Third City 2017: Improvisational Roles in Performances Using Live Sampling

The 2017 set by the electroacoustic duo Third City comprised five pieces, each defined by an audio path linking different acoustic musical instruments to digital musical instruments to enable live sampling. Performances were then improvised within structures developed in rehearsal. The authors here ask how the different instruments and audio paths influenced the improvisational roles taken by the performers. Previously established differences between acoustic musical instruments and digital musical instruments are highlighted, and questions regarding their use within improvisation are articulated. A taxonomy of improvisational roles is then selected and applied to the pieces. In identifying correlations between the instruments and audio paths of the five pieces and the improvisational roles used by the performers, conclusions are reached to serve as guidance in the setting up of audio paths for other electroacoustic improvisation pieces using live sampling. This article is the result of research into practice, an asynchronous post hoc consideration (Onsman and Burke 210) of the 2017 Third City set carried out by the duo having repositioned themselves relative to their music-making selves as researchers referring to both the experience of performers and the projected experience of the audience as inferred from archive footage

Constructively aligning the curriculum of a “New Generation” Bachelor of Environments degree from a social realism perspective

This paper describes the process of constructively aligning a generalist undergraduate degree using a sociological structure of professional education. Drawing largely on the work of educational sociologists like Young, Winch and Muller, the process aimed to introduce the notion of recontextualization as the curriculum driver for the constructive realignment of the wide range of disciplines that collectively make up the Bachelor of Environments, one of the University of Melbourne’s “New Generation” degrees. Two factors were found to be crucial to the effectiveness and efficiency of the process. First, a practical framework for the task, agreed to by all participants, is essential to anchor the process. Second, participants must be willing to contribute openly and collaboratively to both the redevelopment and subsequent delivery of the proposed new curriculum

Perturbative Analogies: fostering creativity in postgraduate research students Perturbative Analogies: fostering creativity in postgraduate research students

This paper argues that an essential point, of postgraduate research supervision, is to enable students to be creative in their pursuit of coming to know things that are as yet not known. The supervisor’s role is not only to teach extant knowledge, skills and values but encouraging students to discover their own. This paper introduces the concept of the perturbative analogy as a strategy whereby deliberately unrelated items are to be reconciled analogically in order to stimulate as yet unconsidered means of overcoming problematic threshold concepts in postgraduate research students. We consider the use of perturbative analogies in both Wave Mechanics and Cognitive Theory as examples of disciplines where knowledge is often represented analogically in terms of abstractions and potentialities rather than literally as directly verifiable propositions. In particular we focus upon the question of how the use of perturbative analogies can foster, nurture and support creativity amongst postgraduate research students. Finally we consider the use of perturbative analogies more generically in higher education

Democracy and international higher education in China

There is substantial evidence that supports the theory that higher education and democracy are highly correlated. Throughout modern history, students have been at the forefront of democratic movements, including the 1989 pro-democracy uprising in China. Since then, and despite the increased availability of Western-style education within and without its borders, China has bucked the trend. Using system justification theory as its theoretical framework, this study investigates why a Western-style education in China has done little to inculcate revolutionary movements. Findings indicate that a Western-style education does not facilitate student desire for democratisation in China because of the control imposed on student behaviour by Chinese authorities, including student subscription to Chinese Communist Party-endorsed notions of national pride and student ambition for postgraduate socioeconomic reward. Culturally grounded notions of social harmony were less evident than might have been expected