Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemExploring the rehabilitative potential of familiar song for paediatric patients presenting with an acute disorder of consciousness( 2023)This thesis includes four studies that contribute to the exploration of the rehabilitative potential of familiar song for children presenting with an acute disorder of consciousness (DoC) following severe acquired brain injury (ABI). A DoC is common sequelae of severe ABI in children, and is the result of a sudden interruption in the complex interplay of arousal and awareness. While evidence supporting the use of music in the assessment and treatment of adults presenting with a DoC continues to emerge, the unique developmental context of paediatric ABI necessitates child specific research. Four discrete studies are included in thesis and contribute to the research agenda of describing the behavioural and neural responses to familiar song of children presenting with an acute DoC. The systematic review ‘The Neurophysiological Processing of Music in Children: A Systematic Review with Narrative Synthesis and Considerations for Clinical Practice in Music Therapy’ included 46 neuroimaging studies describing music processing in neurotypical children aged 0-18 years. The narrative synthesis yielded a timeline of significant developments of musical processing. Further, comprehensive considerations for clinical practice for music therapists working with paediatric neurologic population were developed. The results of the systematic review provide a theoretical foundation for the use of familiar song to support consciousness recovery in children presenting with a DoC. When developing the study to empirically describe the neural and behavioural responses to familiar song of children presenting with an acute DoC, it was necessary to first develop a tool to objectively describe behavioural responses. The Music Interventions in Paediatric DoC Behaviour Observation Record (MBR) was developed and piloted. Results of the pilot established that the MBR has content validity, and sufficient inter-rater-reliability to objectively capture the subtle and idiosyncratic responses of children presenting with a DoC during a music therapy intervention. Subsequent to the completion of the pilot, the MBR was utilised in the collection of behavioural data in the case study of a child presenting with an acute DoC The use of EEG in music therapy research with children presenting with a DoC affords the opportunity to describe responses even in the absence of an observable behaviour. To pilot the use of EEG with children, a feasibility study (n = 4) was undertaken using data pragmatically collected within the acute hospital setting. Unique changes in the underlying frequency components of the EEG were recorded during the song condition that were not observed in either the comparative speech or noise conditions. The study showed feasibility of a uniquely hypothesis driven method of multivariate EEG analysis, and added to the current knowledge base by describing the EEG signal in response to whole song as an ecologically valid music stimulus. The piloting of the MBR and multivariate method of EEG analysis ultimately supported the development of multiple baseline crossover case study, of an 11-year old presenting with an acute DoC, in which the behavioural and neural responses to song were described. For this child, familiar song was found to stimulate a greater behavioural and neural response, indicative of an increase in arousal and awareness, than comparative speech or noise conditions. This study provides foundational evidence supporting the use of familiar song to increase consciousness in children presenting with an acute DoC following severe ABI
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ItemLatvian Classical Violin Music in Transition, 1980-2000( 2022)This research explores classical music in Latvia during the period of the Baltic Revolution, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet transition. Culture played a major role in this time. As Latvia became independent, it also sought a new, individual voice in music. This research explores the impact of the economic and politic changes on Latvian classical music with a focus on violin through interviews with musicians, newspapers and violin music as a medium reflecting this exciting time in Latvia's history. The thesis comprises 25% of the total submission for the PhD in Music (Performance) and complements the creative portfolio of recordings.
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ItemFolio of works exploring a genre spectrum that spans contemporary classical music to popular songwriting( 2022)This thesis is a 99-minute folio of nine original chamber, orchestral and popular contemporary works and an accompanying dissertation. The folio explores a genre-spectrum that spans contemporary classical music to popular songwriting, with a large, genre-hybrid song cycle for orchestra, voice and electronics as the centrepiece. Volume I comprises scores and audio of the works. Volume II is a dissertation of 24,000 words that illuminates the folio works, using score excerpts, sketches, drafts, graphs, screen-shots of notation software and audio examples to provide depth to the analysis. The following research questions are addressed: What is the impact of different software programs (or use of none) on my composition process and resultant outcomes? How can I use and include techniques from both classical and popular music styles to write unique and cohesive new music? What are some recurrent elements of my compositional voice across different genres, and are these elements conscious or unconscious? How can I best repurpose sketched material across genres as a novel means of material generation?
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ItemThe Reception of Dmitri Shostakovich in France, 1934–2000( 2022)In 1989, the French record company Le Chant du Monde sponsored a year-long festival dedicated to the music of the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975). Coinciding with the bicentennial of the French revolution and the restructuring of the Soviet Union, this ‘Annee Chostakovitch’ included the French premiere of the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (1932), French releases of earlier Soviet recordings of Shostakovich’s music, and a revival of the composer’s fifteen symphonies. The festival came more than fifty years after Shostakovich’s music was first heard in France: when his popular song ‘Au-devant de la vie’ became the anthem of the Front populaire movement in 1930s Paris, and his Fifth Symphony was promoted by French Communists in Paris in June 1938. This thesis maps the trajectory of Shostakovich’s music in France from late 1934—the year in which his music first gained notoriety in Paris—to the end of the twentieth century. Using ideas from reception theory, it interrogates a wide cross-section of press and other print sources from Paris and the French provinces containing critical discussions of Shostakovich’s fifteen symphonies, his opera Lady Macbeth, and his song ‘Au-devant de la vie.’ In addition to expanding the literature on musical life in France, this thesis complements existing studies of Shostakovich reception in the United States of America, Britain, and Germany. The thesis is structured chronologically in five chapters, preceded by an Introduction and followed by a short Conclusion. It situates critical responses to Shostakovich’s music within France’s evolving political landscape, and suggests that these responses were shaped largely by France’s shifting relations with the Soviet Union, the rising and falling influence of the French Communist Party, as well as trends and preferences in French musical life. I also conclude that writing about Shostakovich’s music throughout the twentieth century served as a means for French critics to articulate their ideas, opinions, and concerns about the USSR.
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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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ItemSelf-Sampling in a Multimedia Practice: An Exploration of Sampling Transformation Techniques & Typologies( 2022)Digital sampling has become a prevalent creative technique in contemporary music and multimedia practices. It allows a practitioner to sample existing recorded media and recontextualise it through a multitude of transformation techniques, offering a potent creative tool that has been utilised by many artists to create new works and develop an individual artistic aesthetic. The transformation of media also allows the identity of artistic works to remain fluid - rather than fixed - as the recontextualisation of media pluralises the outcomes of singular events. This practice-led research project comprises a folio of multimedia works and an accompanying dissertation that investigate the use of self-sampling: where the sampled media originates from within the practice itself, rather than being externally sourced. This allows an individual creative aesthetic to emerge through the transformation and recontextualisation of self-made media. A secondary benefit to this approach is that the legal and ethical issues that influence sample-based practices are avoided by removing externally-sourced media; instead focusing on the techniques of transformation, without concern for sample ownership. Alongside these legal and ethical concerns, the process of examining sample-based music can be difficult due to the reliance on aural analysis methods - as heavily transformed samples may escape identification without additional knowledge of the media origin. The analytical tools used in this process can also suffer from a lack of standardised terminology and inconsistent methods of sample categorisation. To aid the process of analysing the works, a Typology of Sampling Transformation Techniques has been developed and is presented in this dissertation. This typology is used to analyse and categorise the techniques of transformation that have been used within the folio of works, uncovering methods and approaches of the creative practice that may otherwise remain veiled.
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ItemThe Performer as Researcher, the Researcher as Performer: Articulating Arnold Schoenberg’s Connection with Johann Sebastian Bach through a Topically Informed Performance of His Complete Works for Solo Piano( 2022)The music of Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) can be difficult for listeners and performers, who often find it cerebral and hard to understand. In this project, I take up the challenge of how pianists can present an eloquent performance—comprehensible and emotionally appealing to listeners—of Schoenberg’s complete works for solo piano. I seek the inspiration behind the music, contending that a listener can see past the image of Schoenberg as a controversial and intellectual composer, and better appreciate and connect with his compositions, if a performer makes artistic choices to emphasise his continuity with the past. I narrow down the problem to Schoenberg’s connection with one composer: Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). I face this challenge as a performer as well as a scholar. The project consists of a thesis and a folio of performances. In the thesis, I substantiate the Schoenberg-Bach connection with a close reading of Schoenberg’s comments on Bach in his writings and a topical analysis of references to Baroque conventions in his piano works; in the folio, I demonstrate this connection through my recording of these works. I argue that the connection with Bach, which is explicit in Schoenberg’s writings, should also be implicit in his music, at both deeper and surface levels. The connection between the composers can, therefore, be illuminated in a topically informed performance of Schoenberg’s piano music. The performance folio features my recordings of Schoenberg’s complete published works for solo piano. This folio also includes my recordings of a selection of Bach’s works for solo keyboard, some of which illustrate the connection between the composers. The criterion for this selection of Bach pieces is that Schoenberg mentioned them in his writings. The first chapter of the thesis provides a literature review of existing scholarship on Schoenberg’s connection with Bach, his works for solo piano, and his use of topics. The second chapter outlines my theory and methods: three guiding ideas (haptic knowledge, Schoenberg’s perception of Bach, and musical topics) and three strategies (practice-led research, close reading, and topical analysis). This chapter also presents an original music-specific and performance-related methodology: the artistic-research interaction model. Chapter 3 offers a close reading of Schoenberg’s comments on Bach in the totality of his writings. Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7 present a topical analysis of musical figures in Schoenberg’s piano music that can be connected to Baroque conventions. These include Baroque dance, the learned style, the Baroque improvisatory keyboard style, and the pianto. In the conclusion, I outline and anticipate further research into Schoenberg’s piano music, his connections with previous composers, and his use of topics. The thesis concludes with a reflection on the contribution of this project to the field of artistic research, as well as the potential of the interaction model developed and applied here for performer-scholars.
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ItemLooking for the Gold – A critical ethnographic study using drama therapy to explore voice, agency and power at the intersection of private and public life in aged care( 2022)This thesis details a critical ethnographic, drama therapy practice-based study examining the interconnectedness of aged care residents’ lived experiences within their socio-cultural environment. This was an emergent study that evolved over four cycles: (1) critical interpretative synthesis of the literature, which helped guide and shape the research design; (2) participant observations within the chosen research community (residential care home); (3) drama therapy (DT) workshops with a small group of residents; (4) semi-structured interviews upon finishing the DT workshops. The study examined the structures and dynamics of power within the research community and explored aged care from a broader socio-economic perspective in Australia. The findings illustrated a complex living environment with a lack of distinct boundaries between the private and the public spheres of residents’ lives. The findings show that negotiating these circumstances inevitably impacted the residents’ ability to enact their voice and agency within their living context. Against this backdrop, the study explored the role that drama therapy can have within the research community. The findings demonstrated that the active and collaborative processes in drama therapy enabled resident-participants to take ownership of their creative participation and witness themselves and others from a new perspective. The creative engagement in the DT group further enabled the participants to deconstruct their institutionalised, cultural, and social identities and explore a renewed sense of self. This transformative process empowered the participants to enact their voice and agency and meaningfully engage in the cultural shift within their home community, reporting a newly found sense of belonging within the DT group. This study makes recommendations for aged care settings to go beyond the mere accommodation of residents’ basic care needs and safety and equally address the disempowering nature of institutionalised living. The study demonstrates that drama therapy methods facilitated by a skilled therapist have the capacity to engage aged care participants in a compelling creative process in which they can exercise their voice and agency, direct their own narrative, and inform the wider socio-cultural system of their lived realities.
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ItemAn Ontology of Noise: Electro-Acoustic Improvisation as Focal Practice( 2022)‘Noise’ has played an increasingly prominent role in contemporary art making. Composers, popular musicians, and improvisers have long employed noise as both subversion and assertion of musical expression. Additionally, film makers and visual artists have adopted noisy practices to dissolve form, identity and meaning. Such aesthetic approaches to music and art making prompt us to question and re engage with our experience of the world in different ways. Additionally, the use of noise often involves the development of new ways of conceiving of and using technology associated within a given medium. This thesis interrogates the use and meaning of noise within the context of the author’s practice of improvising music with the drum kit and synthesis. It also examines the turn of this electro-acoustic practice toward the inclusion of a visual component. In doing so, the thesis questions the determinism of the technology employed within the practice through an ontological consideration of noise as vibratory, temporal phenomenon, and as source of indeterminacy. The investigation is initially parsed through Heideggerian perceptual and ontological categories, with a focus on the idea of ‘focal practices’. These ontological categories are then contrasted and advanced in light of Attali’s structuralist notions of noise with particular reference to his codes of ‘repeating’ and ‘composing’. The resulting insights and ideas are then employed in the critique of the practice-led research completed alongside the thesis, including the creation of installed, site specific, audio and audio / visual works. Throughout the thesis, the discussion advances the understanding of how ‘focal’ engagements with technology – those that seek to reduce its dehumanising potential – may allow for richer engagements between sound, noise, and place, and with human being-in-the-world more generally. To conclude, further possibilities and implications for arts practice, production, and reception are introduced.
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ItemHushed Tones: Inaudible Music in Hollywood Docudramas 2005-2015( 2022)This study investigates the effacement of music within Hollywood-produced docudramas of the early twenty-first century. It argues that inaudible film scores (concealed by filmmakers and ‘unheard’ by audiences) contribute to a rhetoric of fidelity and sobriety in these films. The scores’ effacement may be observed as an intention of the filmmakers and as features within a soundtrack, as well as within the traces of audience reception. This thesis proposes a framework to discuss the audibility of music in film, which informs the investigation of a series of docudramas—films based on real events—that were nominated for the top accolade at the Academy Awards between 2005 and 2015. While the effacement of film music has been loosely associated with realism in past scholarship, what that term might exactly mean was not explored in detail. As Hollywood-produced docudramas combine documentary claims with classical narrative forms, they offer a potentially rich sphere to seek and examine inaudibility. It can be argued that the cultures within these productions treat music as problematic and that established composers must contend with this issue. Detailed analyses of the film scores for Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight (2015), Paul Greengrass’ Captain Phillips (2013), and Ben Affleck’s Argo (2012) are presented. The examination of these scores’ cue placement, formal design, style, and functions reveals old and new practices intended to efface film music. Discussions dedicated to inaudibility are absent from recent literature. Musical effacement was initially theorised to dominate the scores of Hollywood’s golden age, however doubts about those theories and changes in academic focus have led to a period of neglect. Cognitive models of perception inform a revision of previous concepts, which also incorporates other critiques and takes recent film practices into account. The effect of attention upon film music functions suggests how traces of listening, such as reviews and fan texts about the films and their soundtracks, may also indicate a score’s relative audibility.