Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses

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    The personality profile of Australian music therapists
    Holmes, Matthew John ( 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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    Music and criticism: a study of some trends during the twentieth century
    Samson, Patricia Woraine ( 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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    Rediscovering Mirrie Hill (1889-1986): composer in her own right
    Pearce, Rowena ( 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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    Tan Dun's death and fire: ad parnassum, animals and Paul Klee
    Chung, Ai Lay ( 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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    Music and the ordinary listener: music appreciation and the media in England, 1918-1939
    Prictor, Megan Joy ( 2000)
    This study examines the nature and impact of the music appreciation movement in England between 1918 and 1939. Protagonists of this movement, notably Percy Scholes and Sir Walford Davies, sought to foster a love of "good" music amongst the listening public, through written and verbal expositions of composers, works and music history. This thesis draws on hitherto untapped archival resources of the British Broadcasting Corporation, Oxford University Press and Percy Scholes' own papers (held in the National Library of Canada). It contextualises the movement both musically and socially, examining diverse efforts to inculcate musical taste. Inexpensive music appreciation books such as Dent's Master Musicians series and Kegan Paul's The Music-Lover’s Library were immensely popular. A case study of the contribution to music appreciation of Oxford University Press, with its Musical Pilgrim series, is followed by an exploration of Percy Scholes' contribution to the popular literature on music. Scholes' Oxford Companion to Music crowned his association with the Press. The public-service policies and programming of the British Broadcasting Company (established in 1923) were of profound importance in the development of music education for the mass public. Programming of the long-running Foundations of Music series is assessed to determine the content of the music appreciation "canon" of works, and BBC publications which supported such programmes are also examined. Percy Scholes and Walford Davies were prominent BBC figures who broadcast to the "ordinary listener" on a regular basis throughout the inter-war period. The nature and impact of educational gramophone records and, perhaps the most striking medium of music appreciation, annotated player piano rolls produced by the Aeolian Company, are similarly explored in detail. Throughout this study, documentary evidence - particularly that of letters from individual listeners - of the reception of these various music appreciation endeavours is incorporated. This facilitates a comprehensive understanding of the place of serious music in the lives of English people during the 1920s and 1930s, restoring the balance in a field of scholarship hitherto focussed narrowly on the achievements of composers during the English Musical Renaissance.
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    Lineages of Garcia-Marchesi and other traditional Italian vocal pedagogy in Australia, 1850-1950
    Williams, Beth Mary ( 2002-09)
    Operatic and vocal history in Australia has received, since the 1960s, increasing attention from a body of researchers who have documented Australian performance traditions. Pedagogical traditions in Australia have been largely neglected however, and it is hoped that this thesis will contribute to ongoing studies in this area of Australian musical scholarship. Vocal pedagogy in Australia is largely derived from European models, yet many vocal teachers in Australia of the present day have little or no idea of the origins of their technique. After mapping pedagogical lineages of vocal teachers throughout Australia from 1850 to 1950, an attempt has been made to document and analyse the history of vocal pedagogy in Australia, particularly the influence of the vocal technique originating from the teaching of Manuel Garcia and his pupil Mathilde Marchesi, and other teachers trained in traditional Italian vocal technique. The thesis demonstrates that pedagogical lineages have special meaning and relevance in the historical study of vocal pedagogy and performance practice. Although the research maintains as its primary focus, the dissemination and influence of the traditional Italian and Garcia-Marchesi technique in vocal pedagogy in Australia, considerable effort has been undertaken to allow as complex as possible an understanding of the broader vocal pedagogical climate in musical centres of Australia.
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    The markers of interplay between the music therapist and the medically fragile newborn infant
    SHOEMARK, HELEN ( 2007)
    An emergent qualitative design provided the scaffolding for the micro-analysis of video footage and subsequent video-cued discussion with four reviewers. The collated material was used to prepare thick descriptions which were annotated for infant and therapist behaviours. A further thematic analysis of these behaviours provided 14 sets of behaviours used by the medically fragile newborn infants to indicate availability for interplay and 20 sets of behaviours used by the therapist in response to the infant. The interaction of these categorised behaviours provided seven markers of interplay between the music therapist and the medically fragile newborn infant.
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    Where heaven and earth meet : the buklog of the Subanen in Zamboanga Peninsula, Western Mindanao, the Philippines
    Berdon-Georsua, Racquel ( 2004-02)
    This thesis examines the music of the Subanen people of the Zamboanga Peninsula in western Mindanao, the Philippines through an investigation of their most important ceremony, the Buklog. Esteemed as the most elaborate and expensive socio-religious festival of the Subanen, the Buklog derives its name from a wooden structure holding the dancing platform called buklog. The Buklog is generally celebrated to propitiate the gods in some specific event in which the entire Subanen community participates. The occasion may be a thanksgiving for a bountiful harvest, for healing, or for prestige for a new leader or a home comer. A Buklog may also be held as a memorial for the recent dead to reinstate their souls to heaven or as a fulfilment of a ritual vow or debt to restore order and salvation to creation after natural disasters, calamities and epidemics. The thesis is based on a detailed analysis of a Buklog celebration held in Dampalan, Pagadian City in May 2002. It describes the social life and cosmological ordering principles of Subanen society in general, identifies the common principles underlying the Buklog ritual and the myth expressly associated with it, and relates the sound and social structures and organisation found in the special performative and musical processes in the whole Buklog complex. This study of the Buklog begins by presenting the context of Subanen society. Contained in Chapters 1, 2 and 3, this background bears upon understanding of the Buklog as the aural embodiment of Subanen social and cosmological organisation. Chapter 1 describes the specific concepts that are central to Subanen cosmological system and worldview. Chapter 2 charts the organising principles related to the domains that are considered more practical, real and concrete in Subanen social life and organisation. Chapter 3 explores the relationship between the natural, social and mythical worlds of the Subanen through the general coherence of the symbols and meanings depicted in the Buklog myths and rituals. The analysis that occupies Chapters 4, 5 and 6 elucidates the connections between the structural features of Subanen social and cosmological systems and the contextual-performative framework of the Buklog in which meaningful and material processes are ordered. Chapter 4 focuses on the preparation of the Buklog's sacred implements and ritual space. Chapter 5 illustrates the customary characteristics and the practical sequences of the attendant rituals, and the intentions, effects or transformations for performing them. Chapter 6 analyses the three special performative processes of the Buklog: the Giloy (vocal genre), Gbat (dance), and Guni Gusharan (instrumental genre) and shows the common underlying principles between these genres and Subanen cosmological and social life. Together, the three chapters describe the total performance contexts of an actual Buklog that I witnessed in Dampalan in 2002 by examining the different symbolism and meanings of the various ritual paraphernalia, actions, sounds, visions and use of music in the preparation and performance of these rituals. The final chapter provides the summary and conclusion.
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    From sound effect to sound design: the development of a dramaturgical model for sound design in Rebecca – the musical
    Purcell, Kevin J. ( 2005-01)
    This dissertation presents a notional model, as a taxonomic system, to describe dramaturgical elements of sound design in musicals. Developed in tandem with a prototype virtual environment interface - termed ‘The MaxStage’ - and authored in the Max/MSP software, the thesis uses Rebecca - the musical as a case study to test the efficacy of the model. Rebecca - the musical is in the form of a Broadway-style musical. Consisting of two Acts, the work is an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s novel of the same name. Whereas the technical art and practice of sound design for large-scale Musicals is increasingly well documented, the art form of sound design as a dramaturgical element in its own right, has received less attention. Analyses of the rôle of Sound-Designers in the theatre have tended to perpetuate the concept that sound design is commensurate with sound reinforcement. This tendency, however, delimits the creative potential of sound design to inform and elucidate the drama, as an extension of the musical score. A potentially more fluid interrelationship between music and sound design is postulated, as observed in the work of Sound-Designers for interactive computer games. As an electronic form of non-linear theatre, it is argued that new methodologies in adaptive-audio techniques, increasingly evident in computer gaming design, are relevant in defining an invigorated dramaturgy for sound design within the stage theatrical context.
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    Music therapy's relevance in a cancer hospital researched through a constructivist lens
    O'CALLAGHAN, CLARE ( 2001-09)
    A constructivist research paradigm informed an investigation of the relevance of music therapy (MT) in a cancer hospital, that is, (a) what did MT do(?) and (b) did it help? Over three months, criterion sampling was used to elicit interpretations from five sources: 128 patients who participated in MT, 27 patients who overheard or witnessed MT, 41 visitors, 62 staff, and the researcher who was also the MT clinician in this study. The researcher’s interpretations were recorded in a reflexive clinical journal and the respondents’ interpretations were written on anonymous open-ended questionnaires. The MT program was predominantly characterised by the use of patient and visitor selected live music. Thematic analysis, informed by grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1990), and content analyses were performed on the five groups of data with the support of ATLAS/ti (Muhr, 1997) software. Many patients and visitors who experienced MT reported that MT elicited a range of affective responses and altered imaginings. Responses were especially characterised by memories being revisited but also characterised by the respondents’ “transportation” to new spaces or thoughts and physical sensations. Some staff and patients who overheard MT also reported similar experiences. The researcher, and often staff and visitors, also perceived that MT elicited affective and imagined sensations in patients.