Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemThe personality profile of Australian music therapists( 2004)Personality characteristics of music therapists were examined in a sample of 60 registered Australian music therapists who completed the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R), and a general questionnaire (GIQ) about professional background and experiences. Personality differences between Australian music therapists across self-nominated clinical specializations were also examined. Statistical analysis revealed that Australian music therapists share a common profile of high Neuroticism, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and low Self-Discipline. These results are compared with previous research on both classical and popular musicians, and other health professionals (e.g., doctors, therapists). Four Australian music therapists additionally completed the Personality Web Interview Protocol (PWIP), which elicits narrative personifications of the self by first asking interviewees to describe 24 key attachments from the storied self, including 6 persons, 6 important events (e.g., positive or peak experiences, and negative or nadir experiences), 8 objects and place attachments, and 4 aspects of body orientation (e.g., liked and disliked body parts) . The four interviews revealed consistent associations between storied self labels such as 'creativity' with the domain of Openness to Experience, 'at home with self and 'people in my heart' with the domain Agreeableness, and 'adventurous self with high Extraversion scores. Results are discussed in terms of incorporating data from all three personality assessment strategies (e.g., NEO-PI-R, GIQ, and PWIP) into a clear and coherent profile portrait of the Australian music therapist.
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ItemMusic and criticism: a study of some trends during the twentieth century( 1964)To spend time and energy in criticizing music the critic must value music highly. To criticize criticism implies also that one considers criticism of the arts worthwhile. The concert-goer who expects only that he shall enjoy a relaxing evening will probably not bother even to read the notes in his programme, and even if he does so. He will look for no more than a few technical sign posts to lessen his confusion if a work new to him is included in the programme. Such an attitude implies that its possessor dismisses music as an inessential luxury, and that he relegates the composer to the role of entertainer. Plainly, such a concert-goer does not value his music enough to discuss it. Fortunately he is not the only kind of person who listens to music, although he may be monomer than is often realized. His is certainly the easiest attitude to adopt, for to take music and criticism seriously involves much hard thought. The idea that art is a form of human communication is a widely accepted one. Most of the disputes which arise about this notion are concerned with the questions of what and how art communicates rather than whether it does so. Another way of looking at art is as a form of discipline: one cannot create in any artistic form, nor can one fully respond to a work or art, without the exercise of self-discipline, and the study of particular branches of the arts has long been recognized as a way to the achievement of a disciplined mind. The value of art lies in both of these aspects: in what it communicates and in the kind of activity it demands from those who take part in it. These two are inseparable – one cannot discuss the “content” of a work of art without discussing the means by which it is communicated, although, as we shall notice later, one can become involved in an arid discussion of the means alone. A musical work does not concern itself with conceptual thought, as many learned critics have noted. They hold that in this respect it differs from poetry, which can express concepts. They do not seem to have noticed that great poetry does not discuss ideas as philosophy does, but demands an emotional involvement, as painting and music do. All three arts also demand an intellectual involvement, but it is not of the strictly logical or syllogistic kind, even in reputedly “intellectual” poetry. Poetry and painting represent situations known to human beings by experience, in such a way that the expression of experience renders it comprehensible. (From Introduction)
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ItemRediscovering Mirrie Hill (1889-1986): composer in her own right( 2002)Australian composer, pianist and educator Mirrie Hill (nee Solomon) was born in Sydney in 1889. She studied piano with Joseph Kretschmann and Laurence Godfrey-Smith, theory with Ernest Truman and composition with Alfred Hill. The outbreak of World War One in 1914 thwarted Mirrie Solomon's plans to study music in Europe and led to her entering the newly established New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music. In 1916, she was awarded a composition scholarship by the Director, Henri Verbrugghen. She later took on the role of Assistant Professor of Harmony, Counterpoint and Composition at the Conservatorium from 1918 until1944. Her teaching position and role as an examiner for the Australian Music Examinations Board served as complementary interests to her primary work as a composer. In 1921 Mirrie Solomon married the renowned Australian composer Alfred Hill. This marriage had a considerable impact on her ability to establish a reputation as a composer in her own right, and her contributions to Australian music have been largely overshadowed by Alfred Hill's more prominent status. Mirrie Hill composed over five hundred works across many genres. She wrote symphonic works, chamber music and film music and was a prolific writer of art songs, piano works and elementary works for children. Almost half of her compositions were published in Australia and many of her orchestral works were performed, broadcast and recorded during her lifetime. Mirrie Hill's reputation as a composer of 'miniatures' has lingered, despite her remarkable successes in other areas of music. To date, no in-depth study of Mirrie Hill has been attempted, and as such, her substantial creative output and contributions to Australian music have gone largely unrecognised. This thesis will explore both biographical and musical aspects of the composer and is intended as an overview of Mirrie Hill's contribution to many facets of Australian music throughout her lifetime.
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ItemTan Dun's death and fire: ad parnassum, animals and Paul Klee( 2002)This thesis examines the work Death and Fire: Dialogue with Paul Klee (1992) by Tan Dun, a significant composer of the twentieth-century. His musical language is unique in the sphere of the twentieth-century composers. Tan Dun's experiences from various backgrounds are integrated into his musical language today. The condition of humanity is a particular concern of Tan's. The natural world is also a strong influence on the composer. This aspect of his music is the primary concern of this thesis. In this thesis, it examines the importance of natural images of Klee's paintings as a source of inspiration for Tar_ Tan, in his thesis, mentions that the responses towards the paintings were inspired more by the technique of the paintings than the literal subject matter content. Through analysis of paintings and comparison between the responses in the music towards the paintings, it will be argued that the images of nature found in Klee's works apply a more influential factor in Tan's music than Tan acknowledges. The elements such as animals, birds, and the earth, are literally translated into three of the ten inserts: Insert 1: Animals At Full Moon, Insert 4: Twittering Machine and Insert 5: Earth Witches. Primary sources include the musical score and the thesis entitled Death and Fire: Dialogue with Paul Klee that were completed in 1992 by Tan Dun as his recital composition for the degree of Doctorate in Composition at Columbia University, nine paintings of Klee's used by Tan in Death and Fire: Dialogue with Paul Klee, and bibliography.
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ItemUnveiling the melodic interval: a phenomenology of the musical element in human consciousness( 2005)This phenomenology begins with an observation of a musical instrument, the piano. The piano is surrounded by an aura of lifelessness, for its sound world is dominated by tone-decay and a calcified intonation system. Therefore, a physically seamless legato rendering of melody is impossible for pianists, and the inflexible symmetry of given intervallic relations enforces a loss of tonal centre when a composer ventures into the intrinsically asymmetrical domain of chromaticism. However, the melodic interval - the element lying between the acoustically sounding pitches - is in essence always inaudible, whatever the instrument. Through the development of listening capacities directed specifically toward unveiling the non-positive musical element in its origin, namely, within human consciousness, it is possible to overcome external instrumental limitations. Human being’s intrinsic musicality is revealed through phenomenological observation of consciousness in its qualitatively differentiated, ordinarily related, temporally unfolding nature. External limitations can have no hold over living melodic expression when the essence of the melodic interval is discovered self-sufficiently within the non-positive dimension of human onticity, that is, within a consciousness in which the potential for clear spiritual cognition lies dormant. ‘Tonicness’ is discovered ultimately to be an inner awareness of self-voicefulness, independent from instrumental and linguistic contingencies; and the piano reveals an historical mission to awaken - from ‘death’ - new cognitive listening faculties. This research employs the spiritual-scientific method of Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy, or wisdom of the human being, which involves meditation and the cultivation of sense-independent logic as well as of lucid feeling (as distinct from blinding emotion).
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ItemLeon Caron and the music profession in Australia( 2003)Leon Francis Victor Caron (1850-1905) was one of the major figures in Australian nineteenth-century opera and orchestral circles. He was a well-known and well-liked public figure, regarded with respect and affection by musicians and audiences alike. Little has been written concerning Caron’s career. Given the amount he contributed to the Australian stage, an assessment of his importance within the music profession is warranted. Most areas of Caron’s life are, as yet, totally unexplored; it falls outside the ambit of this thesis to present every detail pertaining to his varied and extensive musical career. Nevertheless, new information about a selection of Caron’s ventures is drawn upon here for the first time. Much of this material is used to examine the impact of Caron’s conducting on the orchestral profession in Melbourne and Sydney. Many of Caron’s performances (orchestral or otherwise) often featured the popular music of the day. The popular aspect of Caron as a composer is also considered, with particular reference to the incredibly successful pantomime Djin Djin. An examination of Caron’s performances gives great insight not only into the part he played in the wider profession; but it also sheds light on orchestral standards, performance practices and public tastes of the time. His contribution to the music profession in nineteenth-century Australia is extremely significant.
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ItemA critical edition and exploration of Percy Grainger's The warriors - music to an imaginary ballet( 1996-10)Commissioned by Sir Thomas Beecham for the Ballets Russes, during their London season, but ultimately completed and premiered in the United States, The Warriors - Music to an Imaginary Ballet is Grainger’s most ambitious and experimental orchestral composition. Written in a traditional full score format, by the time it was published ten years later, The Warriors had been altered to conform to Grainger’s unique compressed score layout. The concessions and omissions needed for such a drastic alteration were not true to the composer’s ideas. Along with a comprehensive historical introduction to the work, the notion of the compressed score is placed into the context of Grainger’s own scoring methods, as well as the greater context of avant-garde score layout in the twentieth century. A detailed chronology of The Warriors autograph and printed sources provides a working model of how a ms. study of Grainger’s music may be undertaken. 2 vols. xi +124 pp., 5 illustrations, 45 examples, bibliography, discography, appendices. Full orchestral score and critical commentary, 125pp. (A3), with additional programme note, composer’s analysis, notes to conductors, list of instrumentation and CD recording of edition’s premiere performance.
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ItemPercy Grainger's promotion of early music to Australian audiences in 1934: a critical evaluation( 2003)This thesis examines the argument made by Roger Covell in his 1967 Australia's Music in which he stated that Grainger's promotion of unfamiliar music, including early music to the Australian audiences in his 1934 Australian tour had been ineffective. Covell's argument was that Australia, at that time, was a conservative musical society 'that had barely considered the possibility of merit in any music outside the standard European classics' (p. 99). This thesis argues that Grainger's promotion of early music had not been ineffective but had an impact on the Australian audiences. This conclusion is reached after examining the press reception of Grainger's inclusion of early music in his lecture-recitals and orchestral concerts.
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ItemBeing scripted( 2012)This thesis examines the role of materiality and site-specificity in generating performancebased film work. In focus, is how the body can be scripted, prompted, or instructed by thephysical characteristics of objects and spaces that it encounters. Historical and contemporaryvideo art and filmmaking practices are surveyed bringing into question the parameters of“object” and “performance” shaped through the medium of film. This paper and the creativework that has subsequently developed, considers the potential of film, to facilitate performancethrough its embodied sense of time and durational framing.This thesis is separated into three sections, which examine the foundations and outcomes of myproject with reference to creative practices that have influenced and shaped my understandingof the dynamic nature between performance and film. The first section identifies with myrelationship to sculptural practice, and works to unpack the elements of this discourse withreference to objects, space and the performing body. The second section revolves around“repetition” as a generative force within the context of performance. Practices and texts areexamined that illustrate the relationship between actions and futile outcomes. The final sectionof this paper focuses on the impact of specific cinematic practices, which have played a seminalrole in the development of my conceptual and technical relationship to performance and themoving image. This thesis is separated into three sections, which examine the foundations and outcomes of my project with reference to creative practices that have influenced and shaped my understanding of the dynamic nature between performance and film. The first section identifies with my relationship to sculptural practice, and works to unpack the elements of this discourse with reference to objects, space and the performing body. The second section revolves around “repetition” as a generative force within the context of performance. Practices and texts are examined that illustrate the relationship between actions and futile outcomes. The final section of this paper focuses on the impact of specific cinematic practices, which have played a seminal role in the development of my conceptual and technical relationship to performance and the moving image.
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ItemFolio of compositions( 2012)The selection of works presented here represents an attempt to refine and give direction to my artistic aesthetic through the exploration and synthesis of some ideas and approaches that have interested me for some years. The works consist of a set of three sonatas and two orchestral movements. (From introduction)