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Monash University: University handbooks: Undergraduate handbook: Units indexed by faculty
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School of Music - Conservatorium

Disciplines

Performance
Composition
Ethnomusicology
Musicology

Email

music@arts.monash.edu.au

Home page

www.arts.monash.edu.au/schools/music/

Inquiries

Room 101 Performing Arts Centre, building 68, Clayton campus

Telephone

+61 3 9905 3231

The School of Music - Conservatorium teaches, researches, and promotes public outreach in four fields of musical endeavour: performance, composition, musicology and enthnomusicology. Students specialise in one or more fields, but gain experience in a unified way in all four areas.

Performance

Students with a strong musical aptitude undertaking this specialisation are expected to acquire an assured technique and an awareness of the history of performance style and practice. Students develop their performance skills as well as interactive musical skills in a variety of ensembles. Throughout the program students are examined on both solo and ensemble work.

In fourth-year honours, each student is required to present a recital with his or her own program notes and a research essay on a topic related to the program or an associated aspect of performance practice.

Performance assessment

The performance units MUS1980/1990, MUS2980/2990 and MUS3980/3990 are semester units that are examined by means of journal entries and examination. MUS1980, MUS2980 and MUS3980 are technical exams that have specific requirements as set out in the technical syllabuses. MUS1990, MUS2990 and MUS3990 are repertoire exams, the material for which is decided upon in consultation with the student’s studio teacher and instrumental/vocal coordinator. Two examiners are present at all exams with the option of a public recital at third-year level.

Specialisation in composition

Students undertaking this specialisation can expect to acquire experience and skills in music composition. The program offers supervision of students’ compositional projects and encourages work in various media, including traditional, electronic, and contemporary solo and ensemble combinations. Honours students will prepare a folio of compositions and arrange an annotated concert performance of their works. The School of Music - Conservatorium organises a number of large and small instrumental and ensemble choral groups and encourages performances of student compositions.

Specialisation in musicology or ethnomusicology

Students who choose either of these specialisations, or a combination of both, can expect to develop their knowledge and understanding of music to prepare themselves as musicologists and/or ethnomusicologists, studying the music history of various genres, research methods and aspects of systematic musicology such as performance practice, analysis, aesthetics, criticism, music sociology and psychology of music. Students at honours level present a thesis of 15,000 to 18,000 words on an approved research topic in musicology. They may then proceed with masters-level coursework in other aspects of musicology.

In the ethnomusicology stream, students make detailed area studies of selected music cultures of Asia and/or Africa, and may learn to perform in an Indonesian gamelan and in other Asian and African traditions as appropriate for a particular unit for which a student enrols.

The school has an extensive collection of musical instruments and ensembles that includes an early music collection comprising a complete consort of Renaissance shawms, crumhorns, recorders and various keyboard instruments, a complete Javanese gamelan orchestra, Sudanese bamboo calung and angklung ensembles, a Ghanaian African drum ensemble, a Chinese orchestra, a piphat/mahori orchestra from Thailand, a large collection of Indian instruments, and a set of Japanese instruments. It also contains an extensive music archive, including the Sumatra research archive, Japanese music archive, the Australian music collection, the Australian Archive of Jewish Music, and the Louise Lightfoot Collection of Dance in South Asia.

The school fosters the cultivation of music on campus and presents many concerts, lecture-recitals and other performances which music students are expected to attend.

Relevant courses

For details of the following courses, see ‘Outline of undergraduate studies’ earlier in this section: