Musicology Australia最新文献

{"title":"An Aboriginal Women’s Song from Arrwek, Central Australia","authors":"Calista Yeoh, Myfany Turpin","doi":"10.1080/08145857.2018.1550141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08145857.2018.1550141","url":null,"abstract":"Songs are a fundamental part of Indigenous Australian cultures. They are vehicles for transmitting experiences about a region, including the stories and ancestral entities from the creation. Yet relatively little is known about the musical characteristics of songs from many parts of Australia. In this article we present the first musical analysis of traditional songs of the Anmatyerr people of central Australia. We analyse a selection of songs from recordings of a women’s song set owned and performed by the landholders of Arrwek, an estate that straddles the Anmatyerr-speaking and Warlpiri-speaking regions. We analyse three basic acoustic elements of a central Australian Aboriginal song: rhythmic text, pitch, and the relationship between them. Our analysis finds that these have much in common with Warlpiri songs, despite their Anmatyerr geographic affiliation.","PeriodicalId":41713,"journal":{"name":"Musicology Australia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08145857.2018.1550141","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49317955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Percy Grainger’s Marching Song of Democracy: Reception and Attitudes","authors":"Philip Eames","doi":"10.1080/08145857.2018.1550142","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08145857.2018.1550142","url":null,"abstract":"The Marching Song of Democracy by Australian-American composer Percy Grainger is an unusual piece, not only in a musical and aesthetic sense but also in its performance and reception history. Accompanied by an ambitious programme espousing metaphorical democracy and symbolic of ‘comradely affectionate athletic humanity’, the Marching Song was frequently singled out for promotion and performance by Grainger throughout his life. This signified its fundamental importance to him as a musical representation of his credo, and is at odds with the work’s present status as a rarely performed Grainger work. Through examining contemporary public responses, this article explores how the failure of the Marching Song to resonate with Australian audiences is linked with Grainger’s deliberate withdrawal of his original compositions from performance in Australia. It is argued that the Marching Song was therefore not only a major composition but also one through which Grainger had envisioned himself to be a prophetic composer of Australian identity. Indeed, even as his bitter attitude began to thaw, this specific work would remain withheld, unlike the more notorious Warriors, his Free Music experiments, or his controversial lecture series. The stark contrasts between the American and Australian receptions of the Marching Song and Grainger’s contradictory efforts of promotion and suppression across the two regions are illuminated to provide a degree of reconciliation between Grainger’s esteem for the work and its relative neglect.","PeriodicalId":41713,"journal":{"name":"Musicology Australia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08145857.2018.1550142","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45427210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Just Vibrations: The Purpose of Sounding Good","authors":"P. Tregear","doi":"10.1080/08145857.2018.1550738","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08145857.2018.1550738","url":null,"abstract":"If it were not bad enough to find out that the Australian government has over recent years been redistributing Australian Research Council funds away from the humanities (and in particular the creative arts and writing) by a factor of almost two-thirds towards areas it described as being of ‘immediate and critical importance’, we now know that at least two music research projects that were approved in the 2019 grant round were subsequently denied support at the whim of former Federal education minister Simon Birmingham. I doubt many of us were surprised, however. The annual chore of grant writing has felt for some time now to be a Sisyphean one, more a ritual of disciplinary self-abasement rather than self-affirmation given the already dismally low chances of success. Nevertheless there now seems to be clear grounds for Australian Vice-Chancellors and learned academies to protest vigorously about such open prejudice against our discipline. Musicologists should protest too, of course, but perhaps we could also consider how we might better present the case for public support. To that end, the appearance of a book like William Cheng’s Just Vibrations: The Purpose of Sounding Good seems both timely and welcome, for in it Cheng sets himself the task of examining how musicology might ‘renegotiate the means and purposes of careful labor, intellectual inquiry, and living soundly’ (p. 5). Cheng’s endeavour parallels recent work done by a consortium of conservatoire heads (of which I was one) who explored how tertiary music education could be more explicitly understood in terms of its benefits to wider society. Just Vibrations stands out, however, for focusing specifically on musicology and has quickly generated a good deal of online","PeriodicalId":41713,"journal":{"name":"Musicology Australia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08145857.2018.1550738","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43545423","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"National Identity in Contemporary Australian Opera: Myths Reconsidered","authors":"J. Carmody","doi":"10.1080/08145857.2018.1486163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08145857.2018.1486163","url":null,"abstract":"If, as I believe, art is a moral activity then a fortiori this is true of opera, which has a clear theme that (mostly) has been chosen by the composer and (necessarily) a text and narrative structure which—in addition to the music—can declare its artistic and philosophical concerns. It is clear from his very title of National Identity in Contemporary Australian Opera that Michael Halliwell has this same elevated view of opera: ‘identity’ and ‘myths’ are incontestably powerful concepts. Important ones, too: what sort of a society is it in which such questions are not seriously considered and, if not by its artists, then by whom? Neither priests nor politicians can be trusted with asking them, let alone providing answers. Furthermore, it is an intellectually and morally courageous author who ventures to analyse some Australian operatic works under such categories. Certainly, to do so at all—let alone successfully—requires a deep knowledge of the totality of Australian society (by implication, far more comprehensively than simply its opera-going moiety) over the sweep of its history and its regions, but also an insight into what can be considered tractable material for dramatization and a technical and structural grasp of the musical means which a heterogeneous clutch of composers has deployed to achieve worthwhile artistic fruit. Perhaps that last point should be considered first, because I do not think that Dr. Halliwell has touched on it. Far from being, as Dr. Johnson so glibly asserted (and has been remembered for his folly), an ‘irrational’ and ‘exotic’ entertainment, opera poses formidable emotional and intellectual challenges which few composers have managed to vanquish, notably the tripartite tensions between words, music and stage action. Consider the hundreds of thousands of operas that have been composed and the nugatory few that have entered the so-called ‘standard repertoire’, irrespective of whether that term is considered strictly or liberally. The truth is that acquiring the assured compositional technique which is a sine qua non before attempting an opera and—perhaps more importantly—achieving an authentic ‘musical voice’ is so formidable a challenge that few composers have the opportunity, or even the disposition, to learn about the theatre as well: about lighting, costume and makeup, dramatic timing, the importance of movement; about (in short) the ways in which a narrative and its ethical quiddity can be convincingly and comprehensively depicted (with engrossing waxing and waning of dramatic pace and tension) in front of a theatrical","PeriodicalId":41713,"journal":{"name":"Musicology Australia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08145857.2018.1486163","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46182197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"‘Less a New African Music than an African New Music’1: A Close Musical Analysis of Bongani Ndodana-Breen’s Emhlabeni","authors":"Jeffrey Brukman","doi":"10.1080/08145857.2018.1480863","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08145857.2018.1480863","url":null,"abstract":"Premiered in February 2013, Emhlabeni (In this world) a sinfonia concertante for piano and orchestra by South African composer Bongani Ndodana-Breen, highlights the significance of African art music as a tool for understanding and appreciating the differences and similarities between diverse cultures and their music traditions. Situated in the long-established performance medium of Western art music (solo piano with traditional symphony orchestra), Emhlabeni also embraces thematic material derived from South Africa’s African choral tradition and compositional processes drawn from traditional African musicking. Here, African-styled interlocking figures, mbira patterning, pentatonic scales, uhadi chord progressions, and passages that treat the piano like an African mallet percussion instrument are interwoven with elements reminiscent of African jazz (especially Abdullah Ibrahim’s trademark tremolandi). Hence, Ndodana-Breen’s musical language is located largely in the African musical–cultural experience, although it is performed through a Western medium and formulated within the parameters of a Western genre: it represents the essence of African art music. Inspired by a popular African choral work, Bawo Thixo Somandla (‘Father God Almighty’), Ndodana-Breen chose a title that refers to a subsidiary theme in Bawo that contains the text ‘Emhlaben’ sibuthwel’ ubunzima’ (‘On this earth we bear many hardships’). An inspiring composition for those oppressed during apartheid—especially those suffering under the yoke of the brutal Ciskei homeland government, who were mere puppets in the hands of the apartheid regime—Bawo speaks of hope rather than defeatism, although it also reflects on the heavy burdens carried by ordinary citizens. This article emphasizes the artistic dialogue that transpires as Ndodana-Breen appropriates African and Western influences; the article draws attention to Emhlabeni’s political and social significance, especially the irony of a once-‘inferior’ choral work standing alongside the dominant Western art music tradition, and it provides commentary on the value of African art-music practice in a multicultural society.","PeriodicalId":41713,"journal":{"name":"Musicology Australia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08145857.2018.1480863","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44515185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Improvisation, Thang, and Thai Musical Structure","authors":"John Garzoli, Bussakorn Binson","doi":"10.1080/08145857.2018.1480867","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08145857.2018.1480867","url":null,"abstract":"Despite its centrality to Thai musical thought and practice, Thai and English-language scholars have been reluctant to use the term ‘improvisation’ to describe Thai music. This reluctance stems from a number of interrelated factors, including the incommensurability of terms and concepts in the Thai and Western musical systems, scholars’ lack of familiarity with Thai and/or Western musical structure, and the improvisatory practices associated with them, especially jazz, which is thought to exemplify improvisation, and lack of clarity in understanding the Thai musical concepts of prae, plae, and thang that underpin Thai musical thought and provide the context in which improvisation can, and in some cases must, occur. By laying out some general principles associated with improvisation, especially Pressing’s concept of the ‘referent’, and describing how these relate to Thai musical structure, thought, and practice, we clarify uncertainty about Thai music’s structure and performance processes. We show that in learning to perform, Thai musicians develop intimate knowledge of their musical system and the stylistic qualities of all instruments. Their training teaches them to think in terms that mirror the logic of the musical system and enables them to improvise in stylistically appropriate ways.","PeriodicalId":41713,"journal":{"name":"Musicology Australia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08145857.2018.1480867","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48283592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sharing the Stage: Trends in Composition for Children’s Choir and Symphony Orchestra","authors":"A. Sutherland","doi":"10.1080/08145857.2018.1480866","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08145857.2018.1480866","url":null,"abstract":"In the nineteenth century, a small number of composers included parts for children’s chorus in their symphonic and choral works. As the twentieth century progressed, more and more composers scored for children’s choirs to perform alongside their adult counterparts. The children’s chorus became an indispensable component of the score, with their voices necessary for delivering texts or portraying roles inappropriate for adult voices. Post-war Europe was enjoying a change in mood, creating art works that embodied hope and renewal, and in many instances it turned to children to reflect this zeitgeist. At the same time, composers were exploring the possibilities of children’s choirs to add to the developing timbral palette available to them. As the repertoire for children’s choirs and adult orchestras increased, so too did the sophistication of the musical demands made upon them. Children’s choirs in the twenty-first century now need to be highly skilled and well trained in order to effectively perform some of the modern compositions. In a response to these trends, symphony orchestras around the world are choosing to have their own ‘in-house’ children’s chorus in order to perform the growing number of works that call for them. In this article, seven works for children’s chorus and adult music ensembles are explored, and compositional and historical trends are discussed. The contrast in musical demands from the earlier works is compared with those of more recent pieces, and the rise of the modern, symphonic children’s chorus is explored.","PeriodicalId":41713,"journal":{"name":"Musicology Australia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08145857.2018.1480866","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48934850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Post-mortem of a Pulped Book: Making Sense of the Missed Opportunities of Deadly Woman Blues","authors":"A. Corn, M. Langton","doi":"10.1080/08145857.2018.1486162","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08145857.2018.1486162","url":null,"abstract":"When new books are reviewed, they are normally in circulation and available for purchase. This is not true, however, of Deadly Woman Blues: Black Women & Australian Music by Clinton Walker, which was only recently released by NewSouth Publishing, the publishing arm of UNSW Press, in February 2018, yet withdrawn from sale within weeks due to numerous complaints from the very musicians whose work and achievements it sought to celebrate. Before reaching most bookstore shelves, Deadly Woman Blues was resoundingly condemned by several of the most prominent of those musicians via their social media posts, letters to the editor, and news commentaries. Criticized for the lack of consultation and consent sought by Walker from many of the living musicians it discussed, as well as for the many factual errors and historical distortions found within its pages, NewSouth Publishing (2018) announced that Deadly Woman Blues would be pulped on 5 March 2018 with all corrections to be posted on its website. Walker (2018b) issued his own apology, citing the book’s ‘errors of fact’, that same day. Walker had conceived of Deadly Woman Blues as a generally-chronological biographical encyclopaedia aimed at recognizing the often-overlooked histories and achievements of black women in Australian music. Although not unproblematic, the book did not stop with entries on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander musicians, but also extended to expatriate musicians of the African diaspora and Indigenous communities of other countries. Even so, Deadly Woman Blues was promoted as a sequel to Walker’s earlier book, the highly-successful Buried Country: The Story of Aboriginal Country Music (Walker 2000a), which had spawned a tie-in documentary film (Nehl 2000), two double-CD albums (Walker 2000b, 2015b) and a stage show (Walker 2016). Deadly Woman Blues would not, however, be received as the triumph that Buried Country had been.","PeriodicalId":41713,"journal":{"name":"Musicology Australia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08145857.2018.1486162","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45342310","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Murder Ballads: Nick Cave and His Approach to Killing in Song","authors":"Dan Newman","doi":"10.1080/08145857.2017.1393149","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08145857.2017.1393149","url":null,"abstract":"Violence and murder have a strong cultural currency, the implications of which should be pursued by those with an interest in law and society, crime, and justice. Murder ballads are songs about death and killing with a history stretching back to the nineteenth century. Drawing out the major themes of this genre can help scholars gain a handle on how murder has been treated in popular culture, thereupon providing an enhanced understanding of the human condition. As an example of such examination, 2016 marked the twentieth anniversary of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Murder Ballads, their most famous and, perhaps, defining album. More than any other Bad Seeds album, Murder Ballads captures the essence of a band at its most comfortable in exploring the dark and the taboo: violence, killing, death. In producing a whole album on murder, the band left a calling card by which the wider public could define them. This article will explore the album by considering its key themes and, in so doing, reflect on the need to understand the use of murder in such popular music. The use of murder and death in popular music has not been properly studied, yet it offers potential social insight for several fields of study such as law, criminology, and psychology. In particular, little considered issues around the treatment of murder in popular culture such as humour are identified, while others that require greater attention such as attitudes to women are also given due consideration.","PeriodicalId":41713,"journal":{"name":"Musicology Australia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08145857.2017.1393149","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44151466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Rise and Fall, and the Rise (Again) of Feminist Research in Music: ‘What Goes Around Comes Around’","authors":"S. Macarthur, D. Bennett, Talisha Goh, Sophie Hennekam, C. Hope","doi":"10.1080/08145857.2017.1392740","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08145857.2017.1392740","url":null,"abstract":"This article reports from a two-phase study that involved an analysis of the extant literature followed by a three-part survey answered by seventy-one women composers. Through these theoretical and empirical data, the authors explore the relationship between gender and music’s symbolic and cultural capital. Bourdieu’s theory of the habitus is employed to understand the gendered experiences of the female composers who participated in the survey. The article suggests that these female composers have different investments in gender but that, overall, they reinforce the male habitus given that the female habitus occupies a subordinate position in relation to that of the male. The findings of the study also suggest a connection between contemporary feminism and the attitudes towards gender held by the participants. The article concludes that female composers classify themselves, and others, according to gendered norms and that these perpetuate the social order in music in which the male norm dominates.","PeriodicalId":41713,"journal":{"name":"Musicology Australia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/08145857.2017.1392740","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42186930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}