Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Research Publications

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    Hidden diversity in the conservatoire: A qualitative enquiry into the experiences of higher education music students with disability
    Thompson, G ; de Bruin, L ; Subiantoro, M ; Skinner, A (SAGE Publications, 2024)
    Students undertaking higher education music degrees represent a rich tapestry of experiences, cultures and needs. However, equity and inclusion issues related to music students with disability in higher education are frequently addressed in generic ways, and without consultation or consideration of their unique requirements. With limited research available, this qualitative study within an Australian Conservatorium of Music analysed the experiential and situated reflections of 18 music students with disability. Based on our reflexive thematic analysis, we propose that issues related to equity and inclusion for music students in higher education are multi-faceted and interrelated. By foregrounding the participants’ voice, the qualitative themes suggest that enhancements related to disclosure processes, quality of communication and reliability of resources, would fortify equity and inclusion. The findings span the need for reforms at the institutional level, as well as specific professional development for educators and awareness raising amongst the student cohort. Informed by the participants’ lived experience, the findings call for music educators, professional staff and institutional leaders to effectively apply features of inclusive, caring, professional practices so that music students with disability can thrive in higher education.
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    Improvisation, Music Education, and the Embodied Mind
    van der Schyff, D ( 2018-07-24)
    IICSI colloquium - Sounding Promise in the Present Tense, University of British Columbia, Canada - July 24th, 2018 Presentation given by Dylan van der Schyff at the 2018 IICSI colloquium "Sounding Promise in the Present Tense: Improvising Through Turbulent Times." van der Schyff discusses improvisation in relation to music education and theories of cognition.
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    The dynamics of musical participation
    Schiavio, A ; Maes, P-J ; Schyff, DVD (SAGE Publications, 2021)
    In this paper we argue that our comprehension of musical participation—the complex network of interactive dynamics involved in collaborative musical experience—can benefit from an analysis inspired by the existing frameworks of dynamical systems theory and coordination dynamics. These approaches can offer novel theoretical tools to help music researchers describe a number of central aspects of joint musical experience in greater detail, such as prediction, adaptivity, social cohesion, reciprocity, and reward. While most musicians involved in collective forms of musicking already have some familiarity with these terms and their associated experiences, we currently lack an analytical vocabulary to approach them in a more targeted way. To fill this gap, we adopt insights from these frameworks to suggest that musical participation may be advantageously characterized as an open, non-equilibrium, dynamical system. In particular, we suggest that research informed by dynamical systems theory might stimulate new interdisciplinary scholarship at the crossroads of musicology, psychology, philosophy, and cognitive (neuro)science, pointing toward new understandings of the core features of musical participation.
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    Phenomenology, Technology and Arts Education: Exploring the Pedagogical Possibilities of Two Multimedia Arts Inquiry Projects
    Schyff, DVD (Inference, 2016)
    The relevance of phenomenology for arts education is explored through two multimedia arts inquiry projects. I begin by offering a brief outline of what arts inquiry and phenomenology entail. Following this, I consider a phenomenological study relevant to creative multimedia studies, and develop the relationship between phenomenology, critical pedagogy, and creative praxis in the arts. Drawing on these ideas, I then discuss the processes involved in creating the multimedia projects and consider possibilities for similar projects in educational contexts. Most importantly, I attempt to show how such projects might open arts educators and students to more reflective, imaginative and participatory ways of being-in-the-world, while simultaneously developing deeper historical, cultural, technical, and aesthetic understandings of the art forms they are engaged with.
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    Becoming [published Score]: for soprano, countertenor, bass voices, shakuhachi and string quartet
    Selleck, J (Australian Music Centre, 2024)
    This published score of ‘Becoming’ was published by the Australian Music Centre in 2023. It complements the CD of the same work released by Move Records in 2022. 'Becoming' is a song cycle for 3 voices, shakuhachi, and string quartet (duration of one hour). The work is based on research into two forms of Japanese poetry, haiku and renga, and uses poetry in 3 languages (English, French, and Tibetan). The text is based around the four seasons and explores the human-nature connection. This publication of ‘Becoming’ is the culmination of approx. 20 years of research into different approaches to setting haiku to music. This process began with a study of the Japanese masters of haiku, which I undertook as an undergraduate student at the University of Melbourne studying with Professor Brenton Broadstock. The first movement of ‘Becoming’ formed part of my PhD composition folio (2006). After this, I continued to develop the work through practice-based research via multiple performances (outlined below). The early stages of my research involved experimentation with setting individual haiku for various instrumental combinations and voice. This also incorporated research into different compositional techniques and allowed me develop the knowledge and skills to embark on a full-scale song cycle (5-movement composition) exploring the programmatic and psychological elements of song using a diversity of compositional techniques in a cross-cultural context.
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    Music interventions for dementia and depression in elderly care (MIDDEL): The Australian part of an international cluster randomised controlled trial
    Baker, F ; Lee, YEC ; Sousa, T ; Stretton-Smith, P ; Clark, I ; Sveinsdottir, V ; Geretsegger, M ; Gold, C (Wiley, 2021-12-01)
    BACKGROUND: Dementia and depression are highly prevalent, comorbid conditions in older adults residing in care homes and are associated with individual distress and associated challenges for care staff. Music-based interventions are widely used and potentially effective nonpharmacological interventions, due to the relative preservation of the ability of people with dementia to respond to music even with disease progression. However, there is a lack of large-scale studies evaluating the effectiveness of music-based interventions in dementia care. Music Interventions for Dementia and Depression in the Elderly (MIDDEL) is the first large-scale international cluster-randomised controlled trial to investigate the effectiveness of small group music therapy (GMT), recreational choir singing (RCS) and their combination on levels of depression in residents with dementia. The trial is currently being conducted across six countries, and this presentation will outline the study outcomes from the Australian arm of the trial. METHOD: Between June 2018 and November 2019, 20 care home units were randomised to music interventions (GMT, RCS, GMT and RCS) or standard care delivered over 6 months. The primary outcome was level of depression as measured by the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS). Secondary outcomes included neuropsychiatric symptoms, quality of life, care staff burden and adverse events collected at baseline, 3-months, 6-months and 12-months post-randomisation. Outcomes were analysed as intention-to-treat, per-protocol, and with exploratory predictor analyses. RESULTS: 318 participants (215 female; 103 male) aged 65 years or more with diagnoses of dementia and at least mild depressive symptoms (as defined by score of 8 or above on MADRS) residing in care homes were recruited. In addition, 131 care staff (108 female; 23 male) answered questions regarding perceived care burden to search for potential ripple effects of the music interventions. We will present the main findings of the study including the predictive effects of clinical characteristics on efficacy. CONCLUSION: The presentation will include discussion of contextual factors and conditions that support efficacy, and clinical implications for safety and quality of life for people with dementia living in care homes.
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    HOMESIDE-A home-based family caregiver-delivered music and reading intervention for people living with dementia: A randomised controlled trial.
    Baker, F ; Odell-Miller, H ; Wosch, T ; Stensaeth, K ; Bukowska, A ; Clark, I (Wiley, 2021-12)
    BACKGROUND: Pharmacological interventions to address behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) can have undesirable side effects, therefore non-pharmacological approaches to managing symptoms may be preferable. Past studies show that music therapy can reduce BPSD, and other studies have explored how formal caregivers use music in their caring roles. However, no studies have examined the effects on BPSD of music interventions delivered by informal caregivers (CGs) in the home setting. Our project addresses the need for improved informal care by training cohabiting family CGs to implement music interventions that target BPSD, and the quality of life (QoL) and well-being of people with dementia and CGs. METHODS: An international three-arm parallel-group randomised controlled trial has so far randomised 130 of the target 495 dyads from Australia, Germany, UK, Poland and Norway. Dyads are randomised equally to standard care (SC), a home-based music programme plus SC, or a home-based reading programme plus SC for 12 weeks. The primary outcome is BPSD of people with dementia (measured using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Questionnaire). Secondary outcomes examine relationship quality between CG and people with dementia, depression, resilience, competence, QoL for CG and QoL for people with dementia. Outcomes are collected at baseline, at the end of the 12-week intervention and at 6 months post randomisation. Resource Utilisation in Dementia captures economic data across the life of the intervention and at 6-month follow-up. Our presentation will briefly outline the study protocol and describe the caregiver training protocol and interventions in detail with video footage illustrating how the intervention looks in practice.
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    From Acoustic Scenery to Sonic Dramaturgy: Music in Radio-Specific Drama of Weimar Republic Germany
    Gabriel, J ; Verhulst, P ; Mildorf, J (Brill, 2023)
    Weimar Republic Germany (1919–1933) witnessed the development of experimental dramatic forms created specifically for the radio, celebrated for their technical and dramaturgical innovation, including the Hörfolge, which montaged pre-recorded sounds, narration, and dramatic scenes in a non-linear narrative, and the Tonfilm, in which sound was recorded on the film used for audiovisual sound film, but without images. I argue that these dramatic forms also emerged out of the practice and discourse of music in earlier, more conventional genres such as radio-specific opera (Funkoper) and the fully musical radio play (musikalisches Hörspiel). First, I examine the discourse surrounding early radio plays and the way music shaped ideas about creating drama specifically for the radio. Second, I analyze Walter Goehr’s Malpopita (1931), Walter Gronostay’s Mord () and Glocken (1930s) and Eugen Kurt Fischer’s Trommel, Trommel, Gong (1932) as examples of early radio play productions.
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    By myself but not alone: Agency, creativity, and extended musical historicity
    Schiavio, A ; Ryan, K ; Moran, N ; van der Schyff, D ; Gallagher, S (Routledge, 2022-11)
    In this paper we offer a preliminary framework that highlights the relational nature of solo music-making, and its associated capacity to influence the constellation of habits and experiences one develops through acts of musicking. To do so, we introduce the notion of extended musical historicity and suggest that when novice and expert performers engage in individual musical practices, they often rely on an extended sense of agency which permeates their musical experience and shapes their creative outcomes. To support this view, we report on an exploratory, qualitative study conducted with novice and expert musicians. This was designed to elicit a range of responses, beliefs, experiences and meanings concerning the main categories of agency and creativity. Our data provide rich descriptions of solitary musical practices by both novice and expert performers, and reveal ways in which these experiences involve social contingencies that appear to generate or transform creative musical activity. We argue that recognition of the interactive components of individual musicking may shed new light on the cognition of solo and joint music performance, and should inspire the development of novel conceptual and empirical tools for future research and theory.
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    Editorial: Community Series: Towards a Meaningful Instrumental Music Education. Methods, Perspectives, and Challenges – Volume II
    Schiavio, A ; Nijs, L ; van der Schyff, D ; Juntunen, M-L (Frontiers Media S.A., 2023-11-02)