Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 5 of 5
-
ItemFolio of Compositions( 2022)Drawing inspiration from the constant, internal movement of the human body, to the hum of cityscapes and stillness of the natural world, this portfolio seeks to provide the listener with a range of unique experiences which encourage them to hear everyday sounds in new ways. The resulting portfolio encompasses works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, and electronics. It takes inspiration from the author's experience as a medical doctor, with stethoscope recordings providing a window into the human body, while binaural recordings of the lived environment provide an immersive and meditative listening experience. It seeks to build upon the foundations set by the pioneers of Musique concrete and challenge conventional notions of music and sound.
-
ItemAn Analysis of Gideon Klein’s Music: Renewing Perspectives on a ‘Holocaust Composer’( 2022)Gideon Klein (1919-1945) was a Czech-Jewish pianist and composer born in Prerov. He later moved to Prague to pursue his high school and tertiary musical education until the invasion and annexation of Czechoslovakia, and establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia by Nazi Germany. His education was halted, mere months into his tertiary studies, and his performance career was curtailed to private performances, until he was deported to Theresienstadt on 4 December 1941, where he was interned and later moved to Furstengrube and murdered in late-January 1945. Musicologists and students have tended to focus on the final period of Klein’s life, often dismissing the works prior to his internment. Investigations often analyse specific works, interrogating them in isolation. My research takes a broader stance on Klein and his works, investigating his entire corpus demonstrating that his compositional development was continuous throughout his life. Klein’s identity has been reconstructed by scholars within a ‘resistance’ narrative. I seek to renew perspectives on Klein by offering new interpretations of compositional choices. I reveal previously overlooked continuities across Klein’s oeuvre and present him as a composer consistently interested in pursuing modernist techniques across his tragically short life.
-
ItemAn Exploration of Duo Singing in Virtual Reality and Videoconferencing( 2023)This thesis explored the key considerations of duo singing in virtual reality (VR) and videoconferencing (VC). The ability for musicians to interact in person has been highly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing performers online in search of suitable collaboration platforms. While VR has re-emerged an alternative visual choice for musical collaboration, limited research exists that examines its affordances alongside VC for communication in networked music performance contexts. The purpose of this study was to explore the participant experience of singing with a partner in a VR and VC setting. A mixed-methods study was designed involving ten participants from Australia and the United States with access to the internet and a VR headset. Following a singing session in both settings, a semi-structured interview was conducted alongside an online questionnaire, used to supplement the interview. Thematic analysis of interview data identified five key themes across both mediums: presence, performance, affect, usability, and usefulness. Interviews revealed the influence of the physical and virtual environmental setting on participants’ emotional states, linked to their sense of self-awareness and singing confidence. Participants reported feeling more copresent and less inhibited in the VR environment, helping contribute to a sense of fun and creativity. However, a lack of accurate facial expressions in the VR avatar made timing and synchronisation more difficult for musical performance, alongside challenges related to physical comfort and body ownership. In the VC setting, greater accuracy of visual cues assisted with performance, although on-screen visibility provoked feelings of self-consciousness for less experienced singers. Ultimately, survey results indicated a stronger sense of connection and natural discussion in the VR setting, as well as an overwhelming preference among all participants for singing in the VR setting. Interviews indicating this result as the combination of factors such as being in a virtual environment with another performer, reduced inhibition from being an avatar and the overall novelty of the VR experience. Together, the findings suggest that the current suitability of platforms for online singing is contextuality dependent. VR may be suited for casual musical collaboration less confident singers, while VC may be ideal when the accuracy of facial cues is more important. Findings support prior research on the importance of visual cues in networked music performance while expanding knowledge into the use of VR platforms. These results help broaden our understanding of the influence of self-awareness on inhibition, while contributing to knowledge on visual communication in online music collaborations.
-
ItemUNWRAPPING AUTHENTICITY: Skill development + perception / conception development( 2022)The music that has always meant the most to me has taught me something new about the world, about life, or about myself. It has a brilliance about it, a depth, an innate beauty. The music that has touched me the most has an inherent authenticity, and authenticity touches people. It does not have to be a serious or earnest work; it can be fun, whimsical, or curious. But there remains an underlying integrity, a truthfulness, and a musical communication that lies beyond superficiality, gimmick, or sterile intellectualism and I hope to believe that humans are hard-wired to know when communication is authentic. As a listener, I seek music where there is genuine coherence between the artist and that which they express in their work. As a music maker and practitioner, the continual extension of my technical skills, knowledge, and analysis is essential. However, so too is pondering, deep listening, and observation of oneself and the world, as well as the development of what I would like to say. Whilst technique and research assist a composer to present a work with clarity, poignancy, and potency, they are not the point in and of themselves. So, whilst I extend my technical and analytical music skills, I also seek to clarify and extend my ability to perceive and conceive an integral point of view. Authenticity requires interrogation of one’s perception, broad enquiry, and leaning on one’s own life experiences. I believe that perception is as important a skill to develop in music as it is in the visual arts. I create as I perceive. I am a witness to my life and to my times. Each creative has a chance to deliver a refracted vision of life as we experience it; as we share our version of reality, so too does the collective understanding of life broaden and flourish. This initiates an important feedback loop, where flourishing ideas nourish the community, which then, in turn, nourish new creative endeavours. For this composer, authenticity means witnessing and expressing the corner of reality I inhabit; my culture, my experiences, my observations, and history-in-the-making during my life and times. I locate my music with this compass.
-
Item