Yoora Tattoo : A Two Way Approach to Indigenous Composition

Abstract

Abstract Elizabeth Sheppard's creative practice Thesis is presented in two sections, a Dissertation / Exegesis, and a notated Composition Portfolio. The research addresses Australian music curriculum needs by proposing and demonstrating a culturally guided, oral-literate Indigenous Australian music composition process. The dissertation includes a review of Indigenous composition literature, a methodology chapter on the three-stage research process, a reflexive narrative, and a conclusion that describes how the work addressed the research objectives. The research method is acculturative, and the approach offers an accessible, culturally guided two-way Indigenous Australian composition process, that allows dialectic artistic negotiation of conflicting issues, encourages progression to full maturity, and can be adapted to any Indigenous Australian music heritage or time frame. The Portfolio progresses from preliminary to complex compositions, by engagement with three Indigenous Australian pedagogies - Katitjin Warangkiny - heritage and storywork, Ngarra-burria - to listen to sing pedagogy. and Kaouwi Cooee - reciprocal call and response. In the Katitjin Warangkiny mode, on-Country walking and receptive audiation produces three works - The Reveille Mass, Karollini Christmas - ten Australian Christmas carols - and Minninup Pool, a string quartet that traces one day on Nyungar Country from sunrise to moonrise. In the Ngarra-burria mode, dialectics are explored. Kooranginy celebrates the creation of Nyungar Country in Walken Rainbow, sounds the 1788 British invasion of Australia in Yoora Tattoo, and pleads for an Australian First Nations Treaty in Koordaboodjar Heartland. The following piece, Warangka Makialo, contrasts an energetic, rhythmic Nyungar language psalm with a Gelineau-style English psalm. The Ngarra-burria chapter concludes with Six Songs from the Heart, a meditative two-way song cycle that travels across Country. In the Kaouwi Cooee mode, Sheppard presents three large scale expressively voiced works: the dramatic Nyungar language Missa Bina Benang, a chamber orchestra soundscape Mana Dharook Gathering Yams, and a nine movement a capella choral oratorio, Kaouwi ex Cordis, a choral affirmation of the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart. Sheppard's two-way / three-stage / oral-literate developmental approach to Indigenous composition shows how graded guidance from three contextualised Indigenous Australian learning modes can transform familiar Western composition genres, support nascent compositional skills, and transmit an Indigenous Australian musical legacy.