Doctoral Degrees (Music)

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Oriental traits in Liam de Noraidh's collection of Irish folk melodies : a particular instance of a general cultural condition.
(1982) Giblin, Anthony Emmanuel.; Ballantine, Christopher John.
No abstract available.
A case for creativity in elementary music education.
(1983) Oehrle, Elizabeth Dittmar.
No abstract available.
The effect of auditory discrimination on the learning of music concepts.
(1984) Orbach, Yael.; Parker, Beverly Lewis.
This study investigates the effect of training in auditory discrimination on the learning of music concepts. The study draws on Klausmeier's theory concerning the role of discrimination in concept learning, and on Gibson's theory concerning the process of discrimination. Six hypotheses are tested: two stating that a particular program of auditory discrimination training positively affects the performance of pitch and rhythm conceptual tasks, two stating that age positively relates to such performance, and two stating that if the effect of initial auditory discrimination ability is eliminated, there will be no significant difference between the achievements of 7 - 8 year-old and 8 - 9 year-old students performing the said tasks. These hypotheses are tested in an experiment where 232 students participated. All were given a specially constructed Auditory Recognition Test to assess initial auditory discrimination ability before instruction, and all received the ordinary music instruction at school. Students in the experimental group received additionally a short, self-administered training module on discriminating auditory attributes of pitch, register, duration and tempo. These were high-low, long-short, and fast-slow. Following instruction, the experimental and control groups were given a specially constructed Music Concepts Achievement Test to assess their performance. A 2 x 2 factorial design is used to relate discrimination training and age to the performance of conceptual tasks. Variance and covariance analyses are performed to test the hypotheses. Results demonstrate a significant positive effect of the auditory discrimination training on the performance of pitch and rhythm tasks (p < .001), and a significant positive relationship between age and the performance of these tasks (p < .001). However, upon eliminating the effect of initial discrimination ability, age is no longer significant (p = .54 in pitch, and p = .181 in rhythm). The study concludes that training in auditory discrimination facilitates the learning of music concepts and that improvement in auditory discrimination which is gained with age facilitates such learning. These conclusions indicate that auditory discrimination training could improve the learning of many music concepts, and thus become a strategy for the achievement of important objectives in music education.
The re-emergence of Amahubo song styles and ideas in some modern Zulu musical styles.
(1992) Xulu, Musa Khulekani.
Amahubo songs are at the centre of the traditional Zulu cultural, religious and political lives. Their age is often associated with the very "beginning" of things, when the very first Zulu people emerged from the bed of reeds. As musical items amahubo tend to be easily associated with the old, pre-colonial era when Zulus were in charge of their lives and their destinies. The performance contexts of amahubo songs are the wedding, the funeral of a King, Chief, induna, umnurnzane, war and other commemorative ceremonies. Amahubo are also called ceremonial music because of their association with the ceremonial. Ritual and symbolism dominate amahubo performance contexts, amahubo themselves being symbols that stand for other ideas. It is noteworthy that despite missionary and colonial propaganda against traditional Zulu music and culture, amahubo continue to survive and are still performed at clan, regional and Zulu 'national' levels. In addition, there has emerged new syncretic styles which demonstrate the fusion of Zulu and Western (hymnal) musical ideas. From time to time the new musical styles emphasize a Zulu identity which makes them to be mostly symbolically associated with or related to amahubo songs. Today, amahubo and seven modern Zulu musical style can easily express a broad statement of the Zulu ethnic entity of ,some seven to eight million individuals. All these musical styles, when claimed by Zulus draw "imaginary borders" between Zulus and non-Zulus and get referred to as Zulu (ethnic or 'national') music. such references, however, are situational. The period 1988 - 1992 in which research was conducted culminating in this thesis has been marked by Zulu ethnic resurgence characterized by the performance of amahubo songs and other modern styles of religious, choral, wedding, mbhaganga, maskanda and isicathamiya, all of which, through manipulation of text and musical sounds, get situationally claimed for the Zulu ethnic (national) identity.
The ratiep art form of South African muslims.
(1993) Desai, Desmond.; Parker, Beverly Lewis.; Ballantine, Christopher John.
The ratiep is a peculiarly South African trance-linked art form characterised by stabbings with sharp objects to the arms and other bodily parts, the piercing of the ear-lobes, the cheeks and the tongue by alwaan (skewers), the performance of certain standard dhikr to the accompaniment of the rebanna and dhol, and a highly stylized movement. The ratiep art form is rooted in Sufi Muslim traditions. Similar trance-linked art forms, called the dabos and Sufi ceremonies, exist in Sumatra and Syria respectively. These are all linked to Abdul Kader al-Jilani, founder of the Qadiriyyah Sufi fraternity. The South African variant of the art form also characterised by unusual self-mutilating acts, has been practised for more than 200 years, and started amongst the Cape Muslims. The literature provides historical evidence of the controversy regarding its "Islamic" nature, which has existed since the latter half of the previous century amongst South African Muslims. It has become dissociated from Islamic practices generally, and is regarded as bidat (innovatory). The South African Indian ratiep performance relates to its Cape Muslim counterpart. Both subgenres show a special relationship to the different genres and styles of music constituting South African Islamic and 'Cape Malay' music which are unique outflows of the cultural heritage, the social milieu and the enslaved, deprived and indentured work circumstances of early South African Muslims. In its vocal style the khalifa performance relates to qiraat and the secular nederlandslied; the latter is a transitional form between the sacred orthodox qiraat and the secular homophonic oulied. A voorwerk and giyerwee sharif precede respectively the Cape Muslim performance and its Indian counterpart. Like the ratiep, they have well-defined textual and musical forms. Ratiep musical instruments. the characteristic movement, the praboes (sharp instruments) and the bank with its decorations of flags add to the totality of the ratiep performance. Metaphysical and medical considerations are important in understanding the nature and purpose of the ratiep performance and the absence of bleeding; the results achieved thus far are still inconclusive. Ratiep acts are often seen as skilful swordplay and exhibitionism, rather than a physical testimony of faith.
Namibian music and dance as ngoma in arts education.
(1997) Mans, Minette Elaine.; Impey, Angela.; Muller, Carol.; Oehrle, Elizabeth Dittmar.
The aim of this thesis is to explore Namibian music and dance, to gain understanding of the character of different practices and through this, to provide teachers and learners in schools with materials suitable for use in the new arts curriculum in Namibia. In order to motivate the need for indigenous cultural materials, a brief historical background to Namibian arts education is sketched, highlighting the effects of colonialism on cultural identity and the separation of music from dance in education. In gathering examples of indigenous music and dance it became clear that for these practices to retain a measure of integrity in schools, new ways of thinking about performance in schools would be required. This leads to a discussion of an approach summarised within the term ngoma, which refers to holism, communality and orality among other things. It is suggested that music/dance as ngoma has a positive contribution to make to Namibian arts education. To support this suggestion in a practical way, I explore the indigenous traditions used to educate and socialise young people. Argumentation follows regarding possibilities of preparing teaching-learning materials in a manner appropriate to Namibian circumstances. A breakdown of diverse characteristics of indigenous music and dance is done in order to help the teacher identify and comprehend the individual characters of Namibian performances. In this way teachers should be better prepared to utilise the examples of music/dance events that follow. Various events are contextualised, described, transcribed and analysed with suggestions for use in the classroom. Finally the ngoma approach, the principles of Basic Education in Namibia, and the new arts syllabi are brought together by investigating some of the possibilities of music and dance as ngoma in schools.
Representations of musical scrapers : the disjuncture between simple and complex in the study of a percussion instrument.
(1998) Stasi, Carlos.; Impey, Angela.
No abstract available.
From the ladder to the mountain : Arnold Schoenberg's religious odyssey.
(1998) Shapiro, Roseline.; Herwitz, Daniel.
The study traces Arnold Schoenberg's spiritual journey as he moves from his oratorio Die Jakobsleiter, through his nonmusical drama Der biblische Weg to the opera Moses und Aron. These works span the years from approximately 1915 to 1933, the period which coincides not only with Schoenberg's religious shift from Lutheranism to Judaism but also with the appearance of his early dodecaphonic works. It is argued that the works of this period, the religious shift and his conception of twelve-tone serialism are all deeply and inextricably connected. This study, with support from Schoenberg's writings, postulates that twelve tone serialism, the technique with which the name of Schoenberg is associated, was not an inevitable solution to the chromatic saturation of musical composition at the end of the nineteenth century, but that it was shaped by the composer's spiritual needs and by the fact that he lived in Europe during one of the most turbulent periods of her history. The dissertation approaches the topic from the perspective of Schoenberg, the assimilated Jewish artist in late-Romantic Vienna, who moves through various stages of eclectic religious beliefs, arriving finally at an acceptance of the monotheistic concept of the Jewish God. Various correspondences emerge between Schoenberg's religion and his music: the artist/genius as prophet whose mission it is to elevate the people; the idea of progress and the artist's obligation to create new art; the God Idea and prayer as it relates to the musical Idea (the Gedanke) and ultimately the idea of One God, the Mosaic Law and the Twelve-tone Row.
Indian South African popular music, the broadcast media, and the record industry, 1920-1983.
(1999) Jackson, Melveen Beth.
This thesis is an historiographical and sociological study of Indian South African broadcasting and the music industry between 1924 and 1983. A multilevel approach which integrates empirical and cultural materialist critical theoretical methodologies reveals the relationships between the media, industry, economy, politics, and culture. Until the sixties, Indian South Africans were denied the civic rights that were taken for granted by white South Africans. Broadcasting, for them, was to be a concession. On being declared South Africans, broadcast programmes were expanded and designed to pacify and Indianise Indian South Africans, preparing them for their role as a middle-class racially defined group, a homelands group without a homeland. South Africanised popular music, and Indian South African Western semi-classical, popular music, or jazz performance was rejected by the SABC. Ambiguous nationalisms shaped Indian South African aesthetics. Global monopoly controlled the music industry. Similarly, disruptions in the global market enabled local musicians and small business groups to challenge the majors. In the late forties and fifties, this resulted in a number of locally manufactured records featuring local and visiting musicians, and special distribution rights under royalty to an independent South Asian company. The local South African records were largely characterised by their syncretic nature, and generated a South African modernism which had the capacity both to draw and repel audiences and officials alike. A glossary of non-English terms and a discography of Indian South African music have been included.
Orchestral music was the music of the working class : Indian popular music, performance practices and identity among Indian South Africans in Durban, 1930-1970.
(1999) Veeran, Naresh Denny.; Parker, Beverly Lewis.
During the mid-1930s, a tradition of music-making which drew its repertoire almost exclusively from the music of Indian films began among Indian South African ensembles in and around the city of Durban. This dissertation examines the ways in which the re-created music of Indian films served as a popular expressive medium for the majority of Indian South Africans in and around the city of Durban between 1930 and 1970. Unlike ethnomusicological and popular music studies that focus on musics which are generally both composed and performed by the same group of people, this study deals with a repertoire that was by and large imported directly from another geo- 'graphic, political, and social context: India. The study is based on the premise that the performance of music can serve as a valuable historical text, and it posits that the musical structures and performance practices of the ensembles under study encode vital information about shared socio-political experiences and the Indian South African identities that emerged during the period under discussion.
Generic style music preferences of urban South African students.
(2000) James, Jennifer Sharon.; Jansen, Jonathan David.
The purpose of this exploratory study was to measure the music preferences of South African, junior secondary students and to find out what variables had an influence on their music preference decisions. LeBlanc's (1982) Model of the Sources of Variation in Music Preference was used as the theoretical background and guide to the choice of variables for this study. After a pilot test, 10 generic styles made up of Popular and Classical music excerpts were chosen for the listening test. Through purposive sampling, a total of 548 students were chosen from schools in three urban settings in South Africa. The sample was made up of African, Coloured, Indian and White students of both genders. Only a small percentage of musically trained students were part of this sample. From LeBlanc's model, The Listener set of variables included musical ability, musical training, sex (gender), ethnic group (race and home language), socio-economic status and age were investigated through both the quantitative and qualitative methods of research. Similarly, The Music set of variables included the physical properties of stimulus, the complexity of stimulus and the referential meaning of stimulus were also used The Environment variables that were used were, the media, the family, peers, educators and authority figures. The quantitative data was obtained through the listening test where students indicated their music preference on a 5-point rating scale. The qualitative data was acquired through in-depth interviews and behavioural observation of students during the listening test. Data from this behavioural observation procedure was abandoned due to insufficient detail of results. From the answers to four of the main research questions it was found that Reggae was the most preferred generic style of music while Western Pop, Gospel, S A Pop, Jazz, Rock, Traditional African, Western Choral, Western Classical and Indian Classical were rated in descending order. An overwhelming preference for Pop music over Classical music was indicated and this was seen as typical of the music preference of adolescents in countries abroad In a test-retest design, only three styles out of ten showed a difference in students' preference ratings over a short-term period Significant relationships were found to exist between students' preference decisions and race, home language and age. Musical training and sex were Significantly related to the preference decisions of only 3 and 4 generic styles of music, respectively. Lyrics and rhythm were indicated as most influential in students' liking of music, and fast tempo, slow tempo, instruments, melody and harmony had a decreasing influence over students music liking. Media had the most influence on students' preference ratings and peers, the second most influence. Family and educators showed lower influences over student's music preference ratings. A prescriptive discussion on how to use these results within South African education was presented and a recommendation for future researchers concluded this study of generic style music preferences of urban South African students.
Moral and socio-legal dimensions of Surat al-Nur (Chapter 24 of the Qur'an)
(2002) Ebrahim, Rahim.; Nadvi, Syed Salman.
No abstract available.
South African choral music (Amakwaya) : song, contest and the formation of identity.
(2002) Detterbeck, Markus.
Amakwaya refers to the tradition and performance practice of choirs in South Africa that emerged from the mission-schools in the nineteenth century and is manifest today in the annual competitions held by various Teachers' Associations or company-sponsored events like the National Choir Festival. This choral practice, combining Western music styles with African tradition, bears the marks - both social and aesthetic - of colonial and missionary influences, and is closely linked to the emerging black middle class, their process of negotiating identity, and their later quest for a national culture. Many aspects of contemporary amakwaya performance practice, it is argued, including the recent interest of many members of the amakwaya community in opera, can be understood through an analysis of the social dimensions of these choirs. Particular attention is given to the role played by competitions and the sectionalised repertoire. The criticisms made in this regard flow from an understanding of the social meaning and aesthetic thrust of the tradition, from the author's practical involvement with the choirs, and from extensive discussions with choristers and conductors. The first part of the thesis is concerned with identifying the role played by European values such as those of education and progress, in the self-understanding of the emerging missioneducated black South African elite in the second half of the nineteenth century. An initial tendency towards uncritical imitation and attempts at assimilation ended in the experience of rejection by the settler community and isolation. It was followed, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, by a complex negotiation between traditional and modern values. With political, social and economic mobility restricted in white South Africa, the black middle class turned towards artistic expression such as choral singing in order to define and express a distinctively African concept of civilisation. In this process, amakwaya performance developed into a powerful means whereby class identity and consciousness could be constructed and communicated. The second part looks into the framework of amakwaya, and at the mission schools and colleges they attended and the competitions they organise. As a result of the practice of hymn singing, participation in a choir soon became an important part of the leisure time activities of the early mission converts. This formative phase of amakwaya is illustrated in a case study of one of the most influential schools in Natal, Adams College, near Amanzimtoti, where the first black South African School of Music was established. In order to promote the values important to the missionaries as well as their converts - discipline, progress, and success - competitions were encouraged at the mission stations. These became models for the competitions which today are the main feature of amakwaya practice. The voices of various members of the community are used to present a critical evaluation of the positive and negative aspects of present-day competitions. The last part of the thesis concentrates on amakwaya repertoire, particularly as it is represented at important choral competitions such as the National Choir Festival. This part also attempts to facilitate an understanding of the genesis, structure and aesthetic of the sectionalised repertoire, which consists of neo-traditional songs, Western compositions, and choral works composed by mission-educated musicians. Strict adherence to the sectionalised repertoire is a unique feature of amakwaya performance practice to the present day.
Frederic Chopin : gender as a factor in reception.
(2004) De Jager, Frederick.; Parker, Beverly Lewis.
Frederic Chopin's contemporaries took note of his preference for a piano with a light escapement. They commented that his method of playing was light in touch, and that his demeanor on stage contrasted strongly with that of other performers who were outwardly expressive. Although his performances enjoyed support from some members of his society, most contemporary commentators viewed his performances negatively. His performances were seen as deficient when they were contrasted with those of others, and especially those of Franz Liszt. Some of Chopin's contemporaries saw his playing as feminine and contrasted his works with those of Beethoven, whose works seemed to them to express masculinity. Negative assessments of Chopin's works also appear in later critical and musicological literature. In 1889, the music critic Henry T. Finck suggested that the desire of French, Polish, German and Viennese audiences for what he called "aesthetic jumboism" was detrimental to Chopin's popularity. It is my thesis that smallness has been, and often still is, associated with femininity and that those pianists and authors who advocated largeness - however defined (be it 'grand,' 'healthy,' 'forte,' or 'masculine') - were afraid that Chopin's refined pianism and the "small" aspects of his compositions might be used as evidence that Chopin was not strictly heterosexual. Largeness seems to have been linked in a number of ways to heroism, and it seems that smallness was seen consequently as lacking in heroism. Thus, musicians and musicologists have criticized his works for their lack of complexity and length and for the nature of their melodies, characteristics that I show to have been associated with both size and masculinity. For example, in 1986, Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger analyzed Chopin's compositions in a way that seems to me to reveal Eigeldinger's own search for complex underlying forms. This search appears to be an attempt to illustrate that Chopin was intellectually 'heroic' because he could match the organic unification that some musicologists find in the works of other great composers. While the nineteenth-century development of the piano into a powerful concert instrument undoubtedly reflected the changing nature of concert venues and audiences, since recitals moved from the salon to the concert hall, the changes in design could also been seen as reflecting an ever-increasing desire for largeness. The forcefulness and consequent loudness with which Chopin's music was played on these larger pianos might well have caused (and could still be causing) some pianists' physical problems. Jeffrey Kallberg has analyzed an array of gender-oriented metaphors in relation to Chopin's possible gender-ambiguity, wishing to remove the veil of suspicion that surrounds smallness. It is my argument that a veil of suspicion is indispensable when analyzing the language that people have used to describe their experiences with music, because they have used language to express their preferences for certain kinds of experiences. Thus I attempt to show that during the hundred and fifty years since Chopin's death, both pianists' performance practices and musicological discourse have attempted to cleanse Chopin's music from its associations with smallness and, consequently, with femininity.
Jazz as discourse : a contextualised account of contemporary jazz in post-apartheid Durban and Johannesburg.
(2005) Ramanna, Nishlyn.
This study offers an ethnographically contextualised close reading of the music played by three 'jazz' groups in eight concerts held in Durban and Johannesburg between June 1994 and December 2003. These performances were videotaped and then analysed with reference to 1) the compositional and improvisational techniques employed in the creation of the performances; 2) the stage behaviour of the musicians; 3) audience behaviour, and 4) the physical contexts in which the performances occurred. The performances constitute the primary texts on which this study is based. Secondary texts, in the form of discourse produced because of the concerts, are also examined. These take the form of open-ended interviews with thirteen participant musicians and twelve audience members. The primary and secondary texts are then compared with each other and situated within their broader musical and social contexts. This exploration of the ways in which social processes inhere in musical processes draws on a notion of expressive discourse as 1) a multifaceted practice in which textuality, subjectivity, place, history, and power function as interdependent parts of a complex social ecology and 2) a dialogically-constituted system of utterances. The study then argues that musical details articulate social meanings - and thus function as utterances - because of their dual existence within 1) systems of intra- and intertextual relationships and 2) processes of dialectical interaction between texts and socio-historical contexts.
Muziki wa Injili : the temporal and spatial aesthetics of popular church music in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (1980s-2005)
(2006) Sanga, Iman.; Parker, Beverly Lewis.
This study is concerned with popular church music in Dar es Salaam and with changes in this music in relation to the concepts of temporality and spatiality. In part one, I argue that temporal change is experienced by human beings in relation to events or "stamps". Using selected stamps in the history of Tanzania from the 1980s to 2005, I discuss, on the one hand, how temporal events shaped various aspects of the music and people's experiences of the music and, on the other hand, how the music influenced people's experiences of various events and temporal rhythms. Various processes in the making ofpopular church music and various people involved in the creation of this music are considered to serve as stamps that mark the metamorphosis of the music. Likewise, the structural organization of the music and various musical elements imprint musical works and give them their identities thus causing them to be associated with other works that are organized in more or less similar ways. In part two, I use the theory of spatial trialectics to examine how popular church music is related to religious, national and gendered spaces. First, I discuss how the use of this music in religious spaces and the changes that have taken place in aspects of the music have been controversial, and I argue that the changes in the music led to changes in people's inner experiences of Christian spirituality. Second, I point out that the practice of African nationalism in this music has been aiming at liberating the national mental space through the use of traditional music materials and by addressing various national issues. The dynamics in this space involve the interaction between local and global music aesthetics. Third, I discuss the prominence ofwomen musicians in popular church music in recent years and the way in which this prominence has increased the focus on women's issues in the music. A close reading of selected songs reveals that individuals' experiences of gender problems are shaped by gendered mental space, which is informed by religious and other cultural norms.
The establishment of a musical tradition : meaning, value and social process in the South African history of Handel's Messiah.
(2008) Cockburn, Christopher.; Ballantine, Christopher John.
Handel's Messiah occupies a unique position in the musical life of South Africa. No item from the canon of 'classical' European choral music has been performed more often, over a longer period of time, and in a wider range of social contexts. This thesis seeks to answer two broad and interrelated questions: what were the social processes which brought this situation about; and how were perceptions of Messiah's meaning affected by its performance in social contexts markedly different from those of its origins? I concentrate on the two South African choral traditions for which Messiah has been central- those of the 'English' and 'African' communities - and on the period from the first documented performance of any item from Messiah until the emergence of a pattern of annual performances, which I take as a significant indicator of the historical moment at which the music could be regarded as firmly established in its new context. The history of Messiah's performance and reception in South Africa is traced using previous research on South African musical history and my own archival research and interviews. Following the broad outline of 'depth hermeneutics' proposed by John Thompson, I regard performances of Messiah as symbolic forms in structured contexts, and I interpret them through an analysis of relevant aspects of Jennens's libretto and Handel's music, of the discourse that surrounded the performances (where examples of this have survived), and of the social contexts and processes in which the performances were embedded. In examining the interactions of these different aspects, I draw on a variety of theoretical and methodological strands within musicology, cultural studies, and South African historical research. The cultural value accorded to Messiah emerges as a central theme. As a form of symbolic capital highly valued by dominant groups (the 'establishment') in the relevant South African contexts, it became an indicator of 'legitimate' identity and therefore of status. For both the English settlers and the emerging African elite (the primary agents in the establishment of Messiah in South Africa), it could represent the cultures in relation to which they defined themselves, towards which they aspired and within which they sought recognition: respectively, those of the metropole and of 'Western Christian civilization'. In political terms, this had the potential both to reinforce existing patterns of domination and to challenge them. Examples are given of the ways in which, at different moments in its South African history, Messiah was mobilized to support or to subvert an established political order, as a result of the specific meanings that it was understood to convey.
Hippies, radicals and sounds of silence : cultural dialectics at two South African universities, 1966-1976.
(2010) Lunn, Helen.; Ballantine, Christopher John.; Burns, Catherine E.; Hyslop, J.
This study explores the impact of the counter culture on students at two Anglophone universities in the 1960s and 70s. It focuses on the social and historical differences that predisposed English speaking youth to metropolitan based cultures. It explores this in the context of a lack of identity with the dominant culture of apartheid. The study examines the method of transmission, absorption, translation and incorporation of the counterculture and the New Left. The factors that highlighted the differences between South African students and their counterparts abroad are seen not only in their access to technology but also in the nature of their relationship to power both political and educational. The importance of understanding what bred different responses to similar stimuli assists in understanding the process in which the global became local. It is argued here that the attraction of the counterculture lay in the broader cultural scope it gave to expressions of difference and resistance as a response to the rigid and continuous expansion of punitive measures by the apartheid government. The persistence through the 1960s of a liberal framework is examined in the context of a response to these measures as well as a failure to move beyond the racial foregrounding of the political system. The influences of events in the USA, UK and France in 1968 are seen in the context of their importance in South Africa as a catalyst to practical and theoretical change. The significance of individuals as translators of the discourses of the New Left is paralleled in examinations of South African musicians whose lyrics and compositions carried both the ideas of the counter culture as well as expressed responses and issues shared by their audiences. The importance of the coalescing of both the New Left and the counterculture are evident in the early 1970s. Students adopted a Marxist framework within which to analyse South Africa, and the methods of the New Left in France in seeking alliances with workers. This practical approach was an example of the global becoming local and introduced those with access to privileged white education into a reexamination of the role of education in changing society. The counterculture expressed itself in the adoption of both cultural and educational methods of focusing on change as a response both to students relationship to power as well as to the emphasis of the 1960s on a broader more individually expressed ability to embrace change and new values. The study concludes that the framework of the New Left when employed in redefining South African history was central to a process of both economic and cultural change within the country. The absence of a strongly expressed identity suggests the widespread appeal of the central values of the counterculture which emphasized distance and disaffiliation from the dominant culture. The opportunity offered by this position is seen as a response to the political expressions of a racially defined student body against a less obvious but significant change in the definition and role of tertiary education and cultural institutions.
The South African Blue Notes : bebop, mbaqanga, apartheid and the exiling of a musical imagination.
(2010) Dlamini, Sazi Stephen.; Ballantine, Christopher John.
During the middle decades of the twentieth century, the exiling from South Africa of jazz musicians, including The Blue Notes, brought the discourses of local jazz, its performance culture and repertoires, to international attention. This process points to jazz’s global reach and raises questions about its adoption by differently constituted cultural subjects. Arjun Appadurai’s arguments about global homogenisation and heterogenisation come into play here, and have special significance today, when the study of jazz performance and history is increasingly part of the music education of young South Africans. Questions about who ‘owns’ jazz and what constitutes its authenticity loom large, as do questions about its global entanglement. The careers of The Blue Notes emerge from a background of South African syncretic musical performance; as such, they belong within the protracted history of African cultural engagement with European and American mediations of modernity. Among other issues, my thesis examines the use of jazz-influenced repertoires in the narration of cultural identities in postcolonial South Africa, under apartheid, and in exile.
Darwinizing the philosophy of music education.
(2011) Robinson, Jeffrey Eric.; Akuno, Emily Achieng'.
Educational philosophy generally and the Philosophy of Music Education in particular have been slow to consider in any real depth the findings of those sciences most concerned with explaining human nature, that is, the attributes (capacities, aptitudes, predilections, appetites) we have in common because we share the same genome, much of which we also share with other species. There are several such sciences which may collectively be called Darwinian Science in that they all take as axiomatic Darwin‘s explanation for how life evolves according to the law of natural selection – a simple, mindless and purposeless algorithm that has played out for over four billion years and which continues to do so, driving not only biological evolution but, as this study argues, cultural evolution as well. Evolutionary Psychology (including Biomusicology and Evolutionary Aesthetics), Cognitive Neuroscience and Gene- Culture Coevolution Theory are the overlapping fields that this study draws from in developing an understanding of the adapted mind useful for engaging with questions germane to the Philosophy of Music Education, principally those concerning the nature and value of music and how best it should feature in general education. These are questions that have not hitherto been addressed from a Darwinian perspective. This study develops such a perspective and applies it not only to questions around music‘s educational values and possibilities, but to more encompassing philosophical questions, wherein the goals of music education are made accountable in relation both to Dewey‘s ideal of society as a function of education, and to an ecozoic vision of a sustainable planetary habitat of interdependent and interconnected life forms.

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