The purpose of this master thesis is to identify some phenomena that may contribute or work against the individual musician?s opportunities to contribute with their personal musical intuition in the orchestral work. I want to investigate under which conditions and in what context the orchestra environment gives musicians opportunities to take musical initiatives. I will also test a method to develop and work with musical intuition in a staged trombone audition called blåst. My wish is to highlight orchestra musician's perspective and experiences and to discuss where in an orchestral musician?s everyday work the artistic and authentic musical initiative appears and how we are going about it.

Musical improvisation is an infinite artistic well. It helps the musician to make a personal performance and lets the music reflect the inner feelings. It is a language with which the performer can adapt the formulation to the specific situation. Yet so many have fear and respect when facing the phenomenon. In this study Dan Alkenäs discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using musical improvisation as a pedagogical method in school education.

Generally prosody is described as the rhythmic, dynamic and melodic features of language. Prosody is further often described as suprasegmental, since its properties go beyond vowels and consonants, which are segmental characteristics of language. A relationship between prosody and music has been noticed and described for several decades. At present, there are several studies proving relationship between prosodic and musical abilities. The aim of the present study was to construct a test for prosodic non-linguistic perception and production regarding intonation and rhythm. The test was tried out on 16 children with typical language development aged 4;6-7;6 years. Before testing of ITAP each participant were asked about musical experience.

This paper strives to answer ?What happens to the experience of diehard fans when a groupchanges an original song?? and the musical example for this are the German group Blutengeland their songs Behind The Mirror and Reich mir die Hand, which they first performed assymphonic versions at 2012?s Gothic meets Klassik in Leipzig, Germany. Theoretically thispaper is built on the idea that musical meaning conjures not only from the music itself, butalso from the perceiver and the situation.Through five interviews this paper answers who the informants are, what music means forthem and specifically, what the music of Blutengel means for them. The result shows that theinformants were acceptant to the musical change, but for some disappointment would occur ifthe band continued with orchestral instrumentation. The limit for acceptance seems not to liein musical rearrangement but instead in changed artistic identity..

The purpose of the present study is to explore differences in the musical opinions and preferences and the quality of written language between pupils of two age groups (12 and 17 resp). Two classes were chosen, one from each age level. Each class/group was also divided by gender. The pupils asked to write an essay on their musical opinions and preferences. The essays were analyzed with respect to musical content and linguistic form.

In musikklasser (a special musical training which focus on choral singing is offered in the Swedish compulsory school from the age of ten until the age of sixteen) teachers are working in a tradition where conventions relating to singing with children have developed in accordance with the Swedish choral tradition. In these classes, students are trained in large groups, usually around 30 students in one class. Furthermore, one teacher and 60 students is also frequent in schools with two or more parallell grades. In a large choir group, students develop their skill in choral singing, which includes the development of general musical knowledge as well as the development of the individual singing voice of each student in order for the choir to be able to interpret and perform music with a communal musical expression. Thus, the complexity in this teaching and learning setting places high demands on the choir teachers? ability to use appropriate teaching and learning strategies in order to develop the specific musical skill required in a choir.In this study, two choral teachers´ interaction with their choir class were investigated.

Music has always been an important form of communication and it can be found in many different contexts including aesthetical, cultural and emotional forms. In the globalized society of today music can be distributed fast through radio, TV, CD: s and the Internet. For many people consumption of music is an important part of the daily life and it can contribute to shape an individual?s attitudes and personality.The main purpose of this study is to find out whether there are any differences between men and women?s musical preferences. I will apply an explorative approach using qualitative interviews to describe what causes the differences.

Since 1995 the musical Kristina från Duvemåla has been performed on many national theatre stages in Sweden and is still obtaining success and fame. It is based on novels by the famous Swedish author Vilhelm Moberg, Utvandrarna (1949), Invandrarna (1952), Nybyggarna (1956) and Sista brevet till Sverige (1959) that revolve around a Swedish family emigrating to the United Stated during the 19th century. This thesis investigates both the novels and the musical adaptation in a comparative way. Theory of adaptation and intermediality is used to analyse differences and similiarities of the stories used in the novels and the musical. It can be assumed that major changes were implemented in the adaptation of the main characters, specifically Kristina.

In this essay, I want to achieve an accessible and applicable entrance to Alexander Technique as a method for learning to use the body in such a way as to allow emotional expression in music. It is necessary to see the real need of Alexander Technique for the active musician, and therefore important components of music-making will be presented. These components are presented from an Alexander-perspective in order to produce a clear picture of the method of application.The prerequisite for emotional expression in music is musicians and music listeners with the ability to generate, and respond after emotional impressions. Alexander Technique provides an approach to make it easier for musicians, especially guitarists, to express emotions in a performance situation.After years of practice and obtaining musical knowledge and practical skills at the instrument, it is common that muscle tension and ingrained patterns contribute to limited expression. Muscle tensions arising from pressured situations such as auditions, competitions and concerts.

Retail marketing is a field with many different enbranchements. Some of these can be considered relatively well explored, while the lack of knowledge concerning others is almost total. For example, the existing knowledge regardng the possible impact that non-musical sound can have on the customer can be considered non-existent. With this in mind, the intention with the thesis was to closer investigate how non-musical sound can influence the customer's decision process and attitude in and to a grocery store. The authors started out with theories on associative networks and automatic processing.

The purpose of this thesis was to study the functions that music have in relation to the formation of identity, and research how this fits into the music subject in the school environment in Sweden. My questions were; (1) what role does music has in the formation of identity? (2) how does gender stereotyped musical identities take form? (3) what is the problems or risks with music education in relation to formation of identity? (4) how does the curriculum for the Swedish school relate to the functions that music have in relation to the formation of identity? I have done an analysis on three writers who focuses on theories about music in relation to the development of identity, to give perspective to the individual?s music reality. The first one is the Swedish musicology professor Börje Stålhammar, the second one is the Norwegian music therapist and professor Even Ruud, and the third one is the Brittish music senior master Nicola Dibben. I have compare their thoughts and found a great unanimity in many aspects.

The aim of this essay is to examine why and how three teachers who work in elementary classes choose to use ability grouping during math lessons and what they think of ability grouping as a method to individualize the activities according to the pupil?s needs.I chose one main question for this study that is the following:What is the teacher?s point of view and experience of ability grouping in teaching mathematics?And three sub-questions:What are the motives behind the choice of ability grouping?What are the advantages of ability grouping?What are the disadvantages of ability grouping?In order to be able to answer my questions, I used the qualitative method. I interviewed three teachers who work in the elementary classes (First to fifth grade) to find out what they think about ability grouping and how it is experienced in mathematic teaching.The result shows that the common thing between these three teachers is that they don?t use ability grouping as the only teaching method. They all agree that the whole class teaching has many benefits for the pupils.

The essay investigates the visual element as seen by the audience and artist to be of greatest importance to a musicalperformance. The study was conducted in the form of a field work which included doing interviews with artists, surveys of the audience and interpretive observations of live performance. The fieldwork was conducted in three different environments in which I found myself on the spot and performed the various stages included in the field work. It was done to create a surface that could be used in an essay, and through that use this material to compare and analyze my results and in the end be able to answer my questions. I started from eight different factors which all could beexperienced visually on stage.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether students? previous musical knowledge affected the rating achieved in the subject of music. My empirical material consists of interviews with three professional music teachers in local secondary schools. Two of the three teachers felt that they were not able to devote time for the students who had previous musical knowledge. Students from all schools said that teachers addressed more to help those students who found it more difficult to learn.

This essay examines the persuasive side of music and its affect on consumer behavior when utilized in television commercials. It includes an interpretation of twelve study cases, in which three groups of four people is presented the same commercial, with different music being the only item dividing the groups. This is followed by a few questions about the product. The aim is then to see how the answers differ from one group to another, and how they match the music?s presupposed connotations suggested in the theory part of the essay, thus, observing the communicative, and eventually persuasive, power of music in television commercials.