Theses/Dissertations - Music History & Literature
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Browsing Theses/Dissertations - Music History & Literature by Author "Ingalls, Monique Marie."
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Item Church music through the lens of performance : the embodied ritual of sacred play.(2018-06-11) Silva Steuernagel, Marcell, 1979-; Ingalls, Monique Marie.Scholars who address religious music making in general, and Christian church music in particular, use “performance” in a variety of ways and under varying constellations of assumptions, creating confusion around the term and its uses. Similar complications characterize the way church music practitioners talk about performance. This dissertation is an investigation of church music through the lens of performance theory, with the aim of providing a vocabulary for church music scholars and practitioners to speak of church music as performance. The thesis of the research is that in the activity of church music, all involved are performing, be it from the platform or from the seats, in accordance with performance theory’s proposition that performance is both acting and doing (Schechner 2003). Using a hybrid methodology that couples theory from anthropology (specifically ritual studies), ethnomusicology, theology, and church music scholarship with ethnographic research, this dissertation establishes performance studies as a possible “next step” in church music scholarship, investigates church music from the perspectives of ritual, embodiment, and processes of making special, play and change. It also demonstrates the feasibility of studying church music as performance using the vocabulary developed in the dissertation. By providing a performance language for the study of church music, this dissertation contributes to scholarship and furthers interdisciplinary investigations of religious music making in context.Item Is this my story? Is this my song? Exploring narrative dissonance in worship music through the lens of ludomusicology.(2019-11-14) Huerter, Michael Eugene, 1991-; Ingalls, Monique Marie.This thesis explores connections between ludomusicology, sociology of religious narratives, and church music studies in a larger context of the digital mediatization of music and culture. Analysis of cultural trends around digital and online media demonstrates the importance of mediatization for consideration in church music. Exploration of concepts including Csikszentmihalyi’s flow, ludonarrative dissonance and ludomusical dissonance, identity integration in religious narratives, and interactivity in religion shows how digital culture is shaped by and also informs the understanding and practice of religion. A case study analyzing a survey distributed to four congregations or faith-based groups presents evidence that these concepts and vocabulary are productive and clarifying. This thesis points to the potential for interdisciplinary scholarship between church music studies and ludomusicology, among other developing digital media fields.Item “Passin’ the faith along" : a sonic history of the Gaither Vocal Band.(2021-08-06) Sensenig, Jacob T., 1986-; Ingalls, Monique Marie.This dissertation presents a “thick history” of the career of Bill Gaither, to use Jennifer Lena’s term. While examining the Bill Gaither Trio and the Gaither Vocal Band, the principal performing groups founded by Bill Gaither, this dissertation seeks to not only highlight Gaither’s own work, but to connect it to the social systems that helped to produce this work. While Bill and Gloria Gaither, his wife and songwriting partner, have been prolific as songwriters, recording artists, entertainers, and producers, their careers have been underexamined, which is unsurprising given the dearth of scholarship regarding southern gospel. Because of their impact in the broader development of Christian music, their association solely with southern gospel by gospel music historians is misplaced. The primary tasks of this dissertation are to present an historically accurate narrative of the history of the Gaither Vocal Band from 1980 to the year 2020 and to seek to examine how the Vocal Band has negotiated the sonic boundaries between Contemporary Christian Music and southern gospel. This dissertation demonstrates that the sonic lineage of the Vocal Band is not as straight-forwardly tied to southern gospel as the narrative presented by the Gaithers in their numerous videos, books, and recordings would lead the casual observer to believe. In order to provide a thick history of the activities and sonic characteristics of the Vocal band, the same had to be done with The Bill Gaither Trio, the ensemble which prepared the way for the formation of the Vocal Band and ultimately laid the foundation for any success Bill Gaither would find with the Vocal Band or the Homecoming franchise. This dissertation functions as the first scholastic account of either of these prolific ensembles and contributes to the study of gospel music by providing foundational work for further study.Item Perceiving parallax : human agency in the changing nature, history, and influence of the Brazilian Baptist hymnal Cantor Cristão.(2021-08-04) Monteiro, Maria Julia, 1963-; Ingalls, Monique Marie.This dissertation is a cultural history and musical ethnography of the first Brazilian Baptist hymnal Cantor Cristão. Published in 1891, it was revised and expanded, and went through thirty-seven editions but remained the only official Baptist hymnal for one hundred years. Though a second Brazilian Baptist hymnal (Hinário para o Culto Cristão) was published in 1991, Cantor Cristão still maintains an important place within Brazilian Baptist congregations today. I trace the trajectory of this book, paying particular attention to the people connected to its history, including authors, composers, translators, publishers, editors, and the impact of this very stable repertoire on Brazilian Baptist life. This dissertation uses a mixed-methods approach, combining historical research, oral history, and ethnography. I include a description and analysis of the contents of what is possibly the earliest extant edition of the hymnal (1893), and highlight the role and significance of the missionary enterprise in Brazilian Baptist life, including complex interconnections of key individuals—British, Portuguese, Brazilian, and American— who played crucial roles in the development of the hymnal. I also present results from my ethnographic study of a prominent present-day Baptist church in Recife, Brazil, to show Cantor Cristão’s continued importance. In highlighting the process of musical localization whereby these hymns became a valued Brazilian tradition, this dissertation advances a more nuanced view of the legacy of the mission enterprise that takes seriously the role of local agency.Item "The choir Is dead, long live the choir" : contemporary worship music and the transformation of the church choir.(2022-05-04) Noelliste, Joseph Daniel, 1983-; Ingalls, Monique Marie.Church choirs in North America have undergone substantial transformations in the early twenty-first century due to the steady increase of informal worship practices and the continuing decrease of formal worship elements within North American congregations. These changes have resulted in conflicting narratives concerning the state of the church choir with some believing that the rise of informal worship is bringing about the death of the ensemble and others witnessing the church choir taking on new life within informal worship spaces. This dissertation investigates North American church choirs in evangelical communities whose repertoire is predominantly contemporary worship music (CWM), a rock-pop based genre of congregational song that is arguably one of the most informal worship elements utilized by North America congregations. The thesis which arises from this research finds that the establishment of church choirs in contemporary worship within evangelical churches and networks is fraught with a central tension between establishing a sustainable choral practice, on the one hand, and keeping up with the rapidly changing genre of CWM, on the other – a dynamic which this dissertation contends is the “fault line” that is bringing about the conflicting narratives concerning the North American church choir. Using ethnographic participant observation methods from the perspectives of an insider and an outsider coupled with techniques emanating from stylistic analysis associated with the fields of musicology, music history, ethnomusicology, and music theory, this dissertation provides four case studies of CWM church choirs in contrasting environments and posits that the CWM genre has produced two distinct types of North American church choirs, namely the praise and worship choir and the worship-leading choir. Through the lens of the fours case studies and through the grounding CWM’s two choral types to various stylistic periods within the CWM genre, this dissertation addresses the hotly debated question: Is contemporary worship “killing” the church choir? By providing the first explicit consideration of church choirs in CWM, this dissertation contributes to church music scholarship and submits the church choirs as another viable vantage point from which contemporary worship music may be analyzed.Item The mystery, music, and markets of contemporary worship songs : an interdisciplinary comparison of the CCLI Top 25 and number-one songs from 2010-2020.(August 2022) Baker, Shannan Katherine, 1993-; Ingalls, Monique Marie.Many churches in America use contemporary worship songs (CWS). As worshippers connect with God through these songs, the continued use of some CWS across churches elevates specific songs into the Christian Copyright Licensing International’s (CCLI’s) Top 25, which is created based on church reporting. Scholars have used the CCLI lists to analyze contemporary worship in the church. This dissertation proposes a unique approach by comparing the Top 25 with the number-one songs to answer the question: what makes a contemporary worship song popular? The songs analyzed were taken from the CCLI lists from 2010 to 2020. The 2010s decade was selected because of the rise of church worship bands and music streaming services. The CCLI lists from 2010 to 2020 provided a collection of seventy songs that acted as the standard to which the eleven most popular number-one songs were compared. To answer the primary question, this research required interdisciplinary methods from digital humanities, theology, music theory, and ethnography to analyze the songs and their use. First, the lyrics were analyzed using a Trinitarian theology lens. Second, the music was analyzed using music theory and popular music studies methods. Third, the song’s engagement with the music industry and creation was explored using ethnographic interviews. Lastly, the chapters about the content and creation of the songs are supplemented by an additional chapter that addresses the reception and use of CWS in the church. This chapter provides insights from a survey and interviews about worshippers’ engagement with CWS and the process by which worship leaders find, select, and use new songs. This dissertation provides foundational information about CWS from 2010 to 2020 and proposes new methods for analyzing contemporary worship songs in the future.