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Lived Perpetually Oblique

Hennessey, Stephen Eric Bolling

Abstract Details

2019, Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, Music Composition.
Lived Perpetually Oblique is an original through-composed composition for orchestra, with an approximate duration of six and a half minutes. Central to the piece’s concept is musical meaning expressed through the signification of ideas and concepts through sound. To explore musical signification, a theoretical framework was employed in the pre-compositional process that directly informed the musical structure through the self-analysis of my lived experience. Pre-compositional planning involved the rigorous analysis of my dream journal entries that were made from April 30, 2011 through January 26, 2012. Each entry was assigned a general mood (“dream content”) as well as a quantifier of duration (the degree of “dream vividness.”) The content and vividness of each entry was then transcribed into a musical corollary consisting of representative melodic and harmonic quality. By strict correlation of musical materials to dream materials, the sonic gesture of the composition became inseparable from my own lived experience. The musical materials generated through the above process are introduced chronologically with every quarter note beat, with each pulse corresponding to a subsequent calendar date. More vivid journal entries result in longer musical strains; therefore, the density of orchestration at any given point in the score is a product of the level of detail found within a given succession of journal entries. The harmonic language of the musical corollaries at a local level encompasses traditional tonality, pandiatonicism, and free atonality. The type of harmonic language employed for a given musical voice is determined by the content of the prose that it is based on, with particular ideas and emotions associated with motives of discrete consonant/dissonant character. The overall harmonic gestalt from the many concurrent voices is heard as a constantly evolving cluster, with melodies weaving in and out of the audible surface. Lived Perpetually Oblique is a study in how musical meaning can be constructed by intentionally associating musical parameters with documented affect. The perception of transcribed affects is challenged by the saturation of materials competing for sonic space, testing music’s ability to express meaning outside itself.
Elainie Lillios, DMA. (Advisor)
Gregory Decker, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
24 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Hennessey, S. E. B. (2019). Lived Perpetually Oblique [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1552759206012879

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Hennessey, Stephen. Lived Perpetually Oblique. 2019. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1552759206012879.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Hennessey, Stephen. "Lived Perpetually Oblique." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1552759206012879

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)