Music for trombone and electroacoustic sounds is very underutilized in the mainstream world today. There is a need for musicians to preserve and protect music composed using the technology of the past because tapes are disintegrating and notable compositions are being lost. The most frequently performed pieces in the genre of trombone and pre-recorded tape are not challenging enough to train the advanced skills necessary to perform other works. Skills required to play these pieces such as reading graphical scores, playing in extreme ranges of the instrument, performing difficult extended techniques, synchronizing with an abstract tape, and making ethereal sounds into something tangible and enjoyable for the audience, are only learnable by studying and performing advanced abstract compositions. Sound the Tucket Sonance and the Note to Mount by Barry Anderson is an exemplary model of a piece that enables the trombonists to explore advanced playing techniques and to learn how to work in the medium of pre-recorded tape and acoustic performance. Sound the Tucket is the ideal companion piece to Luciano Berio's Sequenza V and has the potential to be a more manageable introduction to the notational style. The information in this document is crucial to informed and successful performances of Sound the Tucket Sonance and the Note to Mount. The analysis of the inner-workings of this piece has shown that it is a highly intellectual composition that shows remarkable cohesiveness throughout the sections. This piece is an unyielding journey towards an imminent confrontation between a variety of possible opponents. In this dissertation, I advocate for the inclusion of Barry Anderson's composition in the standard repertoire of pieces for trombone.

Elliot Carter's Eight Pieces for Four Timpani are landmarks in the canon of solo

timpani literature. They remain innovative in their use of extended techniques, multiple timbres, and musical manipulation of time. Some resources that analyze the Eight Pieces include practical information such as how to count a particular metric modulation, or suggest a certain sticking pattern for a challenging passage. Other studies chart the complexity of Carter's pulse groupings, or the tempo ratios behind the metric modulations. This dissertation will strike a balance between the practical and the theoretical, highlighting the relevance to the performer of numerous variables within the musical score. Through the use of accents, time signatures, note groupings, and drum patterns, Carter reveals implied pulses, in-tempo accelerations, transitional meters and other time-related elements throughout the Eight Pieces. These elements will be examined, and the terms straight shifting (SS), altered shifting (AS), and layered shifting (LS) will be applied to Carter's process of metric modulation in an effort to simply the thought process for the performer, while also exploring the musical phrasing related to these transitions. Because the Eight Pieces expanded the language and technique of the timpanist, they are also examined musically from various other perspectives, including that of the multiple percussionist, drum set player, music theorist, and problem solver. Finally, concepts introduced in the dissertation will be applied to an analysis of Saëta and March, including an examination of how Carter's musical metrics contribute to an overall sense of form and musical effect.

Since the 1960s, many band composers have been inspired to write works memorializing victims and honoring survivors of violent acts, war, and social uprising. Ronald Lo Presti’s Elegy for a Young American (1967) and more recently Omar Thomas’s Of A New Day Begun (2015) outline the broad time frame in which significant compositions of this type have been composed for wind band. This study focuses on those works written as timely responses to tragic events inthe U.S. Following an introduction and a historical springboard acknowledging precedents for this type of repertoire, three core chapters unfold chronologically, contoured by attention to compositions related to the following events: the deaths of John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,and the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing; the Oklahoma City Bombing, 9/11, and the Boston Marathon bombing; and gun violence in public spaces, places of worship, and schools. Historical, musical, and sociological perspectives enrich understanding of multiple layers of embedded meaning in this repertoire, complemented by excerpts from the author’s interviews with composers, band directors and ensemble members. This multi-faceted approach to select wind band compositions associated with tragic events and the repertoire lists provided in each chapter support ensemble directors striving to teach, rehearse, and perform works of this nature effectively. Informed, mindful choices have the potential to encourage individual and group healing, promote social cohesion, and nurture overall personal and community emotional well-being.