Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemPhenomenological mechanics — an intercultural musical perspective: an inquiry into the experience of directional movement in intercultural music, applying time and motion concepts from physics( 2022)This study is an inquiry into the experience of “vectorial” (i.e., directional) motion in music. It proposes a conceptual model for the experience of directional motion. It then applies the model interculturally, examining the relationship between Western and Eastern linear and cyclic cultural representations of time and corresponding compositional organisation. In its conclusion, it proposes geometrical models of Western and Eastern musical forms as helix and vortex, respectively, presenting musical works that exemplify these concepts. The major research question of the dissertation is “What is the nature of the experience of directional movement in music, and how can this experience be conceptually represented?”. It examines this question via the principal methodological process of a thought experiment. There are four research areas — music as phenomenological mechanics, composition as intercultural metaphor, applications to musical performance and analysis, and newly imagined instruments and novel compositional processes — and 12 research propositions — three primary, three secondary (two exegetical), two tertiary, and four artefactual. The primary research propositions examine the experience of vectorial motion in music, proposing a phenomenologically determined, hierarchically organised, multi-parameter, form-void vector field model. Referencing this model, the dissertation proposes that the experience of directional motion in music can be compared to principles from mechanics, albeit at a purely phenomenological level — a proposition that gives rise to the concept of phenomenological mechanics. In the application of the concept of phenomenological mechanics to composition, the dissertation proposes a novel characterisation of musical development as a phenomenological representation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics — as the phenomenological “organisation of sound” from low to high potential energy states, and from chaos to order. The secondary research propositions present the idea that the experience of musical motion differs in Western and Eastern cultural contexts in accordance with contrasting Western linear and Eastern cyclic cultural representations of time — metaphorically apparent in their respective musical forms — and in accordance with the dualism and monism that characterise form-void representations and their paradigms more broadly. These secondary research propositions thus apply the concept of music as phenomenological mechanics to the concept of composition as intercultural metaphor. The dissertation proposes that, whereas Western music develops vectorially and teleologically to achieve an overall linear form, Eastern music develops non-vectorially and non-teleologically to achieve an overall cyclic form — a process consistent with the concept of intensification, as coined by UK ethnomusicologist Martin Clayton to describe “non-teleological large-scale processes" proceeding by "a process of expansion”. As an application of the research to the performance and analysis of music, the dissertation’s tertiary research propositions thus propose the concept of Western and Eastern musical forms as helix and vortex. Referencing the musical time concepts of Zuckerkandl, Clayton, Kramer, Cage and Fraser, and the musical improvisation concepts of Feisst, the exegesis research propositions and discussion analyse the major and minor artefacts — respectively, a composition and an improvisation, for a 12-drum harmonic tabla set and two variations of modified guitar — as exemplifications of the concepts contained in the written work.
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ItemMusico-relational competencies: Examining the convergence of musical and relational competencies in improvisational group music therapy for people with borderline personality disorder( 2020)This thesis details an emergent, qualitative study on music therapy process resulting in the new concept of musico-relational competence. The project began with an exploration of music processes in the context of outpatient adult psychiatry. Seven participants, a cofacilitator and a music therapist (also the researcher) took part in an improvisationally based group music therapy program over eight weeks. All sessions were recorded on video and analysed to explore how music process influenced therapeutic process. The emergent design allowed for discovery and adjustments along the way. This led to taking an ethnographic and ethnomusicological approach to the analysis of the video data (including music analysis), focusing on the meaning making process of participants in the study. There are a few studies suggesting that music therapy is of benefit to people who experience Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) (Hannibal, 2014; Plitt, 2014; Schmidt, 2002; Strehlow & Lindner, 2015), yet very little written on music process, or music therapy with groups of people who live with BPD. Therefore, this study utilised an emergent methodology with the aim of beginning to understand music therapy processes in this context. Findings from this study are presented as five perspectives on musical competence orientation. They include Musical Structure, Musical Language Competencies, Musical Interaction Competencies, Knowledge and Experience of Group Improvisation, and Changes in Feeling States that Accompany Improvisation. A new theory on competency orientation was developed to explain the phenomena examined in this study complemented by the existing theories of group process (Tuckman, 1965; Yalom, 2005), alliance rupture and repair (Safran, Crocker, McMain, & Murray, 1990; Safran & Kraus, 2014) and implicit relational knowing (Bruschweiler-Stern et al., 2010; Trondalen, 2016). The main finding that emerged from the analysis were the musico-relational competency orientation of participants and the influence of this orientation on relational cycles in group improvisation. The relational cycle in improvisational music therapy is enacted via musical connection, disconnection and reconnection as experienced in musical ‘limbo’ periods. Over time, via repeated experience and changing competency orientation, negative emotionality experienced by participants decreased, contributing to therapeutic process in sessions. The main therapeutic process enacted was tolerating the dynamics of implicit relational knowing during group improvisation. The implications of this finding are relevant to music therapists practicing group music therapy in adult psychiatry, and potentially in other contexts. The importance of the musico-relational competency orientation, in addition to working with limbo phases of improvisation can influence program design, evaluation and interpretation of music therapy process. With further investigation of this phenomena, I hope that group methodologies utilising these principles will become more widely practiced in music therapy.
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ItemThe essence of performance on the acoustic drum kit: a study of feel( 2018)This practice-led research investigates and discusses the terms and applications of ‘feel’ and ‘time’ in acoustic drumming, and through various performance settings I break down and examine how these phenomena exist within my performance. Topics of this research include feel, time, groove, improvisation, pulse, liveness, and motif, all of which are looked at through the various effects they can have on performance. This dissertation includes both written and recorded documentation of my own performances, as well as drawing on sources of information such as music notation (transcriptions), sound waves, various publications, liner notes and experiential descriptions of each performance setting. The creative works presented in this research are made up of various recorded performances, which can be identified in the ‘List of Embedded Audio’. As sections of this dissertation are based on specific recordings, the relevant audio is also listed within the text. This should allow the reader to listen to each recorded performance before or after the relevant section is read. Each recorded work for this research is presented in an mp3 format.