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Ethnomusicology and Musicology

The Ethnomusicology and Musicology program is well known and highly regarded for its wide-ranging curriculum. It incorporates subjects in music history, jazz and popular music studies.

The program also explores related fields such as organology (the study of musical instruments), sociology, aesthetics, criticism, analysis and cognition.

The Ethnomusicology and Musicology program is offered as a major stream within the Bachelor of Music degree, and in advanced studies at Honours, Masters and PhD levels.

In 2008, Monash designated ‘Ethnomusicology’ as a Research Strength as the School has a particularly outstanding track record in research, publication and higher degree completions in this area. It is also an area that is consistently successful in winning competitive research funding.

Many Ethnomusicology and Musicology staff have received awards or citations for their quality of teaching in the BMus degree and for their supervision of higher degrees.

Ethnomusicology and Musicology Staff

Dr Joel Crotty

Eighteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century art music; in particular Australian and Romanian music, repertoire and performance studies

Associate Professor Craig De Wilde

Nineteenth- and twentieth-century music; general music history; popular music of America and Australia; music industry; music composition

Dr Made Mantle Hood

Musical diversity; music and philosophy/religion/healing; media and performance in Southeast Asia; applied ethnomusicology; traditional and contemporary Javanese/Balinese gamelan performance

Professor Margaret Kartomi

Musicological and ethnomusicological theory; organology; historiography; ethnomusicology of Indonesia and Southeast Asia; Aboriginal Australian children’s music; Baghdadi-Jewish music; youth orchestras; music education; public policy; music performance; music across the arts; music aesthetics

Dr Graeme Smith

Popular music studies and ethnomusicology, especially music and national and group identity, folk revival musics, Irish traditional music, Australian country music, multicultural and world music, construction of social meaning, voice and body.

Katrina Dowling

Historical Musicology. 20th century Western art music and performance techniques. Pastiche. Aesthetics and ethics of performance.

Sessional lecturer for MUS1110 Exploring Music (History)

Contact: katrina.dowling@arts.monash.edu.au

Ethnomusicology and Musicology Units

First-year units

Second-year units

  • MUS2070 Gamelan Ensemble
  • MUS2110 Analytical and compositional techniques I
  • MUS2120 Analytical and compositional techniques II
  • MUS2140 From Schubert to Strauss: music of the Romantic ideal
  • MUS2200/MUS3200 Neo-traditional musics of the world
  • MUS2480 Performance studies: Indonesian gamelan
  • MUS2490 Indonesian gamelan: special studies

Third-year units

  • MUS3320 Guided Readings in Jazz History
  • MUS3330 Music of north and south India
  • MUS3390 Music aesthetics, criticism, sociology and psychology
  • MUS3490 Indonesian gamelan: special studies
  • MUS3580 Contemporary music
  • MUS3880 Music of China, Japan and Korea
  • MUS3910 Music of sub-Saharan Africa

Honours units

Postgraduate units

  • MUM4120 20th and 21st century repertoire studies
  • MUM4420 Research methods in music
  • MUM4600 Special research project in music
  • MUM4640 Fieldwork techniques and technology
  • MUM5010 Topics in musicology
  • MUM5020 Directed reading in music
  • MUM5030 Australian music history
  • MUM5050 Musicology (including ethnomusicology) scholarship
  • MUM5060 Research project in musicology or ethnomusicology

Higher Degrees in Progress

Masters

  • Katrina Dowling, Music of Gordon Jacob, Edmund Rubbra, Malcolm Arnold, Lennox Berkeley, Arnold Cooke and Alan Ridout
  • Sam Evans, ‘Transcription and Notation of North Indian tabla styles’

PhD

  • Julia Cornwell, ‘The Crucible: An American Opera by Robert Ward'
  • Runa Fanany, ‘The Devil’s Due: The Musical Depiction of the Devil in Selected Hollywood Film Scores’
  • John Garzoli, ‘Thai and Jazz Explorations of Improvisatory Expression in Music’
  • Kieran Hancock, ‘Transplantation, reception and responses in Australia (Melbourne) of the choral synagogue music of South African Jews’
  • Marina Kostromin, ‘The Australian Pianist Paul Grabowsky – A Study in Eclecticism’
  • Lauren Rubin, 'Comparative study of the didjeridu and the shakuhachi'
  • Julie Waters, ‘“Against the Stream”: Alan Bush's First Three Symphonies, Marxism, and the Search for Political Commitment in Music’

Recent Higher Degree Completions in Ethnomusicology and Musicology

Masters

  • Stephanie Helm (2007), ‘Gamelan in Japan: Expressions of Japaneseness in Pedagogical Infrastructure and Practice’
  • Ahmad Naser Sarmast (2004), ‘A Survey of the History of Music in Afghanistan from Ancient times to 2000AD with Special Reference to Art Music from c.1000AD’

PhD

  • Iwan Dzulvan Amir (2006), ‘Sing, Adapt, Persevere: Dynamics of Traditional Vocal Performances in the Islamic Region of Aceh from the Late 19th to the Early 21st Century’
  • Annette Bowie (2009), ‘Syncretic Korean and Western Elements in Works of Selected Korean and Korean Expatriate Composers 1975-2004’
  • Mark Dale (2006), ‘The Ponce-Sergova Collaboration: Creating the Modern Guitar Repertory’
  • Kenji Fujimura (2008), ‘Researching Performance: Translations into Editions and Performances of the Forgotten Piano Works of William Hurlstone (1876-1906)’
  • Andrew Mathers (2008), ‘How Theories of Expressive Movement and Non-Verbal Communication can Enhance Expressive Conducting at all Levels of Entering Behaviour’
  • Vicki-Ann Ware (2006), ‘Stylistic and Cultural Transformations in Bangkok Fusion Music from 1850 to the Present Day, Leading to the Development of Dontri Thai Prayuk’

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