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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ItemBorder crossing: tracing the influences of Brazilian guitarist Yamandu Costa( 2018)Born in 1980 in Rio Grande do Sul, Yamandu Costa is one of Brazil’s most celebrated guitarists. Yamandu Costa began his musical journey at the age of seven, taking informal guitar lessons from his father, Algacir Costa. Raised in a musical family, his childhood was marked by extensive touring alongside the family band, who made their living from entertaining at vibrant dance parties across Brazil. His father was the leader of the band Os Fronteiriços, whose music was rooted in the regional music of southern Brazil, known there as música gaúcha (gaúcho music). Amidst this inherently regional upbringing, Yamandu Costa’s music was shaped and influenced by the gaúcho culture and music of southern Brazil and Argentina. In addition, the migration of Argentinian guitarist Lucio Yanel to Rio Grande do Sul in 1982 had a major impact on the life and music of Yamandu Costa. Finding lodging at the Costa family home in Passo Fundo during the initial period of his migration, Yanel brought with him to Brazil his guitar music, rooted heavily in the folkloric regional styles of Argentina. The young Yamandu Costa found a musical mentor in Yanel, resulting in a musical career that would come to be heavily influenced by Yanel’s pioneering approach to gaúcho music as a guitar soloist. A composer and virtuoso guitarist, the presence of Yamandu Costa’s gaúcho identity is unmistakable. Yamandu Costa frequently draws upon idiomatic instrumental and compositional techniques indicative of his gaúcho music influences. His music is eclectic, as he pieces together a mosaic of diverse Brazilian music styles like choro with Argentinian chamamé, chacarera and zamba. Through an analysis of five original works, this thesis illuminates the influences of Yamandu Costa and demonstrates the presence of gaúcho musical idioms in his music. The analysis is contextualised amidst biographical details, and investigates his formative years spent in Rio Grande do Sul and his relationship with Lucio Yanel, which are critical to his musical formation. The legacy of Yanel’s presence in Rio Grande do Sul is measured by an analysis of parallels in guitar technique between Yanel and Yamandu Costa, and demonstrates the musical cues the protégé has taken from his mentor. This thesis shows that Yamandu Costa’s roots in gaúcho music distinguish him amongst the Brazilian guitar landscape.