Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemMusic composition: the expression of potential musical experience through notation and performer collaboration( 2023-03)folio of original compositions for solo instruments and ensembles. The accompanying dissertation explores notational innovation, process versus intuition, and close composer-performer collaboration. The project offers new insights on the embedding, both overt and covert, of traumatic personal experience and difficult subject matter in musical composition.
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ItemPractices in contemporary flamenco guitar: a creative journey( 2023-05)This PhD investigates creative practices in contemporary flamenco guitar performance. The PhD comprises two parts: a performance portfolio (70%) and a dissertation (30%). The performance portfolio includes 190 minutes of live and studio recordings, comprised of original works, and arrangements of solo and group pieces. The dissertation draws on my own journey into the artistic field of flamenco, and it reflects on creative practices involved in the formation of my contemporary flamenco guitar style. This PhD argues that creativity and forming one’s own style are the key aspirations of gaining access to the artistic field of flamenco, an art form that is widely considered as both traditional and forward learning. This study outlines my process of style formation on the flamenco guitar - one that is steeped in the aural tradition - by focusing on practices of emulation, and the distillation of various structures within flamenco. Engagement with the aesthetic codes and practices of flamenco voice and dance are integral to this process, as is the transcription of recordings. These processes underscore my generation of new flamenco music on the guitar.
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ItemNo Preview AvailablePrepared Strings and Interwoven Scales: Exploring New Materials for Timbre and Pitch in Music Composition( 2023-05)In musical contexts the term ‘prepared’ refers to the addition of non-musical objects to musical instruments to alter their timbral characteristics. This practice was famously employed by composer John Cage, most notably in his works for prepared piano. In my work as an improvising trumpeter, I have explored techniques by which the trumpet can, in the Cagian sense, be prepared. In doing so, I observed that the sounds that resulted from preparing the trumpet seemed to ‘lead’ the improvisation, suggesting novel pathways and tangents. More recently, I began to wonder how preparations might be employed in orchestral contexts and how the new timbres available to prepared orchestral instruments could influence my composition process. This practice-centred research is born of this wondering: it explores the development of a set of techniques of preparation for orchestral string instruments and considers their implementation and influence in the compositional process. Additionally, this project involved the unexpected discovery and refinement of a pattern of pitch organization that emerged through the compositional activity on which this research is based. As such, the output of this research consists of two new sets of materials for music composition: a collection of techniques by which instruments of the orchestral string family can be prepared; and a catalogue of what I term, ‘interwoven bi-scales of expanding interval’. These materials form the basis of a sixty-minute folio of compositions for string ensembles that demonstrates the creative possibilities of the materials. This dissertation provides a critical commentary on the development of these sets of materials and the compositions that comprise the folio. A contextual framework for the research is established, founded on the principles of emergence, divergence, reflexivity, and chaos. The practice of preparing instruments for composition is then explored from an historic point of view and an artistic audit presents an overview of extant compositions for ensembles of prepared strings. Following this, the origins and development of each set of materials (the techniques of preparation, and the interwoven bi-scales of expanding interval) are outlined, and analyses of a representative sample of pieces from the folio are presented. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the successes and challenges of the project, and recommendations for further research.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableLiminaire: Performance Contexts and Cultural Dynamics of the Saxophone in Australia, 1853–1938( 2023-06)This project explores the largely untold first eighty-five years of the saxophone in Australia. For a unique Australian context it examines, and ultimately challenges, the long- and widely-held view that the instrument was solely a product and expression of popular or ‘lowbrow’ musical culture; instead, it argues that the saxophone’s character in Australia between 1853 and 1938 was enduringly cosmopolitan, stylistically diverse across the cultural strata, and a mirror to evolving notions of Australian identity. A five-chapter dissertation, weighted at 80%, details the saxophone’s Australian efflorescence in a variety of performance contexts from the goldrush to the cusp of the Second World War. A number of landmark performers and performances are established, including the headline discovery that the instrument debuted in Australia before being first heard in the United States. Drawing on categories established by John Whiteoak, this study incorporates ‘approved’ musical settings that were seen to reinforce social cohesion, such as the concert stage and the bandstand, and ‘anonymous’ settings, including the commercially-oriented domains of minstrelsy, vaudeville, and jazz. Notions of liminality are employed to explain and contextualise the saxophone’s marginal, and yet still remarkably potent, place in musical and wider cultural and social life over this time. This argument is built on research into a wide range of primary sources, including historical newspaper and journal articles, sheet music, sound recordings, silent and sound film, and interviews with notable Australian musicians. An accompanying audio-visual folio, weighted at 20%, features 33 minutes of new recordings for saxophone ensemble, saxophone and piano, and concert band in march and art music transcription forms.
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ItemAn exploration of people with dementia and their family care partners’ experiences of shared home-based music( 2023-06)This dissertation describes an emergent project exploring how people living with dementia and their family care partners experience shared musical activities. With an increasing number of people with dementia residing in the community, family members play a key role in providing support for daily living as family care partners. There is, therefore, a recognised need to support the wellbeing of both people living with dementia and their family care partners. Music interventions uniquely support mood, memory and communication for people with dementia. However, little is known about how sharing music might support people with dementia and their family care partners as dyads. This thesis sought to address this gap through two qualitative studies: a thematic synthesis of the literature and a hermeneutic phenomenological study. This research was situated within a larger study examining a 12-week home-based music intervention (HOMESIDE), where I played dual roles as a researcher and music therapist. The thematic synthesis was conducted first to inform later stages of the research. My thematic synthesis explored how dyads experience shared musical activities across a range of contexts, including community settings, residential aged care, and the home. An analysis of 13 qualitative studies found that shared musical activities supported the individual and collective wellbeing of dyads through fostering connection. The findings informed the development of the Contextual Connection Model of Health Musicking for People Living with Dementia and Their Family Care Partners. This model captured the relationship between dyads’ contexts, their experiences of sharing music, and their wellbeing. In my second study, I conducted a hermeneutic phenomenological exploration of the shared musical experiences of six dyads participating in HOMESIDE. I recruited dyads I had worked with as a music therapist to utilise the rapport we had developed. Data was collected through music-based interviews to capture dyads’ musical and non-verbal experiences in the moment. Additional data was collected from the HOMESIDE study including dyads’ intervention diaries and semi-structured interviews. To explore and build on the Contextual Connection Model, this data was analysed using an abductive and relational-centred approach to hermeneutic phenomenological analysis. Through this analysis, I developed fifteen themes to capture dyads’ experiences of shared home-based musicking. These fifteen themes were organised into three global themes: 1) Experiences were shaped by complex influences; 2) A connected musical ecosystem; and 3) Music was a resource for wellbeing. These findings added depth, nuance and novelty to the Contextual Connection Model, leading to the development of the Revised Contextual Connection Model of Musicking for People Living with Dementia and Their Family Care Partners. This revised model conceptualises dyads’ experiences of musicking as cyclical and ecological, with nuanced outcomes including supported wellbeing, changed relationships to music, and challenging experiences. This study also provided insights into dyads’ process of learning to use music as a resource. This thesis provides theoretical and practical insights into dyads’ experiences of sharing music in the home and broader contexts. My research highlights the complexity of dyads’ shared musical experiences, and the central role of connection through musicking in supporting their wellbeing. It also locates the unique role of music therapy within the evolving landscape of music in dementia care. These understandings may support future development and refinement of therapeutic music interventions for dyads.
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ItemThe Expressive Potential of the Interpretive Edition: A Practice-Led Analysis of the Editions of Beethoven Piano Sonatas by Hans von Bülow and Sigmund Lebert, Donald Francis Tovey and Harold Craxton, Artur Schnabel, and Claudio Arrau( 2023-05)This practice-led project asserts the value of the often-overlooked interpretive edition as an indispensable tool for performers, encouraging them to consider numerous approaches to interpreting a piece of music. The thesis portion of the project will begin with the suggestion that overly textualist readings of urtext scores have limited the potential for creating interpretively exploratory performances. With a focus on selected piano sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven – in particular his sonata in A flat, Op. 110 – this thesis will contend that great performers play a key role in forging much of the meaning surrounding this music and its place in concert repertoire. A practice-led analysis of selected editions will be used to illustrate this. This will offer a framework to encourage performers to look at the interpretive editions of the great musicians who have gone before them. These are the musicians who gave this music much of its popular meaning, who have faced the same artistic and technical challenges, and presented their various ideas and solutions in these scores.
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ItemSeeking the “dirty-beautiful”: An investigation into a compositional practice informed by shadows, impermanence and ambiguity( 2022-12)This creative-based research comprises a folio of original compositions, totalling two hours of music, and a written exegesis of 25,000 words. The portfolio explores the developing influence of a “dirty-beautiful” aesthetic, reflecting both a poetic worldview and preferences that shape a compositional language and sound world. Parallels are drawn with the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi and seeking beauty in the unusual, perishable, blurred or dimly lit shadow. A preference for creating dualities in order to dissolve them to reach a space in-between is established, particularly through an exploration of themes of lightness and darkness. Choices concerning register, timbre, activity and stasis, harmony and texture are situated on a continuum, building the foundations of this personal compositional style. The folio of compositions includes orchestral works, a flute concerto and four chamber works, plus a staged musical work for young audiences. A framework for reading music for wabi-sabi qualities is established and underpins the conceptually based qualities for writing music that I term “dirty-beautiful”. These qualities are paralleled most clearly in the music of Kaija Saariaho and Toru Takemitsu. Notions on how vulnerability might inform musical ideas and composition are also explored through both textural, sonic forms and personal experience relating to identity, gender and the notion of giving voice through in-depth analysis of many folio works. The accompanying folio of music compositions was composed between late 2014 and early 2019. It presents Arcane for symphony orchestra (2014-15); No Distant Place for piano, clarinet and violin (2015); Everything is Illuminated for violin, viola, cello, double bass, piano, percussion and harp (2016 rev. 2018); When We Speak for solo cello and fixed electroacoustic track (2016 rev. 2017-18); Strange Charisma for solo prepared harp (2019 rev. 2021); Flute Concerto (2017); excerpts from The Owl and the Pussycat, an opera for young audiences (2017–18) and Penumbral Shadow for chamber orchestra (2018–19). I arrive at a point where I am able to question and evaluate what writing music means to me as a composer.
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ItemExploring How Music Therapists Describe Constructing Safety with Young People with Adverse or Traumatic Experiences( 2023-05)Abstract This thesis is an investigation of safety and music therapy in the context of trauma. Herman (2015) describes safety as one of the critical and foremost elements in trauma care. However, there exists little research exploring the importance of safety and inspecting the role of music and music therapy in assisting the creation of safety, as evidenced from the results of the Critical Interpretive Synthesis (CIS). It highlights the need for empirical research into strategies that music therapists engage to create safety. The present qualitative study engaged hermeneutic phenomenology to reveal insights from eighteen experienced music therapists from eleven countries volunteering to participate in the project. Each of the participants have had between 7 and 35 years of experience working with diverse scenarios within the field of trauma. Online zoom interviews were conducted to capture participants' perspectives on safety and their experiences of providing safety in their programs. An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith et al., 2009) was used to process the interview transcriptions. Participants shared their detailed and insightful knowledge into music therapy and creating safety, which resulted in identifying five emergent themes: safety space, semi-structured program, gentle and respectful facilitation strategies, regular supervision and self-care, and methods used in the program. Safety seems to be a concept that promotes containment and connection through offering control and choice making, negotiation and communication, and providing opportunities for self-expression and self-exploration. Incorporating these findings with relevant literature, I have constructed the concept of a music therapy container, to help music therapists working with traumatised young people to understand how to provide safety in the program. The container includes the five refined components: a safe room; familiarity and predictability; choice-making and control; the therapist's personal qualities; and musical affordances. Each of the components contribute to the creation of physical, environmental, and psychological safety in the program. Importantly, music therapy facilitated with caution affords a space without judgement, a sense of equality and safety for individual expression even within such a complex and unpredictable context. Without forcing individuals, nor focusing only on trauma, the creation of safety in music therapy sessions seems to afford young trauma survivors and therapists alike a container for being and responding. The participants shared similar views on a few crucial elements that promote this connection: being flexible, going with the flow, and taking a client-centred approach. The flexibility that the participants provide creates room for self-exploration and feelings of safety by the individuals. Music therapy can offer a space of respite, relaxation and security, coupled with experiences that may enable individuals to have a broader container for their trauma and assist in self-regulation. Therefore, gaining fundamental tools to assist the therapists connect and engage with individuals can increase the feeling of calmness and perhaps feeling more stable and safer in the program and beyond.
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ItemThe Mutability of Bach: New Arrangements of J.S. Bach’s Accompanied Violin Music for the Saxophone( 2022-12)Since the invention of the saxophone in the 1840s, the practice of arrangement has played a pivotal role in developing and enriching the instrument’s repertoire. This project explores the repertoire of the concert saxophone, with a special focus on the use of new and existing arrangements of works by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750). Repertoire included in the project follows a tradition of saxophonists of the last century combining original works with arrangements of works for other instruments to add musical variety to their programs and recordings. This performance-based thesis consists of a performance folio of 210 minutes, comprising 75% of the overall project, and a written dissertation of 25,000 words (25%). The folio includes a combination of live and studio recordings presented as three distinct programs: a survey of original saxophone repertoire, existing arrangements of Bach for the saxophone, and the new editions of the five selected works. This practice-led thesis expands the repertory by creating new arrangements of five accompanied violin works by J.S. Bach: Concerto in A minor BWV 1041, Concerto in E major BWV 1042, Sonata in G major BWV 1021, Sonata in E minor BWV 1023, and Fugue in G minor BWV 1026. The process behind the development of these new Bach arrangements for the saxophone is explored in the dissertation, informed by a study of Bach’s own practice as an arranger. Complementary analysis of arrangement techniques utilised by saxophonists and other wind players since the middle of the twentieth century provides further context for the creation of new arrangements. Through this analysis, a set of general arrangement principles are established and employed to resolve areas of significant conflict between the technical capabilities of the violin and the soprano saxophone. Issues of tessitura, multiple stopping, and phrasing and breathing are addressed to ensure the new editions are idiomatic for the saxophone. The complete, notated arrangements are included as appendices to the dissertation.
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ItemA Performer’s Interpretation of Francis Poulenc’s Sonate pour hautbois et piano FP185 as a Reflection of Anticipatory Grief and the Grieving Process( 2023-03)Since its posthumous premiere at the Strasbourg Music Festival of 1963, Francis Poulenc’s (1899–1963) Sonate pour hautbois et piano FP185 (1962) has been a staple of the oboe repertoire worldwide, being regularly listed as an option on AMEB, ABRSM and repertoire lists ranging from the 1966 McGinnis and Marx Music Publishers’ catalogue of oboe music to the Vienna Symphonic Library’s current selection of suggested oboe repertoire. Poulenc’s dedication of the work 'In memory of Sergei Prokofiev' is often cited as the piece’s impetus as well as its subtext, implying that the work’s purpose is to serve as a tribute to a close friend of the composer and that this explains its melancholic character. In examining the content of the Sonate and its surrounding context within Poulenc’s life and career, however, another interpretation can be offered, which views the work as a reflection of Poulenc’s anxiety, or Anticipatory Grief, over his own pending mortality. This can be highlighted in the music through analysing the development of the Sonate’s motivic material in terms of the grief- processing theories of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (and, later, her co-author David Kessler), Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut. In practice, viewing the work in this light can offer a relatable and meaningful approach to this key piece of the oboe repertoire that is structured yet uniquely flexible based on the performers’ unique experiences with grief. The thesis below, which is approximately 24,000 words, constitutes 25 percent of the final research output for this PhD. The remaining 75 percent has been provided separately as a creative portfolio of approximately 216 minutes of live concert and studio recordings that demonstrate a variety of stylistic approaches and techniques, spanning from Mozart’s 1777 Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra to one of my most recent Australian commissions from 2022. I have grouped the recordings (both video and audio) into three conceptual programs representing the influences, persona, and proposed Anticipatory Grief of Francis Poulenc: PROGRAM 1: Inspiration and Les Six PROGRAM 2: Poulenc the Paradoxical PROGRAM 3: Grief, Introspection, and the Temporal Dilemma A full outline of each program, including recording details, can be found in Appendix A.