Information For
Information About
Contact Us
|
|
Research
|
MUSICOLOGY Preserving Australia's Sound Heritage The
Callaway Centre, which is based in the School of Music, is
co-ordinating a large national project that will see the development of
university music archives throughout the country. The Centre's vision
is to create an online network that will be inter-connected through the
National Library's MusicAustralia website. The first stage of this
ongoing project, called Preserving Australia's Sound Heritage (PASH),
is now under way. PASH is cataloguing and digitising historic sound
recordings in The Peter Burgis Australian Performing Arts Archive (held
by UWA) and the Australian Archive of Jewish Music (held by Monash
University). The Burgis
Archive is a large and historically significant collection that covers
the work of Australian musicians and composers over the past 100 years.
It encompasses Western art music, blues, jazz, country and western,
folk music, popular music, ethnic musics, indigenous music, music
theatre, Australian radio shows and advertisements, recordings of
historic events and oral history. The archive contains much material
that is not held in other major repositories and is one of the most
significant Australian music archives in the country. The
Archive of Australian Jewish Music (AAJM) is unique on the world stage.
Comprising over 1,500 sound recordings including Yiddish folk and
Klezmer music, liturgical and paraliturgical music, Chassidic music,
music in extremis, Jewish popular and art music, and popular and art
music performed by Jews, the AAJM offers a rich opportunity for
research into a neglected area of Australian music. PASH
is a collaborative project between The University of Western Australia,
Monash University, Curtin University of Technology, ScreenSound
Australia and the National Library of Australia. It has been funded by
an ARC Linkage Equipment and Infrastructure Grant, valued at $339,000.
Further funding applications are planned over the next decade with the
aim of developing all major tertiary sector music archives. This
ongoing project will enable the sharing of a vast research
infrastructure that will produce significant research outcomes. It will
enable Australia-wide and international web-based access to extensive
musical resources, lead to research in exciting new areas, and bring
greater recognition of Australiaís sound heritage. PASH will also
ensure preservation of rare and fragile recordings through transfer to
a more robust format. The French Baroque Music Project: From Scholarship to Performance The
School of Music has been at the forefront of research and performance
of French baroque music in Australia for four decades, its reputation
in this field established through the seminal research of Professor
David Tunley on the French cantata and subsequent publication of both
his monograph, The 18th-Century French Cantata for Oxford University Press (1974R1997), and his monumental 17-volume edition of these works for Garland Press (1990-91). The French Baroque Music Project
is a three-year research project funded by an ARC Linkage grant in
collaboration with ABC Classics. Building on the foundation laid by
Tunley, it combines scholarship with performance in the exploration of
French baroque repertoire, and will disseminate the results of this
research not only through scholarly publication, but also by the
production of four CD recordings by ABC Classics of works that have
been studied in the project, and modern editions of previously unedited
works. This will include cantatas, sacred works, instrumental sonatas
and chamber works. Aspects that are of particular interest include the
exploration of early 18th-century vocal techniques, diction and
performance practice in the secular cantata, the early history of the
cello in France, and performance practice issues associated with the
development of the French solo sonata in the mid-18th century. The
research team led by Emeritus Professor Tunley brings together
musicologists and scholar-performers with complementary skills. It
includes two School of Music staff members: violinist Paul Wright and
cellist Dr. Suzanne Wijsman, and one from Edith Cowan University:
keyboard specialist and musicologist Stewart Smith. The
collaborative involvement of the research team with some of Australia’s
leading baroque music specialist performers, such as traverse flautist
Kate Clark, violinists Sophie Gent and soprano Taryn Fiebig, along with
historical French language expert Dr. Robin Adamson, represents an
exciting new holistic approach to the exploration of this important
repertoire and will add to Australia’s growing international profile in
baroque music research and performance. |
|
MUSIC EDUCATION National Review of School Music Education The
brief is to investigate both the quality and status of music education
in Australian schools, and determine how both can be increased for the
benefit of all students. The Review Team will be consulting widely, and
conducting research across a number of levels. The Review is being
overseen by a fourteen-member national Steering Committee, which is
chaired by the Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor of The University of Western
Australia, Professor Margaret Seares. Together with a number of
Critical Friends, the Steering Committee will provide advice and
guidance to the researchers throughout the Review. ARC Linkage Project: Misperception in Maths & Music Education This
project project investigates the new and significant problem of
misperceptions confounding learning in mathematics and music education.
Supported by international and Australian industry partners, it builds
on case studies of misperceptions by school and university students in
both disciplines, to ascertain the extent that misperceptions occur in
the wider school population. It breaks new ground by using mathematics
to remediate music and vice versa. Aided by computer software, links
are made between linear transformations in mathematics (a national
curriculum topic) and commonly used techniques in music composition.
Intra- and inter-disciplinary metacognitive techniques will be
developed to remediate the misperceptions. |
PERFORMANCE The Biomechanics of Cello Bowing In
2004, an interdisciplinary collaboration began between staff of the School
of Music and the School of Human Movement and Exercise Science, funded
through the UWA Research Grants scheme. The Biomechanics of Cello Bowing
involves the application of cutting edge biomechanical analysis and
technology to cello performance, and bowing action in particular. In
Australia, the great sporting nation, a great deal of time and money is
spent on preventing injury in elite athletes. But it is not only our
sporting heroes who suffer from professional injury. Many musicians
also struggle with injury and string players are among the most
vulnerable group of musicians, with a statistically high incidence of
performance-related injury. Cellists typically suffer from back, neck
and upper limb injuries, sometimes associated with their style of
playing or posture.
This research
team for this project, where art meets science, is led by Dr. Suzanne
Wijsman, from UWA Music, in collaboration with Associate Professor Tim
Ackland, and Associate Lecturer Jacque Alderson, from Human Movement
and Exercise Science. In 2004, approximately 35 Cellists, including
members of the WA Symphony Orchestra and other professionals and
tertiary-level students, were videoed using the Vicon 12-camera 3D
motion capture system of the HMES labs, while internal readings were
taken using EMG (Electromyography). The data will be analysed, along with
players’ technical approach to bowing, to determine if there are
correlations between playing technique and loads on the muscles and
joints that can lead to injury.
Research
that can make progress towards identifying underlying causes of a
common area of performance-related injury for cellists will represent
an important contribution to the field of music medicine. Not only can
it assist health professionals in better treating affected performers,
but it can inform the teaching of technique, such as occurs at the
tertiary and pre-tertiary level to prevent those injuries from
occurring. The application of the sports science methods and technology
developed at the School of Human Movement and Exercise Science
represents a new approach to music performance-related injury
prevention.
| |
|
