Dr Jim Koehne

Course Timetable

The course runs from Monday 26 June 2017 to Friday 21 July 2017

Lecture:

2 x 2 hours per week

Mondays and Wednesdays 2-4pm, Hartley Concert Room

 
Workshop:

1 x 2 hours per week

Fridays 2-4pm, Hartley Concert Room


Fieldwork (including concert attendance and rehearsals):
1 x 3 hours per week
External locations TBA

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this course the students will acquire:

1. An historical understanding of music and music-making in Australia

2. An appreciation and understanding of Australia’s cultural and social diversity as manifested in music

3. An understanding of the dynamic relationship between ‘art’ and ‘vernacular’ music styles in Australia

4. Knowledge of the correspondence between creative disciplines in Australia

5. An appreciation of the ideological significance of the search for ‘Australian-ness’ in Australian music

6. The ability to analyse and synthesise complex material and a high level of critical judgement

7. Capacity for group discussion

8. Primary research skills

9. Confidence in written in written and oral communication

Learning resources

Required resources

Weekly related readings (see below), are available either as a PDF on MyUni, online via the Elder Music Library, or external websites.

Recommended Resources

Library

The Music Library located in the Hartley building is an excellent source for music, literature and recordings: http://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/branch/eml/

Music Resources Guide

The Music Resources Guide contains quick links to key music databases for scholarly research and online listening. It also contains links to websites of publicly available online scores, collected editions, and professional associations. Here, too, you can find a regularly updated list of new books, scores, CDs and DVDs available in the Elder Music Library: http://libguides.adelaide.edu.au/music.

 
Books and Articles

Brennan, Gail and Clare, John, 1995. Bodgie Dada and the Cult of Cool.

Sydney: UNSW Press,

Bebbington, Warren (ed.). 1998. A Dictionary of Australian music.

Melbourne: Oxford UP.

Bird, John. Percy Grainger. Sydney: Currency Press.

Buzacott, Martin, 2007. The Rite of Spring: 75 years of ABC Music-Making,

Sydney: ABC Books

Covell, Roger, 1967. Australia’s Music: Themes of a New Society. Melbourne: Sun Books

Dawson, Herbert. 1985. Smoky Dawson: A Life. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Dunbar-Hall, Peter and C. Gibson. 2004. Deadly Sounds, Deadly Spaces: Contemporary Aboriginal Music in Australia. Sydney: UNSW Press.

Elder, Catriona. 2007. Being Australian: Narratives of national identity.

NSW: Allen & Unwin.

Gillies, Malcolm, David Pear and Mark Carroll. 2006. Self-Portrait of Percy

Grainger. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hayward, Philip (ed.) 2003. Outback and urban: Australian country music, vol 1. Qld: AICM Press.

Hayward, Philip and G. Walden (eds) 2004. Roots and crossovers: Australian country music, vol. 2. Qld: AICM Press.

Homan, Shane and Mitchell, Tony (eds) 2008. Sounds of Then, Sounds of Now: Popular Music in Australia. Hobart: University of Tasmania, ACYS Publishing.

Kerry, Gordon, 2009. New Classical Music: Composing Australia. Sydney: UNSW Press

Breen, Marcus, ed. 1989. Our Place, Our Music. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press

Cockington, James, 2001. Long Way to the Top: Stories of Australian Rock and Roll. Sydney: ABC Books

Smith, Graeme, 2005. Singing Australian: A History of Folk and Country Music. Melbourne: Pluto

Walker, Clinton, 2000. Buried Country: The Story of Aboriginal Country Music. Sydney: Pluto

Kruger, Debbie. 2005. Songwriters Speak: Conversations about Creating Music. Balmain: Limelight Press.

Mackinlay, Elizabeth, Denis Collins and Samantha Owens, eds. 2005.

Aesthetics and experience in music performance. Newcastle, U.K. :

Cambridge Scholars.

Manifold, John. 1957. The Violin, the Banjo & the Bones. Melbourne: Ram’s Skull Press.

Richards, Fiona (ed.) 2007. The soundscapes of Australia : music, place and spirituality.

Aldershot, England : Ashgate.

Russell, Lynette. 2006. Boundary writing: an exploration of race, culture, and

gender binaries in contemporary Australia. Honolulu: University of

Hawaii Press.

Rutherford, Anna and James Wieland (eds.). 1997. War: Australia’s Creative Response. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Smith, Graeme. 2005. Singing Australian: A History of Folk and Country Music. Melbourne: Pluto.

Smith, Graeme and J. Brett. 1998. ‘Nation, Authenticity and Social Difference in Australian Popular Music: Folk, Country, Multicultural’, Journal of Australian Studies 58: 3-17.

Stokes, Martin (ed.). 1994. Ethnicity, identity, and music: The musical

construction of place. Providence, RI : Berg.

Tait, John. 2010. Vanda & Young : inside Australia’s hit factory. Sydney: UNSW Press.

Tsounis, Demeter. 2002. Rebetika music-making in Adelaide: Diaspora

musical style and identity. Unpublished PhD dissertation.

Walker, Clinton. 2004. Buried Country: The Story of Aboriginal Country Music. Sydney: Pluto.

Watson, Eric. 1976. Country Music in Australia, 2nd ed. Sydney: Clarendon Press.

Whiteoak, John. 1995. ‘Hawaiian Music and Jazzing.’ Perfect Beat 2.3: 115- 18.

——. 1998. Playing ad lib: improvisatory music in Australia 1836-1970. Sydney: Currency Press.

——. ‘The Tango Touch: “Latin” and “Continental” Influences on Music and Dance before Australian “Multiculturalism”.’ http://www.ausmdr.com/

Whiteoak, John and Scott, Aline (eds.). 2003. Currency companion to music and dance in Australia. Sydney: Currency Press.

 
Video recordings

Long Way to the Top: Stories of Australian Rock and Roll. 2001. ABC,

Passion (Life of Percy Grainger). 1999. Beyond Films.

Peter Sculthorpe: There’s no time. 1990. ABC.

Nothing rhymes with Ngapartji. 2010. Ronin Films.

A Thousand Encores: The Ballets Russes in Australia. 2009. Flaming Star Films.

Buried Country: The Story of Aboriginal Country Music. 2000. Film Australia.

 
Websites

Australian Music Centre, http://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/default/introductions

Australian Popular Music. Culture.gov.au. http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/music/pop/

Online learning

MyUni will be used to provide details of lecture and seminar content, set readings, assessment advice, and announcements.

Learning & Teaching Activities
L&T modes

The course will give participants an appreciation of the variety of Australia’s musical life through live performance experiences (in situ and external fieldtrips), backgrounded by lectures and workshops that provide ways of interpreting, critiquing and understanding the character of Australia’s musical life.

Workload

The information below is provided as a guide to assist students in engaging appropriately with the course requirements.

In addition to the required contact hours, students are expected to play an active role in the practice, refinement and consolidation of their knowledge and understanding. For each hour of this course students will need to spend on average an additional minimum of 3-4 hours per week on readings, critical listening, self-initiated learning and research in order to pass the course.

Learning Activities Summary

The information below is divided into history and theory lecture topics. It is intended as a guide, and may change in response to needs arising during the semester.

Encompassing four strands or focus points, the course outlines the variety of Australia’s music and provide trajectories through which we may consider its character and development.

Strand 1: Australia’s Classical Music

The course provides a general survey of Australia’s Classical Music tradition. Brought to Australia with European settlement, Australia has invested significantly in the creation of a national infrastructure for the propagation of Classical Music. Out of this tradition, Australia has forged a singular identity - chiefly represented in the work of its own composers - which both builds upon and takes its own trajectory from the European models from which it derives. Throughout this development, the tension between adherence to European models and the development of uniquely Australian identity has been a constant issue.

Strand 2: Traditional and contemporary Indigenous music

The music of Australia’s aboriginal peoples constitutes a rich and fascinating culture. As well as examining the original musical forms of Australia’s diverse aboriginal cultures, the course will explore the ways in which aboriginal musicians have engaged with the influence of other streams of popular music, including country music and rock music, to develop their own variants expressing aboriginal identity in contemporary contexts.

Strand 3: Jazz in Australia

Jazz in Australia has emerged its own distinctive voice, one that merges American and British traditions into a composite that reflects a more diverse, if not inclusive musical outlook. The evolution of Australian jazz traces changes in the entertainment industry, from dance hall to club, from from hotel to concert stage.

Strand 4: Australian popular music

The growth of popular music in the 20th century had an immediate impact in Australia. As the genre passed through successive waves of innovation, from early rock and roll, rock to rap, these influences have been imported, replicated and transmuted into their own Australian incarnations. The culture from which this music has developed differs from the institutionalised classical sphere, responding far more to commercial opportunity and popular appeal.

Assessment Summary

Assessment taks	Task type	Weighting	learning Objective/s
Concert reviews	Formative	40%	2,4,6,8,9
Attendance and participation	Formative	10%	6,7,9
Research Essay	Formative and summative	50%	1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9

The main assessment requirement for the course is an essay of 2000 words, on a topic which may be either selected from options presented during the seminars, or chosen yourself. This essay will account for 50% of the course requirement. In addition, students will be required to write 300 word reviews each of two live performances attended during the course. Each review will carry a 20% weighting. The final 10% of the overall course grading will reflect students’ attendance and participation in the course.

Assessment Detail

Major Essay (2000 words) 50% 

The main assessment requirement for the course is an essay of 2000 words, on a topic which may be either selected from options presented below, or chosen yourself. This essay will account for 50% of the course requirement.

Suggested Essay Topics:

NB: The topics below are suggestions only and you may choose a topic of your own, in consultation with the course tutors.

· Outline the varieties of Indigenous musical cultures in Australia.

· Describe the origins and development of one of the following areas of Western musical practice in Australian society: Opera, symphonic music, chamber music, ballet, jazz, choral music.

· Examine the career and music of a selected Australian composer, discussing the composer’s relationship to developments in Australian culture of his or her time.

· Is there such a thing as a “uniquely Australian” music, or is it, as Neville Cardus suggested, like the “history of snakes in Iceland”? Discuss with reference to particular composers, cultures or musical styles.

· Outline the development of a particular style of popular music in Australia, with reference to particular bands or artists and their careers.

2. Concert Reviews  40%

Students will be required to write 300 word reviews each of two live performances attended during the course. Each review will carry a 20% weighting.

 
3. Attendance and Participation 10%

Information outlining requirements for the various assessment components, along with assignment cover sheets, will be provided during the course. Cover sheets require a signed acknowledgement by the student of the University’s policy on plagiarism, thus giving a legal status to cover sheets

Submission

Late assignment policy:

Late written assignments will be accepted to a maximum of 7 days late with a late penalty of 2 marks per calendar day applied. 

Extensions without penalty may be granted when supporting documentation can be provided and then, and only then, by arrangement with the course lecturer prior to the due date and time. Extensions will not be granted under any other circumstance. 

To apply for an extension, use the medical/compassionate application form available at:

https://www.adelaide.edu.au/student/exams/forms/medical-compassionate-application-form.pdf

The completed form should be submitted to the Faculty of Arts office (ground floor Napier Building)


Students will receive feedback on their assessment tasks.