(Electronic music) homesick (elegant and energetic)

This is a bright composition featuring a sweet vibraphone arpeggio accompanied by, piano, bass, synth strings (including an early 1970s modelled synth), percussion and FX.

(Electronic music) through the past (moody)

(Short 02) An eighties styled ambient piece that uses synth strings modelled on the late seventies-early eighties synths. Evoking the aural objects of that era. Instruments used in this composition are synths only.

(Positive electronic music) mighty boom (full length)

An uplifting, energetic dance styled composition with dirty synth, booming drums, piano and arpeggios.

All change COUNTRY MUSIC loop

All Change Loop is a country & western instrumental featuring rhythm guitar, lead banjo, rhythm banjo, fiddle and upright bass with a wooden barn echo.

Festivals and music : negotiating culture, identity and place

It is noted in the introduction to this book that ' Festivals are believed to recreate and emphasize relationships that are normally submerged; of being built in structures whilst following unstructured codes, of creating a separate world with its own rules, personnel and expectations; of encompassing contradictory ideas and practices while involving formal and informal institutions: So what is this 'separate world'? What relationships, normally unseen or unnoticed, are made apparent within the space of the festival? While the origins of festivals lie in the close relationship of the quotidian and ritual aspects of traditional communities, how do contemporary festivals relate to the diversity of multicultural societies? Conversely, how are they inflected by the forces of globalization, by the festivalization of culture that in recent years has become a widespread tactic for the promotion of cities and regions? While many traditional festivals still exist, increasing urbanization, improved communications and diversified migration have meant that many contemporary festivals are of recent origin, the products of what Giddens refers to as the post-traditional state of present societies (Giddens 1994). This description highlights the self-conscious nature of dealing with culture in a world of competing and overlapping world views. While cultural identity and authenticity are still used to infer the existence of qualities intrinsic to communities, ethnicities or nations, the fragmentation and interconnectedness of contemporary societies have long made assertions of essence untenable. Meanings have become dependent on performativity and context. Cultural identity, while traditionally applied to those sharing a particular geographic, linguistic, ethnic or religious background, has become extended to other senses of belonging, to communities based on sexuality, physicality or simply shared experience and taste. The notion that festivals might create separate worlds suggests that part of the reason for their recent proliferation in recent times is that they provide the ideal medium for both performance and participation in this diffuse and shifting environment.

Ambient music (in the elevator)

In the Elevator is a warped take on ambient elevator music and a good piece of audio for a digital project where elevators or boredom are needed.

Baltic winter (beautiful ethereal sweeping music with haunting female vocals)

Baltic Winter - a Slavic mermaid rests upon a rock on the edge of the Baltic Sea. It is night time during the depths of winter. She risks not being able to return to the sea as it could freeze in the time that she drapes the snow crested pine trees with her ethereal calls. Her voice travels through the Medieval forest in search of her nymph . . . will he hear her? Or will her calls only serve to sing her loneliness?

OK . . . now for the technical . . . I wrote this with a documentary in mind. I have used a sampled Finnish/Estonian Kantele, a touch of an acoustic guitar, female vocals, percussion, and a couple of synths.

The Sophists (Ancient Greek)

The sophists were itinerant professional teachers and intellectuals who frequented Athens and other Greek cities in the second half of the fifth century B.C.E. In return for a fee, the sophists offered young wealthy Greek men an education in aretē (virtue or excellence), thereby attaining wealth and fame while also arousing significant antipathy. Prior to the fifth century B.C.E., aretē was predominately associated with aristocratic warrior virtues such as courage and physical strength. In democratic Athens of the latter fifth century B.C.E., however, aretē was increasingly understood in terms of the ability to influence one’s fellow citizens in political gatherings through rhetorical persuasion; the sophistic education both grew out of and exploited this shift. The most famous representatives of the sophistic movement are Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiphon, Hippias, Prodicus and Thrasymachus.

The historical and philological difficulties confronting an interpretation of the sophists are significant. Only a handful of sophistic texts have survived and most of what we know of the sophists is drawn from second-hand testimony, fragments and the generally hostile depiction of them in Plato’s dialogues.

The philosophical problem of the nature of sophistry is arguably even more formidable. Due in large part to the influence of Plato and Aristotle, the term sophistry has come to signify the deliberate use of fallacious reasoning, intellectual charlatanism and moral unscrupulousness. It is, as the article explains, an oversimplification to think of the historical sophists in these terms because they made genuine and original contributions to Western thought. Plato and Aristotle nonetheless established their view of what constitutes legitimate philosophy in part by distinguishing their own activity – and that of Socrates – from the sophists. If one is so inclined, sophistry can thus be regarded, in a conceptual as well as historical sense, as the ‘other’ of philosophy.

Perhaps because of the interpretative difficulties mentioned above, the sophists have been many things to many people. For Hegel (1995/1840) the sophists were subjectivists whose sceptical reaction to the objective dogmatism of the presocratics was synthesised in the work of Plato and Aristotle. For the utilitarian English classicist George Grote (1904), the sophists were progressive thinkers who placed in question the prevailing morality of their time. More recent work by French theorists such as Jacques Derrida (1981) and Jean Francois-Lyotard (1985) suggests affinities between the sophists and postmodernism.

This article provides a broad overview of the sophists, and indicates some of the central philosophical issues raised by their work. Section 1 discusses the meaning of the term sophist. Section 2 surveys the individual contributions of the most famous sophists. Section 3 examines three themes that have often been taken as characteristic of sophistic thought: the distinction between nature and convention, relativism about knowledge and truth and the power of speech. Finally, section 4 analyses attempts by Plato and others to establish a clear demarcation between philosophy and sophistry.

Toka boot/the big jam : making music in rural East Timor

This article discusses a community music project in rural East Timor. Australian musician Gillian Howell lived for three months in the isolated town of Lospalos as an Asialink artist-in-residence, where she worked with local community members and visiting Australian musicians to share music and ideas, and to communicate across cultures. Three activities are described in detail: a songwriting project, a large-scale community music event and a series of informal jam sessions, particularly with respect to the context, teaching and learning models used. An evaluation of the impact of the project on participants, other community members and visiting musicians, indicated that stakeholders valued the project highly for a range of different reasons. These included fun and enjoyment, maintenance of cultural heritage, creative expression, English language learning and cross-cultural exchange. Learnings and recommendations for future similar cross-cultural collaborations include the value of integrating local music traditions with new participatory arts approaches.

Internationalising the curriculum : building intercultural understandings through music

This article reports of the power (influence) of music to develop intercultural understandings to better internationalise the curriculum. It argues that through internationalisation, we learn more about other people’s cultures hence, by providing an international/intercultural dimension into the teaching unit of ‘Discovering Music A’, tertiary students at Deakin University have opportunities to experience, investigate and participate in a different music and culture. Using the metaphor of the ‘talking drum’, this article reports through anecdotal notes, observations, journaling and student evaluation, how a different music, like that of Africa, communicates and promotes intercultural dialogue in a social and learning environment. The 2011 cohort included both international and local students from the Faculty of Arts and Education, Health and Business and Law, opening up a broad range of international dialogue in which all students in the cohort had a voice for expressing themselves about another culture and its music. I contend that the inclusion of a new and different music in the Bachelor of Education (Primary) curriculum and as an elective unit across all faculties provides a pathway for intercultural dialogue and understanding. As tertiary educators by internationalising the curriculum and through the process of reflection, observation and student feedback, we are able to make meaning around our practice and adapt our practice. I argue that units like Discovering Music A are an effective and useful dais to address cultural diversity and build intercultural relations and understandings in our tertiary courses.

So much more than just the music : Australian pre-service music teacher education students’ attitudes to artists-in-schools

Contemporary Australia is a country of ongoing migration and increasing cultural diversity which is reflected in its arts practices. This article considers the views held by Australian pre-service music education student teachers and their tertiary music educators about their perceptions concerning artists-in-schools programs in school music. This discussion reports on data collected for a study undertaken in Melbourne, Victoria, Intercultural Understandings of Pre-Service Music Education Students (2005–2009). Fifty-three interviews were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The findings provide insight into teachers’ recognition of the need for artists-in-schools programs. In particular the ways in which teachers can link theory to practice, fill in omissions in their own knowledge, skills and understandings, and heighten student understandings of multicultural musics. The promotion and provision of multicultural music education is essential at all levels of education. This can be achieved by the inclusion of diverse culture bearers, artists-in-schools, and community engagement to work with both teachers and their students.

The politics of ancient Mesopotamia

Conventional wisdom asserts that the empires of ancient Mesopotamia were ruled by blood-thirsty tyrants with a penchant for megalomania and a lust for power.

However, archaeological work conducted during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has begun to unearth a more sophisticated political landscape. Many of the empires of ancient Mesopotamia can be seen to have practised forms of governance remarkably similar to the democratic systems employed by the Greeks many centuries later.

This lecture will examine the democratic tendencies of various Mesopotamian empires and trace their influence on later Grecian developments.

The high seas (C’s) of music piracy in information systems : cost, convenience and choice

Systems and technologies used for unauthorised file sharing have received little attention in the Information Systems literature. This paper attempts to fill this gap by presenting a critical, qualitative study on the motivations for using unauthorised file sharing systems. Based on 30 interviews with music consumers, musicians, and the music industry, this paper reports on the decision of music consumers to ‘pirate or purchase’. This paper highlights file sharing from multiple perspectives of users, musicians, and representatives from the music recording industry. Three main themes emerged on the cost, convenience and choice as motivators for unauthorised file sharing.

Fear of music : sounded poetry and the poetry soundtrack

This essay proposes the term ‘poetry soundtrack’ for a form of sounded poetry that I have been practising for some years (examples of which can be found in this issue of Axon). The poetry soundtrack is a sonic object made up of original poetry, music, and sound design. Such a form is now being produced—under various names—by numerous poets, thanks to the development of the Digital Audio Workstation (or DAW). In my essay, I argue that the poetry soundtrack has occupied an aesthetic no man’s land between avant-garde ‘sound poetry’ and documentary-style recordings of poetry readings. I propose that a general ‘fear of music’ has led critics to favour such forms, and concomitantly to ignore musico-poetic forms of sounded poetry. In addition, I analyse the ‘digital poetics’ that can be found in producing sounded poetry with a DAW, especially with regard to the ‘vocal staging’ that such technology can produce in the poetry soundtrack.