Department or Program

Music

Abstract

In the digital age, we have unprecedented access to music in our daily lives, and, thanks to the advent of social media apps like YouTube and TikTok, everyday citizens are becoming amateur music supervisors, catering soundtracks to highly stylized versions of their lives. This past year, I traveled to 13 countries and trekked through many of them alone. Most of my time spent on trains, planes, buses, boats, and more was spent doing a great deal of introspection, accompanied by my own curated playlists that I felt matched the setting and my state of mind.

My collection of string quartet pieces aims to serve as a companion guide through the journeys I’ve embarked on throughout my life, as well as the emotions and ideas I had at the time. With every piece, I take inspiration from songs and pieces that span genres, languages, and instrumentation but are united by the fact that I believe they would work well in film or television.

Some of my pieces tackle concepts like nostalgia and mourning, unsureness and indecision, or friendship and fear. Others are about more specific moments in my travels, such as the instances when the bpm of the music I listened to perfectly matched the speed of flashing lights on a tarmac or bumps on a turbulent subway. The through-line for this collection of pieces is their emotional density, which I aim to establish through soundtrack-oriented composition techniques.

Level of Access

Open Access

First Advisor

Miura, Hiroya

Date of Graduation

5-2025

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Number of Pages

93

Components of Thesis

1 PDF File

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