Montreal

Nice place, if a little cold, wet and snowing. Reminds me a little of New Zealand/ Queenstown in many ways . . . Spent some time with the folks at McGill's Schulich School of Music.

Old music school

New music school

Dean, Don McLean showed me through some of the recording studios:

API Console

Mutimedia room and soundstage

I also met with Sean Ferguson, a composer and Director of CIRMMT (Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology). They house six, what they term 'research axes', and each of which have dedicated labs and resources.

Must fly, (literally). Now on to Leeds and dreadful weather, I believe. Still, looking forward to catching up with friends at Sixth Annual Art of Record Production Conference.

Lowell & New York

Traveling once more, and a very good experience and entry into the US via San Francisco. Nice people, if still very busy and slightly confusing . . .
Now completed the first leg of the tour, first to Lowell MA - beautiful little town north of Cambridge and Boston.
Caught up with the good folks of UMass Lowell Music and their wonderful hospitality. They run some terrific degree programs in music education, sound recording technology, music business and performance. Many thanks to Alex Ruthmann and John Shirley:

[A great night out at Boston's Lennox Hotel, w/ an amazing glass of 'The Balvenie']

Then on to New York to catch up with Nora Farrell (now teaching part of the year in our Bachelor of Music Technology program) and Bill Duckworth who's also now supervising some of our QCRC PhD candidates. Thanks for a delicious Thanksgivings Day dinner (that's pumpkin pie, clementines and roasted chestnuts . .!)
Or, as they also call it here – Turkey Day! Pics from the spectacular Macey's Thanksgivings Day Parade:

Flying out today, onward and upward to Montreal & McGill University's Schulich School of Music. Looking forward to it.

Overseas Itinerary Nov-Dec 2010

Just about to hop on a flight for the US. Very much looking forward to seeing old friends again, making new ones, and of course engaging in the various events.

21 Nov – 23 Nov
UMass Lowell, Massachusetts. www.uml.edu/College/arts_sciences/music. MOU follow-up, curriculum review. Prof Wil Moylan, Dr Alex Ruthmann, Dr Alan Williams

24 Nov – 27 Nov
New York. HDR supervision development, music technology history, practice-led research, and Thanksgiving Day. Monroe Street Music, Prof Bill Duckworth, Nora Farrell, Steve Newcomb, Prof Susan-Schmidt Horning.

27 Nov – 1 Dec
Montreal, McGill University www.mcgill.ca/music PentaCon benchmarking, collaboration.
Prof Don McLean. CIRMMT (Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology). www.cirmmt.mcgill.ca

2 Dec – 5 Dec
UK, Leeds Metropolitan. www.leedsmet.ac.uk/inn/index2.htm
Presenting paper on 'Remixing modernism' at the 6th International Art of Record Production Conference. www.artofrecordproduction.com/content/view/233/127.

5 Dec – 8 Dec
UK, Manchester. Royal Northern College of Music. www.rncm.ac.uk Research: www.rncm.ac.uk/content/blogsection/8/52/
Staff seminars, HDR development. Prof Jonty Stockdale, Professor Richard Wistreich, Dr Jane Ginsborg.

8 Dec – 11 Dec
London & Guildford, Kingston University. fass.kingston.ac.uk/schools/performance/music
Seminars, practice-led music research. Dr Frank Millward.

No doubt will blog more and send pics over the following weeks.

soundspace

Another new venture, this time with intercultural musicians, improvisation and a surround sound PA system from industry partners, Acoustic Technologies.

We had an interesting, fun gig recently at the Queensland Conservatorium courtyard (in the centre of the building) here in Brisbane on 3 Nov. 2010. Speakers and artists semi-obscured around the mini-rainforest here.

More about the soundspace concept, scores and pictures available at www29.griffith.edu.au/soundspace.

New music - a six month retrospective

Lots of playing and jamming of the last six moths. Hope some might enjoy the work, but be a little warned - much is this is strictly improvisation, warts and all. A few have been edited a little to simply shorten, a couple of others have some Apple loops dropped in here and there. Still, the sounds are interesting . .


New pages, the last six months and MP3s available at www29.griffith.edu.au/imersd/draper/music

Many thanks to collaborators: Bob Peele (drums), John Stefulj (wind and percussion), Bart Stenhouse (bass and guitar), Frank Millward (keys), Peter Walters (bass).

ISME Beijing 2010

A wonderful diversion. Last week we had the pleasure of presenting at and attending the International Music Education Society (ISME) 29th World Conference in Beijing.

Along with others from the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, myself and colleague Scott Harrison presented a research paper entitled, Reflecting on reflection-in-action: Supervising practice-based doctorates in music.

What an incredible – and gigantic city! The culture, the friendliness and the wonderful music and art will never be forgotten.

Below, here's a slideshow with images from around Beijing, from the conference & music underscore from the spectacular Chinese opening ceremony.

Some of all of the Blues

Another step along the way . . Some of All of the Blues.mp3

Have been playing every Friday, my University Research Day. Jamming really, working out the guitars and chop-building with good friend, drummer Bob Peele at his recording and teaching studio here in Brisbane.

One of the instrument projects has been re-building this 1990 made-in-Nashville burgundy Les Paul Custom. [once owned and well-cared for by a elderly musician in Cairns who bought it new].

Has taken just a few late nights and much advice from My Les Paul Forums - completely re-wired internally, shielded with copper foil; Lindy Fralin 'Pure PAF' pickups, Tonepros/ Graphtech bridge and a great deal of messing with pot values and caps (tone, tone . . ).

In any case, here's one of the rather self-indulgent, but nice free-form blows . . take on Miles' All Blues giving the Les Paul & kit a workout. Some of All of the Blues.

Guitar sounds are though a stereo amp rig: a Fender tweed Hot Rod Deluxe (JJ tubes, Eminence Cannabis Rex hemp cone speaker, and one of the Fromel HRD mod kits), and a Suhr Badger. The board is a Vox Tonelab SE30.

I hope someone enjoys!

The Story So Far

I’m a baby boomer who grew up in Brisbane the 50s and 60s. Fresh out of school as a 18 year old guitarist, I bypassed university and joined a rock band, promptly heading off to Melbourne to find fame and fortune. Good times, cold weather, Lygon Street, Aussie Crawl, Skyhooks, Countdown, shared band houses and life in pubs and on the road.

c. 1974 – somewhat naive, but ready for the road

L-to-R: me (guitar), Tony Mockridge (vocals),

Harry Curtis (bass, sadly now passed away), Bob Peel (drums).

We never quite cracked the ‘big time’, whatever that really means in the common ‘stardom-or-bust’ vernacular. Perhaps this was to do with my attitude about money and pay-scales – somehow those record company deals never seemed to quite add up. In any case, I became increasingly interested in the idea of more strings to my bow (what they seem to be calling ‘portfolio careers’ these days) and there was no way to avoid the fact that this was based on an arsenal of high level skills.

I subsequently relocated to Sydney in the late 70s, feeling the needing a change of scene and better musical chops. Jazz fusion was emerging at the time and Sydney had a burgeoning jazz scene together with a Conservatorium of some note that offered programs led by some of the jazz stars of the time. I auditioned and enrolled, trouble was, I didn’t like it and I didn’t like what they taught. Academic content and delivery seemed to be quite disconnected to working, but moreover, the jazz was way too ‘straight’ for my liking, delivered by who I then thought of as ‘old guys’. So, I found private tuition from a number of gigging rock guys with huge chops, dropped out of the Con and for the next five years or so, practiced and played harder than I even had before in my life.

c. 1980s – some festival, somewhere

I moved back to Brisbane in the early 80s to take up a number of great recording and touring offers. This was also time of the birth of the PC, MIDI (the musical Instrument digital interface), the CD and digital sound. I jumped right in, using my experience and love of recording studios to build a facility in Brisbane, probably one of the first, affordable ‘Home studios’ here. This used emerging technologies to synchronise software and microphone recording to produce a lot of original music in the next decade or so.

c. 1987 - the first studio in a spare bedroom

It was this trajectory that first bought me to deliver an invited masterclass on film music and recording technology at the Queensland Conservatorium in 1998. The ‘technology’ moniker stuck, and I somehow became to default ‘music tech’ guy because of my work with computers primarily, but my rock, R&B, and jazz music never really got much of a look-in at a mostly traditional conservatoire at that time. Still. I loved the teaching – and the challenge of being part of a team to bring the conservatoire into the 21st century.

During the 90s, I subsequently designed and convened a range of music technology-related undergraduate, postgraduate degree programs and specializations. I also built a number of recording studios (including the staff research space IMERSD [Intermedia, Music Education & Research Design], networked facilities and computer labs.

The 2004 launch of the IMERSD recording complex.

L-to-R: Griffith Vice-Chancellor Prof Ian O’Connor, [then] Qld Govt Arts & Education Minister, Anna Bligh [now Premier of Queensland]; Mr Robyn James (CEO, Pacific Film & Television Corp.); Mr Mike Lake (Exec. VP, Warners Village Roadshow)

The design of online, variously termed ‘flexible’ or ‘blended’ learning has been a feature research interest throughout my university career. I also had to build and establish academic cred., and in 2000 I completed a Doctor of Education (EdD) entitled New Learning: The Challenge of Flexible Delivery in Higher Education. Drawing on this work, and influenced by new millennia ‘web 2.0’, I subsequently developed podcasting platforms via Radio IMERSD and our role in Griffith iTunes-U.

Given my positive EdD experiences, I also lobbied for the creation of a professional doctorate-by research in music. In 2005, QCGU introduced the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA), these days bursting at seams with doctoral candidates researching aspects of their music.

Somewhat quizzically though, I sometimes reflect on the fact that while here and elsewhere in the arts higher education sector, we develop and assist some outstanding people to attaint their doctoral qualification though multi-exegetical thesis that incorporate creative products – it is much more problematic for academics to continue and be recognised for their own similar creative works. (see earlier 12 May 2010 blog entry, Monograph).

And this brings the story up to the present day: Since taking on the QCGU Deputy Director (Research) portfolio in 2009, this has most certainly allowed me considerable scope for refection(!) Steering an academic team and assuming responsibility for all QCGU RHD candidates in partnership with GGRS has provided me with a substantial ‘birds-eye view’ of complex viewpoints that I now deal with on a day-to-day basis.

This has allowed me to build on my past experience and to respond to the challenges of scaling, modifying, and/or refining my thinking. But also now, in terms of thinking about a research sabbatical (ASP, or Academic Studies Program as call it in Australia), something which I haven’t had the opportunity to engage with to date. I wonder if I can bring the musical past, the academic career and the future together in such a way that makes sense, that still serves my students and faculty well, but also allows me to rebuild some of my past music-making? A bit scary really – I have really ‘lived’ musicking for 15 years or so – that is, like a sports person needing the regular physical engagement: practicing, rehearsing, performing, composing.

We shall see. Next, I need to think about the instruments.

Monograph

It all began when in my 2009 university performance evaluation rounds, a senior colleague suggested that it might be time for me to think about a ‘monograph’, (I guess considered de rigeur for someone who is a professor in the university ecology). That usually means,

. . . In order to gain respect within the academic community and tenure at a major university, an academic must publish monographs over the course of his or her life. These scholarly treatises provide evidence that the academic is carrying out research in the field and analyzing already published information. A monograph usually brings new light to the subject, and it may contain breakthrough research. It also further refines the academic specialty of the author, and establishes the author as an authority on the topic. [Wisegeek]

. . . It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself. An author may therefore declare his own work to be a monograph by intent, or a reader or critic might define a given text as a monograph for the purpose of analysis. Normally it is used for a work intended to be a complete and detailed exposition of a substantial subject at a level more advanced than that of a textbook. [Wikipedia]

However, like many ‘artists in the academy’, I once did very different professional work before joining the university later in life, transitioning from what they now call a ‘portfolio career’ in music. That is, freelancing around musical performance genres, recording sessions, teaching and composition /production commissions. It was this background that invited my first masterclass in film sound track work at an Australian music conservatorium, later to be augmented by the teaching of classes and eventually a tenured position in 1996.

After working for some 25 years in a often cut-throat industry, I was quickly taken by higher education, the idea of ‘knowledge transfer’, and the new young musicians eager to learn.

Also similar to many of my contemporaries, I found myself drifting further and further away from practicing musicianship, simply because of academic demands – the PhD, grants, administration, strategic planning, email work flow, etc. Odd too, in the light of so much talk and gathering of ‘research equivalent outputs’ right across the university sector in Australia – From the so-called Strand Report, Research in the Creative Arts of 1998, to failed Cat J & H research collections, to the Howard government’s Research Quality Framework (RQF), to the now first Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) collection in 2010 (mirroring the UK’s RAE rankings, in place for many years now).

Despite these initiatives and chasing the idea of ‘practice-based research’, many academic artists struggle to keep up the chops and/or significant ‘alternate’ research outputs (artworks, new music, films etc), given the high teaching and administration demands of the variously ever-interconnected, ‘flexible’, policy-driven, compliance-oriented, document-oriented modern university life. Perhaps easier for some (like myself) to produce and count journal articles and conference papers – in writing, and/or immerse myself in collaborations producing albums for academic colleagues. [See my publications].

Not that I’m complaining. To the contrary, working in the university sector over the last 15 years has also taught me a lot about reflection, analysis and research; about challenging my assumptions and intellect. Here then, again recalling my colleague’s suggestion to ‘think about a monograph’, I want to consider more about the shape for such an undertaking:

mon·o·graph   [mon-uh-graf, -grahf] –noun
1. a treatise on a particular subject, as a biographical study or study of the works of one artist.
2. a highly detailed and thoroughly documented study or paper written about a limited area of a subject or field of inquiry: scholarly monographs on medieval pigments.
3. an account of a single thing or class of things, as of a species of organism.
[Dictionary.com]

I want to flesh out some of what is emerging as a plan for the next 18 months or so. But broadly, as way to fuse and re-examine my music in the light of the intervening 15 years of experience, and to think about the project in terms of a range of practice-led research products, one end point being the production of an original album of music entitled Monograph.

Next blog entry, I think I should back up a little and give a little run-down on The Story so Far, which bought me to this point.

Change of Topic

I haven’t had a lot of time to write on this blog recently. And one of the reasons is that a new project has emerged, but is keeping me busy outside of my university work commitments. I thought that one way that could help me to work through this musical ‘re-discovery’ project would be via my blog (inspired by examples from postgrad research students developing their research).

It may change the following of this blog, for those who may have been enjoying my ‘external reporting’, as it were. It could be a little self-indulgent I guess, but they tell me that’s what blogs are for . . . So, I though I’d start by putting up a couple of entries, then continue on in the development of this project over the next 18 months or so. What I’m calling Monograph.

monograph \ˈmä-nə-ˌgraf\ Function: noun Date: 1821
a learned treatise on a small area of learning; a written account of a single thing

[Merriam Webster Online]

Hope someone enjoys.

Byron Bay BluesFest 2010

Just break from a short Easter trip in beautiful Byron Bay (Australia's most easterly point), and spending a few days at the BluesFest.

Must have ben one of the best line-ups we've seen for some time at the Festival, now in its 14th year with many, many stages and acts to choose from . . .

A favourite with everyone was Dr John and the Lower 911:

And the amazing fingers of Joe Bonamassa:

And many more, just a few here:

The wonderful, The Men they Couldn't Hang (that's Chris Spedding on guitar).

Peter Green (yep, he's still doing it!)

Gypsy Kings.

Lyle Lovett and just a great band.

Béla Fleck's truly jaw-dropping African Project, featuring Oumou Sangarè.

The ever-ready John Mayall & band.

Cyril Neville and Galactica.

Buddy Guy.

But my personal favourite was Jeff Beck . . . in somewhat of a renaissance mode . . with Jason Rebello on keys, Rhonda Smith (from Prince) on bass & vocals, and Narada Michael-Walden on drums.

Jeff Beck's hands . . . the most unusual technique, but oh so expressive, all flesh, no pick . . must come from all that work in the garage with hot rods . .

This particular evening, we were treated to an encore with guest Imelda May . . just a terrific and inspiring artist (who was also performing with her band at Blues Fest). In this shot, they were performing a tribute to the recently passed away Les Paul, doing How High the Moon, and featuring Jeff performing on an historic 1954 Gibson Les Paul Oxblood.

More pics from the Byron Bay Blues Fest here. Enjoy.