Composing Territory: Compositional and Pedagogical Considerations Necessary When Composing Choral Works for Pre and Post Menarcheal Female Voices of Varying Linguistic Diversity in the Northern Territory
Creators: name: Sealey, Lyndsay Louise
Publisher: name: Southern Cross University
Year: 2022
Subjects: Australian Composition
Australian English
Changing Female Voice
Choir
Choral Blend
Choral Pedagogy
Choral Composition
Composing
Composition
Cultural Diversity
Female Voice Change
Linguistic Diversity
Northern Territory
Pedagogy
Puberty
Singing
Standard Australian English
Tonal Homogeneity
Voice Change

description: Composing Territory is a multi-modal research project consisting of 12 choral compositions, accompanying teaching resource and exegesis. The project aims to gain insight into the significance of various compositional considerations that could potentially ease problems in choral performance arising from female pubertal voice change and multifarious language backgrounds. Composing Territory also aims to provide a sequence of delivery via a teaching resource appropriate to the educational context of the region, where most teachers have no formal music training.
description: Adolescent voice change has been identified as a leading cause of students abandoning choral studies (Gackle, 1991; Freer, 2015; Sweet, 2015). Participation in choir has immeasurable impact on student physical and mental wellbeing (Clift, Hancox, Morrison, Hess, Kreutz &amp; Stewart, 2010), and educational benefits including strengthened cognitive resource networks used for working memory (Patel, 2010). Composing Territory seeks to improve performance outcomes of adolescent choirs in the Northern Territory by reclassifying the female voice ranges by stage of voice change and considering subsequent limitations in the composition process.
description: The Northern Territory is vast and disparately populated. Its isolated capital, Darwin, has a uniquely diverse and transient populace, with limited education training and resources for choral delivery. The miscellany of languages and lack of early choral education means traditional choral works are often inaccessible to adolescent choirs of the region and tonal homogeneity is implausible. To this end, the composition process utilised in Composing Territory analyses concomitant features of common local languages and utilises these in lyrics to establish familiarity of tone and increase the likelihood of choirs establishing choral blend.
description: As most teachers in the Northern Territory have limited or no formal music or voice training, this project included the creation of teaching resources designed to assist teachers utilising choir as a primary vehicle for music education in their school, to improve choral attrition rates and to ensure the continuity of musicianship development. To ensure that student learning continues throughout voice change processes, despite linguistic background, pedagogical considerations are included in the composition process and appropriate teaching resources are provided. This should ensure that non-music specialists are better equipped for choral delivery.
description: Composing Territory is placed in an interpretivist paradigm and utilises a combination of practice-led creative research, action research and autoethnography to assess the viability of using new composition processes and practices to improve the outcomes for adolescent female choristers of varied linguistic background in the Northern Territory.
description: http://www.composingterritory.com