Variations on a Theme: Forty years of music, memories, and mistakes

How did music play a consistent role through various memories? In this memoir, I look at the sweet, the traumatic and troubling. I use specific songs as connections to lost loved ones. I pin the power of music to the loss of three important people in my life: my sister, father, and mother. Who were their musical touchstones? Did I share them? Did music run through them as it has always run through me? The memoir is sandwiched by a brief extended metaphor that props up the conceit that we are entering a live concert performance. It is billed as a "letter to a lost loved one" because it is indeed meant to address that lost one, my sister, my guide. In the opening section I've lost my voice. I eventually reclaim it and vow that I will perhaps meet my sister at some point in the future.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.F.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Film, Theatre, and Communication Arts

Year

2009

Author dc:creator

• Stephens, Christopher John

Contributors dc:contributor

• Lavender, William
• Church, Steven
• Melnick, Patrice

• personal memoir
• music criticism
• pop culture criticism
• pop music
• death
• personal loss
• nervous breakdown
• teaching
• writing

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/934

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarworks.uno.edu:td-1915