Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses

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    Mga awit mula sa kalooblooban: finding Filipino national identity in song: a contextualisation and analysis of prison songs written during the Marcos regime
    Mckinnon, James Emmanuel ( 2019)
    The Marcos dictatorship pushed identity into new spaces as a matter of necessity during the martial law period in the Philippines in the late twentieth century. During this time voices were suppressed, and culture limited in its ability to be critical. The representation of core tenants of a society’s character in its art and culture is a well-understood concept, and when layers of colonialism, political dictatorship, and the restricted liberty are added into this context, a different perceptive can be understood about the way that society is under duress. This thesis argues that songs written in the Philippines between 1972 and 1983 by political prisoners reflected qualities in national identity. This thesis will outline the deeper historical context of the prison songs and analyse a number of important influences on them in order to tie the threads of Filipino history together across centuries and generations. This thesis shows how identity reflected influences on the Philippines and how subsequent qualities manifest within art. Furthermore, using the Marcos martial law period as an example of this, the way in which that identity was shaped, challenged, and moulded to express discontent with the governmental practices. Within this, songs and poems were written by political prisoners’ act as representations of those actions and propose and conceptualise a perspective on the past and present that give to the future.
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    From resistance to incorporation: how Kendrick Lamar turned from Black saviour to Black salesman
    Meepe, Krishan ( 2019)
    Rapper Kendrick Lamar came to prominence with his 2015 album, To Pimp A Butterfly, an album built upon a platform of political resistance and Black liberation. However, on his 2017 album, DAMN., we see him move away from this political standpoint and cater to a mainstream audience. This thesis examines how this shift manifests and how Black artists fall victim to the process of incorporation by the mainstream culture industry. As racial symbolism is commodified and consumed by mainstream audiences, who may ignore or misread the political history of hip hop and Black resistance, how can Black identities remain authentic? How can racial minorities attain liberation from white supremacy?
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    Changing landscapes and soundscapes: the guitar in 1960s film Westerns
    Rotin, Julian Salvatore ( 2019)
    The Western film genre has long served as a staple of Hollywood filmmaking and has thus been characterised, at least in its early forms, as a uniquely American film genre. The Western is immediately recognisable from its visual iconography: the cowboy, horses, Colt and Smith and Wesson revolvers, train robberies, outlaws, Indians, Mexicans, shoot-outs, gold shipments, brothels, and bars. Equally important to its characterisation is the music that accompanies these visuals, both in diegesis and underscore. From the nineteenth century onwards, the guitar has been connected with notions of the ‘frontiersman’ and ‘cowboy’ and has thus developed a close association with the Western in films from the twentieth century. During the 1960s the Western genre underwent its most dramatic transformation. In response to growing sentiments in popular culture that the Western was reinforcing a false narrative of American frontier history the genre begins to shift in semantic and syntactic content. As such this thesis focuses specifically on the representations of the guitar in the Western during this period. Beginning with psychological Westerns that emerge from Hollywood in the late 1950s, the guitar is inextricably connected with notions of American and Hispano-American identities. Moving into the 1960s we begin to see a distinct revisionism in Hollywood and international filmmaking and the guitar adopts a more nuanced position. The films of Sergio Leone, with music composed by Ennio Morricone, present a ‘modernised’ and popular usage of the electric guitar, as well as presenting contemporary evocations of acoustic Spanish classical guitar repertoire. Finally, the films of Sam Peckinpah utilise the guitar in a definitely revisionist framework. The guitar is shown to be a folkloric marker for Mexican identity as well as a medium for the contemporary and popular song-based score.
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    The use of irrational time signatures in Thomas Adès’ works
    Wheatley, Justeen ( 2019)
    A host of institutions, the Western art world, and the musicological community at large engage in a continual discourse to explore, test, and invent new concrete avenues to record and accurately communicate artistic expression. Although the language of music has undergone considerable developments in melodic and harmonic theories and practices over the past few centuries, mainstream musicological dialogue has yet to focus on rhythmic and (particularly) metrical advancement. Few composers have tested the bounds of musical metre, and fewer still have done so with as much acclaim as British composer Thomas Adès. Known as a prolific triple-threat (composer, pianist, and conductor), Adès has continued to make art music accessible while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of “New Music”. One compositional technique that has set his oeuvre apart is his recurrent application of irrational time signatures. Despite their frequent use of irrational time signatures, Adès’ works remain popular with performers and audiences alike. It is therefore hypothesised that the convention is used primarily to ease Adès’ communication of complex rhythmic ideas to the performer, to facilitate the process of learning and performing his works without hindering audible intelligibility. Through a thorough investigation and examination of Adès’ compositional output to date, it is the aim of this dissertation to ascertain some of the purposes of irrational time signatures. It is hoped that this will aid future composers’ apprehension and enrich performers’ interpretation of the convention.
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    Between two worlds: Erich Wolfgang Korngold and the underscoring of death, destiny and the otherworldly in Hollywood films of the 1940s
    Joseph-Jarecki, Stella ( 2018)
    How can musical underscoring be used in feature films to convey intangible concepts such as death, destiny and the afterlife? This thesis explores this question, with a focus on films with scores written by Erich Wolfgang Korngold during the 1940s. Korngold worked for Warner Bros. studios from 1935, and his compositional style was informed by his catalogue of operatic works. Korngold’s most famous scores are those written for swashbuckler adventure films such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), but this thesis aims to fill a gap and instead examines the psychologically-driven films of Korngold’s output. During the 1940s, the cultural environment of World War 2 meant that audiences were particularly receptive to ideas of mortality and spirituality. The lack of special effects technology available meant that musical underscoring played a pivotal role in bringing these themes to life on screen. The major case study of this thesis is Between Two Worlds (1944), a psychological drama which follows a group of passengers on board an ocean liner, unaware that it is bound for the afterlife. Between Two Worlds is examined within the context of other titles released in the 1940s which explored similar themes, with scores written by other composers. Three additional films scored by Korngold, The Sea Wolf (1941), King’s Row (1942) and The Constant Nymph (1943), provide further examples of musical techniques used to represent intangible themes such as destiny and mental instability. The research for this thesis was based on my own interpretation of the music, as unfortunately these film scores are unavailable for purchase and are stored in the Warner Bros. archive in California.
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    Music, politics and ideology: a critical look at the ideological perspectives that shape our observations of music and politics
    McIvor, Luke ( 2018)
    A critical look at the ideological perspectives that shape our observations of music and politics
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    Adapting classical Persian music to Jazz: a case study
    Valadi, Mohammadali ( 2018)
    This thesis introduces a method for Persian and jazz musicians to combine elements from both genres in their compositions and improvisations. Since earlier attempts to fuse Persian and jazz music have not been well documented, this study documents the process of composing, improvising and rehearsing Persian jazz music, including a thorough examination of my recorded compositions. After first considering jazz fusion, I examine some essential aspects of classical Persian music, such as Persian modes, meter, musical structure and instrumentation, in order to understand the classical Persian music elements. Next, I compare classical Persian music and jazz to demonstrate how these two genres may relate to each other. Finally, I consider my approach to composing in Persian jazz with some examples from my compositions. In the conclusion, I will address some issues about marketing.
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    Memorialising tragedy: bushfires, floods, 9/11, the Gulf War, and five minimalist influenced musical works
    Groch, Andrew ( 2017)
    Tragedy has long been tied to artistic response. Visual, dramatic, and musical artists have memorialised tragic events and the human reaction surrounding them. This is an important part of contributing to aeons of cultural history and creating memorial spaces. This thesis analyses a selection of works which memorialise tragedy: Symphony Da Pacem Domine for Orchestra (1991) by Ross Edwards, On the Transmigration of Souls for Orchestra, Chorus, Children’s Chorus and pre-recorded sounds (2004) by John Adams, WTC 9/11 for String Quartet and pre-recorded Voices and Strings or Three String Quartets and pre-recorded Voices (2011) by Steve Reich, Symphonia Eluvium for Orchestra and Choir (2011) by Elena Kats- Chernin, Fire Music for Orchestra (2011) by Brett Dean. The musical language of these compositions is examined to drive a discussion of how concepts such as vertical listening, Negative Space, and temporal experience facilitate their function as memorial spaces. By applying a framework of interdisciplinary techniques to the musical analysis, the investigation of these works is also considered in relation to sociological significance. This discussion attempts to better understand how composers writing in disparate styles might have recourse to Minimalist aesthetics in commemorating tragedy.
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    Vaios Malliaras: the formation of a folk clarinetist in the changing musical landscape of Greece 1920-1954
    Malliaras, Marios ( 2017)
    Examines the life and career of Vaios Malliaras, a Greek Folk Clarinettist from Lower Olympus, Thessaly, Greece during the Inter War Years of Greece 1918-1950.
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    An analysis of recordings of Johannes Brahms' Op. 118 No. 2
    Low, Stacey ( 2017)
    Johannes Brahms’ Intermezzo in A Major, Op. 118 No. 2, is a well known piece in the piano repertoire, and a piece that invites a variety of interpretations. Although phonomusicology, or the study of recorded music, is growing as a field, there are only a few studies on how pianists have interpreted this piece. In addition, 1997, the centenary year of Brahms’ death, saw several publications relating to the composer. This study analyses recordings from this year to 2007, in the context of nineteenth-century performance practice, research into performance markings peculiar to Brahms, and an analysis of the harmony and performance directions in the score. The analysis of the recordings in five sections, tempo, rubato, pedalling, dynamics and performance markings, and texture, revealed each interpretation was individualistic and the research into Brahms’ compositions published from 1997 had not affected interpretative choices. This may hint at twenty-first-century performance practice, and also paves the way for future investigations. These could include the effects of different instruments and hand sizes in the interpretation of Brahms’ music, and the analysis of recordings where the artist/s attempt nineteenth-century performance techniques.