The Jacobs Faculty Bookshelf
This page serves as a listing of publications by Jacobs School of Music faculty. Click on an item to view available purchasing options as well as its availability on the IU Library Catalog.
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Dynamic Attending in percussionists and wind players
Percussionists have been shown to have superior temporal perception, but the underlying mechanisms for this advantage deserve further investigation. Dynamic Attending Theory, which posits the way attention aligns with rhythmic temporal structure, may explain why percussionists exhibit superior temporal perception. Percussionists may entrain more strongly to periodic stimuli than other musicians, and possibly at multiple hierarchical levels as opposed to only the tactus. To test these hypotheses, we asked a total of 41 musicians, 20 percussionists, and 21 wind players to complete a target detection task. Participants listened to periodic bursts of noise (priming bursts) and tried to detect target bursts of noise at different temporal positions, some in phase and some out of phase with the initial noises. Target-burst amplitudes were calibrated to be at each participant’s perceptual threshold. We analyzed the hit rates at the different temporal positions, as well as the Fourier transform of those hit rate curves. No discernible difference between groups was found in the time domain, but in the frequency domain the percussionist group showed stronger fluctuation at a frequency that matched the priming bursts, but not at other hierarchical levels (specifically, double that frequency). Our findings help explain percussionists’ perceptual advantages, although questions about entrainment at different hierarchical levels deserve further consideration.
String Quartets by Easley Blackwood
Blackwood’s First and Second quartets are products of the same creative period as his most celebrated early modernist masterpiece, his Symphony No. 1 (1955). In the CD booklet, Blackwood describes the quartets as “largely atonal, although not violently dissonant.” He says they “reveal the influence of Bartok, Berg, and Hindemith” (with whom Blackwood studied at Yale). The First Quartet received its premiere at the Berkshire Music Center in 1957 in a performance by the Kroll Quartet. The Second Quartet was premiered at the Library of Congress in 1960 by the Juilliard Quartet. “Blackwood’s [second] quartet is a work of immediate beauty,” the Washington Post’s Paul Hume wrote on Jan. 9, 1960. “One is conscious at every point of the quartet of the [composer’s] ease and personal affiliation with the medium.”
Eben: Velvet Revolution, Complete Organ Music Vol.1
Janette Fishell , D. James Tagg
Velvet Revolution is a multidimensional project that will ultimately include extended essays and a teaching video centering on the works and aesthetic of the 20th century Czech composer Petr Eben, one of the most important contributors to contemporary organ repertoire and a mentor to Janette Fishell. The first three of six recordings were issued by the Dutch label Brilliant Classics in October, 2022 as Volume 1 of Petr Eben Velvet Revolution: Complete Organ Music. When finished in late 2023, it will be the first complete recorded collection of this important composer's solo organ works.
Elliott Carter String Quartets Nos. 1 and 5
Released to celebrate the American master Elliott Carter’s centenary, this 2009 Grammy Award-winning recording is the first of two discs of the complete String Quartets. Carter himself has written: ‘I probably decided to write what was to be the First Quartet when I read about a composition prize in Liège, Belgium, because there were many ideas swarming around in my imagination about expression, rhythm, and harmony, mostly derived from my Cello Sonata ... Then my Second, Third, and Fourth Quartets developed my imaginings in different ways until I began to realize that soon I would exhaust this direction, and so my Fifth Quartet became a farewell to the previous four and an exploration of a new vision.’
Elliott Carter String Quartets Nos. 2, 3 and 4
To celebrate his 100th birthday, Elliott Carter’s Complete String Quartets have been newly recorded by the Pacifica Quartet, Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year for 2009. Volume 1 (8.559362) was critically acclaimed: “a knockout” (Limelight), “Music with heart as well as a brain” (4 STARS, The Times ), “the best possible introduction to Carter’s music” (5 STARS, The Guardian ). This disc presents the three remaining string quartets by the composer hailed by Aaron Copland as “one of America’s most distinguished creative artists in any field”.
Envisioning a More Inclusive Choral Literature Curriculum
Recent increased awareness of diversity and inclusion has caused a reevaluation of music curricula at institutes of higher learning. This article offers ideas for reshaping choral literature courses and incorporating more equitable accounts of underrepresented musics and composers. Buff highlights techniques, methodologies, and frameworks that help enable others to create inclusive pedagogies or scholarship. Her essay is intended to inspire the creation of instructional modules and more inclusive course design utilizing existing research and expertise. Specific topics she addresses are cultural appropriation, Jewish sacred music from the late 17th century to the end of the 19th century, and the myth of Palestrina.
Professor Michelle DeYoung (mezzo-soprano) and IU Jacobs School of Music alumnus Jeremy Reger (piano) have recorded Erich Zeisl Lieder, Volume 2, an album of Zeisl songs that were recently discovered in UCLA's archives.
Exploring Musical Spaces: A Synthesis of Mathematical Approaches
Exploring Musical Spaces is a comprehensive synthesis of mathematical techniques in music theory, written with the aim of making these techniques accessible to music scholars without extensive prior training in mathematics. The book adopts a visual orientation, introducing from the outset a number of simple geometric models―the first examples of the musical spaces of the book's title―depicting relationships among musical entities of various kinds such as notes, chords, scales, or rhythmic values.
An emotional and collaborative tour de force, Dominick DiOrio’s FETTER AND AIR presents the Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia’s own words set to a haunting soundscape that explores each member’s innermost hopes, fears, dreams, and desires. The massive undertaking is a skillful combination of 562 audio files comprising spoken word and singing by 61 chorus members, combined into a single piece by DiOrio and sound designer Justin “JG” Geller. The personal thoughts and interweaving arrangements create a raw expressiveness and intimacy, ultimately rendering a reminder of how our own stories echo within us.
Fine-Tuning the Foundation: Essential Ensemble Adjustments for the Double Bass Section
As an orchestra conductor and string music educator, I have come to appreciate the critical role that a well-adjusted bass section plays in creating a cohesive, powerful ensemble sound. Yet, all too often, conductors and educators struggle to make the necessary adjustments to fully integrate the unique qualities of the bass into the orchestral texture.