols and especially, in relation to this paper, the respected cultural geographer Terry G. Jordan. He is the author of several scholarly articles on music in Texas, as well as a dozen articles for the authoritative New Handbook of Texas (6 vols., 1996).
After graduating for the fourth time in 1975, Albrecht taught at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina (1975-76); Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio (1976-80); Park College in Kansas City, Missouri (1980-92); and, since 1992, at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, where most of his colleagues and students perceive him as a Beethoven scholar, but few suspect his adoptive Redneck loyalties---both similar to and different from Kinky Friedman's---in Texas!!
Student and Director Perceptions of An All-County Band Festival
Travis Weller
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to survey students and directors regarding their experiences at and perspectives of an all-county intra-school concert band festival. The design of this study was mixed method with concurrent collection of qualitative and quantitative data, each with equal status. Student participants (N=41) using a Likert scale reacted to an on-line 10-statement survey related to themes from the review of literature. The students’ sponsoring directors (N=7) participated in an interview in which they were posed questions similar to that of the student survey. Results of the study indicated directors and students viewed festival experience as a motivator to improve musical performance skills, develop positive attitudes towards music and music events, and a unique opportunity to experience a wide range of literature in an ensemble with complete and balanced instrumentation. The role of the guest conductor was viewed an important aspect of the festival to facilitate student collaboration to attain high performance levels, model rehearsal techniques and concepts, and to instill positive attitudes and develop musical skills in the participants.
Bio
Travis J. Weller is an active arranger, composer, educator and advocate of music education. He has been the Director of Bands at Mercer Area Middle-Senior High School since August of 1995. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Music Education from Grove City College, and graduated from Duquesne University with a Master’s Degree in Music Education. He is a published composer of band music with several national companies, and has authored articles in the PMEA Journal, Campus Technology, and the Phi Beta Mu International Newsletter. Travis resides in Mercer, PA with his wife Beth, their three daughters and a son.
Understanding Motivation In Practice: A Study of Influential Factors
Christopher Jones
Abstract
The purpose of this in depth case study is to determine (1) how beginning band students utilize individual practice time, (2) What motivated their practice session, and (3) What effect any environmental influence, specifically parents, siblings, or peers, have on the efficiency and motivation of the participants’ practice. The 8 participant interviews used for this study were selected through purposeful sampling from a population of 42 beginning band students. Initially 15 students were interviewed based on interest to participate in the study and their returned signed consent and assent forms. From these 15 interviews, eight interviews were selected for this case study based on the descriptive data obtained from their interview responses. Following a normal band rehearsal the students were given their normal evening practice assignment and told to pay close attention to what it is that they do, and what goes on, as they practice. To keep the details fresh in their minds and to get as much detail as possible the participants were instructed to come in for a one-on-one recorded interview as soon a possible after a routine practice session. Data collection consisted of individual recorded interviews that were transcribed and coded into categories or themes. The interview transcriptions were read through by the participants for purposes of member checking to ensure and verify their intent in their responses. To further triangulate the data another experienced music educator read through the transcripts for code checking. Relational patterns of practice motivation and environmental influences on their practice both within each case and across cases were analyzed in an attempt to determine the most effective way(s) to motivate a beginning band students’ practice.
Bio
Christopher Jones is currently in his 15th year of teaching instrumental music. He is presently in his 14th year in the Orrville City School District in Orrville, Ohio. His teaching responsibilities include the Orrville Middle School and High School. At the middle school he directs the 5th grade beginning band, 6th grade band, 7th and 8th grade bands, as well as teaches 6th grade general music. His responsibilities at the high school include marching band, jazz ensemble, and pep band. Mr. Jones received his Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education (1996) and a Masters Degree in Music Education (2004) from The University of Akron. He is currently a doctoral student pursuing a PhD in Music Education at Kent State University. Research interests include Music Learning Theory and audiation. He resides in Orrville, Ohio with his wife Laura and daughters Katherine and Callie.
Music Education Philosophies and Practices of Early Childhood Educators
Terri Brown Lenzo
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the current state of affairs in early childhood music education and to compare the results to those reported by other researchers over the last 30 years. Three questions were investigated: (1) What are the attitudes and opinions of early childhood generalists toward music education? (2) What types of musical activities are early childhood generalists most comfortable including in their classrooms? (3) What types of musical training, in terms of content and format, have early childhood generalists experienced, and which types would they be most interested in pursuing? Using a survey research design and purposive sampling, the researcher administered a questionnaire to 21 teachers from two early childhood centers in Northeast Ohio. Survey results corroborated previous findings for the first two research questions. Although the majority of teachers felt music education was important and should be included in early childhood education, they often did not include musical activities in their curriculum because they did not feel comfortable with their own musical abilities and were in need of additional training. When conducting a literature review for the third question, this researcher could find no evidence that early childhood teachers had been surveyed regarding their preferences for types of music education professional development. Findings of this study indicated that the majority of respondents would prefer a group workshop held at their school. Using these results it may be possible to develop a professional development program to address the music education needs of early childhood teachers.
Bio
Terri Brown Lenzo earned her Bachelor of Music Degree at The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, a Master of Fine Arts Degree from The University of Iowa and holds two levels of Orff Certification. She has 27-years experience as a band director and early childhood classroom music teacher in public, private and independent educational settings. Ms. Lenzo taught undergraduate level music education courses during her two and one-half years as a graduate assistant at Kent State University, and will complete coursework for the Ph.D. in Music Education this Spring, 2011. Her areas of interest include early-childhood music education, family music, and music teacher education and recruitment.
Today's Hours: 
Ask Us
My Library Account