Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0002-3842-4231

Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

DMA

College

College of Creative Arts

Department

School of Music

Committee Chair

Andrew Kohn

Committee Member

General McArthur Hambrick

Committee Member

Alan Hankers

Committee Member

Andrea Priester Houde

Committee Member

Jake Sandridge

Abstract

The Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) has made sound recording, manipulation, MIDI sequencing, and digital live performance accessible to nearly anyone with a computer and an interest in digital music-making. A DAW’s functionality is modeled on decades of development in analog modular electronic instrument design and sound recording techniques. Theorist and composer Jonathan D. Kramer, through his work in the 1980’s, referred to the invention of sound recording as a catalyst of a temporal discontinuity experienced by Western-trained musicians. Since that time, these same sound recording techniques have become increasingly prevalent in modern society. This document proposes a DAW-based analytical framework for analyzing excerpts from three acoustic works by the twenty-first-century composer Viet Cuong, offering a temporally related lens for interpreting techniques familiar to DAW users to gain interpretive insights.

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