Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


Cabezas_Thesis_Full.pdf (31.45 MB)

Digital Accessibility Report

File List


Cabezas_Thesis_Full.pdf.accreport.html (7.87 KB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

An Uncommon Duo

Cabezas, Victor Manuel
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1704393356949677

Abstract Details

2024, Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, Music Composition.
An Uncommon Duo is a composition for solo performer and computer. The performer plays glass bottles, ocarina, thunder tube, and voice, while the computer processes those sounds live and plays fixed media using Cycling ‘74’s Max object-oriented audio software. The work explores the intersectionality between composition and improvisation through the medium of technology. The title, An Uncommon Duo, derives from pairing two unlikely forces–one human and one electronic. The piece is organized into two interconnected movements, with each highlighting two acoustic instruments. The first movement, “An Earthen Flute”, features the ocarina and glass bottles, while the second movement, “A Thundering Breath”, features the voice and thunder tube. An Uncommon Duo is pseudo-improvised with the live performer creating improvisational gestures and textures that anticipate and/or react to the computer's predetermined live processing effects and fixed media tracks. An Uncommon Duo’s musical language was derived from the instruments’ spectromorphological characteristics rather than adhering to traditional harmonic or melodic structures. Each movement’s musical material includes instrument and found object sounds, live processed sounds, and fixed media soundfiles. Density and energy fluctuate over time, with individual gestures evolving into large sound masses that subsequently disintegrate into moments of stasis and repose. Exploring extended, non-standard techniques with acoustic instruments was integral to creating a diverse and engaging texture as each movement evolved. The first movement’s techniques include flutter tonguing, key tapping, air sounds, pitch bending, and multiphonics on the ocarina, as well as clinking and blowing the rim of the glass bottles. The second movement’s sound world includes whistling, tongue trilling, breath sounds, vocalized phenomes, and simultaneous whistling and singing on the voice, combined with hitting/tapping, shaking, and dragging fingernails across the metal coil of the thunder tube.
Elainie Lillios (Committee Chair)
Christopher Dietz (Committee Member)
12 p.
Music
electronics; graphic score; graphic notation; live electronics; ocarina; voice; thunder tube; improvisation;

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Cabezas, V. M. (2024). An Uncommon Duo [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1704393356949677

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Cabezas, Victor. An Uncommon Duo. 2024. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1704393356949677.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Cabezas, Victor. "An Uncommon Duo." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2024. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1704393356949677

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1704393356949677
104
© 2024, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.