Dr Benjamin Phipps

I teach and research across the areas of Music (Jazz, Popular Music, World Music and Japanese Traditional Musics) and curriculum and academic development. I completed my PhD in Ethnomusicology and conduct research using ethnographic methods, and have also been involved in quantitative and qualitative studies in music and higher education. I am particularly interested in what music-making means to the people who make it and how their creative processes develop, for instance, through improvisation and composition over time in relationship to social and cultural contexts. Prior to working in higher education, I worked professionally as a bassist (Acoustic and Electric), in musical contexts such as jazz, pop music, musical theatre and hybrid intercultural collaborations, including leading my own ensembles BandWagon and Strands. I studied a range of musical styles, including jazz bass with Ron Philpott, Craig Scott and Geoff Kluke, Hindustani classical music with Adrian McNeil and West African Percussion with Tony Lewis. I am also a student of the Japanese end-blown flute, the Shakuhachi with Bronwyn Kirkpatrick. I am also a passionate teacher with experience in tertiary education, a high school teaching qualification and hold a Senior Fellowship in the Higher Education Academy.