Color Swatches is an album of vignettes written for my friends. These pieces areintended to be performed by musicians looking for works that are challenging in difficulty level, short in form, and rich in character. Each of these miniatures requires a pianist and a “color instrument”— a solo instrument that provides a different timbral color. I associate each of the resulting pieces with a very specific color, listed in the title. The tonal styles and textures used are the product of many different influences. Some pieces are more suited for performers of one discipline than another: the use of chord symbols in multiple of the miniatures can prove stumbling blocks for classically-trained musicians, while jazz musicians may be unfamiliar with the aleatoric improvisation notation. The difficulty level of these pieces is advanced, as some call for extended techniques on behalf of both the pianist or the soloist, and require a moderate level of preparation before performing. Though they are written as a set of eight, they work well as stand-alone pieces between larger works, or in subsets: for example, “Silver Lining”, “Lavender”, and “Flying Colors” could be performed together on a woodwind recital.

The purpose of this project was to create an album that utilizes unique and unconventional approaches to songwriting to avoid over-relying on the same creative process. The project includes four original songs as well as a detailed account of how each song was written. The paper describes the various sources of inspiration, the methods used for both writing and melodic composition, and finally addresses challenges in the writing process.

This paper highlights a method for jazz transcription, comprehension, and practice to be implemented primarily in applied saxophone instruction with undergraduate students. The purpose is the identify and mend the divide between jazz and classical that appears in academia. This divide is one that came about by necessity in the saxophone’s relative youth in the academic world as it found solid footing in conservatories around the world. A literature review establishes the current state of dialogue between both jazz and classical in the academic saxophone community, including the current state of crossover scholarship that discusses the interaction between multiple genres. This review investigates what serves as pedagogical material in an aural discipline like jazz. A thorough approach to transcription is crucial change to the standard practice of jazz transcription typically employed in applied saxophone studios. This approach takes the focus away from the product and places it on the process. This process is demonstrated through a transcription and deconstruction of Charlie Parker’s “Cheryl.” Though this approach is presented through the perspective of a saxophonist, this process can be applied to any number of instrumental disciplines seeking to understand jazz transcription and improvisation more fully.

Social media and digital marketing has become a gateway for musicians and artists to share creative content virtually changing cultural practices, and evolving musical exposure and development. In the year 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the social media platform TikTok revolutionized the world becoming the most influential application for music curation, social engagement, and digital marketing. This social platform has new demand for consumer-artist digital relationships and acts as a promotional vehicle for rising artists. Case studies analyzing TikTok influencers such as Dixie D’Amelio, Loren Gray, Bella Poarch, and Jxdn show how they used their vast social media following and the limiting factors of the Covid-19 pandemic to shift their social media presence, transitioning from influencers to prominent musicians signed to record labels.

For my honors thesis, I chose a creative project that would incorporate expertise and skills from both of my undergraduate degrees at Arizona State University: Music Performance and Music Theory and Composition. The main goal for this project was to design and experience an artistic process of musical production and create a professional musical work to release on digital platforms. The musical process included five main components: Listening, Transcribing, Composing, Recording, and Post Production. The final product is a full album, titled This is Jam Music, that consists of eight pieces and a run time of 33 minutes.

With this thesis, I have set out to answer two fundamental questions within music: does music mean anything, and should music mean anything? In answering those questions, I also set out to create a creative project that would implement these ideas: an original concept album of music that is programmatic in nature and incorporates motivic composition, jazz improvisation, lyrics, extra-musical audio and more all in the service of telling a narrative, a story, through music. I have done research into understanding music as a language, finding that this language is primarily communicative and recreational, rather than representational, of meaning. As well, I discuss the various different ways that music composers from Wagner to Williams have created narrative meaning in their works, using examples of leitmotif and other devices, as well as tracing the contextual associations of meaning that occurs when music is perceived in certain contexts. Furthermore, I discuss the dialogue between absolute and programmatic music, and also talk about the role of jazz improvisation in adding meaning to works.
For the second part of my thesis I talk about how I came to create the creative project aspect. I discuss how and why I designed the narrative that I did, and also analyzed the music I have created to illustrate how I implemented the various methods of musical storytelling that I detail in the first part of the paper. Lastly, I discuss my plans for publication and release of the creative project.
The third part of this thesis is a sample of the creative project. There is a version of the narrative that goes along with the creative project, as well as one of the eight pieces of original music on the creative project, entitled Journey.
Overall, I found that music does have meaning, it is just meaning that society ascribes to it based off of artistic intent and context, and as to whether music should mean anything, I believe that this is a question best left to be answered on an individual basis. Music can be whatever it wants to be.