Cudd Dissertation to Deposit
©2020 Michael Seth Cudd ALL RIGHTS RESERVED FUNCTIONAL AND LENGTHY: PREVAILING CHARACTERISTICS WITHIN SUCCESSFUL LONG SONGS By MICHAEL SETH CUDD A dissertation submitted to the School of Graduate Studies Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Music Written under the direction of Christopher Doll And approved by _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey May 2020 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Functional and Lengthy: Prevailing Characteristics within Successful Long Songs by MICHAEL SETH CUDD Dissertation Director: Christopher Doll Successful long popular songs consistently utilize formal structures and compositional techniques that are inherently particular to them. As a result, these recordings differ in more ways than simply length, because there are “long song” characteristics that distinguish this music. In order to better discuss these characteristics, it was important to develop a method for visually depicting songs in a manner that clearly outlines each groove. These “groove analyses” are used to discuss each piece of music in detail. As a result, groove is a primary point of discussion throughout this study, because most long song characteristics are directly linked to this quality within music. This type of analysis is explained in detail, and afterwards, it is utilized throughout much of the dissertation. It is also hypothetically possible that the structures and techniques in question can impact the listener’s perception of time when used outside of the context of a long song. A simple experiment was run in order to better understand how these concepts influence a person’s sense of duration, and the results were promising and demonstrated trends that merit further research.
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