In my thesis, I focus on delineating 'The Cynic Sensibility' in British Popular Literature and Culture (1950-1987). Focusing primarily on literature and music (and, to a lesser extent, cinema/television), this works seeks to write a cultural history through analysing cultural texts. The sensibility has three key characteristics: I) it is a Bohemian sensibility; ii) it is apolitical, in that it does not endorse any political alternative to the status quo at any given time, and iii) it is popular, and exists across traditional high/low cultural lines. Connected to this last point is a tendency to oppose stylistic Modernism and its attendant obscurities. Underpinning my thesis are the work of the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk on cynicism as a philosophical phenomenon, and the cultural theory of Raymond Williams. Using this approach, I seek to not only connect spheres of culture which hitherto have been kept separate, but to provide a different insight into 20th century British cultural history.

This study compared the impact of instructional and improvisational music therapy approaches on the level of motor impulsivity displayed by adolescent boys who have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Measures included numbers of errors made on a Synchronised Tapping Task (STT); and Conners' Rating Scales (Conners, 1997). Participants (n=13), aged 11 - 16 years, were enrolled in a special residential school. A combination of a multiple contrasting treatment and an experimental control group design was used. Students were randomised to three groups; control (Group A) and two treatment groups. Students in Group B received eight sessions of improvisational music therapy followed by eight sessions of instructional music therapy, while the order was reversed for Group C.There was no statistical difference between the impacts of the contrasting music therapy approaches on the level of motor impulsivity displayed by the students as measured by the STT and the Restless-Impulsive and Hyperactive-Impulsive Conners' subscales. However all students significantly improved on the STT across each phase of treatment and improvement was slightly greater during the instructional treatment periods for both groups. During these same periods teachers reported a small decrease in restless and impulsive behaviours. The results therefore cautiously imply that the instructional approach might contribute to a reduction in motor impulsivity in the classroom.Significant improvement on STT without the corresponding improvement in motor impulsivity suggested that increased accuracy on the STT might be attributable to progress in other developmental domains. Teacher report of significant improvement for treatment groups on the DSM-IV Total Subscale adds weight to this suggestion, and implies that combined music therapy approaches might have contributed to a reduction in DSM-IV symptomology in the classroom.Rickson's (2001) tentative suggestion that creative music-making might over-arouse students with ADHD was not confirmed. Students did make more errors when tested on the STT a second time on the same day but this was regardless of whether they had been involved in instructional, improvisational or no music therapy programme. It is possible that students who have ADHD are easily aroused by the general school milieu and classroom or music room interactions with peers.

This thesis examines the role of music in British-South Asian postcolonial literature, asking how music relates to the possibility of constructing postcolonial identity. The focus is on novels that explore the postcolonial condition in India and the United Kingdom, as well as Pakistan and the United States: Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy (1993), Amit Chaudhuri's Afternoon Raag (1993), Suhayl Saadi's Psychoraag (2004), Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) and The Black Album (1995), and Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999). The analysed novels feature different kinds of music, from Indian classical to non-classical traditions, and from Western classical music to pop music and rock 'n' roll. Music is depicted as a cultural artefact and as a purely aestheticised art form at the same time. As a cultural artefact, music derives meaning from its socio-cultural context of production and serves as a frame of reference to explore postcolonial identities on their own terms. As purely aesthetic art, music escapes its contextual meaning. The transcendental qualities of music render music a space where identities can be expressed irrespective of origin and politics of location. Thereby, music in the novels marks a very productive space to imagine the postcolonial nation and to rewrite imperial history, to express the cultural hybridity of characters in-between nations, to analyse the state of the nation and life in the multicultural diaspora of contemporary Great Britain, and to explore the ramifications of cultural globalisation versus cultural imperialism. Analysing music's cultural meaning and aesthetic value in relation to postcolonial identity, this thesis opens up new frames of textual and cultural analysis that help understand the postcolonial condition from the interdisciplinary perspective of word and music studies.

This qualitative study critically examines the researcher’s music therapy clinical practice with a preschool child with global developmental delay. The researcher/student music therapist critically examined and refined her clinical practice using an action research model. Each cycle consisted of a plan, action, data collection, reflection, and analysis. The researcher was the main participant. The child, his mother and a speech-language therapist were co-participants with different roles. The child and his mother participated in the sessions. The speech-language therapist observed three sessions through a window. Feedback from the child’s mother and the speech-language therapist contributed to the reflective data. Important issues that developed through the cycles related to early intervention techniques (having fun, being playful and spontaneous, and being in close proximity). Other important issues that developed were, the use of the voice and guitar; confidence; professionalism with parents and other health professionals; self-awareness; and the understanding of early childhood development (especially in the area of communication). Related literature on aspects of music therapy practice, music therapy in early intervention, music therapy and communication, and action research are described. These results cannot be generalised. However, they may firstly, illustrate relevant trends in early intervention, and secondly, enable the researcher to adapt skills learnt to use in future practice in early intervention

This arts-based research thesis sought to understand two children with special needs, through their musical offerings within the context of their music therapy sessions. The process of understanding the children came through firstly listening to and extracting meaningful musical data from recordings of their sessions. This data included both actual excerpts of the musical interplays between the child and music therapist (myself), and more broadly, underlying themes drawn from the recorded session material. The data was then creatively ‘melded’, resulting in two original instrumental works, herein referred to as 'songs'. Before, during and after writing the songs, rigorous analyses were undertaken utilising both a formal approach, via the use of a contextual question framework, and two creative approaches: free-form narration and data-led imagery. The contextual question framework, involving the repetitive use of two key questions - where? and why? - sought to understand the data’s context, its purpose for inclusion, and its influence on the respective song. One of the creative approaches, that of free-form narration, sought to, rather than analysing the song through formal structures, instead ‘tell the song’s story’, narratively conveying the experience of being with the child in his music. The other creative approach, that of data-led imagery, involved creating images during and after being ‘immersed’ in the musical data, employing instinctive or subconscious means to further develop the therapist’s understanding of the child’s musical offerings, and moreover, the child himself. Upon completion of the two songs, it was discovered that clinical themes present from the sessions strongly influenced the song creation process. Results also strongly supported the validity of arts-based research as a viable means of analysing music created with children with special needs.

In the nineteenth century considerable ambiguities arose regarding sacred and secular categories in music. Although such ambiguities have often been discussed in relation to the mass, this study uses the genre of the lied - in particular, Dvořák's Biblical Songs - as a means of examining the interaction between these categories. The problems inherent in the idea of 'sacred lieder' are discussed, including case studies of Schubert's 'Die Allmacht' and Wolf's 'Nun wandre, Maria' from the Spanisches Liederbuch. The Biblical Songs are located within Dvořák's biography, to show the great extent to which they were a reflection of his personal situation. In-depth analysis of the music and texts of the songs, both individually and as a cycle, reveals that they are representative of a point of interaction between secular lieder for concert performance, and devotional lieder for a domestic context. A comparison with Brahms and his Four Serious Songs reveals two very different responses to biblical texts: whereas Brahm's solution places emphasis on secular love, Dvořák's songs show a progression from doubt and confusion about God through to faith and rejoicing. Furthermore, whereas the Four Serious Songs demonstrate a highly individualistic solution to the pessimism expressed earlier in the cycle, Dvořák's use of folk idioms at key locations in the Biblical Songs places emphasis on communality and tradition. However, the cycle also reveals a more complex expression of faith than is often assumed of Dvořák.

In garages, practice rooms and classrooms, young people are composing music in rock and pop bands; engaged in working together in the shared enterprise of group music making. This study aims to contribute to scholarly knowledge through describing, analysing and interpreting the collaborative compositional processes (song writing) of three teenage rock bands. A theoretical model was developed and is applied to an analysis of the compositional processes of each group. Communication within each of the bands is analysed in terms of musical, nonverbal and verbal communication. The teaching and cooperative learning that occurred within each of the bands is presented, and each band is described in terms of a community of practice. An analysis of the compositional processes reveals that the three bands employed similar methods to generate ideas and construct their songs. However, when the data are viewed from a number of other theoretical perspectives, it is clear that two of the bands composed collaboratively, working together within mutually supportive, highly focussed and respectful communities; and that the third band’s songs were the work of a single composer, achieved through the cooperation and participation of the other band members. The young people in all three bands were highly engaged in selfdirected music learning, finding meaning and identity in the process.

Samuel Arnold (1740-1802) was a dominating figure of his time whose works. enjoyed critical acclaim and popular success. In the twentieth century he has remained known as the editor of Handel’s works but his reputation as a composer, strong in his own time, has suffered a critical eclipse. The intention of the present thesis is to provide the first specialized study of Samuel Arnold. In so doing the author aims to examine his accomplishments as a prominent musician, to re-establish his critical reputation as a composer, and at the same time to offer a thematic bibliographic catalogue of his works. The first volume gives a detailed account of Arnold's life and works. Though biographical articles on the composer have appeared in Grove’s Dictionary and the New Grove, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Dictionary of National Biography, and in A Biographical Dictionary of Actors and ... Musicians (ed. Philip H. Highfill), much has been left unsaid. The author has synthesized information in secondary sources and verified these sources whenever possible by reference to the documents treated; in addition he has, by personal consultation of contemporary documents in English archives, discovered a mass of material hitherto unrecorded. Chapter one, therefore, summarizes all the known facts about the composer and his activities as a leading figure in London’s musical life, while chapter two is devoted to a complete survey of Arnold's non-dramatic works, ranging from nine oratorios, through instrumental music to settings of English poetry and other intimate or occasional pieces. The selective approach in discussing Arnold’s non-dramatic works has not been followed, however, for chapters three to six, which deal with his stage music. Arnold’s sixty-nine operas, seven pantomimes, three ballets, and seven scores of incidental music are so significant, both musically and historically, that the author has considered it essential to deal with each one individually. Besides presenting new material on the genesis and reception of each work, the author analyses all the surviving music. Chapter three, therefore, is devoted to Arnold’s all-sung operas, chapter four to the full-length operas with spoken dialogue, chapter five to the afterpiece operas with spoken dialogue, and chapter six to the pantomimes, ballets and incidental music; more than one hundred music examples illustrate the study. To complete volume one there is an extensive bibliography, as well as a transcription of Arnold’s unpublished additional music to John Gay's Polly (1777). The second volume is devoted to the compilation of a thematic catalogue of Arnold’s complete works. The aim of this catalogue is to provide a guide to the identification of his compositions and to add a comprehensive descriptive bibliography both of his manuscripts and of the early editions of his printed works. The catalogue is, therefore, meant to tell what Arnold wrote, when and (often) why he wrote and published a certain work, who printed and sold it, and where copies are to be found. In collating the works, information on their internal make-up has been given in each case, and, in addition, a full description of the title-page of each of the first editions is set out. For the bibliographical detail it has been necessary to examine contemporary newspaper advertisements, all the appropriate publishers’ catalogues, the muniment books at stationers Hall and, where possible, a copy or several copies of every item listed. The holdings of the appropriate public and private libraries were consulted and a large number of changes and additions made to the information collected in such works of reference as the British Union-Catalogue of Early Music and the volume of Repertoire International des Sources Musicales devoted to the eighteenth century. The present bibliographical and musicological account sheds new light on samuel Arnold’s life and works, and, equally important, on the world in which he lived. It is concluded that not only was he a cultivated man, prominent in the musical life of his time, but also a skilful composer, whose diverse productions have their own merits. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

This project seeks to sidestep the debilitating effects of music performance anxiety by cross-referencing knowledge from the areas of adolescent psychology with literature on MPA in singers in general in order to target adolescent singers early in their training. As well as considering the causes, symptoms and treatment of music performance anxiety, the project examines the role of the natural anxieties of adolescence in triggering music performance anxiety and seeks to chart a way through. Its intended readership is the classical singing teacher.

This study examines the researcher's music therapy intervention with hospitalised adolescents within a paediatric hospital The hospital is located in a New Zealand city serving a broad multicultural population of mainly Pakeha, Maori and Pacific Island people. There is a large body of literature showing that experiences of hospitalisation are often unpleasant and that the challenges adolescents encounter during hospitalisation can also be detrimental to their development. The researcher employed an action research model of cycles of planning, action and reflection to explore the potential for practice improvement in meeting the needs of hospitalised adolescents. In addition, young people's feedback on the sessions and input from supervisors also contributed to the researcher's planning. Personal goals in clinical practice and specific planning for the needs of individual participants were the starting points of each cycle. Subsequently, each cycle had a learning analysis to relate planning to action and to collect the knowledge for the next cycle or future practice. The researcher found that through scrutiny of her clinical work she was able to improve her professional practice. The findings also showed that relationship-building through music therapy was able to support the developmental needs of hospitalised adolescents.