Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses

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    Blobs, Buzz and Rapid Patterning: Intra-Active Tools for Composition, Improvisation and Analysis
    Franklin, Joseph Phillip ( 2020)
    The world-renowned tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain once said a musician should “allow the instrument to speak” and “discover what the instrument wants to do.” After hearing this I was intrigued, inspired, and deeply unsettled. What do these statements mean? Are they meant literally or figuratively? Is it possible for an instrument to have agency? And what would it mean for an instrument to be an agent? More specifically, what would that mean for musical praxis? In this thesis, I examine conventional dichotomies and dualisms between human/non-human, theory/praxis and composer/improviser. I propose a language and framework for thinking about composing and improvising that draws on new materialist and object-oriented ontology philosophies. By considering human-instrument-concept intra-actions, this framework critiques the notions of the genius and virtuoso while providing a language to conceptualise my own creative work and that of other contemporary musicians. Central to my thinking are the concepts of blobs, buzz and rapid patterning, which are explored in diverse sonic, visual, social, environmental, biological, zoological and paradigmatic examples.