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•into subsequent years is restricted according to theirlevel of performance in these tests.It is too early to judge whether our frankly experimentaldecision to replace the traditional exercises in"harmony", "counterpoint", "fugue" and "orchestration"with intensive analysis is completely successful. Experienceelsewhere had convinced us that the olderapproach not only took up an inordinate amount of theaverage student's tirne (and therefore severely restrictedThe Sound Laboratory, showing harpsichordthe scope of courses) but often proved largely irrelevantto his overall understanding of style, history and structure.In first year our students are introduced to thetechniques of analysing music from various ccmpositionalaspects, and in later years these aspects are selectivelystudied at far greater depth. We have found thatwe have to rely on our own methods (which, incidentally,we ourselves were not adequately taught) in thisfield, since we are working in an area largely devoid ofauthoritative textbooks. Analysis as an essential criticaland scholarly tool is our aim.The ethnomusicological approach is making its markon many aspects of our course work without in any waydenying or weakening the importance of our Europeancultural heritage. Students are encouraged from the outsetto think of music as a universal, though not anabsolute, phenomenon, and it is expected that this influencewill continue to widen and deepen as ourhonours and graduate studies in this science expand.Some special attributes of the various subjects taughtin the department may be mentioned briefly becausethey represent a departure from common practice. Overand above the solid core of historical, critical andanalytical studies that one would expect to find in suchcourses, Music I begins with a thorough introduction toacoustics and the basic physics of music, subjects amasterpiece of twentieth century music to depth analysis,offers classes in Dalcroze Eurhythmics, and draws onthe resources of several other departments (includingEnglish, Classical Studies, Philosophy and Psychology)for a broadening segment of lectures entitled "Musicin the Lire of Man". Music IIA concentrates on musicas drama, and includes the neglected fields of balletand incidental music as well as opera. Extensive useis made of filmed operatic productions. It also devotesa series of lectures to the history of musical instrumentsand elementary organology. Music III offers a choiceof three fields of study, orchestral. chamber and keyboard,or vocal music. but also includes studies inAuffiihrungspraxis (i.e., the styles of performance ofmusic of the past as recorded in historical sources) andin various non-western musical cultures (such as AustralianAboriginal, Indian classical, Bulgarian folk,Indonesian and Pacific musics). Honours students intheir second year take an additional subject (Music liB)entirely devoted to the study of the life and work of acomposer of dramatic music; Wagner is currently theawesome subject of this study. Thereafter they specializein one of three fields, ethnomusicology, historical andsystematic musicology, or music education, with avariety of appropriate options. (The last-mentioned fieldwill not be introduced until a special staff appointmentcan be made; we are all well aware of many coursesin "music education" taught elsewhere that might suecinctlybe described as "method without content" andw'hich we have no desire to emulatel l We have instituteda combined honours course in ethnomusicology(anthropology and music) with the ready co-operationof the department of Anthropology and Sociology. It ispleasing to note that thirty per cent of our presentsecond year students are reading for an honours degreein music.A music department is, of course, responsible for thepromotion of music in many ways beside the purelyacademic. The free lunch-hour concerts held on Mondaysand Thursdays continue to draw capacity audiences.and choral and instrumental activities in the Universityare under the guidance of members of the department'sstaff. We have also organized through the Union privatelessons by first-class teachers in various instruments andin singing. The popularity of such activities as these isgratifying, but we must nevertheless regard them asperipheral to our essentially academic function as adepartment in the faculty of Arts.Although this report of our work thus far lists a fewachievements. these are more than balanced bv ourawareness of deficiencies and our plans for the future.We expect a significant expansion in graduate studies,Listening room 2 in the Music Laboratoryparticularly in ethnomusicology, with the continued valuablesupport of the Australian Institute of AboriginalStudies. We want to amass a practical collection of earlyEuropean and non-western instruments and to set aboutlearning and teaching to play them since this is notbeing done anywhere else here, and needs to be done.We wish to see our students more involved in the makingof music, as an essential concomitant to its academicstudy, than many of them are. We have included in this5