The Art of the Commonplace: Found Sounds in Compositional Practice

<p>This dissertation contains a historical analysis of the emergence of found sounds or everyday noises as a compositional strategy in Western art music through the first half of the 20th century. Pioneering works are examined to determine the motives and aesthetic goals that first led composers to bring noise to the musical surface, including the avant-garde collaboration Parade, Futurist noise experiments, and Pierre Schaeffer's early work with musique concre&#768;te. These early works are used to create two analytical spectra with which to analyze contemporary pieces that incorporate founds sounds with instrumental music: one spectrum that considers the level of integration of a noise with the instrumental or pitched material, and another that measures the degree to which the everyday noises have been defamiliarized from their original context. This mechanism for analysis is employed in four case studies: Steve Reich's Different Trains, Ingram Marshall's Fog Tropes II, DJ Spooky's Zeta Reticulli/If I Told Him a Complete Portrait of Picasso, and The Books' The Lemon of Pink I. </p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Music

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2014

Author dc:creator

• Stock, Jennifer

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• David Olan

• History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology
• Music
• collage
• electonic music
• electroacoustic music
• found sounds

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/390

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-1389