Anthea Skinner
Dr Anthea Skinner completed a PhD in musicology at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University in 2017. Her major fields of study are military music, disability music culture and organology. In 2012 she was awarded the Musicological Society of Australia's student prize for best academic paper.
As well as being a musicologist, Anthea has qualifications in archiving and public relations. She was been a regular columnist for Link Disability Magazine for over 15 years and also wrote regular articles for the ABC's now defunct Ramp Up website. Anthea also plays percussion in the crip-folk band Bearbrass Asylum Orchestra.
As well as being a musicologist, Anthea has qualifications in archiving and public relations. She was been a regular columnist for Link Disability Magazine for over 15 years and also wrote regular articles for the ABC's now defunct Ramp Up website. Anthea also plays percussion in the crip-folk band Bearbrass Asylum Orchestra.
less
InterestsView All (10)
Uploads
Book Chapters
Papers
In exploring changes and traditions in Australian military banding between 1930 and 1955 I will concentrate on three main fields: non-musical training and duties, music and performance, and organisational change. Using fieldwork interviews with retired veterans and their families, together with archival records and contemporary newspaper reports, this thesis shows a rapidly changing band service. It tells of barely-trained, part-time militiamen who went on to become the last generation of Australian military musicians to see combat; of highly-trained radar operators who became fulltime bandsmen; and of a previously undocumented group of women, welcomed into mainstream bands during wartime, only to be excluded for another 40 years once peace reigned.
This period was also one of gradual professionalization for Australia’s military band services. In the 1930s musicians performed other military duties, as stretcher-bearers for example; however, starting in World War II and continuing post-war, musicians were gradually removed from the frontlines to focus solely on their musical skills. I will argue that, although it limited their military duties, this process of specialisation was vital to the survival of Australia’s military bands because as increased modernisation led to increased specialisation for military personnel, the idea of having to focus on two distinct fields, such as music and radar operating, was no longer appropriate.
While the mid-twentieth century was a time of great organisational change for Australian military bands, this thesis also demonstrates strong continuity in ceremonial performance. Ceremonial repertoire had often been in use since World War I and much of it is still in use in the present day. Ceremonies such as Remembrance Day are still performed in much the same way today as they were in the period under discussion. Australia’s military musicians may no longer be responsible for keeping up to date with the latest in medicine or radar, but their role as keepers of tradition and ceremony in a constantly modernising military means that they will forever be marching forwards, looking back.