Moorehouse-Everett, A (2024) Post-sonic and psychosocially engaged: developing a decentred, impact-focused approach to open-score composition. PhD thesis, Bath Spa University.
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Abstract
This thesis documents the development of a post-sonic and psychosocially engaged approach to open-score composition - a transdisciplinary mode of music-making that operates at the boundaries of socially engaged art practices, experimental music, and music therapy, to pursue a novel conceptualisation of its impacts. The thesis begins by setting out the context for such a practice by introducing these complementary areas of research, before focusing on four key themes (reaction, interaction, impact, and performativity) that are used to introduce a series of critical arguments, musical analyses, and commentaries of my own compositions. In Chapter 1, the theme of reaction is approached in order to reflect upon critical or contrarian art practices - pieces or movements that primarily position themselves as an alternative to established forms of practice. This chapter charts some of these methods and legacies, primarily in relation to the art-group Fluxus and post-Cagean experimental music, before introducing my own works that were conceived from a similarly reactive position. Then, in Chapter 2, greater attention is given to socially engaged arts practices, and how interactions are quantified, valued, or discussed in this artform, with particular prominence given to the writings of Bishop and Nicholas Bourriaud, before the interactive elements of my own compositions are again discussed. In Chapter 3, the question of impact in participatory art and music-making is addressed with greater urgency, and evaluative frameworks from music therapists including Brynjulf Stige and Stuart Wood are introduced to sketch out the means by which impacts might be evaluated more successfully in socially engaged composition practices. Again, this discussion is followed by an introduction to elements of my work that explore these themes, and a number of my works are evaluated using frameworks taken from music therapy. Next, in the fourth chapter on the theme of performativity, the thesis condenses the criticisms and conclusions of the previous three chapters into an affirmative and original illustration of what a transdisciplinary approach to post-sonic and psychosocially engaged open-score composition may consist of, predominantly through a detailed commentary on a substantial collection of compositions taken from my portfolio. The thesis concludes with some closing remarks that sketch out some of the forms future practice could feasibly take and the contexts in which they could be deployed.
| Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) |
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| Note: | The document attached to this record is the contextualising research section of the thesis only. It does not include the creative component, which is a portfolio of compositions. However content from the compositions and links to where performances of the compositions are available online are included within the main thesis. |
| Keywords: | PhD by Practice, post-sonic composition, open-score composition, interactive composition, socially engaged art practices, participatory art, performativity, experimental music, music therapy, musical analysis, Fluxus, post-Cagean music, Claire Bishop, Nicholas Bourriaud, Brynjulf Stige, Stuart Wood |
| Divisions: | Bath School of Music and Performing Arts |
| Identification Number: | https://doi.org/10.17870/bathspa.00016368 |
| Date Deposited: | 11 Jul 2024 14:35 |
| Last Modified: | 11 Jul 2024 14:35 |
| URI / Page ID: | https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/16368 |
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