Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemCowboy Bebop and Lupin lll: an investigation of the role of brass in anime opening music( 2021)This thesis identifies and examines the role of brass instrumentation in the opening songs for the anime, Lupin III and Cowboy Bebop. This examination is conducted through an investigation of the impact of Japanese jazz and nostalgia in Japanese culture together with specific influences of Western television. By providing contextual and historical information through this investigation, and using facets of both Western and Japanese culture, I describe how and why brass instruments are being used in the opening sequences for Lupin III and Cowboy Bebop. Through an examination of these two anime, this thesis provides a framework to understanding the interaction between brass and anime opening music. The findings for this thesis were drawn from books, journal articles, various fan sites, and anime cataloguing systems. I used an interdisciplinary approach engaging with resources spanning the literature on Japanese jazz, nostalgia, Western television, and anime. This thesis discusses how through the two anime series, Japanese jazz has come to reflect a point of nostalgia and resistance for Japanese people. This discussion looks at the presence of jazz cafes, the banning of jazz in Japan from around 1937 as a result of hostilities towards the United States, bebop, and jazz fusion. I examine how these facets of Japanese jazz work together to describe the interaction between how brass is portrayed in the anime opening songs, how brass works together with the visual elements of the openings, and the overall themes that each anime represents.
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ItemCurled into the Antihero: An Exploration of the Kinaesthetic and Visual Artefacts of Jaguar Jonze( 2021)This thesis examines the visual and kinaesthetic identities of Brisbane-based musician and artist Jaguar Jonze. It analyses the production of her artefacts as continuing the narratives written in the music and lyrics, and suggests they are an emotional and physical form of expression that powers the cultural memory formed of the artist. A comprehensive visual narrative for a musician is powerful when planned in alignment with the music, creating a multifaceted, multi-platform engagement and identity for the musician that extends beyond a sonic language. Drawing on sensory ethnography, social and cultural studies, psychoanalysis and popular music studies, I argue that Jaguar Jonze is a significant example of a multisensorial design culture and musical identity. Performing myths and folklore, utilising recurring colours, themes and bodily movements, this thesis reads the visual artefacts and movements of Jaguar Jonze as a whole with the music. This thesis contributes to the limited research on the creative practices of emerging contemporary Australian musicians and the merging of their artistic forms in the post-digital music industry.
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ItemAn Analysis of Elisabeth Lutyens's The Valley of Hatsu-Se( 2021)This dissertation is a musical analysis of Elisabeth Lutyens’s The Valley of Hatsu-Se (1965), a setting of ancient Japanese poems for soprano and chamber ensemble. The first part of the dissertation examines the serial language of the work. This includes the intervallic structure and segmentation of the row, textural use of rows, links between rows and serial ‘anomalies.’ The serial analysis concludes with a brief comparison to the mature serial languages of Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, as well as to Luigi Dallapiccola, who has a similarly lyrical approach to serialism. The next part of the dissertation addresses non-serial elements, especially exploring the variety of contrasting textures. It focusses on textural devices, such as counterpoint and ostinato, as well as the transformation of motifs and voice-leading. There is also a brief discussion of potential Japanese influences on the work. This dissertation aims to facilitate a greater understanding of the serial language and the array of distinctive textures to enhance an appreciation of The Valley of Hatsu-Se, and bring increased awareness to the music of Elisabeth Lutyens.
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ItemNavigating Kol Isha: Women's Voices in The Australian Jewish Community( 2020)Kol Isha is a religious law that states men should not hear women’s singing voices. This law is most often referred to in synagogue, where women do not take on any ritual roles and sit separately from men. Over the past fifty years, new styles of prayer have emerged that attempt to maintain tradition, whilst allowing women to sing and actively take part in ritual. This dissertation examines how Orthodox Jewish women maintain authenticity as Orthodox Jews and feminists whilst negotiating Kol Isha. It interviews seven self-identifying Orthodox Female Jewish Women, who have attended such congregations about how they negotiate secular and sacred values during prayer. Preliminary findings suggest that women negotiate their authenticity by taking part in current ideological conflicts within their communities. Their standpoints are made public through where and how they use their voices within sacred settings.
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ItemDelta Goodrem’s musical expression before, during, and after traumatic illness: an interdisciplinary analysis( 2020)While scholars of Western art music have begun analysing trauma directly, scholars of popular music have largely focused on what I call ‘indirect analyses’ of trauma through issues of consumerism and identity. Because trauma is at the heart of mainstream media narratives, I contend that scholars should directly research it in popular music. In this dissertation, I examine how popular music can be used to express a personal transformative experience resulting from trauma. I analyse Australian popstar/singer-songwriter Delta Goodrem’s transformative experience as a result of traumatic illness, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, in her first three albums Innocent Eyes (2003), Mistaken Identity (2004), and Delta (2007). I employ an interdisciplinary approach using positive psychology’s Post-Traumatic Growth Theory (PTG) as an analytical lens to demonstrate how Goodrem’s transformation reveals issues of resilience, gender, and maturation. I argue that Goodrem’s musical expression in the albums reflects the three main areas of growth found in PTG: self-identity, relationships, and life philosophy. Until this research, no scholar has attempted to use PTG as an analytical framework for analysing trauma in music. This dissertation thus introduces PTG as a new theoretical concept to music studies and contributes to our understanding of how artists employ music to make sense of personal trauma.
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ItemHyper-visibility and under-representation: inclusivity, diversity, and the alternative music scene in Melbourne( 2020)This ethnographic study documents the lived experience of People of Colour (PoC) making alternative and punk music in Melbourne, Australia. Exploring local discourse on cultural diversity, inclusivity and racial difference, I offer previously undocumented Australian perspectives on race and popular music. The study traces issues of whiteness, anti-racism and punk in Australia down to three key components: subculture, genre and capital. Through formal, semi-structured interviews, the study asks how notions of cultural diversity impact alternative music scenes. I argue that PoC in these scenes experience race-based exclusion, both a result of the longstanding erasure of PoC from written histories of Western punk, combined with Australia’s specific position as a white multicultural, settler-colonial nation. In challenging the notion of punk as a white musical tradition, and recognising the specific conditions that foster racism in Australian music scenes, my informants and I discuss how anti-racist values may be meaningfully embodied in local music contexts.
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ItemA systematic review of motion tracking technology and violins: applications to injury reduction( 2020)Violin is one of the most widely taught string instruments in the world. Despite the performance technique variations, there is the universal possibility of attaining a performance-related injury. Physical cause of such injuries is still relatively unknown. The purpose of this study was to identify literature on performance-related injury and technological application to harm reduction. Using a systematic review, three literature databases were searched through October 15 to 17, 2019. The search consisted of three combined groups of keywords: violin (e.g., violinist, violin performer) AND musculoskeletal (e.g., musculoskeletal, upper arm injury, overuse injury) AND motion tracking (e.g., motion tracking, kinesiology). The initial literature search strategy resulted in 192 potentially relevant articles. Finally, 26 articles were included in this review. The publication content suggested that motion tracking has a prominent position in violin performance injury reduction and pedagogy if a cross-disciplinary approach is taken. This research’s systematic review found an emerging field that heavily employed a quantitative research method, 3D motion capture; EMG; and Ultrasound technology, and was written primarily for a scientific community. Further research in this field would benefit greatly from the integration of both 3D motion capture and electromyography technologies.
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ItemMaximum volume yields maximum results: loudness as a compositional device in extreme contemporary music( 2020)This paper seeks to explore the ways in which loudness is used as a compositional device throughout three different performances by artists Sunn O))), Merzbow and Cat Hope. Section one discusses the concept of loudness as both an acoustic phenomenon, that enhances affective experiences, and as a cultural signifier, in which affirms scene identities that base their music on the use of loudness. This section also examines the literature on the use of loudness in extreme contemporary music in particular. Section two consists of case studies which analyse recordings of recent live performances from Sunn O))), Merzbow and Cat Hope. These analyses via spectrographs discuss the compositional framework of the performances, the performance techniques used, and the technical production of the sound, in relation to the use of extreme volume.
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ItemBlobs, Buzz and Rapid Patterning: Intra-Active Tools for Composition, Improvisation and Analysis( 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.