Recent hasom_musicology_capstone items

Resilience and Unity: The Immigrant Experience Through the Corridos of Los Tigres Del Norte

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This paper seeks to explore how the corridos of Los Tigres Del Norte, specifically discussing experiences regarding immigration aid in bringing these issues and stories to a larger audience and in turn helps foster unity and solidarity within the Latin American community. The group’s own experience as undocumented immigrants has shaped their dedication and willingness to highlight the stories of their audience, many of whom can relate closely to the experiences and events recounted in their songs. While analyzing these songs, it is important to be aware of the significant differences between corridos and narcocorridos. Although both forms share similar instrumentation, musical form, and have evolved alongside one another, both consider very different subject matter. Narcocorridos tell stories regarding the narco lifestyle while corridos can present a variety of themes such as love, religion, politics, and discrimination to name a few. Through lyrical...

"Didn't Buy the Beat": Ownership, Labor, and the Meme-ified Producer Tag

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This project investigates the history, sonic function, and authorial significance of producer tags in hip-hop. Over the past two decades, producer tags have become a ubiquitous component of rap production as a means of signaling authorship, branding, and aesthetic identity. Industry titans, such as Metro Boomin and Tay Keith, have created famous tags that rile up audiences and resonate within rap communities. Underground rap producers–especially those making “type beats” and beat tutorials on SoundCloud and YouTube–require producer tags to maintain ownership and increase visibility of their work. In these digital spaces, however, tags have transcended simple utility to undergo a process of meme-ification, where producers employ absurdist humor and ironic performances to stake their claim in the industry. Despite their prominence, producer tags remain relatively understudied within musicological scholarship. This paper seeks to examine producer tags at the intersection of authorship,...

Sounding Spirituality: A Proposal for Sound Healing as a Clinical Intervention for Adolescent Survivors of Verbal Abuse

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Adolescence represents an incredibly complex period of human development that is marked by rapid neurobiological and personal change. Uniquely positioned between childhood and adulthood, adolescents search intensely for a sense of personal identity. This is more than just a search, however; it reflects a ubiquitous, biologically programmed hunger to know the self and establish a connection to a transcendent force—the core of what is understood as spirituality. When properly cultivated, spirituality encourages a sense of connectedness, meaning, purpose, and contribution. When disrupted, adolescents become significantly more susceptible to depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders. While genetic predispositions and psychosocial factors have been widely discussed as contributors to depression and anxiety, verbal abuse remains an overlooked yet pervasive risk factor that directly impacts two fundamental aspects of spiritual development: parent-child relationships and the...