Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Confessions of an orchestrator

by Tim Davies

Anyone reading this site would know what orchestration is. It is an art, a skill, part of the composition process. But, in the Hollywood sense, what is it?

You have all heard of certain composers labelled hacks or hummers because they do not orchestrate their own scores, but 99% of composers in Hollywood, historically and currently, use an orchestrator. In simple terms, there are three types of composers working: those who could orchestrate, those who could but know it is not really their thing, and those who can't at all. All use me.

The Nth Art: The State of the Sonic Image at the Second Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference

by Cat Hope

An introduction by Cat Hope to the second edition of Sound Scripts (Proceedings of the 2007 Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference at Edith Cowan University).

The book includes articles by Michel van der Aa (The Netherlands), Philip Brophy, Cat Hope, Jonathan W. Marshall, Duo Stump-Linsham (Austria), Ross Bolleter, Bruce Mowson, Paul Thomas, Clare Nina Norelli, Darren Jorgensen and Patrick Shepherd. Purchase a copy of the book.

A study of the use of improvisation in the teaching of classical musicians

by Nicholas Bochner

This article is extracted from a report on The Dame Roma Mitchell Churchill Fellowship, undertaken by Nicholas Bochner in 2010. The AMC is grateful to the author, and the Winston  Churchill Memorial Trust of Australia for permission to reproduce this material.

Emotions constrained - voicing the sounds of sighs

by Frank Millward

At a time when political systems collapse around us - weighed down by complexities entangled in constraint - ideas that once offered the way forward to liberating circumstances now draw us to question why it is that voices frequently evoke tempered emotions. Codes of behavior often expect us to sanitise vocal expression - particularly when issues involving passionate belief are involved. Where is the voice now? And what has been made of singing from the heart?

Re-activating performative spaces: the meta-flautist's zones of intensity

by Jean Penny

This article by Jean Penny is based on her recently completed doctoral research, The Extended Flautist: Techniques, technologies and performer perceptions in music for flute and electronics. The 'zones of intensity' in the article title refer to Edgard Varèse’s zones of intensity: 'opposing sound masses of different colours and amplitudes, timbre and intensity, rhythms and densities - distinct and perceivable in sonic space' (Pape, 2004).

New for old - the thrill of commissioning for the viola da gamba

by Philip Pogson

Art reflects life and life is full of all kinds of interesting paradoxes. One of the delightful paradoxes for the Marais Project, an Australian ensemble formed in 2000 to perform the complete works of Marin Marais (1656 – 1728), is that, while we largely focus on old French music, we have learned at the same time to work actively with living Australian composers. In the process we have become somewhat addicted to the thrill of commissioning new music, regularly indulging in that delicious sense of expectation that comes from acting as midwife to a new work of art.