School of Contemporary Music - Theses
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ItemArtistic identity: music and the mirror( 2016)This exegesis investigates the nature and construct of a musician’s Artistic Identity as it relates to the composer/performer construct arising in improvised music practice. As a Practice-led Research project the creation of significant musical works involving the creative processes of composition and improvisation were examined alongside a phenomenological investigation into the personal experience of Artistic Identity as realised through the author’s practice of music. Situated in the context of the ontology of being, the dialogue between the author’s reflexive engagement with her creative processes and creative output was at the core of this investigation. It was found that identity is a malleable construct that is open to reinvention and regeneration, a construct that is continually in the processes of becoming, propelled toward the future by ontological understanding of one’s self in relation to being-in–the-world. Yet as an epithet identity was found to be apprehended specifically in relation to a given time and circumstance. Therefore it was deemed necessary to investigate the construct of the author’s Artistic Identity in relation to its active cultivation in terms of current musical processes and outcomes. The creative work to arise from this investigation encompassed the recording of three studio albums of original works which in turn encompassed the primary data-set by which the author examined the performed outcomes of her creative output and the audible “stamp” of her Artistic Identity as evidenced in the body of her works. Additional data was collected through audio and audio-visual recordings of live performances and the keeping of a journal in which the author reflected upon the phenomenon of Artistic Identity as it was informed through her musical practice and research into literature on the subjects of music, identity, the philosophy of self and being. Analysis of this data enabled the author to distinguish the elements that contribute to her sound as an improviser and composer – the distinctive tonal qualities and utilisation of musical materials as evident in the body of her works, the utilisation and articulation of which facilitates self-expression through the cultivation of a personal voice. It was the author’s ongoing identification with the sounds she produced, as an improviser and a composer, the range of creative processes that contribute to a creative musical practice, and the energetic, aesthetic and conceptual parameters of composing, practicing, rehearsing, performing, recording and producing those works that constructed her perception of presenting an Artistic Identity. The author found that her Artistic Identity was constructed through an ongoing engagement with the processes of developing a personally meaningful musical vocabulary and mode of expression. This primarily took place through the setting of creative intentions and the projection of those intentions toward future musical activities. By situating her personal voice as an improviser within the context of performing original compositions the author was able to frame her inherent abilities, tendencies and capacities for sonic manipulation and isolate the specific inter-relationships between creative processes and performed sound. It was the identification with these distinguishing characteristics and inter-relationships that presented as constructing, over an extended period of time, the author’s Artistic Identity.
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ItemListening art: making sonic artworks that critique listening( 2016)Sonic artists and listeners to sonic artworks tend to take for granted that how a listener listens to a sonic artwork affects what that listener perceives that sonic artwork to be, through the listener’s inclusion, exclusion, and interpretation of the sonic events that constitute a given artwork. This tendency leaves the act of perception un-theorised in the production of sonic artworks, and unquestioned in their reception by listeners. This project seeks to address this problem by making sonic artworks that take criticality of listening as their primary focus, on the part of artists and listeners. Its aim is to explore structuring sonic artworks around critical discourses on listening, and for those artworks to foster critical reflection on listening by listeners, hinging on the question: “how can sonic artworks be made that form critiques of listening?” Based on an integration of schema theory and immanent critique, I devise and apply a rationale for making sonic artworks structured as discourses on listening. I complement this with an original adaptation of the Heuristic Research method, which I use to determine whether the artworks made for the project foster critical reflection on listening in audience experience, through the collection and appraisal of a group of listener’s descriptions of their experiences of the works.
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ItemWriting for singing: conceptualising lyric address in contemporary songwriting( 2015)This project investigates conceptual approaches to writing popular song lyrics. Through examination of a selection of popular song lyrics from Bette Davis Eyes (Carnes 1981) to Snowflake (Bush 2011), I explore two main textual dimensions: the lyric voice and its act of address; and types of writing such as argumentative discourse, descriptive discourse, and narrative discourse, that are used to structure song lyrics. In doing so, this thesis identifies key tensions in the construction of song lyrics between song as a literal address with fictional features and song as a performance text that is designed to facilitate affective listening experiences for its audience. The creative component of this thesis is a folio of song recordings with lyrics that explore the lyric address, including narrative discourse, argument-driven structures, and unfolding lyric description. These texts attempt to negotiate the writing of a fictive address and creating lyrics that facilitate evocative experiences for listeners.
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ItemThe architecture of spirit: a phenomenological study of archetypal forces in Eastern European flute repertoire( 2014)This research analyses why a particular selection of flute repertoire is more meaningful to me than other styles. I investigate the forces that impact the composition and experience of the repertoire. My original contribution to knowledge is the analysis of my preparation and approach to these works as a performer. There is something unique about the experience of this music that I am challenged to explain and articulate. This challenge suggested a mystique to the experience of musical phenomena and led me to describe the music as having spirit although I could not explain exactly what it felt like or why that phenomenon occurred. Theories analysed in this research suggest that particular forces impact experience and musical phenomena. Nietzschean Apollonian and Dionysion forces are identified as being of particular interest to the experience of musical phenomena. A CD recording demonstrating the expression and experience of these forces in my preparation and performance of the works forms the creative component of this research. This dissertation is primarily an investigation of my experience of musical phenomena. My contribution to this area of research is an analysis of the impact of causal forces on my musical practice, however it also indicates why certain repertoire may appeal to an individual or group and such musical preference is an area for further research that I would find compelling. Identifying these forces may assist other performers to manipulate the balance of the forces acting in their repertoire, enhancing the characteristics that are a catalyst for the particular musical phenomena important to them. Although not within the boundaries of this research, manipulation of the balance of forces may also influence the experience of an audience. This is a compelling area for further research. The works involved in this research are from regions in Eastern Europe and from the period 1914-1976: • Hungary-Bela Bartok (1881-1945) (Paul Arma) Hungarian Peasant Suite 1914-1917 • Georgia-Otar Taktakishvili (1924-1989) Sonata for flute and piano 1968 • Azerbaijan- Fikret Amirov (1922-1984) Six Pieces for Flute and Piano 1976.
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ItemIndelible: a movement based practice-led inquiry into memory, remembering and representation( 2005)Indelible is a performance and dance research project. It has three outcomes or pathways, presented on DVD-ROM, via which the user-reader can experience multi-modal perspectives on remembering, memory, and representing performative ideas, events and actions. These pathways are video, writing and interactive and together they form a series of hypermedia framings by which the corporeal and philosophical underpinnings of the project are witnessed. The research is considered to be practice-led, in which my practice consists of choreographic strategies, physical actions, media-based processes, and writing. Within these core representations I have sought to confront the methodological and theoretical paradox affecting performance makers electing to recontextualise their work beyond live processes. How might the absence or disappearance of a so-called live work contribute to the overall design and representational practices underlying the outcomes? In this sense the three pathways that comprise Indelible generate a complex network of artistic, scholarly, poetic, and methodological layerings or enfoldings in which the user-reader is presented with possibilities for experiencing the vital subjectivity and inherent fallibility of memory and remembering. (For complete abstract open dopcument)
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ItemPractices of tactility remembering and performance( 2008)‘Practices of tactility, remembering and performance’ is a practice-led inquiry in which performance-making and writing are equal partners. The thesis comprises a performance folio and a dissertation. The folio comprises two performance works. the backs of things: This 35-minute work for two dancers had a public season mid-way through the candidature (September 8th – 11th 2005). A DVD documentation is submitted with the dissertation. here, now: This 50-minute multi-modal performance was presented for assessment during a public season of six performances (March 22nd – 25th 2007). It is a solo piece in which I perform. The work was attended by the examiners and a DVD documentation is submitted with the dissertation. The dissertation provides a ‘narrative of a practice’ focused on tactility, remembering and performance. It elucidates what has arisen through the dual modalities of performance-making and writing. The dissertation is not an exegesis of the performance folio. Rather, it is a critical and reflective account of the practice within which the performances reside. The arc of emergent meaning in the narrative of practice comprises three phases: Precedents; Choreographic Tactility; and Intercorporeal Remembering. In the first phase, I discuss the precursors to my subsequent practice of tactility and remembering. I detail how I sought to diminish the effects of the objectifying gaze by staging a series of interventions into the visual field of the dance. In the second phase, I articulate my use of touch, naming it a practice of choreographic tactility. I outline the connectivity of touch and suggest that it fosters an understanding of the intercorporeal nature of selfhood. I posit practices of tactility as arenas for a relational ontology. In the third phase, I take the notion of intercorporeality thus established and show how it engenders an embodied knowledge of remembering. I define a range of heuristic devices that I established so as to craft remembering in my performance practice. Finally, I draw the discussion of tactility and remembering towards what I term an ‘aesthetics of tactility’. I describe this as a performance domain where intercorporeal remembering is privileged. This is instantiated in the poetic remembering of here, now with which the dissertation closes.