Masters Thesis on Scenes From a Memory

[Frosthawk]

I am geeking the hell out over this. The music nerd and the academic in me are both going nuts! This is fantastic, great job.

[scheater5]

Hey guys - been busy getting the thesis officially turned in and the paperwork and whatnot.  I'll try and respond to people who've posted tomorrow or the day after.  Thanks for all the support.

[slycordinator]

While I love it, I have to also be honest and say I think the intro needed to be proofread by someone more versed in essay writing.

You've got a tendency to reuse the same term in sentences/paragraphs where most of the time essay graders (and I assume the people grading this will in a similar way as people grading essays would) want you to use something different on the 2nd instance.

Examples:
The album ... is a landmark album in Dream Theater's career.
...the band began working on "Metropolis Pt. 2," though did not finish it before the band took a scheduled break. [and continue to call them "the band" thereafter]
However, the record label refused to put out to release a double album or release the band from their contract. [this one is especially awkward as the two instances of release give totally different meanings/connotations]

It also feels strange having one paragraph refer to a generic-feeling "the record label" and to follow it up with a separate paragraph dealing with Elektra. And finally, I think there needed to be more of a segue (or perhaps creating a subsection for the intro) to go from talking about the history of how they got to having this particular lineup and writing of the songs to the stuff about length of songs.

But again, I'm not trying to say something like "lol I could do better" since I definitely could not but just giving constructive criticism.

[Jalis]

I like that ur layout is so simple... My assignments always has to have an element of niceness to the graphics...

The simple layout ensures that the focus is on the content...!! 

Nice reading so far.
I'll read the rest today ! 

[scheater5]

Sorry to necro a thread
It's been a long time since I've posted here, but it came to my attention that the links for the thesis were down.  Sadly, the user who sent me a message about this (which then got buried in my email and forgotten) is no longer active, so I could not send the links directly to him.  So, I figured I'd just post them here.  If anyone is still interested, here you go. 
Side note: It's amazing how much you notice the flaws in your old work.  Like most theses, this was produced under a deadline, and so the odd error pops up, and the language is sometimes less than clear.  If there's demand for such a thing, I could find some time to edit it - I imagine the audience is niche, but who knows.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By9NfNaxEF33N2FIWXFIWG1yUUU/view?usp=sharing

[took_the_time11]

Hey man I wanna read it but my device won't load it.

[Mladen]

I wish I could have a master thesis like this...

[SwedishGoose]

.... snip..... wrong thread 

[EraVulgaris]

Sorry to necro a thread
It's been a long time since I've posted here, but it came to my attention that the links for the thesis were down.  Sadly, the user who sent me a message about this (which then got buried in my email and forgotten) is no longer active, so I could not send the links directly to him.  So, I figured I'd just post them here.  If anyone is still interested, here you go. 
Side note: It's amazing how much you notice the flaws in your old work.  Like most theses, this was produced under a deadline, and so the odd error pops up, and the language is sometimes less than clear.  If there's demand for such a thing, I could find some time to edit it - I imagine the audience is niche, but who knows.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By9NfNaxEF33N2FIWXFIWG1yUUU/view?usp=sharing

May I ask how your thesis was graded? I really like that.

[rumborak]

This thread is kinda old and not a lot of people are replying to it, so maybe I can start a different discussion:

Does this deep analysis of the album in any way indicate or explain why it was/is so popular?
The reason why I'm asking is that I always had the impression that music theory is a bit like detecting earthquakes. After the fact you can conveniently point to X, Y and Z that supposedly caused it, but the predictive power is virtually nil. Meaning, bluntly, music "theory" isn't really a theory in the scientific sense, but just a descriptive pattern.

[Sycsa]

After the fact you can conveniently point to X, Y and Z that supposedly caused it, but the predictive power is virtually nil.

I think the writers behind any given summer pop hit had a pretty good idea that they were going to write a hit. Yeah, it doesn't always work out (probably way more often it doesn't), but there are still some ingredients and patterns based on which one could predict if something will turn out to be a hit.

Hesh has a good point here though: https://youtu.be/7sSIE-o2V9g?t=1m3s

[Cable]

Sorry to necro a thread
It's been a long time since I've posted here, but it came to my attention that the links for the thesis were down.  Sadly, the user who sent me a message about this (which then got buried in my email and forgotten) is no longer active, so I could not send the links directly to him.  So, I figured I'd just post them here.  If anyone is still interested, here you go. 
Side note: It's amazing how much you notice the flaws in your old work.  Like most theses, this was produced under a deadline, and so the odd error pops up, and the language is sometimes less than clear.  If there's demand for such a thing, I could find some time to edit it - I imagine the audience is niche, but who knows.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By9NfNaxEF33N2FIWXFIWG1yUUU/view?usp=sharing

Awesome man! This is much more entertaining than my master's thesis.  I missed this the first time around, so now I have an excuse to listen to SFAM tomorrow on the rode. And of course read along with this when I'm not driving.

[Orbert]

Wow!  I missed this the first time around, too, and don't have time to read it all right now.  Bookmarking it, though.

[scheater5]

It's nice to see there is still an interest here in such a thing - thanks guys. 

If anyone is still having trouble getting the file to open 1) Try opening it on a computer (as opposed to a mobile device).  2) If you have a Google account, try logging into that and then opening the link (shouldn't matter, but occasionally does. Bug, I guess)  3) If all else fails, send me a PM.  I'm not always very active here, but I'll try to respond as soon as possible. 

@EraVulgaris
At CCNY, theses were just graded on "pass/fail," along with a comprehensive exam and a presentation in front of a panel.  Any one of those three things could sink your graduation that semester. 

@rumborak
Music theory's goal isn't to predict why a song is popular - but that actually is a branch of study.  There are studies on what chords are most common, what progressions and rhythms most popular, etc.  Writing a pop hit is more a matter of formula - and pretty much always has been.  But enduring popularity is another beast altogether - and something which has been studied, though significantly less so.  To my knowledge, there's no consensus on the subject, but the running hypothesis is that enduringly popular works are less formulaic and more expressive - but such a thing is difficult to measure. 
As for the scientific nature of music theory - well, any analytical study of an art must resign itself to only approximations of "science."  More properly, it could be called "music analysis" - though there is hard science involved.  Physics, probabilities, statistics, etc. 

The "lowest levels" of theory are cut and dry - scales, chords, rhythms.  This is the domain of most undergraduate theory classes.  Much beyond this, things become much less obvious.  The discussion turns to opinions and support thereof.  But it doesn't end there - you do have a point, hindsight is extremely important to music theory.  Because, ultimately, we're trying to describe things.  You can only truly speak of a "period" in history after it is over.  Until then, you may only notice it's emergence and guess at it's future. 

This is especially true of popular music theory - which has only really been a "thing" for about 10 or 15 years.  A blink, academically speaking.  There are fundamental questions about popular music that theorists are still grappling with - and any paper that is written now must grope about in that uncertain fog.