OSCAR Student Dylan Van Vierssen and the Peter Ritter Transcription Project
I wanted to work a
position this summer that involved music, and when I saw that there was a
research position with Dr. Guessford as a mentor, I put in my application. I
feel like being able to do musical research, along with working with a team, can push
me further towards potentially working within the music industry. What do you
actually do on a weekly basis? On Monday through Friday, I come to George Mason
and meet up with my team. During a typical workday, I will look at the
manuscripts of Peter Ritter's music and enter in the notation on my software,
Sibelius. Some movements of music may take half an hour to an hour, and some
may take a full workday to complete, depending on the length of the piece and
how many instruments there are. Most of the other time is spent reading about
and researching his general life, along with performance practices and musical
styles of his time period. I would also work on my research question, and look
to address the significance of his role in classical music. I discovered that
there are only a few performances of Ritter's works following his death, which
contributes to my understanding of why details of Ritter have failed to
previously come light. There are as many as seven recorded performances from
the time of his death in 1846 to when the Library of Congress acquired Ritter's
manuscripts in 1911.
I wanted to work a
position this summer that involved music, and when I saw that there was a
research position with Dr. Guessford as a mentor, I put in my application. I
feel like being able to do musical research, along with working with a team, can push
me further towards potentially working within the music industry. What do you
actually do on a weekly basis? On Monday through Friday, I come to George Mason
and meet up with my team. During a typical workday, I will look at the
manuscripts of Peter Ritter's music and enter in the notation on my software,
Sibelius. Some movements of music may take half an hour to an hour, and some
may take a full workday to complete, depending on the length of the piece and
how many instruments there are. Most of the other time is spent reading about
and researching his general life, along with performance practices and musical
styles of his time period. I would also work on my research question, and look
to address the significance of his role in classical music. I discovered that
there are only a few performances of Ritter's works following his death, which
contributes to my understanding of why details of Ritter have failed to
previously come light. There are as many as seven recorded performances from
the time of his death in 1846 to when the Library of Congress acquired Ritter's
manuscripts in 1911. 
