Research Strengths
The School's research strengths (i.e., with competitive grants and publications) include Southeast Asian ethnomusicology, organology (the classification, ergology, functions and symbolism of musical instruments) and composition/music technology.Australian Jewish and Asian Jewish liturgical music, popular music, youth orchestras, and performance research. Staff have also published and post-graduate students have written theses on aspects of Indigenous Australian music. Instrument pedagogy (e.g. for violin) is beginning to develop.
Research Areas and Outcomes of Staff, Honours and Post-graduate Students
Music research projects carried out by staff and post-graduate/Honours students of the School deal with a diversity of topics in the fields of Western musicology ,ethnomusicology, performance and composition. Some projects have been funded by the Australian Research Council, Australia-Indonesia Institute, Australia Council, Monash University Research Grants, and private sources, including the Myer Foundation. Some research outcomes appear in the form of collections of field recordings (deposited in the Monash Music Archive), publications (books, book chapters and articles), theses, performances, performed original compositions, premiere performances and Compact Discs (annotated recorded performances of researched items). Results of the research projects are also presented at international and national conferences, invited lectures and in radio broadcasts and other media outlets.
Recent staff and post-graduate research topics in ethnomusicology have included the history, aesthetics, repertoire, functions and meaning of music of Indonesia (including West Kalimantan, many parts of Sumatra [Minangkabau, Batak Toba and Pakpak, Mandailing, Acehnese music, etc.], history of Yogyakarta gamelan style, contemporary gamelan composition, vocal music of southern Laos, Tboli music of the southern Philippines, and popular Thai music. Other topics have been aspects of Irish folk music in Australia, early 20th century Australian Brass Bands, youth orchestras of Australia and the world, and Jazz, Australian Aboriginal and White Australian gum-leaf music, Australian klezmer music and aspects of Transplanted Baghdadi-Jewish music in Sydney.
Given that popular music in its various forms constitutes the bulk of music listened to in the world, the School developed an interest in popular music research from about 1990. After staff had written three course units on American, Asian and Australian music, research projects developed in such areas as popular music theory, the business of popular music and aspects of, Indonesian popular music.
Research in the School is also undertaken in the form of music composition, outcomes including investigative musical works, where compositional technique constitutes the research method. A detailed discussion of composition as research can be found in the recent article "The Research Status of Music Composition in Australia."
Musicological research into the classical tradition has generally focused on art music from the nineteenth century to the present. Particular attention is given to nineteenth-century German Romanticism, Australian music and music from the Black Sea region, particularly Romania . The musicology staff works closely with their performance colleagues to collaborate on performance research with outcomes that includes recordings and premiere performances of Romanian music, particularly the work of Livia Teodorescu-Ciocanea, Maia Ciobanu, Dan Dediu and Sorin Lerescu.
Visit our postgraduate page for a list of recent postgraduate completions.