The Portfolio allows students with a broad range of different backgrounds to explore the nature of musical expressiveness by engaging in analysis of recorded musical performances. It comprises three components (topic proposal, essay, and video presentation) and provides you with a wide choice in selecting the music and performances you wish to analyse—specifically, you can choose any performances of music you wish, but each must be connected in some way. You will choose two, three or four different recorded musical performances, and compare and discuss aspects you observe to explain what you think contributes to their musical expressiveness in performance. Each assignment is supported by the unit online videos, other support materials, a range of selected readings, and your own independent work.
The Portfolio component of this unit is research-based. It is NOT an extension of the personal reflective approach that you may have undertaken in MUSC1981, and nor is it intended to be linked with your ensemble performance activities. The struggle that many students experience is having strong opinions and feelings about what they
experience from hearing/seeing a performance, but attempting to articulate these as verifiable facts backed up by research sources. This struggle is worth the effort—it will hone your research and critical thinking skills.
You mantras should be “in performance” and ”can I prove that”.
Musical work/s choice: a. select 2-4 different recordings of the same musical work; or
b. select a sequence of related musical works (e.g. a set of songs, different works by the same artist); or
c. select works of similar types or genres (e.g. a Samba and Rumba, 3 different types of improvisation, songs from different musicals sung by different artists, etc.).
Analysis choice: From the following three approaches, choose any one (or a combination) that matches your musical background and personal preference.
1. Music and Texts1: Evaluate and describe the relationships and interactions between text(s) (e.g. words, lyrics) and musical elements in different performances of one or more recorded vocal works. These should be related in some way (e.g. same work performed by different artist(s), same artist performing different song(s), songs related by topic or style, etc.); or
2. Traditional Musical Analysis: Evaluate and describe the relationships and interactions between purely musical elements in the recordings you have chosen. Such elements could include form, part-writing, harmony and tonality (or atonality), dynamics/articulation, notated expressive elements, rhythmic character, and timing and tempo. (Tip: Be wary of not engaging in musicological analysis. Rather,
focus upon expressiveness in the performances being analysed); or
1. “Text” here means words or lyrics, and is deliberately undefined as interpretation may change for different projects.
In academic terms, “text” usually refers to various materials that convey meaning(s)to the person who examines those materials.
Such texts usually include printed materials, but in music may include audio and visual recordings, artwork, or even other physical things such as installations, audiences, room layouts, etc.
c) Description: A brief description of the recordings you have chosen, and your reason/s for choosing them;
d) Analysis: An indication of your chosen analysis approach (choose from Analysis Choice 1-3 above or a combination);
e) Focus: The aspect(s) you will focus on to explore musical expressiveness in the recordings.
a PowerPoint embedded within a video presentation, which will include text, pictures, sound, videos, graphics, etc. as appropriate;
c) Time limit: There is a maximum 5-minute duration. Tip: practice your presentation delivery to ensure it is within the time limit, but not overly hurried;
d) Content: Your presentation will provide a brief introduction and overview of your analysis project, a statement of analysis approach, an outline of findings, and conclusion/s. It will contain direct references to the performances you have chosen to analyse, and embed research references;
e) Presentation style: The presentation may include you providing a voice-over audio as background sound to your slides (not preferred), presenting to camera as if you were presenting to a live class (good practice), or a combination of delivery styles that enhance the material presented (best practice);
f) Examples: Where music or video examples are used to illustrate your points, these should be very brief excerpts (less than 20 seconds);
