Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemThe genetic basis of singing ability: a twin study( 2016)Music is a human universal, an integral part of all known human culture. While most people possess the capacity for music perception and production, individual differences in various forms of music abilities are evident in the general population. The diversity in abilities has sparked intense debates regarding the relative importance of nature and nurture in shaping music ability. While in recent years, researchers have begun to explore the genetic basis of music perception abilities, the interrogation of the genetic basis of music production abilities has been relatively scarce. Singing is an ideal paradigm for investigating the genetic basis of music ability; it is a universal, multifaceted music ability that is spontaneously emergent and shaped by formal and informal music learning environments. The present study therefore employed a twin study design to investigate the genetic basis of singing ability and estimate the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors influencing singing ability using a comprehensive set of singing tasks and measures. The study also aimed to identify environmental factors associated with singing ability and examine whether these factors have a genetic component, and whether shared genetic influences might explain the association between singing ability and these factors. The twin study was conducted online using a purpose-built online program Let’s Hear Twins Sing, which enabled twins to participate regardless of their geographical location. The 30 minutes online twin study comprised three singing tasks (vocal pitch-matching, singing a familiar song, and melody imitation), two music perception tasks and a questionnaire on music and singing background. The study took approximately 30 minutes to complete and the study data were captured online in real-time and saved on a server for subsequent analyses. The final sample consisted of 70 monozygotic (55 female; 15 male) and 38 dizygotic (24 female; 7 male; 7 male-female) twin pairs (mean age = 32.4 years), the majority were recruited through the Australian Twin Registry. Univariate genetic modelling revealed that both the objectively-assessed singing ability across all tasks and self-rated singing ability had similarly significant and substantial genetic components (A = 69-72%). Additive genetic influences also contributed significantly to the variation observed in various singing task measures, with moderate to large heritabilities (A = 44-71%), negligible to moderate common environmental (C = 0-37%) and moderate unique environmental (E = 19-40%) influences. Significant moderate to large genetic components were also estimated for environmental variables associated with singing ability: instrumental expertise (A = 68%), years of music training (A = 46%), and public singing engagement (A = 66%). Bivariate genetic analyses revealed that the associations between singing ability and both instrumental expertise and years of music training were mediated significantly by shared additive genetic influences. The novel findings therefore provided preliminary evidence for the role of genes in influencing singing ability and formal music training, as well as a partially shared genetic basis for singing ability and music training. The promising results establish a valuable background that encourages further behavioural and molecular genetic interrogations into the genetic bases of various types of music abilities.
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ItemMusical identities of young people recovering from mental illness( 2015)This thesis details a Participatory project investigating how and why promoting young people’s musical identities can facilitate their recovery from mental illness. Studies describe how young people use music listening for managing aspects of their mental health across community-based (McFerran & Saarikallio, 2014; Saarikallio & Erkkila, 2007) and mental health settings (Cheong-Clinch, 2013). Music therapy is also articulated as a way to facilitate processes of recovery from mental illness (McCaffrey, Edwards, & Fannon, 2011; Solli, Rolvsjord, & Borg, 2013). Despite growing awareness of the potential of music to support recovery from mental illness, little is known about what conditions actually facilitate growth of musical identity in ways that foster recovery processes. This project aimed to address this gap by investigating what is needed in order to promote young people’s musical identities in ways that facilitate their recovery from mental illness. The intention was to understand both the processes involved and the resources required to facilitate recovery. A Participatory orientation (Minkler & Wallerstein, 2008) was chosen to align with the recovery approach (Davidson, Row, Tandora, O'Connell, & Lawless, 2009; Slade, 2009b) of the youth mental health service where this study took place. The Participatory philosophy was also seen as appropriate to the social agenda of the study in seeking to address young people’s access to musical resources to promote their recovery. Eleven young people currently attending the music therapy program at the youth mental health service chose to participate across two emergent cycles of action and reflection. In the first cycle, young people participated in collaborative qualitative interviews exploring how their musical identities changed with experiences of mental illness and recovery. A critical interpretation of Constructivist Grounded Theory was used to gather and analyse the data. The finding from this cycle was a constructed grounded theory that detailed young people’s recovery of musical identity. A second cycle of research emerged from this theory, to explore what community-based resources are needed to further facilitate recovery. This cycle involved mapping young people’s musical needs compared to what was available and possible in the local community. Findings from this study were an identified set of musical needs of young people, and the initiation of the Youth Music Action Group to begin addressing the meeting of these needs through community partnerships and advocacy. Findings from this study indicate that promoting musical identity can facilitate young people’s recovery from mental illness by: contributing to a health-based identity, facilitating meaning-making, and supporting social participation. However, the findings indicate a number of conditions are necessary to facilitate these processes. First, the music therapy theory through which to construct these processes needs to accommodate both the pathology of young people’s expression of musical symptoms as well as acknowledgement of the resource of musical identity for recovery. Second, music therapy needs to be available to support young people’s recovery of musical identity during early stages. Third, community-based music resources need to be available and appropriate to young people immediately following their experience of music therapy. Fourth, modes of research need to expand in order to promote greater democratic participation of young people in ways that promote their equal citizenship. These findings contribute to music therapy and youth mental health knowledge, and can inform future service design.
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ItemCritical reflections on how research design and the attributes of a music program can affect investigations of the psychosocial wellbeing benefits of musical participation in mainstream schools( 2015)This project explores the challenges of investigating the psychosocial wellbeing benefits of musical participation in mainstream schools. For a decade, Australian policy literature has claimed these benefits are to be expected outcomes of all students’ participation in school music programs (Australian Government, 2005). Despite these claims, there is little to no consistent evidence supporting a link between musical participation and psychosocial wellbeing in this context (Grimmett, Rickard, Gill, & Murphy, 2010; Rickard, Bambrick, & Gill, 2012). The reason for this inconsistency has been linked to both the research designs and methods used (Knox Anderson & Rickard, 2007), as well as the nature of musical participation investigated (Darrow, Novak, Swedberg, Horton, & Rice, 2009). Despite the identification of these limitations, researchers have continued to use designs that contain them. This can be attributed to a lack of critical engagement with approaches to research in this field, including assumptions about the efficacy of certain research methods, and the capacity for generic school music programs to promote wellbeing. This lack of critical engagement appears to account for the enduring inconsistency of findings in this area. This thesis aims to address this lack of engagement by critically appraising the research approaches used in two small studies that aimed to demonstrate the psychosocial wellbeing benefits of school-based music programs. This was achieved by undertaking two critical reflection analyses on the methods, designs, and contexts of each study, as well as the attributes of the music programs investigated. The first of these identified a number of important research challenges related to the research methods and designs used. Among other things, these findings challenge the assumption that self-report surveys are a valid way of collecting data from students. The second analysis identified a number of music program attributes that are likely to inhibit the reporting of positive results. For example, findings suggest music education programs are unsuited to promoting psychosocial wellbeing. Based on these findings, this dissertation makes a number of recommendations for the design of future studies in this area. It is argued that research following these recommendations is crucial for this field. This is both to develop a richer understanding of the relationship between music in schools and psychosocial wellbeing, and to produce reliable evidence that is better placed to inform relevant policy. It is further argued that without such evidence, policymakers may continue to make uninformed claims regarding the link between music in schools and psychosocial wellbeing. In turn, this has the potential to destabilise policy support for music in Australian schools. Finally, this thesis calls on researchers in this field, and others, to critically engage with the way that knowledge is created. It is maintained that such engagement is the responsibility of all researchers in the social sciences, and that only when this occurs can we claim the knowledge we generate is meaningful, and serving the communities we investigate.
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ItemMusic and the ordinary listener: music appreciation and the media in England, 1918-1939( 2000)This study examines the nature and impact of the music appreciation movement in England between 1918 and 1939. Protagonists of this movement, notably Percy Scholes and Sir Walford Davies, sought to foster a love of "good" music amongst the listening public, through written and verbal expositions of composers, works and music history. This thesis draws on hitherto untapped archival resources of the British Broadcasting Corporation, Oxford University Press and Percy Scholes' own papers (held in the National Library of Canada). It contextualises the movement both musically and socially, examining diverse efforts to inculcate musical taste. Inexpensive music appreciation books such as Dent's Master Musicians series and Kegan Paul's The Music-Lover’s Library were immensely popular. A case study of the contribution to music appreciation of Oxford University Press, with its Musical Pilgrim series, is followed by an exploration of Percy Scholes' contribution to the popular literature on music. Scholes' Oxford Companion to Music crowned his association with the Press. The public-service policies and programming of the British Broadcasting Company (established in 1923) were of profound importance in the development of music education for the mass public. Programming of the long-running Foundations of Music series is assessed to determine the content of the music appreciation "canon" of works, and BBC publications which supported such programmes are also examined. Percy Scholes and Walford Davies were prominent BBC figures who broadcast to the "ordinary listener" on a regular basis throughout the inter-war period. The nature and impact of educational gramophone records and, perhaps the most striking medium of music appreciation, annotated player piano rolls produced by the Aeolian Company, are similarly explored in detail. Throughout this study, documentary evidence - particularly that of letters from individual listeners - of the reception of these various music appreciation endeavours is incorporated. This facilitates a comprehensive understanding of the place of serious music in the lives of English people during the 1920s and 1930s, restoring the balance in a field of scholarship hitherto focussed narrowly on the achievements of composers during the English Musical Renaissance.
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ItemLineages of Garcia-Marchesi and other traditional Italian vocal pedagogy in Australia, 1850-1950( 2002-09)Operatic and vocal history in Australia has received, since the 1960s, increasing attention from a body of researchers who have documented Australian performance traditions. Pedagogical traditions in Australia have been largely neglected however, and it is hoped that this thesis will contribute to ongoing studies in this area of Australian musical scholarship. Vocal pedagogy in Australia is largely derived from European models, yet many vocal teachers in Australia of the present day have little or no idea of the origins of their technique. After mapping pedagogical lineages of vocal teachers throughout Australia from 1850 to 1950, an attempt has been made to document and analyse the history of vocal pedagogy in Australia, particularly the influence of the vocal technique originating from the teaching of Manuel Garcia and his pupil Mathilde Marchesi, and other teachers trained in traditional Italian vocal technique. The thesis demonstrates that pedagogical lineages have special meaning and relevance in the historical study of vocal pedagogy and performance practice. Although the research maintains as its primary focus, the dissemination and influence of the traditional Italian and Garcia-Marchesi technique in vocal pedagogy in Australia, considerable effort has been undertaken to allow as complex as possible an understanding of the broader vocal pedagogical climate in musical centres of Australia.
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ItemWhere heaven and earth meet : the buklog of the Subanen in Zamboanga Peninsula, Western Mindanao, the Philippines( 2004-02)This thesis examines the music of the Subanen people of the Zamboanga Peninsula in western Mindanao, the Philippines through an investigation of their most important ceremony, the Buklog. Esteemed as the most elaborate and expensive socio-religious festival of the Subanen, the Buklog derives its name from a wooden structure holding the dancing platform called buklog. The Buklog is generally celebrated to propitiate the gods in some specific event in which the entire Subanen community participates. The occasion may be a thanksgiving for a bountiful harvest, for healing, or for prestige for a new leader or a home comer. A Buklog may also be held as a memorial for the recent dead to reinstate their souls to heaven or as a fulfilment of a ritual vow or debt to restore order and salvation to creation after natural disasters, calamities and epidemics. The thesis is based on a detailed analysis of a Buklog celebration held in Dampalan, Pagadian City in May 2002. It describes the social life and cosmological ordering principles of Subanen society in general, identifies the common principles underlying the Buklog ritual and the myth expressly associated with it, and relates the sound and social structures and organisation found in the special performative and musical processes in the whole Buklog complex. This study of the Buklog begins by presenting the context of Subanen society. Contained in Chapters 1, 2 and 3, this background bears upon understanding of the Buklog as the aural embodiment of Subanen social and cosmological organisation. Chapter 1 describes the specific concepts that are central to Subanen cosmological system and worldview. Chapter 2 charts the organising principles related to the domains that are considered more practical, real and concrete in Subanen social life and organisation. Chapter 3 explores the relationship between the natural, social and mythical worlds of the Subanen through the general coherence of the symbols and meanings depicted in the Buklog myths and rituals. The analysis that occupies Chapters 4, 5 and 6 elucidates the connections between the structural features of Subanen social and cosmological systems and the contextual-performative framework of the Buklog in which meaningful and material processes are ordered. Chapter 4 focuses on the preparation of the Buklog's sacred implements and ritual space. Chapter 5 illustrates the customary characteristics and the practical sequences of the attendant rituals, and the intentions, effects or transformations for performing them. Chapter 6 analyses the three special performative processes of the Buklog: the Giloy (vocal genre), Gbat (dance), and Guni Gusharan (instrumental genre) and shows the common underlying principles between these genres and Subanen cosmological and social life. Together, the three chapters describe the total performance contexts of an actual Buklog that I witnessed in Dampalan in 2002 by examining the different symbolism and meanings of the various ritual paraphernalia, actions, sounds, visions and use of music in the preparation and performance of these rituals. The final chapter provides the summary and conclusion.
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ItemIdeals and realities: a study of the life of Franklin Peterson( 2009)The purpose of this thesis is to examine the career of the second Ormond Professor of Music in the University of Melbourne, Franklin Peterson (1861-1914, Professor 1901-1914), to reassess his achievements in light of a fuller knowledge of his career, and to assert his place in the development of music as a professionally-oriented discipline at the University. Peterson is a relatively unknown figure in the history of the University of Melbourne, and perceptions of him have been filtered through the prism of the scandal that accompanied the ejection of his predecessor, George W.L. Marshall-Hall, from the Ormond Chair in 1900. Peterson has been characterised as a conservative and reactionary figure, yet his principal achievement was the introduction of performance studies into the music degree, which was taught through the Conservatorium structure established by the University in 1895. Peterson's career prior to the Ormond Chair has never been adequately investigated, and this thesis clarifies his work at the University of Melbourne in light of a fuller knowledge of his writings, associations and activities during the 1880s and 1890s. Peterson's work at the University of Melbourne has implications for the wider history of the professionalization of musicians because he implemented reforms that made the University one of the first such institutions in the British Empire, if not the world, to offer music degrees that included a test of performance ability in the graduation requirements. This investigation follows a methodology based on Magali Sarfatti Larson's sociological analysis of profession. The key concept in this analysis is ‘cognitive exclusiveness,’ which for the purposes of this thesis consists of four interdependent factors: the definition and organization of a body of specialized knowledge, implementation of structures for transmitting and testing the acquisition of this body of specialized knowledge, participation in professional activities and discourse, and the use of knowledge as a tool of market control. Peterson's formation was cosmopolitan, with studies undertaken in his native Scotland, in Germany, and at the University of Oxford. Peterson's earliest activities show an interest in educational work, commencing with his role as organist at Palmerston Place Church, Edinburgh, and as a founder of the Edinburgh Bach Society. Prior to his appointment in Melbourne, Peterson's writings included a large number of articles for the Monthly Musical Record and publication of textbooks. Peterson's reforms to the structure and content of the music courses at the University of Melbourne reflected his writings and activities during the 1890s. This thesis advances a new interpretation of Peterson's establishment of the Conservatorium Examinations Board, showing how it resulted in the erosion of influence of other bodies of professional authority, including the Musical Society of Victoria and the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. Peterson's work at the University of Melbourne established a model for music degrees that remains normative in Australia, and was copied by McGill University in Canada in 1910. His achievement in establishing a performance-based music degree, which was adopted throughout Australia, makes him one of the most influential music pedagogues this country has known.
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ItemCan copyright cope with music?( 2001)The purpose of this dissertation is to consider whether the copyright regime that presently exists in Australia adequately protects different kinds of music. It reviews the history of music and copyright law with particular emphasis on English law as this forms the basis of Australian law. It examines how the courts have handled music under the copyright regime and considers the problems that the history of copyright law present for the protection of improvised and indigenous music. The dissertation concludes that although copyright has problems coping with some kinds of music such as jazz, aleatory music and indigenous music, these problems do not warrant wholesale changes in copyright law. Copyright, while trying to protect all forms of creative works is also trying to protect two mutually exclusive objects, the creator and the public. Nineteenth century developments in copyright gave much greater protection to the creator, but began to lose sight of the other important rationale for copyright, dissemination of information and creation of the public domain. Present day developments are going even further. The balance is changing and the public, and ultimately the creator, is the loser. The question that confronts today's legislators is, should the copyright regime, with its inherent philosophies based on eighteenth and nineteenth century ideas of property and creativity, be retained and simply amended as required, or should it be abandoned altogether. This thesis posits the view that wholesale alteration of copyright law to include improvised music and music which is orally transmitted and collectively composed will not benefit the public. It is not in the best interests of creators who have a right to reasonably freely available information. Nor would it be of benefit to indigenous societies since it would be imposing ideas that might conflict with the creative ideals of those societies.
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ItemThe dodo was really a phoenix: the renaissance and revival of the recorder in England 1879-1941( 2005)This study provides a critical analysis of the modern renaissance and popularization of the recorder in England, examining the phenomena and placing them within their broader musical and cultural contexts. It explores the roles of the principal protagonists and institutions, arguing that a confluence of different agendas—musical, educational and social—within an environment of changing conditions, was crucial to the successful revival of an instrument, which in Victorian England had no living tradition at all. There was a clear relationship between the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century scholarship on the recorder and the desire to learn more about England’s ‘golden age’ of music during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Even before the 1870s, scholars represented the recorder as an obsolete instrument. By the 1890s and particularly from 1900, there were a few people playing the instrument in public, most notably Canon Galpin and Arnold Dolmetsch. Unquestionably, Dolmetsch’s work with the recorder between 1900 and the late 1920s was crucial to the subsequent mass revival. Changes in educational ideas and doctrine between the World Wars led to children’s music classes including active instrumental music making, in part to stimulate a sense of cultural identity. From 1926 the bamboo pipe gradually became the melodic instrument most commonly used in English schools, until Edgar Hunt, inspired by Arnold Dolmetsch’s Haslemere concerts, conceived of a popular recorder revival. Hunt began to import inexpensive German recorders, and to research and publish pre-Classical recorder music. From 1935 the recorder began to usurp the place of the bamboo pipe in English elementary schools. Concurrently, musical and educational authorities were encouraging domestic music making, for social and musically nationalistic reasons, often linking it with Elizabethan music making. The idea that a strong musical knowledge across all demographics could enable the nation to become ‘a land with music’ once more was invoked in many of the activities undertaken between the Wars. The work of The Society of Recorder Players, established in 1937, was significant and had long-term consequences for the success of the popular revival, as well as for the relative status of the recorder. At the same time, classes established by Edgar Hunt at Trinity College of Music as well as new compositions for the recorder helped to legitimize the instrument. This thesis addresses a number of gaps in previous research, by exploring thoroughly the history of the recorder in England between 1879 and 1941, utilizing extensive primary source materials—many hitherto overlooked—; by examining linkages between the recorder’s increasing usage and the various strands of the English musical renaissance; and by determining why the recorder was so highly popular when other instruments—notably the bamboo pipe—appeared to have similar attributes.
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ItemAspects of the creative process in Manuel de Falla's El retablo Maese Pedro and Concerto( 1997)Manuel de Falla's output during the 1920s was a product of his conscious identification with elements of the Parisian avant-garde in order to create universal manifestations of Spanish musical nationalism. These ideals were pursued in El retablo de Maese Pedro (1918-23) and the Concerto (1923-26), works which were enthusiastically received in certain modernist circles despite their more limited appeal with the broader public. The extended period of gestation for both works allowed Falla to explore an ever increasing range of contemporary, historical and folk musical models, literary and historical sources, and religious, philosophical and aesthetic considerations, in an attempt to realise his aims. To a greater extent than in his earlier works, El retablo and the Concerto reflect Falla's preoccupation with innovation and resulted from a more pronounced interdependence of poetic, evocative, structural and technical parameters. His attempts to theorise his procedures at this time, however, unsystematic, were also symptomatic of an increasingly conscious, analytical, synthetic and at times articulated approach to composition. Through a detailed study of the material held at the Archivo Manuel de Falla, this dissertation examines the ideas that Falla explored and brought to the composition of El retablo and the Concerto, and attempts to contextualise them within his aesthetic, cultural and personal framework. The conception and evolution of these works is outlined and this discussion is informed by an examination of the musical and extra-musical sources studied by Falla, biographical documentation of the composer and his works, and reference to compositional sketch material. While El retablo and the Concerto formed the principal focus of his creative activity between 1919 and 1926, his overall literary and compositional activity throughout this period is taken into consideration as it relates to the two works in question. The evolution of his musical language during this period is also examined in relation to contemporary developments within his artistic milieu, and through an overview of stylistic precursors to this new style in Falla's own output to 1919.