Faculty of Education - Theses
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Item"A terrible honesty": the development of a personal voice in musical improvisation( 1996-06)Australia mostly with a focus on the performance of African-American music or jazz. In this majority of these the emphasis is on the performance of those styles which were conceived and developed up to the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the free jazz era. However, there is one course which, although it is rooted in African-American music, promulgates the notion that Australian students in the 1990s should endeavour to develop a personal musical “voice”. This is Improvisation Studies, a three year degree program at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia. This study sought to clarify what was meant by a personal voice by monitoring the development of selected students. Given that the notion of a personal voice as an outcome is a novel one, the study adopted an investigatory discovery-based approach. This required intensive study of selected students on the grounds that the development of a personal voice manifests itself in different ways. A second major purpose of the study was to investigate factors which affected the development of the personal voice. Key factors included the ways in which the VCA course encouraged the development of this voice, as well as the characteristics that students brought to the course and which possibly reflected their musical educational background.
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ItemStudents' music preferences in three schools in the western suburbs of Melbourne, 1989( 1990)A study of 225 year 7 and 8 secondary students was undertaken in 1989 to examine their school music preferences. The survey, in questionnaire format, was administered to those secondary schools (Private, High and Technical) in the western suburbs of Melbourne. Music preferences of those surveyed indicated that most subjects were in favour of studying and listening to pop music and that the parents of students in both Private and Government systems want pop music taught in school music programmes. The fact that students indicated a very strong interest in learning pop music at school may be and indication that students want to incorporate their interest in pop culture into their formal school life. If it is not provided in the school students will pursue their interest in pop music outside school hours. So why not capitalize on a medium which has after all captured the students interest and imagination? The new VCE does exactly this. It endeavours to cater for and introduce students to a wide range of musical styles and genres, including pop music. Thus why not use a medium which appeals to the students’ tastes and interests and which after all deserves a legitimate place in the school music curriculum. For contrasting Private and State schools attention was focused on the female results. Parents of female students in both Private and State schools want pop music taught in the school music curriculum, but contrasts of boys and girls could only be made for those in State schools. Another finding revealed that more parents of girls from the Private system would like classical music taught at school and more parents of boys from the High school would like pop music taught at school. Recommendations are made concerning the incorporation of popular music into the music curriculum.