The portfolio compositions examine the effects of using differing textures and colour within original musical concepts. The portfolio includes the results of research into methods of composition using two forms of the brass family - a reduced combination (Quintet) and the standard brass band configuration. The use of a combination of keyboard with solo brass, a combination of wind instruments with a solo wind instrument, and a combination of an orchestra with choir (SATB) is as a result of developing compositional techniques in hitherto unfamiliar areas. The works also attempt to reflect the influences of a number of recognised composers - Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius, John Ireland, John Rutter, Leonard Bernstein, Lalo Schiffren and George Butterworth. My portfolio contains a wide diversity of moods and styles and is presented as a result of serious artistic endeavour. My work has been produced under the supervision of Professor Peter Graham - Chair of Composition. The portfolio contains the following original compositions:- 1. Psalm 23 - a setting for Orchestra and choir 2. Caprice for Alto Saxophone and Wind Band 3. Sonata for Tuba and Piano 4. The Well of Eternity - Variations on Abbots Leigh for Brass band 5. Petite Suite for Brass Quintet 6. The Bridestones - A Rhapsody for Brass Band.

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This thesis researches singer-songwriters on an acoustic music scene. The rise of non-folk based 'acoustic' music and the recent re-emergence of the 'acoustic singer songwriter' in mainstream popular music bring up interesting aspects to consider regarding the self in contemporary culture. The key purpose here is to reflect upon the production and reproduction of creative musical identities amongst these music makers both in the private sphere of their daily lives and life histories, and in the public sphere of the acoustic music scene and conventional society. Through a consciously continuous movement between the self and the social, and the private and public spheres, I fuse ethnographic observation of the social workings of the acoustic music world with in depth examinations of the making and management of creative identities amongst its individual participants. The thesis focuses on three definable areas: firstly, the artistic creativity of music making itself; secondly, the creativity involved in the everyday managing of the musical identity, both in the domestic realm and in the music scene itself; and thirdly, the creative carving out or mapping of musical identities through the telling of individual life stories. The research deals with semi-professional musicians well into their adult years who are caught in a struggle between economic and domestic pressures on the one hand and their personal construction of a musical identity on the other. My focus here on a demographic category largely made up of the thirty-sixty age group - what we might refer to as 'the greying zone' - is of crucial sociological importance. The only studies of older age groups in music research tend to involve minority scenes outside of the mainstream such as folk, jazz or classical. This thesis however gives a voice to individuals engaged in a mainstream music scene, which, although closely related to folk, is in many ways closer to rock and pop. This greying zone is surprisingly absent from studies of culture and yet it is they who, more than ever, have a very powerful part to play in what is produced and consumed in popular music. There will be aspects regarding the general nature of acoustic music in this thesis. It is important to make clear however, that this is not intended to be a musicological study. It is also crucial to state that it aims to be more than simply a popular music study. This is a sociological analysis of individual identity, creativity and everyday life using a music scene as a backdrop. Overall, I present here a dynamically human picture of a diverse and mutable music culture involving individual stories and changes within and between its members.

This work attempts to correlate small changes in the physical parameters of a wind instrument with how humans perceive the pitch and timbre of the produced sound, with a view of helping in the design and quality assessment of musical instruments. The perceptual significance of small changes in the sound of a trombone played with mouthpieces of different shapes is investigated by synthesising the sound recordings with additive synthesis, and performing psychoacoustic tests asking people to state whether they can hear a difference or not, using a two alternative forced choice (2AFC) test. The just noticeable difference in the timbre of the trombone is also found. The psychoacoustic parameters of pitch and timbre of a Scottish Border bagpipe chanter and reed sound played with an artificial blowing machine were measured after having stored the reed under different relative humidity conditions. It was found that the pitch and spectral centroid are inversely correlated with the moisture content of the reed, which depends on the relative humidity of the air around it. The physical parameters of stiffness, resonance frequency and damping factor of the reed were measured. These parameters were used to predict the playing frequency and spectrum of the sound that the chanter and reed system would produce using a physical model based on the Harmonic Balance Method.

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This thesis is an analysis of Peter Maxwell Davies's Revelation and Fall, through the influences that affect the development of its musical language and adoption of the expressionist aesthetic. Each chapter concentrates upon one aspect of the work: (1) its deployment of precompositional processes of thematic transformation; (2) the superimposition of different levels of structural organization; (3) motivic working within thematic transformation and contrapuntal devices; (4) experiments with timbre and the manipulation of temporal flow; and (5) the dramatic and aesthetic influences that shape the presentation of the work. Throughout the thesis also runs a critique of certain trends in recent music analysis that seem to limit a full understanding of the analyzed work. I contend that restricting an analysis to the serial level of organization cannot prove the musical viability of the work. The other levels through which the work articulates its material must be identified by the analyst and given importance equal to this serial level. Through this thesis, I attempt to address Kevin Korsyn's complaint that some analyses (of music of all periods, not specifically Davies's) tend to view works as autonomous, synchronic entities, divorced from an artistic continuum of historical development, by focussing on the many connections with other music and ideas that inform the work's identity. Influence study is suggested as a method whereby the shortcomings of these analytical trends can be countered and the Conclusion of the thesis opposes the criticism of this method found not only in analytical studies, such as David Roberts's study of Davies's compositional techniques, discussed in Chapter One, but also a great number of commentaries on literary theory, particularly intertextuality.

This study proposes a synthesis between the three core inter-disciplines of sound art, interactive systems and soundscape research as the basis for the creation of a series of unique interactive sound installations and related projects. These works, created and presented by Interactive Agents, the author’s production company, explore aspects of the sonic environment, either in urban or natural locations or in the electro-magnetic domain. The notions of interactivity explored throughout this thesis are of a specialist nature, and the three main installation projects each utilise custom-built solutions, which eschew widespread computer technologies for discrete electronics, ensuring the seamless integration of artistic intention and interactive realisation. The sublimation of certain technological elements is explored as means of encouraging an audience to approach a work on its own terms unencumbered by everyday technological experience. The concept of an audience member is itself re-cast as an InterActor, at once a listener, viewer and performer and it is with reference to this term that the audience’s experience and impact on a work is conceived, deployed and evaluated. The sound material of each of the projects range from sonic reflections of the Stockholm soundscape elicited from its inhabitants to sonifications of electro-magnetic phenomena related to the operations of the Earth, the Sun and the wider universe. In certain cases the examples incorporated into the works were created by leading research scientists and thus this study not only repositions the outcomes of scientific research as artistic material, but also suggests that, in so doing, something of the classical unity between the arts and the sciences is regained. The thesis is presented in seven chapters, with the descriptions of the practical works preceded by an introductory chapter that explores related theoretical and contextual issues. The thesis culminates with a consideration of the development and reception of an exhibition where the sonic and interactive strategies discussed were presented.