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Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education 11

Research and Research Education in Music Performance and Pedagogy

Scott D. Harrison Editor

Research and Research Education in MusicPerformance and Pedagogy

Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education

VOLUME 11

SERIES EDITOR

Liora Bresler, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.

EDITORIAL BOARD

Eeva Antilla, Theatre Academy, Helsinki, FinlandMagne Espeland, Stord University, Norway

Chris Higgins, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.

Rita Irwin, The University of British Columbia, CanadaSamuel Leong, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong

Minette Mans, International Consultant, Windhoek, Namibia

Mike Parsons, The Ohio State University, U.S.A.Eva Sæther, Lund University, Malmö Academy of Music, Sweden

Shifra Schonmann, University of Haifa, Israel

Julian Sefton-Green, University of Nottingham, UKSusan W. Stinson, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, U.S.A.

Christine Thompson, Pennsylvania State University, U.S.A.

SCOPE

This series aims to provide conceptual and empirical research in arts education, (includingmusic, visual arts, drama, dance, media, and poetry), in a variety of areas related to thepost-modern paradigm shift. The changing cultural, historical, and political contexts of artseducation are recognized to be central to learning, experience, and knowledge. The books inthis series present theories and methodological approaches used in arts education research aswell as related disciplines – including philosophy, sociology, anthropology and psychologyof arts education.

For further volumes:http://www.springer.com/series/6199

http://www.springer.com/series/6199

Scott D. HarrisonEditor

Research and ResearchEducation in MusicPerformance and Pedagogy

123

EditorScott D. HarrisonGriffith UniversitySouth Brisbane, QLDAustralia

ISSN 1573-4528 ISSN 2214-0069 (electronic)ISBN 978-94-007-7434-6 ISBN 978-94-007-7435-3 (eBook)DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-7435-3Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013950384

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DedicationFor Jessica

Acknowledgement

The editor would like to warmly acknowledge the contribution of each of theauthors, as well as the participants associated with their research. The volumewould not be possible without the support of Queensland Conservatorium GriffithUniversity and its current Director, Associate Professor Don Lebler. Support foraspects of this volume has been provided by the Australian Government Officefor Learning and Teaching. The views in this book do not necessarily reflectthe views of the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching or theQueensland Conservatorium Griffith University. Sincere thanks to Catherine Grantfor her painstaking, diligent and collegial contribution to the volume.

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Contents

1 Practitioners at the Centre: Concepts, Strategies,Processes and Products in Contemporary Music Research . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Huib Schippers

2 Evolving an Artistic Research Culture in Music: AnAnalysis of an Australian Study in an International Context. . . . . . . . . . 9Scott Harrison and Paul Draper

3 (Re-)Searching Artists in Artistic Research: CreatingFertile Ground for Experimentation at the OrpheusInstitute, Ghent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Kathleen Coessens, Darla Crispin, and Luk Vaes

4 Encouraging and Training Conservatoire Studentsat Undergraduate and Taught-Postgraduate LevelTowards Fluency in the Thought-Processes and Methodsof Artistic Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Jeremy Cox

5 Research Degrees in the Conservatoire Context:Reconciling Practice and Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65Ingrid E. Pearson

6 Research Skills in Practice: Learning and TeachingPractice-Based Research at RNCM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77Jane Ginsborg

7 Learning on the Job: Designing Teaching-Led Researchand Research-Led Teaching in a Music EducationDoctoral Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91Heidi Westerlund

8 The ‘little r’ in Artistic Research Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105Paul Draper and Kim Cunio

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9 Some Challenges of Practice Based/Centred Enquiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119Oscar Odena

10 Addressing the Politics of Practice-Based Research and ItsPotential Contribution to Higher Music Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133Pam Burnard

11 Creative Arts Research Assessment and ResearchTraining in Hong Kong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151Samuel Leong

12 Complicated Conversation: Creating Opportunities forTransformative Practice in Higher Education MusicPerformance Research and Pedagogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169Susan A. O’Neill

13 “No Two are the Same”: A Narrative Accountof Supervising Two Students Through a Doctor of MusicalArts Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181Stephen Emmerson

14 Weaving Together Disparate Threads: Future Perspectivesfor Research and Research Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197Scott Harrison

Contributors Editor

Scott Harrison lectures in Music and Music Education at Griffith University andcurrently serves as Director, Queensland Conservatorium. A graduate of QueenslandConservatorium and the University of Queensland, Scott has experience in teachingsinging and music in primary, secondary and tertiary environments. Performanceinterests and experience include opera and music theatre as both singer and musicaldirector. His teaching areas focus on musical theatre, research design and gender.His major research areas are music and wellbeing, vocal education, music researchand masculinities and music. He has published extensively in these fields and isauthor or editor Masculinities and Music (2008), Male Voices: Stories of BoysLearning through Making Music (2009), Perspectives on Teaching Singing (2010)and Perspectives on Males and Singing (2012). Scott is editor of the InternationalJournal of Music Education.

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Contributing Authors

Pamela Burnard is internationally known for her work as an academic, educator,researcher, editor and workshop facilitator, Pamela is co-convenor of the BERACreativity SIG, co-editor of the British Journal of Music Education, AssociateEditor of Psychology of Music and serves on 9 other editorial boards, includingThinking Skills and Creativity, Journal of Artistic and Creative Education, Journalof Music, Technology and Education, and Research Studies in Music Educationand Research Papers in Education. Pamela manages an extensive research seminarprogramme which supplements the Masters in Arts, Culture and Education, a courseshe initiated. She has also built extensive networks which link university, school andcommunity arts organisations. Her research supervision encompasses investigationsof creative learning and teaching, creativity assessment, computer- and internet-mediated collaborative musical creativity and other situated forms of musicalcreativity in conservatoire and community settings. Her teaching responsibilitiesinclude the management of Higher Degree courses involving arts, culture andeducational research training at University of Cambridge.

Kathleen Coessens is a philosopher and artist, exploring the crossings of scienceand art, human creativity and cultural representations, embodiment and epistemol-ogy. She graduated in piano and chamber music in Paris and Brussels, and inphilosophy, sociology and psychology. She works as a professor/researcher at theVrije Universiteit Brussel in the Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science, atthe Orpheus Research Centre in Music (ORCiM), Ghent, and at the Conservatory,Antwerp, teaching semiotics and sociology of artistic practice. She publishesphilosophical and artistic research work and collaborates in artistic projects (withChamp d’Action, Antwerp; Grays School of art, Aberdeen — AHRC project ‘Timeof encounter, time of the clock’; ORCiM, Ghent) merging visual and performancearts and exploring the boundaries between the cultural and the ecological, betweenarts and life.

In January 2011, Jeremy Cox became Chief Executive of the AssociationEuropéenne des Conservatoires, Académies de Musique et Musikhochschulen(AEC). Prior to joining the AEC, Jeremy had more than 10 years’ experience as

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Dean of the Royal College of Music in London. Jeremy has been closely involvedin European developments in higher music education since the start of the BolognaProcess. He has worked as an expert advisor for the AEC and for the Tuning Processin Europe and Australia. He chaired the group which developed the EuropeanPlatform for Artistic Research in Music (EPARM), launched in Belgrade in 2011.

Darla Crispin is a Fellow in Artistic Research at the Orpheus Research Centre inMusic (ORCiM), Ghent, Belgium. A Canadian pianist and scholar, with a ConcertRecital Diploma from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and a PhD fromKings College London, she specialises in musical modernity, and especially in themusic of the Second Viennese School. Dr. Crispin’s most recent work examines thisrepertoire through the prism of artistic research in music. Her publications includea collaborative volume with Kathleen Coessens and Anne Douglas, The ArtisticTurn: A Manifesto (Leuven 2009) and numerous book chapters and articles, the mostrecent of which is ‘Allotropes of Advocacy: a model for categorizing persuasivenessin musical performances’, co-authored with Jeremy Cox, in Music & Practice, Vol.1(1) 2013. She is currently working on a book entitled The Solo Piano Works of theSecond Viennese School: Performance, Ethics and Understanding.

Kim Cunio has studied with a number of Australia’s finest musicians includingAustralian composer Nigel Butterly, conductor and producer Eric Clapham, andJazz guitar legend Ike Isaacs. His work with the ABC has seen him compose andproduce music projects for CD, radio and television over the last decade. He isone of Australia’s most accomplished researching composers and was awarded anABC Golden Manuscript Award in 2004 in recognition of his work with traditionaland Islamic music. Kim works in new art music, music research, traditional music,acousmatics and screen. He plays a large number of traditional instruments and hismusic is expansive, beautiful and multi layered.

Paul Draper is the formerly deputy director of research and now Professor of Musicat the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University in Australia. He teachesand supervises students from undergraduate to doctoral level. He performs andcomposes as jazz musician and a record producer, and publishes on higher educationand music technology. He serves on editorial boards including AUC CreateWorld,the Art of Record Production, and the Journal of Music, Technology and Education.He contributed to the Excellence in Research exercise in Australia, and has a keeninterest in practice-centred interdisciplinary research.

Stephen Emmerson studied at New College, Oxford, graduating with a Masterof Philosophy in Music in 1983 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1989. While inEngland he studied piano with Peter Wallfisch, receiving an ARCM in performancein 1986. He has been on staff at the Queensland Conservatorium since 1987where he teaches courses in music literature and music research as well as piano,chamber music and performance practice. He performs regularly both as soloistand with chamber ensembles, most notably within the Griffith Trio, an Ensemble-in-Residence at the Queensland Conservatorium, Dean–Emmerson–Dean and theEndeavour Trio. Recordings of his playing have been released by ABC Classics,

Contributing Authors xv

Move Records, The Anthology of Australian Music on Disc, CPO, Continuum,Tall Poppies and Contact. He is also a member of the Queensland ConservatoriumResearch Centre and convenes the Doctor of Musical Arts program, a professionaldoctorate promoting the documentation of practice-based research.

Jane Ginsborg is Associate Dean of Research and Director of the Centre forMusic Performance Research at RNCM, where she holds a Personal Chair. Havingread Music at the University of York, she trained at the Guildhall School ofMusic and Drama and became a professional singer. She subsequently gaineda degree in Psychology with the Open University and completed her PhD atKeele University. She has published widely on expert musicians’ preparation forperformance, collaborative music making and musicians’ health. In 2002 she wasawarded the British Voice Association’s Van Lawrence Award for her research onsingers’ memorising strategies.

Samuel Leong is Professor and Head of the Department of Cultural and CreativeArts at The Hong Kong Institute of Educatio and Director of UNESCO Observatoryfor Research in Local Cultures and Creativity in Education. Over the past 30years, he has had a multifarious career working in range of positions includingat the Singapore Ministry of Education, Singapore Broadcasting Corporation,Centre for Life Enrichment, University of Michigan, Edith Cowan University andthe University of Western Australia. He has authored and edited a number ofpublications including Using Music Technology in Music Education, Music inSchools and Teacher Education: a Global Perspective, and Musicianship in thetwenty-first Century. He has also given invited presentations in North America,Europe, Australia and Asia. Professor Leong has more than 17 years of experiencesupervising and examining master’s and doctoral research projects. He has beenawarded competitive grants from the Australian Research Council, the Hong KongResearch Grants Council and Hong Kong Arts Development Council and serves onthe boards of seven refereed journals.

Oscar Odena is Reader at the School of Education, University of Glasgow, UK.He studied primary music education and psychopedagogy in Lleida, Spain, beforecompleting a master’s at Glasgow University and a doctorate of philosophy at theInstitute of Education, University of London. He serves on the editorial boards ofleading journals in music and music education. Oscar has taught and researchedin higher education institutions in Spain, England and Northern Ireland, where hecompleted a study on the potential of music education projects to diminish cross-community tensions, funded by The Bernard van Leer Foundation.

Susan A. O’Neill is an Associate Professor in Arts Education in the Facultyof Education at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. She has beenworking in the area of musical development and artistic learning for over 20years with an emphasis on fostering youth music engagement in ways that exploreand contribute to expansive learning opportunities, motivation, positive values,well-being, personal and social identities, intergenerational relationships, digitalmedia and multimodal creative collaborations, and cultural understandings. She is

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Director of Research for Youth, Music and Education (RYMEyouth.com), MODALResearch Group (Multimedia Opportunities and Diversity in Artistic Learning), andthe Arts Matter Learning Projects. She is Senior Editor of the Canadian MusicEducators’ Association (CMEA) Biennial Book Series, Research to Practice. Shehas published widely in the fields of music psychology, positive youth development,artistic learning, and music education, including contributions to ten edited bookspublished by Oxford University Press.

Ingrid Pearson is a Research Fellow in Performance Practice at London’s RoyalCollege of Music, following some 6 years as Deputy Head of Graduate School.She works across theory and practice, particularly as a clarinettist in the arena ofhistorical performance. Ingrid moved to the UK from Australia to undertake a PhDin performance practice at the University of Sheffield, and has performed with themajor UK period ensembles. She has published for Cambridge University Press,recorded for DG Archiv, and her research has been supported by the Arts andHumanities Research Council and The Galpin Society.

Huib Schippers is the founding Director of the innovative Queensland Conservato-rium Research Centre at Griffith University in Brisbane. From that position, he wasresponsible for the development of a strong practice-led research culture, resultingin a number of signature events challenging traditional approaches to musicalactivities. After careers in performance, teaching, journalism, the record trade, artspolicy, and project management, he has increasingly dedicated his professional lifeto research. From August 2009 to August 2012, Professor Schippers also served asDirector of the Queensland Conservatorium.

Luk Vaes studied with Cl. A. Coppens, Aloys Kontarsky, Yvonne Loriod, OlivierMessiaen and Yvar Mikhashoff. He won several competitions and prizes for newmusic performance in Belgium, Italy, Germany and the US; produced radio- and TVrecordings on new music for the piano; several national and international composersdedicated their compositions to him; he was the guest of prominent internationalfestivals. Luk is the first musician to obtain a docARTES PhD; docARTES is thedoctoral programme in musical arts running at the Orpheus Institute (together withits Flemish and Dutch partners) since 2004.

Heidi Westerlund is a professor at the University of the Arts Helsinki, SibeliusAcademy, Finland, where she is responsible for the doctoral program in musiceducation. She has published internationally, e.g., on music teacher education,developing learning communities in formal music education, multiculturalism,democracy and music education, and pragmatist philosophy and aesthetics. She isthe editor of the Finnish Journal of Music Education and she works on the editorialboard of several international journals.

Contributors

Dr. Pam Burnard Faculty of Education, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK

Dr. Kathleen Coessens Orpheus Institute, Ghent, Belgium

Dr. Jeremy Cox Association of European Conservatoires, Surrey, UK

Dr. Darla Crispin Orpheus Institute, Ghent, Belgium

Dr. Kim Cunio Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Griffith University,Brisbane, Australia

Prof. Paul Draper Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Griffith Univer-sity, Brisbane, Australia

Dr. Stephen Emmerson Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, GriffithUniversity, Brisbane, Australia

Prof. Jane Ginsborg Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, UK

Prof. Scott Harrison Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, GriffithUniversity, Brisbane, Australia

Prof. Samuel Leong Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong, China

Dr. Oscar Odena University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

A/Prof. Susan A. O’Neill Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby,Canada

Dr. Ingrid E. Pearson Royal College of Music, London, UK

Prof. Huib Schippers Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, GriffithUniversity, Brisbane, Australia

Dr. Luk Vaes Orpheus Institute, Ghent, Belgium

Prof. Heidi Westerlund University of the Arts Helsinki, Sibelius Academy,Helsinki, Finland

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Chapter 1Practitioners at the Centre: Concepts,Strategies, Processes and Productsin Contemporary Music Research

Huib Schippers

Abstract This chapter investigates and reports on the establishment of artisticresearch in the conservatoire setting. As such it draws on trends and issues inboth advocating and cautioning the acceptance of artistic practice as research. Itdraws on examples from international trends in the recognition of creative productsas research outputs by government agencies charged with measuring the researchcapabilities of music institutions. The chapter argues that not all creative outputsare necessarily research outputs but also that, paradoxically, many works from thecommon practice period would in their time have been treated as research outputs.

The implications for the twenty-first century conservatoire are argued, particu-larly in relation to managing staff and student research programs. The author drawson examples from international experiences in Asia, Europe, the United Kingdomand Australia to illustrate the arguments for and against practice-centred researchand, in so doing, sets up the locally contextualised chapters to follow.

Keywords Artistic research • Creative outputs • Music performances

For close to 20 years, the academic world has engaged in an intensifying debate onthe place of the reflective musician in music research (e.g. Rink 1995; Strand 1998;Borgdorff and Cobussen 2007; Coessens et al. 2009; Borgdorff 2012). Sidetrackedby the European academic tradition almost 200 years ago, the re-appraisal of theintellectual contribution – which in some cases can be quite distinct from theaesthetic one – of those who actually create and perform music has been at the centreof both passionately intellectual and cleverly strategic discourse. The battle haslargely taken place within the sphere of higher education, where not only motives of

H. Schippers (�)Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australiae-mail: [email protected]

S.D. Harrison (ed.), Research and Research Education in Music Performanceand Pedagogy, Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education 11,DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-7435-3__1,© Springer ScienceCBusiness Media Dordrecht 2014

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mailto:[email protected]

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curiosity and exploring new ground have fuelled the discussions, but also justifyingworkloads and addressing inequities with researchers in other disciplines in termsof acknowledging activity and rewarding excellence.

Research where the practising musician is the subject rather than the object ofresearch is called by many names: practice-based research, creative practice asresearch, in research, through research : : : . Borgdorf argues for artistic research,which – in spite of perhaps suggesting more of a contrast with scientific researchthan is warranted – seems like the most sensible denominator. Whatever the exactterminology, at the core of the argument is that what reflective musicians do inpursuit of their art often consists – or at least contains elements – of research,which can be made explicit within the range of OECD definition of research andexperimental development as ‘creative work undertaken on a systematic basis inorder to increase the stock of knowledge, including the knowledge of man, cultureand society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications’(OECD Factbook 2008, 42).

The case for new knowledge is relatively easy to make in relation to compositionand first interpretations of new works: undeniable creative outcomes of an almostunavoidably systematic process taking into account existing knowledge (i.e. themusic that already exists). But much of the OECD definition holds up for manythoughtful renditions of existing repertoire as well. For the latter, the argument isprobably most clearly made from the perspective of a comparison with lab-basedresearch: performers choose their topic (a concept or piece of music), may proceedto do literature research (into scores or historical practice), then withdraw to theirlab (the rehearsal studio), to emerge after a predetermined period of time (markedby the performance or recording date) with a product that reflects hundreds or eventhousands of well-thought through – or split-second – decisions, which are largelygrounded in a vast frame of reference.

Some of the references are quite tangible (manuscripts, critical editions, his-torical sources, scholarly works on performance practice); others exist in formof raw data (discarded phrasings on the cutting floor of the studio), or in thelargely under-researched principle database for any creative musician, which I havereferred as the music researcher’s ‘aural library’, which, for a mature musician,would very conservatively consist of 20,000–50,000 h of listening, learning,and playing (Schippers 2007), including consulted or remembered recordings inprivate collection and libraries and performances; learned, acquired and developedvalues; and the experience and assessment of audience reactions. Such similaritieschallenge continuing constructs on what constitutes ‘real research’ in contrastto what musicians do. As Dewey stated almost 70 years ago, ‘the odd notionthat an artist does not think and a scientific enquirer does nothing else is theresult of converting a difference of tempo and emphasis into a difference in kind’(1934, 15).

Therefore, I would argue that the fact that this type of research is only nowgaining recognition is not due to any flaws in its claim to research status. It hasquite straightforward historical reasons. As I have argued elsewhere, after musicbeing closely associated with mathematics as a university discipline in the Middle

1 Practitioners at the Centre: Concepts, Strategies, Processes and Products. . . 3

Ages (Cooke Carpenter 1955), the recalibration of universities in the nineteenthcentury featured a somewhat contrived search for a position for music in science-based university environments. This resulted in a system placing musicologywithin academia, with a focus on analysis, organology, and history on one hand(cf. Adler 1885), and practice-based training outside academia, in conservatoires,Musikhochschulen and Academies de Musique. A decisive moment came withVon Humboldt cementing the artificial divide between musicology and musicalpractice like an early Berlin Wall in the 1820s (Krebs et al. 2005). With this binarydivision, the reflective musicians effectively became invisible in the research spherefor 150 years.

While the second half of the twentieth century began to put the performer on the‘academic map’, it did so in a predominantly traditional manner, using historicalresearch methods and disseminating its results in academic journals and books.Initially much of the focus centred on what is now commonly termed ‘historicallyinformed performance’ (e.g. Parrott and Da Costa 2002). This raised questions ofthe performer’s hermeneutic relation to the musical ‘text’, and the (im)possibilityof producing a truly ‘authentic performance’. Throughout the 1990s, much of thescholarly attention in this field focussed on this score/interpretation relationship –the most obvious example being Taruskin’s Text and Act (1995; cf Rink 1995).Coming full circle from Herbart’s nineteenth century view that musical sound wasan almost irrelevant by-product of the score (Daverio 2003), Bowen went so far asto argue that there is ‘no way to study the structure of a musical work’ (1999, 436)(the score itself not constituting the ‘music’ as such), what can be done, however, isto ‘study the changing structure of the music in performance’ (ibid).

While some music researchers have begun to recognise and study the vital roleof the performer to the practice of Western art music (e.g. Bazzana 1997; Philip2004) and a number of musicians (e.g. Barenboim, Gardiner, Gould, Rattle; and inAustralia, Grabowsky, Tognetti, Dean) have maintained a high intellectual as well asa prominent performing profile, the dichotomy between those that create music andthose that perform it has hardly altered since Von Humboldt. For instance, in themost authoritative reference work for music research, Grove Dictionary of Musicand Musicians, the category of performers hardly features in the 29 volumes of its2001 hard copy edition, or even in its more regularly updated online version GroveOnline (Root 2012). Entries labelled ‘musician’ in this resource overwhelminglyrefer to composers; performers occupy only a fraction of the content, and theirentries tend to be brief and lacking in academic depth.

Consequently, I would describe artistic research not as a new discipline, butrather as a correction for errant ways of the past (much as I – perhaps controver-sially – position, for example, gender studies and postcolonial studies primarily asefforts to adjust research approaches which lacked these perspectives for historicalreasons; but that is a different discussion).

The tension of the perceived divide between scholarship and musicianship hasbeen brought to the fore by the progressive inclusion of conservatoire training inuniversities over the past six decades: in the UK and the US since the SecondWorld War (Cook 1998), increasingly across mainland Europe since the Bologna

4 H. Schippers

declaration (EU 1999; AEC 2010), and in Australia since the reforms by Dawkins(1988). In the UK, the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE; and its sequelthe Research Excellence Framework, REF) fuelled the debate. In the EU, thediscussions on shaping the second and third cycle forced a reconsideration of whatconservatoires do in terms of research (AEC 2010). In Australia, after Strand’smajor contribution to the debate (1998), it has intensified with the discussions onthe research assessment exercises RQF and now ERA (ARC 2012).

While some of these efforts can be seen as attempts to fit the round peg of musicinto a square academic hole (such as Strand’s amusing equivalence of a compositionof less than 20 min with a journal article, and one over 20 min with a book), forevery step back, I’d say we’ve made several forwards: conceptually, strategically,and particularly in terms of coming to terms with appropriate research processesand products.

While support is growing for research products taking the form of performancesand/or multimedia outputs, this presents specific challenges. Performances mayrepresent outcomes, but do not necessarily elucidate the process, which has widelybeen seen as a problem in recognising artistic research for over a decade (e.g. AHRC2003). While Strand observed that it is ‘simpler to find parallels in process than inproduct’ (1998, 34), this is rarely made explicit, and often obscured by a multipleagenda. Unlike conference presentations, journal articles, and academic books, mostcreative outputs are not produced with the sole purpose of disseminating research –performances, opera productions and compositions have different primary functions(as indeed may the work by those engaged in architecture, medicine or law).

Consequently, the research component may not be obvious prima facie. Twovery similar recitals or opera performances may have very dissimilar researchcomponents: one may constitute a major innovation in terms of form or formator (re)interpretation, while the other may conform to well-established conventions.Either or both may represent high-level and critically acclaimed art. Althoughmuch music-making involves research, the latter does not necessarily qualify allmusic-making as research. Not every rehearsal is a research project, nor are allperformances necessarily research outcomes. There is also the danger of confusingartistic quality with research quality. While we would expect a correlation, it is quitepossible to imagine a thorough research process that would lead to an artisticallydisappointing outcome, or a highly pleasing performance where it is difficult to tracea significant research component. We can compare this to medical research: decadesof excellent dedicated research has not led to cures for cancer or the common cold,while the beneficial effects of penicillin and Viagra were discovered more or less byaccident.

In terms of disseminating research, the non-linear nature of the performanceprocess lends itself well to developing innovative formats. Building on a numberof DVD-ROMs highlighting musical performance aimed at a general audience,Emmerson’s Around a Rondo (2006) still stands out for its depth and honestyin connecting performances, rehearsals, annotated scores, historical sources andpersonal reflections into a non-linear research document on the art of interpretationwhich allows the reader/listener multiple pathways through 2,000 files and 5,000


hyperlinks to reconstruct the artistic process and all that entails. While initially,some in academia may frown on submissions which integrate creative product andreflection in such a way, I suspect a time may come in the near future when itbecomes almost indefensible to submit text-only theses where creative practice isthe focus of the research.

It is naïve to think that the progress over the past two decades is purely based onadvances in insight. The increase in acknowledging artistic practice as research overthe past 15 years is driven as much by political and equity reasons (i.e. resolving theproblem that musicians as academics can call what they do research in environmentsof increasing accountability) as for intellectual reasons: out of profound curiosity torigorously question creative processes across practices and genres.

Driven more by the latter than the former, in addition to a number of fiercelyindependent thinkers, three main centres for practice at the core of research haveemerged over the past 5 years: the Centre for Musical Performance as CreativePractice led by John Rink from Cambridge (as a sequel to Nicholas Cook’sCHARM at Royal Holloway), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board,focussing primarily on research into practice rather than practice-based research;the Orpheus Institute, at the centre of a European network of institutions, with astrong intellectual approach centering around practitioners, and the internationalDocArtes program for practice-based research in musical arts; and QueenslandConservatorium Research Centre at Griffith University (where I am based), nowin its tenth year of building material and track record for understanding what goeson ‘Behind the music’ through a cluster of research projects leading primarily tocreative outputs, and hosting a strong cohort of practice-based doctoral students.

While we see excellent work emerging from each of these centres – andelsewhere – there is also much work that is still quite tentative. It is useful torealise that we are working in a sub-discipline that is still in its early years. In spiteof a number of recent and forthcoming publications, the methodologies and keyparameters are sketched rather than defined. This is clear from the varying qualityof the growing number of doctoral programs across the globe: some barely movebeyond perfecting technique and expanding repertoire, while others are celebrationsof profound intellectual engagement with performance practice.

In developing responses to these challenges, there are many questions worthpursuing. Which components and ‘clusters’ of decision-making within the artisticprocess leading to a music performance represent research as ‘the creation ofnew knowledge and/or the use of existing knowledge in a new and creative way’(ARC 2012, 10)? What is the balance between the final artistic outcomes of suchprocesses as ‘mere’ aesthetic products, and these outcomes as ‘texts’ that expressthe research results per se? What formats are appropriate for the disseminationof such knowledge? How can the research components in musical practice bestbe approached on a par with outputs in other disciplines to measure and assessresearch quantity and quality at university, federal and international level? Can thislead to a single and equitable reporting format for music academics, replacing thecurrent multitude of cumbersome and irreconcilable requirements? In which manner

6 H. Schippers

can greater insight into the research component of artistic processes inform theeducation and training of performing musicians, including professional doctorates,Masters, and undergraduate curricula?

If we are to establish artistic research as a mature and broadly respected(sub)discipline, there is a pressing need to be critical ourselves in marryingcreative integrity and academic rigour, lifting our discourse and actions beyondthe rhetoric that has dominated much of the recent debate for strategic reasons.There is no structural problem: the challenge is to robustly position this type ofresearch in the academic landscape, and to define its parameters and processesmore precisely. That requires self-critical, nuanced, collaborative work. Throughsystematic, practice-based study of artistic processes from concept to performance,there is the opportunity to test innovative methodologies and deliver frameworksthat brings greater clarity in the field of artistic practice as research for thebenefit of practice-based researchers, research students, and institutions. That isgroundbreaking, exploratory, and exciting work: exactly what research should beall about.

References

Adler, G. (1885). Umfang, Methode und Ziel der Musikwissenschaft (The scope, method and aimof musicology). Viertel- jahrsschrift fur Musikwissenschaft, 1, 5–20.

AEC. (2010). Researching conservatoires: Enquiry, innovation and the development of artisticpractice in higher music education. Utrecht: European Association of Conservatoires/Polifonia.

AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council). (2003). Research in the creative and performingarts. London: AHRC.

ARC (Australian Research Council). (2012). ERA submission guidelines. Canberra: AustralianResearch Council.

Bazzana, K. (1997). Glenn gould: The performer in the work. Oxford: Clarendon.Borgdorff, H. (2012). The conflict of the faculties: Perspectives on artistic research and academia.

Leiden: Leiden University Press.Borgdorff, H., & Cobussen, M. (2007). The Dutch journal of music theory. [Special issue: Practice-

based research in music]. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Bowen, J. A. (1999). Finding the music in musicology: Performance history and musical works.

In N. Cook & M. Everist (Eds.), Rethinking music (pp. 424–451). Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

Coessens, K., Crispin, D., & Douglas, A. (2009). The artistic turn. Ghent: Orpheus Institute.Cook, N. (1998). Music: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Cooke Carpenter, N. (1955). Music in the medieval universities. Journal of Research in Music

Education, 3, 136–144.Daverio, J. (2003). Herbart, Johann Friedrich. In L. Macy (Ed.), The new grove dictionary of music

online. http://www.grovemusic.com. Accessed 1 Dec 2003.Dawkins, J. (1988). Higher education: A policy statement. Canberra: AGPS.Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience (1958th ed.). New York: Capricorn Books.Emmerson, S. (2006). Around a Rondo [DVD-DVD-ROM set]. Brisbane: Griffith University.EU (European Union). (1999, June 19). Bologna declaration: Joint declaration of the European

ministers of education.

http://www.grovemusic.com


Krebs, R., Siouti, I., Apitzsch, U., Wenk, S. (2005). Disciplinary barriers between the socialsciences and humanities: National report on Germany. www.york.ac.uk/res/researchintegration/National_Report_Germany.pdf. Accessed 15 Jan 2013.

OECD Factbook. (2008). Science and technology: Research and development (RandD). In:Economic, environmental and social statistics. www.oberon.sourceoecd.org. Accessed 15 Jan2013.

Parrott, A., & Da Costa, N. P. (2002). Performance practice. In A. Latham (Ed.), The Oxfordcompanion to music. New York: Oxford University Press.

Philip, R. (2004). Performing music in the age of recording. New Haven: Yale University Press.Rink, J. (Ed.). (1995). The practice of performance: Studies in musical interpretation. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.Root, D. (Ed.). (2012). Grove music online. www.oxfordmusiconline.com. Accessed 4 Feb 2012.Schippers, H. (2007). The marriage of art and academia: Challenges and opportunities for music

research in practice-based environments. Dutch Journal for Music Theory, 12(1), 31–40.Strand, D. (1998). Research in the creative arts. Canberra: DEETYA.Taruskin, R. (1995). Text and act: Essays on music and performance. Oxford: Oxford University

Press.

www.york.ac.uk/res/researchintegration/National_Report_Germany.pdf

www.york.ac.uk/res/researchintegration/National_Report_Germany.pdf

www.oberon.sourceoecd.org

www.oxfordmusiconline.com

Chapter 2Evolving an Artistic Research Culturein Music: An Analysis of an AustralianStudy in an International Context

Scott Harrison and Paul Draper

Abstract This chapter investigates the ways in which an Australian conservatoriumhas established and maintained an artistic research culture over the last decade. Indoing so, the authors firstly review the international literature in terms of the currentthinking about practice-centred environments, both in terms of academic researchand research training as a sub-set of this. The chapter then examines the authors’local conservatorium context as a case study to focus on staff research activitytogether with a review of higher degree research programs and resources. The datagathered incorporates materials drawn from the Australian federal government’sExcellence in Research for Australia exercise together with data from local researchstudents, graduates, academic supervisors and administrators. Arising insights offerimplications for this evolving artistic research culture and the on-going interplaybetween staff, student and federal government agendas.

Keywords Artistic research • Music education • Research students

2.1 Introduction

The world-wide emergence of research and research training in music has brought apressing need for the re-examination of what might constitute an authentic researchculture for the discipline. Along with increasing requirement for governmentvalidation of academic research outputs, many music schools have also experienceda marked increase in demand for research degrees from professional musicians,many of whom may be best located in a practice-centred environment. Thisproject therefore examines and reflects upon the ways in which the Queensland

S. Harrison (�) • P. DraperQueensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australiae-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]


9



10 S. Harrison and P. Draper

Conservatorium at Griffith University (QCGU) in Australia has responded to theseissues over the last decade, and where it now hosts and integrates both traditionaland creative research modes.

To do so, this chapter firstly reviews a range of contemporary thinking aboutthe notion of artistic research and its practice-centred derivatives in order to situatethe local material. It also draws upon a number of publications by QCGU authorsto frame the work thus far, and then returns to explore recent Australian federalgovernment approaches to the measurement and recognition of music research,particularly in relation to so-called ‘creative outputs’ as proxies for traditionalresearch publications. Secondly, via a case study we turn to interrogate the waysin which QCGU research culture continues to be steered and evolve over the lastdecade, and especially since the establishment of the Queensland ConservatoriumResearch Centre (QCRC) in 2005. With academic research programs concentratedin four streams – Artistic Practice as Research, Music Education and Training,Music and Communities, and Music Technology – there has been a conscious effortto align higher degree research activity within these themes.

Subsequently, we focus on data gathered from latest reviews of QCGU andQCRC research activity. This incorporates external materials through the govern-ment’s Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) research evaluation exercise,together with school material drawn from research students, graduates, academicsupervisors and administrators. The implications of an analysis of the data areargued in terms of institutional imperatives, enhancement of faculty profile, andoverall considerations as to the research student experience. Based on these results,the chapter concludes by positing future work in terms of advocacy and federalgovernment research policy frameworks.

2.2 An Exploration of Research and Research Trainingin Music

In the Australian context, arguments about the nature of artistic research have con-tinued ever since the amalgamation of vocational organisations within universitiesin the late 80s. In a seminal report on research in the creative arts, Denis Strand(1998) gave two reasons as to why definitions of research should be examined.These were: the controversial nature of ‘research in the creative arts’ and a lackof common understanding and agreement; and secondly, that the definition hasa significant impact on funding and support of these practices. These debatescontinue. While creative outputs have been given validity in the current AustralianResearch Council’s ERA exercise, recognition has not been forthcoming in the samegovernment body’s allocation of funding to undertake research through awarding ofsignificant grants. The argument is not new in Australia, or in terms of historicalprecedent.

2 Evolving an Artistic Research Culture in Music: An Analysis. . . 11

2.2.1 On the Nature of Artistic Research

Socrates, it could be argued, set the model for Western thinking in claimingthat the search for objective truth was the pinnacle of intellectual achievement.In this way of thinking, educated people were expected to use their intellect tocontemplate things outside themselves as well as involve their senses to observethem (Humphreys 2006). It implies the concept of subject-object dualism: under thedualistic conception of truth, original works of music, poetry, dance, art, and theatrecame to be seen as objects rather than as a part of life’s processes.

With the advent of postmodern thinking, rigid binary conceptions of truthwere considered restrictive. Heidegger (trans. Emad and Maly 1999) advocatedthe necessity for ‘atemporal’ considerations of concepts, confounding the morestandardised and normalised views of Socratic and Presocratic thought. For all itsshortcomings, postmodern thought allows the artist to study music from within, notas an object but as experience of an often ephemeral series of interactions. There arerisks associated with focussing on these intangibles. Frankfurt’s essays On Bullshit(2005) and On Truth (2006) are of relevance here. While Frankfurt does not referspecifically to the artist in the academic domain, a balance of the intangible and thetangible is required in order to avoid accusations of artist’s work being considered‘bullshit’. Depending on epistemological and ontological positioning, the artist maydetermine the nature of new knowledge.

Questions of epistemology have been considered at length in the special issueof the Dutch Journal of Music Theory (2007). While it is not entirely possibleto separate ontological and epistemological concerns, what follows is a briefdiscussion that seeks to challenge the fundamental ontological categories thatprovide the basis for communication. Borgdorff and Schuijer (2010) claim that,

Art research begins by addressing questions that are pertinent : : : Researchers employexperimental and hermeneutic methods that reveal and articulate the tacit knowledge thatis situated and embodied in specific artworks and artistic processes. Research processes aredocumented and disseminated in an appropriate manner to the research community and thewider public. (53)

The key issues here are that (i) the work is located in the artistic setting,the tacit knowledge and processes are articulated, and that (ii) dissemination issuited to the context and audience for which it is intended. This would appearto align with the OECD’s broad view of research that refers to creative workundertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge,including the knowledge of man, culture and society to devise new applications(OECD Factbook 2008) Borgdorff (2007) goes on to suggest three types of artsresearch: ‘research on the arts’ (emphasis on reflection and interpretation), ‘researchfor the arts’ (evolving new techniques) and ‘research in the arts’ (reflection inaction). Of these three possibilities, the third is the most controversial for variousreasons, including its emphasis on practice. Harrison (2012) claims an additionaltype of reflection is possible. Using Cowan’s (1997) reflective loop, he suggests


that refection-for-action is a model well suited to the conservatoire setting. In usingthis term, he acknowledges the centrality of music-making in the conservatoire, andsubsequently posited that term ‘practice-centred’ may be considered an appropriateway of moving the field forward. This phrase has been drawn from other disciplines(Woods and Christoffersen 2001; Rust et al. 2000) but has as yet not achievedcurrency in music. The term provides the opportunity for fluidity (Antonacopoulou2007) at the same time giving credence to acknowledging the ambiguity, uncertaintyand discontinuity of moving from unknown to the known (Clegg et al. 2005). Intaking this standpoint, new forms of non-linear knowledge dissemination can occur.Importantly the practice itself (rather than the talk about the practice) becomes thefocal point. However, practice alone is not considered to be research (Newberry2010; Brubaker 2007; Schippers 2007). Mafe and Brown (2006) insist that forcreative practice to be considered as research it needs to be:

• Differentiated from previous work of the researcher and field such that theelements of exploration and discovery are identifiable;

• Rendered accessible/available through either publication and/or exhibition as apublic activity, one open to scrutiny by peers;

• Transparent and clear in its structure, process and outcomes – that it providesclear explication and explanation that is usually exegetical in nature;

• Transferable so that information or outcomes are useful beyond the specificresearch project or applicable in principle to other researchers and researchcontexts.

According to Mafe and Brown, this requires that the practice and outcomesare adequately theorized, described and contextualised. Borgdorff concurs: artisticresearch requires making practice explicit, visible and sharable (2007). To put itanother way, this implies an interaction of ideas and evidence, articulated throughargument (Newberry 2010). At this most basic level however, artistic research is notsubstantially different from other ‘traditional’ forms of research.

2.2.2 Research Training

Newberry (2010) suggests that doctoral research is a subset of academic research.The same processes apply, though the Ph.D is distinct from academic research in twoways: it is not the same as professional practice and it has a pedagogical imperative.Bresler (2009) also refers to two types of qualitative research as yet unexplored inmusic research training:

(i) The temporal, polyphonic nature of scholarly engagement and meaning mak-ing, and

(ii) The improvised and embodied dynamics and interactions between researchersand participants in the data generation stage.


While the former definition may be inherent to all research, the second isprevalent in studying temporal lived experience on the personal and communallevels (Bresler 2009). Bennett (2010) indicates that musicians are not new tothese explorations: ‘musicians make great researchers because we creative applyinvestigative, expansive thinking on a day-to-day basis’ (32). Schippers (2007)agrees that,

Exploring the depths of musical creativity by mapping out the tangible and intangibleelements of various musical practices is a very profound and specific pursuit. It is difficult,exciting, relevant, and long overdue. By making strategic choices of research foci withregards to this area, it is possible to set up research programmes within the context ofhigher music education that are not at the margin, but at the core of musical life in anacademic context, with pro-active links to students, staff, management, other faculties andthe outside world through curriculum development, creative practice, community activitiesand performance. (35)

In this excerpt Schippers describes the concepts of practice-centred researchin the Conservatoire. In order to enact these ideas, the Association of Euro-pean Conservatoires has, in establishing the parameters for third cycle (doctoral)degree, established that ‘all research follows this sequential pattern of Question-Investigation-Documentation. What distinguishes artistic research is the way inwhich artistic experience, artistic knowledge and skills as well as artistic goals areinvolved in research’ (Polifonia 2007, 27). To create an environment in which thiscan occur, the Polifonia documents call for ‘scepticism, empiricism, risk-taking,intellectual honesty and self-confidence’ (2007, 29). Harrison and Emmerson (2009)also focused on notions of risk-taking in doctoral supervision with supervisors intheir study, finding student projects that ‘are really risky : : : it’s exciting to be onthat road but it’s not safe at all’ (12). Candlin (2000) notes:

Like any other PhD, practice-based PhDs are also the focus of much anxiety but, signif-icantly, those anxieties reach beyond personal doubt and are often shared by supervisors,examiners and senior academic management. (1)

To overcome this anxiety and build self-confidence, the creation of a culturethat incorporates well thought-through pedagogy is essential. Newberry (2010)posits that research training could take a continuum approach – with a modelresembles a craft-type apprenticeship at one end, while at the other there aremenu-based generic short courses offer at institution level. In order to provide asuitable environment for growth and development, Newberry suggests four levels:individual supervision; subject-based training; participation in active culture; andgeneric workshops. Drawing on the work of Newberry, four pillars are espoused byDraper (2010) as valid ways in which to set up a research culture:

1. Research supervision2. Coursework3. Colloquia/symposia4. University-wide and international collaborations


Underpinning this is the provision of resources: human, financial, physical. Ofthese, the involvement of the supervisor is critical. Leong (2010) calls for a changein nomenclature and underlying thinking about the supervisory role, suggesting that,

: : : the traditional titles of research ‘supervisor’ and ‘advisor’ should be replaced by‘mentor’ as a more appropriate title that reflects the multiple roles expected in researchsupervision : : : mentoring is more than a professional relationship that meets the functionalroles of tutoring, advising, guiding, sponsoring, and supporting the mentee. Mentoring isalso a personal relationship that considers the educational, career, and personal developmentof the mentee. (147)

However, as Harrison (2012) notes, a largely supervisor-dominated model ofgraduate research training is no longer sufficient or authentic. The interface ofcoursework and colloquia has a significant role to play in drawing together thedisparate elements of supervision and provides the added advantage of reciprocalpeer teaching for both supervisor and student. Blended learning approaches,including on-line resources, virtual colloquia and video-conferenced supervisions(Harrison 2012; Draper and Harrison 2011; Harrison and Emmerson 2009), allof which represent an investment in human, financial and physical resources.Similarly, conferences and research festivals such as those at the Guildhall Schoolof Music and Drama, and the Orpheus Institute in Ghent, provide an opportunity forinternational collaborations and cross-fertilisation, particularly for those institutionsfor whom geographical location can be an impediment to regular collaboration.

2.3 The Australian Context

The research space in Australia has undergone rapid and radical change in the past10 years. A new national research priority has been mooted: enhancing society,culture and communities with the intent of ‘creating a vibrant Australia throughart, sport, cultural industries, social innovation, and digital and other technologies’(DIISRTE 2012). This bodes well for the broad national agenda in music and othercreative and performing arts. Locally, in a 2004 survey of tertiary music educationby the Australian Music Centre, 79 % of universities indicated that they engagedin practice-based research, action research scored 46 % in the university sector,research into artistic practice 83 %, and artistic practice as research 71 % (Schippers2004).

Research activity, quality and esteem have been measured for the first time inrecent years with the Research Quality Framework (aborted before implementation)and more recently, the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) framework. AsAnderson notes, the ‘long on-going debate around the treatment of art practice asa form of academic research’ (2009, 3) was brought to a head by these initiatives.Nationally, the trend has tended towards greater recognition of creative works ina relatively nuanced picture. Creative works resulting from research are eligibleresearch outputs for ERA evaluations and are included in the key performanceindicators of many universities. The four ERA creative works categories are:


1. Original creative work (composition);2. Live performance of creative work;3. Recorded/rendered creative work; and4. Curated or produced substantial public exhibition/event.

To be eligible for these categories, creative works must meet the followingdefinition of research, described for the purposes of this exercise: the creation ofnew knowledge and/or the use of existing knowledge in a new and creative way soat generate new concepts, methodologies and understandings. This appears to alignwith the OECD definitions discussed in detail above. If a creative work is deemed tobe the product of professional practice rather than research, it is not eligible for thesecategories. To verify whether the work meets the criteria for research, the followingrequirements have to be met:

• A URL or hardcopy recording/visual documentation of the output;• Where applicable, evidence of peer review (published commentaries or detailed

statements by qualified experts);• Evidence of when the work was made publicly available;• Evidence indicating the author’s/creator’s affiliation with the university;• A research statement.

The last of these is a curious, self-authored inclusion in the process. For outputsselected for peer review, the research statements are designed to identify the researchcomponent of the creative work in approximately 250 words. There are threecomponents to the statement:

1. Research background (including field, context and research question);2. Research contribution (including innovation and new knowledge);3. Research significance (evidence of excellence).

As Brien et al. (2010) point out, these moves have not been without controversy.The grouping of performance with text-based work has been challenging, as has theconstruction of the research statement, believed by some academics to be redundant.The claim is that the research should be self-evident and that asking performers toarticulate the significance of the work in written form was both unnecessary anddiscriminatory. The argument stated earlier in relation to Frankfurt’s Bullshit andTruth re-emerges here. The artist capable of either bullshitting about their practice,or finding an essential truth that communicates to the peer review panel, could be atan advantage. These questions remain unresolved, though the reality of the first auditappears to have taken the British RAE experience into account in acknowledgingthat ‘in less the mature subject areas, : : : the intellectual infrastructure of thediscipline may still be being built’ (RAE 2008, 21). In the ERA exercise there hasbeen a steady increase in the number of outputs in performing arts and creativewriting, as shown in Table 2.1.

In music, Draper and Harrison (2011) posited that in order to become moremature, musicians need to move from hunter-gatherer mode to an agriculturalmode – one in which ideas are borrowed from the other creative arts disciplines, butapplied within music contexts. As a subset of this agricultural setting, the research


Table 2.1 Field of research 1904 outputs (performing artsand creative writing) 2003–2008 (ERA 2010 [This is themost up-to-date information available from ERA. AnotherERA process is presently underway to assess the period2006–2010])

Year: 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Outputs: 805 931 914 1164 1085 1266

training space in the conservatoire has undergone a similar metamorphosis. Untilrecently, doctorates in music were largely conducted within the domains of either(i) musicology-styled writing and structure similar to that of science Ph.Ds; or (ii)via a composition portfolio accompanied by a comparatively short analysis similarto that of a Ph.D by Publication format. As Draper and Harrison (2011) comment,this second example is distinctly different from the first, in that it exemplifieswhat colleagues in art, design and creative writing research training term ‘materialthinking’ (for example, see Adamson 2007). That is, artists (or composers) produce‘products’ – tangible, physical artworks that may clearly be part of an answer toresearch questions. The Ph.D by composition has a text-based artefact, and thissets it aside from the performance-based doctorate. The difficulty of combiningtext-based practice and performance-based practice rears its head again here andthe challenge has been to incorporate material thinking into performance programs.The Ph.D by performance has not yet claimed a legitimate space in the Australianresearch-training climate, despite the advances made in recognition of creativeoutputs through the ERA exercise.

The contentious issue in both the broader research area and in the researchtraining domain relates directly to the definitions of research posited above, thatis – can the research be articulated through argument (Newberry 2010), sharable(Borgdorff 2007) and accessible/transparent/transferable (Mafe and Brown 2006).In other words, what is the ‘so what’ factor, and how might it contribute to artisticpractice in the future? To explore these matters further, we now turn to dealwith these concerns as investigated recently at Griffith University’s QueenslandConservatorium.

2.4 Case Study: A Review of Recent Research Activityat QCGU

2.4.1 Project Methodology

The methodology draws on the authors’ experiences as research supervisors andacademic managers of the Research and HDR programs at the Queensland Con-servatorium Griffith University. It draws on reflections and on reactions to earlier


Table 2.2 QCGU research metrics 2006–2010 (NB: number of staff contributing in brackets)

Year: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Traditional publications: 7.58 (9) 11.53 (9) 24.50 (9) 19.83 (10) 24.02 (19)Creative outputs: 24.5 (7) 19.6 (14) 21.2 (12) 21.7 (12) 28.7 (18)AUD$ grant income: $26,605 (2) $111356 (1) $216577 (2) $264341 (3) $108672 (9)

papers and presentations (Harrison 2011, 2012; Draper and Harrison 2011, 2010;Harrison and Emmerson 2009), other review materials from the period 2008 to2011, and on staff and student research activity data provided by the University.These materials include:

• Staff and student surveys from 2008 to 2009;• Staff and student focus groups sessions from 2011;• Higher degree research colloquium feedback from 2010 to 2011;• ERA submission materials from 2006 to 2010; and• Student research load data from 2006 to 2010.

As such, a mixed method approach (Creswell 2003) has been employed. Dataanalysis was carried out via a constant comparative method (Glaser 1993). Notes,meetings and email correspondence were used to refine the emerging themes. Whatfollows then is a summary of this material beginning with a scan of research outputsfrom the years 2006 to 2011. These data are based on the research reports providedfor the conservatorium to facilitate compliance with federal government funding.Similarly, an overview of research student enrolments and projects, supplied for thesame purpose, give an indication of the of student research in the same period.

2.4.2 Staff Research Activity

QCGU’s performance in research – and a measure of its capacity to develop aresearch culture – is evidenced in the data on outputs, grant income and researchstudents. Over the period 2006–2010, there was a steady increase in both creativeand traditional outputs. While external grant income is a mixed picture, in relationto maintaining a research culture, the most significant figure is increase in staffinvolvement across all measures: double the number of staff producing traditionaland creative outputs and more than four times the number of staff generatingincome, as in Table 2.2.

A general growth trajectory is represented in Fig. 2.1. In the case of traditionalpublications, these are relatively evenly spread across book chapters and journalarticles, with a small number of books and conference papers.

The data reveal a steady increase in the outputs across 2006–2009, and a sharpincrease in the 2009–2010 period. The creative outputs present a similar picture,though there is something of a plateau through 2007–2009, as in Fig. 2.2.


Fig. 2.1 QCGU traditional research output trajectory, 2006–2010

Fig. 2.2 QCGU creative research outputs 2006–2010

The creative works are subdivided by type. As anticipated, performance (in red)features strongly, as do compositions (pale blue). Other creative works (purple) werea feature in 2006 and 2007 but these were subsumed by performance, compositionand, to a lesser extent, recordings (green) in the 2008–2010 reporting period.A conscious strategy employed by QCGU was to equally value traditional andcreative outputs – ‘a foot in each camp’, as it were. As noted earlier, QCRC researchprograms are concentrated in four streams – Artistic Practice as Research, MusicEducation and Training, Music and Communities, and Music Technology. Theseeach have seeding money associated with them, with the intention of stimulatingresearch and ultimately securing more competitive federal funding. This has provento be a successful formula, with external grants awarded in each of the streams. Ofthese, the most difficult to quantify are the funds for Artistic Practice as Research, asthe other areas streams have been awarded funds from bodies recognised across theuniversity sector: the Australian Research Council, the National Health and MedicalResearch Council, and the Office for Learning and Teaching. Artistic Practiceas Research is yet to be fully recognised by these bodies, but significant fundsflow from state government (Arts Queensland) and the Australia Council for theArts. There is, of course, substantial overlap between streams: projects in MusicTechnology, for example, may well have both performative and training elements.Similarly, substantial funding attracted to the Music and Communities stream hasstrong connections with learning and teaching.


Fig. 2.3 Higher degree research trends at QCGU

2.4.3 Student Research Activity

QCGU offers four research training programs: the (traditional) Master of Philos-ophy (M.Phil) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D); and the practice-centred Masterof Music (M.Mus) and Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA). The number of studentspresents a similar message of growth to that evidenced in the research staff researchoutcomes. As reported in Draper and Harrison (2011), the research student cohortquadrupled in the period 2006 to 2010, with a further 10 to 15 students enrolling in2011 and 2012 (Fig. 2.3).

Graduate outcomes may also be measured in terms of numbers. From approxi-mately one graduate per year in the period 2003 to 2010, the bubble burst in 2011with 12 graduates. A similar number completed in 2012.

However, figures alone do not give the complete picture. Draper and Harrison(2011) examined the motivation of students to undertake doctoral studies. Fourgeneral themes were revealed as: love of learning; access to resources; connectionto the subject matter; and altruism. While few stated the desire to enter academiclife immediately, graduates have been placed in academic posts in this and otheruniversities across the country and internationally. For most of the practice-centredgraduates, the doctorate gave them credibility in their own circle of practitioners.This is reflected in the types of outputs presented for the final submission. Thegraduating class of 2011 saw the beginning of the shift away from more traditionaltext-based outcomes to web-based, non-linear works, portfolios of compositions andperformances and along with lecture-recitals and albums. Contrary to expectations,M.Mus students’ projects have tended to lead the way in alternative submissionformats, perhaps due their program structure which permitted divergent formsof supervision practices, delivery formats and final products. Unlike the doctoralprogram, staged assessment leading to a final outcome has been incorporated intothe Masters program structure, along with shorter papers directly connected topractical presentations. The nature of the M.Mus cohort has changed from more


traditional players of violin and piano to those exploring such diverse subjects asmouth whistling and the art of karaoke. In the DMA, projects are equally diverse:topics including digital signal processing for pipe organ, improvisation for trumpetand laptop sit comfortably alongside contemporary worship singing and gradedpiano exams.

2.4.4 Alignment of Staff and Student Research

A clear alignment between the staff activity and the student research projects isevident in data gathered from staff and students over the past 5 years. The centralreason for this connection is the grouping of staff activities into the abovementionedfour research streams. Enrolling students are aligned with those streams, largelythrough the allocation of supervisory teams. Staff reflections indicate that it is notalways a clear-cut allocation:

Doctoral students candidates at the QCGU have the opportunity to interrogate their ownpractice as performers, teachers, composers or within the field of music technology. Inreality, in most cases their professional practice cuts across more than one of theseboundaries. (Staff focus group 2011)

In addition, many of the research topics cross between sub-disciplines within musicsuch as performance and improvisation and composition, or performance and teaching,performance and musicology or performance and music technology. (Staff survey 2009)

While we, the authors and managers of QCGU research programs, have a clearerunderstanding of the direction of student research, including its place within theuniversity, the sector and the international arena – students on the other hand appearto be less confident about the ‘politics of research’, as one staff member noted:

[research] students need a clearer understanding of how their work ‘fits in’, is a part offunding, university policy and government research values. (Staff focus group 2011)

2.4.5 Practice -as -/by/-for -/led/-Centred Research

The students felt challenged by the nature of practice as research. One student noted‘ : : : the notion that my own practice could be the subject of research, or coulditself be research is entirely new’ (Student survey 2008). Staff exemplars initiallyassisted in bringing students to this point. Emmerson’s (2007) Around a Rondoproject was used as a template for many students seeking to place locate theirresearch and practice in allied worlds. Similarly, Draper and Emmerson’s RemixingModernism (2011), acollaboration between Emmerson as artist and Draper as musictechnologist has provided a portfolio of both creative and traditional outputs fromthe one project. As the number of graduates increase, exemplars now providethe impetus for increasingly daring projects that push the boundaries of research.Nevertheless, student feedback notes the absence of performance:


Within my DMA topic, I would have appreciated the opportunity to do a concert/lecturerelated to the research, even if only to properly demonstrate the various instrument types.None of the coursework presentations have really allowed enough time for performing.If I missed anything in the DMA, it’s probably the opportunity to play. (Student focusgroup 2011)

Staff members concur, calling for

: : : provision for ‘live components’ to feature at all stages of the candidature, where appro-priate, eg, at M.Mus/DMA confirmations; performance/presentation options in coursework;final thesis defence milestone and/or final examination live component. (Staff focusgroup 2011)

2.4.6 Resourcing Research Training

One of the major concerns for QCGU was in being able to adequately resource risingpostgraduate numbers with well-qualified and experienced supervisory teams –while simultaneously building capacity. At the time writing, 17 doctoral-qualifiedstaff are employed to service more than 80 research students. Subsequently, arange of strategies have been employed to alleviate the pressure on staff workloads,including the appointment of new adjunct supervisors, research fellows and generalstaff recruitment. By end 2012, an additional three existing staff completed doc-torates and will be able to participate actively in research supervision. Supervisordevelopment has been an on-going feature of QCGU’s staff management program.Through these processes, the pressure on human resources has been relieved toensure avoidance of what Leder (1995) describes as the practice of ‘inexperiencedpersonnel being drafted prematurely’ (7).

A weekly colloquium has been a feature of the research training programs. Until2011, this was organised into a 2-h practical colloquium and a 2-h research-basedcolloquium. In an effort to integrate practice and research more closely, the 2011colloquium was combined, with an increase in attendance of approximately 30 %,although this attendance fluctuated depending on the topic of the session (HDRColloquium survey 2011). Research sessions that dealt with specific methodologicalissues seem to be most popular across the cohort of HDR students.

A large number of the students are distance learners, and efforts are being madeto set up hubs in the other major centres within the country and beyond. Studentshave found this to be an antidote to the ‘vulnerable, insecure journey we have totravel’ (Student survey 2009). Similarly, the provision of an array of on-line learningresources is also intended to support this cohort. In 2010, there were approximately4,000 internet access ‘hits’ for 80 research students and 17 supervisors, as shown inFig. 2.4. This indicates access to a range of materials including videos, papers andresearch exemplars, along with face-to-face colloquia resources and wikis used forvirtual supervision between academic staff and candidates. Offered once a semester,a ‘virtual colloquium’ (distance audio/video or text conferencing) also featuresnotably in these statistics.


Fig. 2.4 Access to online resources by QCGU academic staff and research students

Also of interest are the times, days and months of access. Face-to-face colloquiahave been held on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and the online engagement mirrorsthis activity. The data reveals that most students engage online late afternoon/earlyevening. A second, but not insubstantial concern, relates to the availability ofsuitable space. A small number of desks have been made available in a dedicatedspace, but the questions of access beyond office space and computing, including afull range of HDR music support needs (recording, rehearsal, performance spaces),has yet to be addressed. A 2011 audit of spaces revealed that we lagged behind manyother elements in the university in terms of office space provision, but recognitionof the specialised requirements for ‘time-based’ works were almost invisible at theuniversity level.

2.5 Findings

Clearly, QCGU has been proactive and productive in establishing a vibrant researchculture in which student intake and graduations are high. The interaction of staff andstudents in developing a research culture has centred on the four complementarypillars of research supervision, coursework, colloquia/symposia (presented by staff,students and visiting scholars) and collaborations with other elements in the univer-sity and beyond. A substantial number of publications and presentations on research


and research training have been produced, as have projects that model aspects ofdissemination for staff and students, including Around a Rondo (Emmerson 2007)and Re-mixing Modernism (Draper and Emmerson 2011). As shown, the numberand type of research outputs has increased in the period 2003–2010, markedly soin 2009 and 2010. Staff interaction in producing outputs has doubled, and whilethe amount of research income has remained relatively static, the number of staffproducing income has trebled. Similarly, the research student cohort has increasedsubstantially, with graduations peaking in 2011 and 2012. Graduate projects havegradually challenged the status quo in content and format.

However, the challenges for progressively assessing performance research atdoctoral level continue, as does the up-skilling of staff in research methods andsupervision techniques. Research training is still largely in the hands of traditionalmusicologists and music educators and this is at odds with a student cohortdemanding artistic-based research methods that will result in well-articulated,sharable and transferable projects. A gulf remains between that of undergraduateand that of HDR training, both in terms of the allocation of resources and staffpreconceptions. It is also clear that there remains a sense of uncertainty amongststudents and staff about the nature of artistic research in music. We believe that thisis related, in part, to the divide between what constitutes professional practice, andwhat constitutes research. The practice-centred research discussion above providessome guidance as to what QCGU needs to do in order to comply with currentdefinitions, and what gains are yet to be made at the macro level.

2.6 Conclusion

To date, research funding and scholarship arrangements have tended to discrim-inate against creative projects for staff and student projects. While pushing theboundaries, many may still have to contend with questions as to the validity oftheir projects as ‘research’. Yet, responsibility for expanding consideration of the‘atemporal’ and of challenging of Socratic and Presocratic thought lie within exactlythese same academic artist domains, and in providing, arguing and advocatingsuitable delineations between the core of this research practice as truth or as‘bullshit’ (Frankfurt 2005, 2006). Consequently the risks and anxieties felt by thesecommunities continue.

While significant gains continue to be achieved for practice-centred research inAustralia, there remains on-going advocacy work to promote the recognition ofmusic performance research for academics, students undergoing research trainingand the sector at large. For music research to be fully validated, a separation fromcreative writing (and perhaps other types of performance) may be required in thenext iteration of the ERA exercise in order for this particular field to be moreclearly defined and assessed. In addition, the Australian Research Council willneed to address the on-going and obvious gap between (high) rhetorical recognitionof creative outputs in ERA, versus (low) actual dollar outcomes for competitive


research grant funding in music. This may be addressed to a degree in a welcomerecent development that it is the intention of the Australian federal governmentto include a formerly unrecognised national research priority ‘Enhancing Society,Culture and Communities’. Time will tell, as will future HDR support schema andARC grant results.

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Chapter 3(Re-)Searching Artists in Artistic Research:Creating Fertile Ground for Experimentationat the Orpheus Institute, Ghent

Kathleen Coessens, Darla Crispin, and Luk Vaes

Abstract As an emergent new discipline, can artistic research escape the oblig-atory, hierarchical pathway: ‘practice – discourse – knowledge’? By exploringthe processes of artistic research at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent, Belgium, weshall advocate the potential benefits of an artistic and epistemic articulation of themusician’s practice that stresses the ‘context of discovery’ over the ‘context ofjustification’. Two interrelated lines of argumentation will orientate our approach.

Firstly, we shall seek to transform the question: ‘What is this thing calledknowledge?’ into: ‘What is this process called artistic research?’ As a leadingexample of the institutionalisation of artistic research in the knowledge society ofEurope and the broader world, the Orpheus Institute strives for an accommodationof both knowledge-based artistic practice and artistic practice-based knowledge –the dynamics of the epistemic and reflective processes embedded in this practicebeing at the heart of the Institute’s endeavour.

Secondly, since we consider experimentation to be intrinsic to the processesof music creation and the development of artistic identity and expertise, we shallargue for the primacy of an experimental attitude in artistic research and practice.Experimental relationships take place not only inside artistic practices, but also atthe interactional plane where the sensorial, creative and aesthetic world of the artistmeets the world of science, research and explicit communication. In implementingits programme of artistic experimentation, the Orpheus Institute acknowledges theimportance of the recommendations of The Association Européenne des Conserva-toires, Académies de Musique et Musikhochschulen (AEC 2004–2007).

Examples provided in the paper will draw upon the Institute’s internationaldoctoral programme for musicians, docARTES, describing its innovative educa-tional content, the participatory nature of its collective student activities and the

K. Coessens (�) • D. Crispin • L. VaesOrpheus Institute, Ghent, Belgiume-mail: [email protected]


27


28 K. Coessens et al.

hands-on types of learning processes employed, and upon the work of the OrpheusResearch Centre in Music [ORCiM] which emphasises collaborative, reflective andpractice-based methods of artistic research. The paper will consider the benefitsof both these environments, where the visionary and the pragmatic, epistemic andartistic, tacit and explicit are encouraged to meet. It will argue that, in addition totheir impact within the field of artistic research, these dynamics can expand andfertilise diverse domains of both practice and research.

Keywords Artistic research • Research education • Europe

3.1 Introduction

In 1969 and 1970 respectively, Mauricio Kagel ‘made’ two experimental instrumen-tal theatre pieces: Unter Strom for three performers, and Tactil for two guitaristsand a pianist. A fully encoded and composer-authorized score is lacking andthe historical performers – Kagel himself, Wilhelm Bruck, Theodor Ross andChristoph Caskel – have been the only ones to play and record these seminalcompositions. Due to the limited potential of the existing audio and video recordings(the former not being appropriate for these highly theatrical pieces, the latter notreadily accessible to performers) and to the experimental nature of the performancecharacteristics of these works, the only adequate possibility to perform both piecesanew is through reconstruction of the original score and its performance practice.

Who could research, reconstruct and make alive anew this music? As there isa need for integrating research skills with performer’s insights, music writing withartistic practice, this project needs an artist researcher.

Let us consider a project in another domain: that of performance practices incomputer music. For composers to think of electronic media as something rich andcomplex in terms of timbral contribution for their creative palette is almost a given.An equal truth is that composers consider a traditional instrument and its performerto be an indivisible entity. But for the same composers to think of electronic mediaas material to be enriched by the nuances and personality, pacing and intention,in short, the interpretative musicianship of a human performer, it is necessary toconceive a strategy from both the end of the composer and the (potential) performer.Such a strategy needs to question the role of the performer in electronic music,and explore how both – performer and composer in computer music – relate tothe importance and impact of gesture. What are the possibilities and limitations ofcomputer versus traditional performative artistry? What kind of performative artistrycan be developed by the computer musician?

Who could research this topic and experiment with these parameters? Again, thisproject needs an artist researcher, experimenting with concepts and actions, spaceand sounds.

The ‘Kagel project’ and the ‘performance practice in Computer Music’ projectare both examples of the rich pool of artistic research projects at the OrpheusInstitute in Ghent. The first is a topic conceived by Luk Vaes, in his current artistic

3 (Re-)Searching Artists in Artistic Research: Creating Fertile Ground. . . 29

research and as part of the ORCiM: the Orpheus Research Centre in Music, where apool of international, mostly post-doctoral, artist-researchers meet; the second is byJuan Parra, a computer composer and guitarist, partaking in the doctoral programmeof the Orpheus Institute – docArtes – as well as being a researcher within ORCiM.Both projects reveal the emergence of a research discipline that combines artisticcreation and thorough research, embedded in highly expert practices and resultingin engaging artistic and epistemic output.

However, as Peter Dejans, director of the Orpheus Institute, notes:

much of the research conducted on and about music has traditionally been the preserve ofthe cluster of ‘scientific’ academic disciplines that surround the art-form (e.g. musicology,music philosophy, music pedagogy, music sociology, etc.). This scientifically-oriented wayof theorizing and knowledge-creation has generally left musical artists aside from directengagement in the research. Their absence has contributed to the development of theoreticaland historical constructs which, while shedding light on many complex and importantissues, remain silent on significant aspects of musical and artistic reality, leaving out issuesparticularly relevant to artists. (Dejans 2011, 141–142)

Such work offers reflections upon and knowledge of artistic products or acts,but most of the time leaves out the implicit intellectual and aesthetic search ofthe art creator as well as possible further implementation of the findings in theart (practice) itself. It lives a life of its own: obtaining information and data ina practice, developing a discourse and ending with abstracted knowledge. Therecommendations of the AEC show traces of a similar concern to avoid loading thediscourse with theoretical research aspects: the definition of the concept of artisticresearch, starting with the assertion that “All research follows this sequential patternof Question-Investigation-Documentation”, follows quickly on to state that “Whatdistinguishes Artistic Research is the way in which artistic experience, artisticknowledge and skills as well as artistic goals are involved in research.” (AEC 2004–2007, 16).

This brings us to a main question: as an emergent new discipline, can artisticresearch escape the obligatory, hierarchical pathway: ‘practice – discourse – knowl-edge’; can it escape an overly-theoretical, discursive or uni-dimensional approachof ‘question-investigation-documentation’? Can it go beyond the division betweendiscovery or creative practice and justification or theoretical argumentation? Webelieve that both elements are necessary. Our enterprise here is to open the map ofwhat could constitute this ‘artistic way of experiencing, knowing and doing’ as aspecific condition for artistic research – as mentioned by the AEC (2004–2007, 16).

Through reflection upon the design and practice of artistic research, both atthe doctoral and post-doctoral level, at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent, Belgium,we will discuss the potential benefits of an artistic and epistemic articulation ofthe musician’s experience – the doing and knowing – that stresses the ‘context ofdiscovery’ over the ‘context of justification’. Two interrelated lines of argumentationwill orientate our approach. Firstly, we shall seek to transform the question: ‘Whatis this thing called knowledge?’ into: ‘What is this process called artistic research?’Secondly, since we consider experimentation to be intrinsic to the processes ofmusic creation and the development of artistic identity and expertise, we shall arguefor the primacy of an experimental attitude in artistic research and practice.


3.2 ‘Ceci n’‘est pas une pipe’

Looking out my window this lovely spring morning I see an azalea in full bloom. No, no! Ido not see that; though that is the only way I can describe what I see. That is a proposition,a sentence, a fact; but what I perceive is not proposition, sentence, fact, but only an image,which I make intelligible in part by means of a statement of fact. This statement is abstract;but what I see is concrete. (Peirce 1901, 72, MS 692; Brent 1993).

This – what you are now reading – is not artistic research. This is an article,a product of knowledge, a thing of knowledge. This is not, in fact, what wewant to bring to you. To clarify in another way what is at stake here, we wouldask you to enter our sound space, understand our creative scenarios, listen toimprovisational and experimental moments of artistic communication, partake in themultiple failures and doubts which are part of the practice and follow the heuristictrajectory leading to a performance or composition. Bearing this in mind helps youto keep distance from the dangers of a ‘thing of knowledge’ that is frozen in writtenor symbolic language (Swedberg 2012, 15).

However, reduced to the confines of academic writings, forcing artists’ potentialcreative communication into a written chapter in a book, we feel challenged here toverbalize and express the practices and potential of artistic research. As such, whatyou are reading is this ‘thing of knowledge’ that tries to justify why this or thatspecific process of artistic inquiry would, without artistic research, remain hiddenin the mythology surrounding artistry, or be cut into sociological, psychological,musicological and other disciplinary pieces and parcels. In the first place, as athing of knowledge, this text raises questions about priorities in research domains,specifically in the domain of artistic research. Secondly, as an account of knowledge,it raises questions about truth, meaning and representation.

Research practice, research design, research knowledge: these are the threeelements constituting the processes in a discipline of research. They encompass thematerial or subject of research and the actions undertaken to gather these, a methodor design as well as a discourse or vocabulary about how to engage with it, andfinally and most importantly in science, the formulated, written-down knowledge asoutput. However, the received order of priority between the three elements stressesthe outcome and hides the original practice. It isolates knowledge from its fertileground, preferring object over process: or, in Reichenbach’s terms, it privilegesthe context of justification over the context of discovery (1938). This duality has along history in philosophy of science and has taken today the conventional meaningof having on one side the original situation of the discovery and the steps – bothintuitive and rational – towards the output of an epistemic theory, and on the otherside the rational and objective argumentation – often constructed afterwards – thatdefends the theory with regard to its ‘truth’ value or reality connection and insidethe broader body of knowledge.

If we translate this dichotomy to the arts, we see how in the context of discoverythe artist engages with complex tacit and explicit processes of creation, drawingupon his personal, artistic and cultural knowledge, merging individual and social


acquisitions. In the context of justification of the outcome, we encounter a stressupon the art object, isolated from time- and experience-dependent actions, positedas a ‘museum’ object and inserted in a cultural current or art theory. This knowledgethen becomes part of the bulk of aesthetic theories or theories on art, omitting mostof the experiential encounters and artistic-intellectual explorations. We could drawa parallel between the context of discovery concerning the experience, time andspace of the creation of the artwork on the one hand, and the context of justificationincluding the reflection upon, legitimization and approval of the artwork inside theexisting canon of artworks and aesthetic theories on the other hand.

In our culturally productive societies, both on the level of knowledge theo-ries and art works, the two contexts are present. The distinction between andcomplementarity of contexts of discovery and justification is present at differentlevels: it is multiple (Hoyningen-Huene 2006). We will briefly explore four aspectsthrough considerations concerning scientific research, but bearing in mind alwaysthe implications and importance of this for artistic research:

1. We begin with the loop that unfolds between discovery and justification. Startingfrom the human experience of encountering and discovering new events orelements, a communicative process ensues that puts these discoveries in abroader context of knowledge and research. As such, these actions of discoveryform the experiential background for knowledge and have a possibility to developinto and nourish a more abstract level of communication and understanding. Acircle unfolds in which this level of abstraction can ideally re-fertilise new actionsof discovery.

2. This is always a dynamic process. The contexts distinguish different processes intime, taking place one after the other: justification after discovery. It is importantto note that we cannot start a process of justification without having something –the discovery – that originated what is to be justified, while discovery couldhappen without the need for justification – though such a discovery would remainrather tacit and not communicated.

3. These contexts have their own time frames, action patterns and content. Jus-tification happens after action and experience, and is concerned with method,analysis, factors or parameters. Discovery seems active and creative, whilejustification may be experienced as passive and reflective. However, by extractingboth contexts out of their complex interactive process, we run the risk ofdichotomizing. A gap seems to open between the empirical and the logical, orbetween the experiential and the analytical, the subjective and the objective.Justification takes the discovery out of its time- and space-dependent context inthe world and aims at a ‘universal’ credo for it in ‘the book of science’. Moreover,it follows from this that a discourse is developed that exceeds the factual and has apropensity to enter the ‘normative’: in knowledge as well as in arts, a (epistemicor aesthetic) value is given to the kind of product that is brought to the fore.By separating ‘doing’ and reflection, the empirical and the analytical, cuttingbetween the spheres of experience and those of rationality, between psychology


or sociology and ‘eternal’ science, the contexts reveal a shift from an immediateexperience to a meta-level.

4. Finally, both contexts are complementary and interdependent, not only in theinterrelated process and experiences, but also in the questions they can ask.While in the context of discovery prevailing questions concern the who andwhat or why’ something happens – observation and experimentation –, thecontext of justification forces engagement with questions of its validity: Can astatement about it be justified? Is it testable? It is a question of legitimizing andinstitutionalizing the outcomes of experiences of observation and discovery, ofwhen what we see has to be communicated, explained and justified. The contextof justification offers the objective legitimation of knowledge, while the contextof discovery allows for a subjective trajectory.

However interwoven and important both contexts are, the context of discoverystill loses its appeal when science communicates its knowledge. Is this because itrefers to the often-hidden implicit grey zone before the ‘Eureka’? Is it because ofits immersion in multiple small acts of failure and success, of losing and finding?It is concerned with experiencing the world, exploring it, merging the objective andthe subjective, merging the personal, individual aspects with cultural and scientificways. This mixture of inner and outer aspects makes all explicit record of rules orways of handling more or less impossible. The context of discovery is a context inwhich a non-formalisable practice takes place that contains clear thought processesthat are verbalisable as well as intuitive, non-verbal processes.

Considering these four aspects from an artistic research perspective reveals thepower of bringing research and practice together. Artistic research may open upthe full potential of these inter-related processes, engaging with the loop fromexperience and discovery to communication and justification, embedding this inthe dynamics of creation, including the process of art making, its reflection and itsmanifestation, and questioning the who, why, as well as the what, how and when.In short: this forms a process of acting and thinking, creation and reflection whichtakes its origin in what Reichenbach called the form in which thinking processes aresubjectively performed (1938).

These processes, both of acting and thinking, resemble what Peirce describesas the processes of ‘reasoning’ in discovery and research (1992, 182–192). Whilereasoning leads to the creation of new knowledge, it is itself a very complexthreefold activity – thinking is indeed a practice! – of observational, experimentaland habituational processes. We invite the reader to substitute the word ‘reasoning’for ‘artistic research’.

In the first place ‘reasoning’ entails observation, consisting of two parts, one thatis clear, verbalisable, logical, and the other that is intuitive and creative. The logicalpart immediately connects with previous knowledge and looks for structure andclassification. The intuitive part is more experiential and triggers association andmetaphorical, imaginary ideas. Observation, in itself a harsh task, reveals itself tobe a rather passive action. But ‘passive’ does not mean uninterested; it only meansthat there is no active intervention. Observational attention is a deep commitment,


that of the ‘involved’ spectator’: both analysing – the logical – and interpreting –the creative.

However, the second necessary component, experimentation, presents itself asan active intervention in what one is doing, both in a cognitive and in an embodiedway, bringing together creative action and imagination (Peirce 1992, 188):

In observation, the most essential condition is passivity ( : : : ). In experimentation, on thecontrary, the most essential ingredient is energy, perseverance, in short, strong work of thewill, both external and internal. (Peirce 1992, 187)

Finally, habituation takes place, calling into question old mental habits andintegrating new elements and habits so as to widen one’s own belief and actionsystem. From here on the circle can start again.

Peirce’s process of ‘reasoning’ evolves within a context of experience, ofdiscovery and ultimately culminates in knowledge that can be, outside the wholeexperiential process of acquisition by way of the three steps, communicated. At thispoint, a shift is made from the context of discovery towards that of justification,aiming at the legitimate, scientific and logical description and explanation of theoutcome and epistemic relevance of the ‘Eureka’: ‘the form in which thinkingprocesses are communicated to other persons’ (Reichenbach 1938, 6). The outcomein the form of scientific knowledge prevails, and everything that precedes thatknowledge – how it was found, which heuristics, which performative actions tookplace – is/can be ignored or put aside, not only because it is of no interest, but alsobecause it is rather difficult to study – ‘The act of discovery escapes logical analysis’(Reichenbach 1951, 231) – and because the context of justification offers a valuabletool for science and its epistemic progress (e.g. Popper 1982, 47–48).

In light of this theoretical framework, let us ask: What about the pipe of Magritte?Can Magritte’s artwork help us to unravel the complexities of these knowledgecontexts and their implications?

The context of justification is interested in the faithful representation of an objectof knowledge and its communicative truth-value. It presents a ’thing of knowledge’as part of a discourse partaking in, comparing it to and positioning it inside theexisting knowledge of art semiotics and representational theories. The pipe in theimage is ‘benignly’ imprisoned in a space of visible reference points: ‘width (thewritten text, the upper and lower borders of the frame); height (the sides of theframe, the easel’s mounts); and depth (the grooves of the floor)’ (Foucault 1983,17), and seemingly ‘solidly anchored within a pedagogic space’ (29) or we mightsay, an epistemic space, imposing a system of references. As Foucault notes: thisis a stable prison with certain coordinates. The object appears ‘without hesitationor equivocation’ (1983, 20) and is intentionally represented in a recognisable way.The immediate and reciprocal dependency between the text and the image offers aparadoxical positioning of truth and representation.

Interestingly enough, at first sight, Magritte’s image gives us a context ofjustification, rendered by a text which illuminates a drawing that should represent areal-world object, offering a truth meaning ‘this is a pipe’. But then Magritte blursall these expectations with the paradoxical text ‘this is NOT a pipe’, rejecting the


habitual context of justification where artworks and titles fit nicely together, offeringa justifying explanation. Given this perspective, Magritte seems to make us suddenlyaware of the context of discovery, the context of creation: of that what is behind therepresentation of the object, whether the questioning of the artist and the experienceof artistic creation, or the relation with the world and with imagination.

3.3 Merging the Institutional and the Essential: DocARTESand ORCiM

Artistically-situated research has a duty to address the imbalance created by the dominanceof science, and scientific methodology, in relation to research discourse about art; it is alsoparticularly well placed to do so. To be effective, artistic research needs to be articulatedin its own terms, rather than mediated through the more dominant research paradigms ofscience – although, as we have seen, it can learn from these – and especially from the morerecent lessons that science itself is learning. (Coessens et al. 2009, 72)

Artistic research has always existed, though most of the time hidden in the privatepractices of artists, but also more explicitly in the confines of intellectual and artisticsalons, in the Bauhaus activities of Paul Klee or in the writings of John Cage, forexample. However, the emergence of artistic research as a new discipline is recent.The main incentive for an institutionalised space for artistic research in Europe hasbeen the Bologna Process. But even before the concerted implementation of theBologna Process in higher education, innovations in research assessment within themusic conservatoires began to bring into focus questions about artistic research inmusic across the European space, and how institutions would evolve to cope withthis new field. Coming, as it did, alongside both the ‘Early Music movement’ ofthe 1980s and the emergence of the ‘new musicology’, the transformation of viewconcerning performed music’s potential for research outcomes was bound to createsome controversy. This was exacerbated by the linkage of music’s new status withimportant but potentially finite financial rewards from governmental funding bodies.

The transformations in national research landscapes have been solidified by nec-essary and profound restructurings undertaken in light of the Bologna Declaration.Curricula within music conservatoires have been reshaped to lead to academic orprofessional Bachelor degrees, followed by an academic Masters degree. The latterhas necessitated devising of research policies and activities, which has been metwith varying degrees of success within the grand Bologna project thus far.

How did the Orpheus Institute emerge out of the European discussions on artisticresearch? The Orpheus Institute in Ghent has developed two related trajectories ofartistic research:

1. The first is called docARTES, an international inter-university doctoral pro-gramme, integrated in an artistic research biotope. The trajectory prepares thedoctoral students for a professional career as an artistic researcher, with an inter-national community of researchers from a rich variety of musical backgrounds,working within an inspiring and dynamic environment. The individual doctoral


research projects take a central position in the training while continuouslybenefitting from the exposure to the international arena of artistic research.

2. The second is a specific artistic research biotope, called ORCIM. The missionof the Orpheus Research Centre in Music (ORCiM) is to produce and promotethe highest quality research into music, the processes of music making, andour understanding of them. By bringing together an international team, ORCiMcreates a strong and supportive research environment dedicated to the generationof new knowledge by artist-researchers. ORCiM invigorates their practice,deepens understanding and promotes new ways of expressing to the wider worldthe richness and profundity of knowledge that is embedded in music.

As will be discussed below, both the docARTES and ORCiM research pro-grammes reveal particular approaches to the need for a working model that takesinto account the specific nature of art-making (such as its tacit qualities), as wellas the many problems that come with translating the findings of ‘live’ events intoresearch with verifiable critical impact.

DocARTES came into being in 2004 following the 1999 ‘Bologna Declarationon the European space for higher education’.1 This ‘pledge by 29 countries’ aimedat reforming the structures of their higher education systems in a convergent way soas to make academic degree standards and quality assurance standards comparableand compatible throughout Europe. For higher artistic education, this led to theestablishment of a third (i.e. doctoral) degree cycle to round off the Bachelor-Master sequence. Previous to this policy change, the Orpheus Institute had, alreadyin 1996, initiated a ‘Laureate Program’ to help artists investigate and reflect ontheir practice within the framework of a project that requires time and depth thatthe existing educational structures did not leave room for. Inspired by the OrpheusInstitute and its doctoral program, the universities and conservatoires of Leiden/TheHague, Amsterdam, Leuven and Antwerp teamed up with docARTES while theBrussels and Ghent institutions worked out their own plans with musical artisticresearch. Outside of the Low Countries, some institutions had already movedtowards coupling music education and research or followed suit soon enough (e.g.Finland, Sweden, Norway, UK, France).

Alongside docARTES, ORCIM has been developed, in part, as a response tothe internationally detectable shift toward performance and performativity. Withinthis fertile, but challenging context, the Orpheus Institute realised that artisticresearch could only become a research discipline if it could express its knowledgebeyond pedagogic and diploma related contexts, and if artistic research became aresearch field in itself – creating a ‘tradition’ of artistic research. On ThursdayFebruary 12 2009, the Orpheus Research Centre in Music – ORCiM – was officiallyopened by Flemish Minister of Economics, Science and Innovation Mrs. PatriciaCeysens. From the start, ORCiM was dedicated to developing a meticulous researchdiscourse and offering a framework within which musical artists can fruitfully

1See http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/educ/bologna/bologna.pdf. Accessed July 3, 2012.

http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/educ/bologna/bologna.pdf


conduct their own research on topics which are at the heart of the art of musicmaking (musical practice). The core team of researchers for this work was drawnfrom an initial Call for Fellowships, carried out in June 2008, which was answeredby 60 musician-researchers from 25 different countries. From this, a team of 15 part-time Research Fellows was selected, a modified version of which now forms thebackbone of ORCiM, though membership has since expanded to include DoctoralResearchers (by application and interview) and Visiting Researchers (by applicationand interview).

3.4 Informed Praxis of the Musician: Experimentationin Research and Art

Artistic research resides in the recording, expression and transmission of the artist’s researchtrajectory: his or her knowledge, wanderings, and doubts concerning exploration andexperimentation. It is only through the artist that certain new insights into otherwise tacitand implicit knowledge can be gleaned and only through the artist/researcher remaining anartist while pursuing these insights that he or she will be able to enrich the existing inquiriescarried out by scientific researchers. (Coessens et al. 2009, 91)

3.4.1 DocARTES: Exploring Why Magritte’s PipeIs Not a Pipe

While institutional opportunities have shaped room for the creation of a research –doctoral – programme in the arts, it was up to the Orpheus Institute itself todevelop a challenging programme that explored this new discipline and would forma first generation of artistic researchers, as there existed no precedent in Belgiumand few examples in neighbouring countries. Over the years, an equilibriumhas been sought between knowledge from the inside and the outside, creating afertile dialogue between the doctoral subject’s focussed research and practice, andknowledge shared by high level musicians, artists and artist-researchers who offertheir expertise in important peripheral domains, both knowledge ‘of’ (know-that)and knowledge ‘in’ (know-how).

Alongside a traditional engagement between the doctoral students and theirindividual supervising teams (the artistic and academic tutors), the curriculum aimsat letting the docARTES students act as a proto-research group. To that effect,monthly gatherings (8 per year) of 2 or 3 days are organized to fit six modules thatallow the individuals to interact with each other and with the senior artist-researchersthat chair the modules. Three of these modules contextualize artistic research: KeyConcepts for Artistic Research, Contours of Artistic Knowledge and Colloquiumare developed to acquaint the doctoral candidates with the knowledge and discoursefrom in- and outside the artistic research discipline, and with ‘best practice’


proponents in the research field. Three more modules – Tools & Techniques,Collegium and Laboratorium – are intended to help the junior researchers gainproficiency in the craftsmanship that is at the basis of every artistic research project,to support their individual projects by offering collective and expert feedback, andto engage in hands-on research.

But, how does knowledge from the ‘outside’ meet the ‘inside’? The module‘Contours of artistic knowledge’ divulges insights by way of framing discussion offundamental notions and/or relevant topics concerning different disciplines inform-ing the artist-researcher. The starting point is that we live in a continuously evolvingknowledge context and information society. If information is freely available, heldas data to be browsed and sifted, knowledge is transmitted by way of humancommunication and expertise. The artist-researcher, being an experienced artist,still has to find his or her way in research and construct a relevant background ofknowledge. The exploration of different expertises, methods, practices and issuesin the natural, human and cognitive sciences, in relation with the broader domainof arts, forms a launch-pad, and a forum, for dialogue and reflection on knowledge-creation, discovery and investigation. The artist-researcher is invited to contribute toa discussion on the place, content and value of knowledge in-and-for research, and,more broadly, in-and-for society.

The module ‘Key concepts for artistic research’ is set up to discuss topics thatare relevant for today’s discourse on artistic research. Notions or practices suchas Improvisation, Articulation and Authenticity are key to both the jargon and theconcepts of the discipline, and are subjects for scrutiny. The module starts fromthe fundamental question of how to make this research adequately discursive.Is it possible to articulate the specificity of artistic research that so often has ahigh degree of tacit and embodied knowledge? Is natural language capable ofexpressing the ideas captured in artistic research, or do we need other modes ofcommunication? And if so, will these alternatives be accepted by academia, or willlanguage, in the form of written text, always remain a requirement? Where artistsin general have a ‘tacit’ or ‘embodied’ notion of what they consider Improvisation,Articulation or Authenticity, the aim here is to bring these practices or concepts intodiscursive forms, allowing for an understanding of the complexity and the differentperspectives which exist beyond the personal knowledge of each artist-researcher.

While the different parts of both preceding modules are led (for the sake ofcontinuity) by the same researchers/lecturers/organisers from inside the docARTESenvironment, for the section ‘Colloquium’, a guest speaker is invited to elaborate onhis or her expertise relating to artistic research in musical practice. The lecturer maybe an artist presenting personal research so as to acquaint or confront the doctoralstudents with examples of ‘best practices’ from outside the docARTES biotope (i.e.not related to the projects of the students or not even to musical practice) or anacademic or artistic professional whose field of knowledge touches on the artisticdiscipline in a way that produces insights of use to the doctoral candidates. The pre-sentation is followed by a discussion to generate discourse on the contextual level.

These three modules aim to open the gaze and the practice, connecting andembedding artistic research with the world. The other modules focus more on the


world inside artistic research projects and how to openly communicate these fromthe inside to the outside.

The Collegium is a forum where doctoral researchers, staff and supervisorsdiscuss the doctoral projects and exchange feedback. To situate these projectsand their place in the doctoral trajectory within broader contexts and to benefitfrom general as well as specific intellectual and artistic exchanges, a situation iscreated not unlike a doctoral promotion, with respondents assessing the stance thata doctoral candidate takes.

The Laboratorium workshops are basically workplaces in which different typesof artistic research are carried out on the spot. On the one hand, examples ofhistorical investigations – artistic research avant la lettre – are dissected to searchfor an understanding of their validity and workings and to assess their relationshipto the concerns of today’s researchers. On the other hand, new collective research isengaged in, handling generic topics relating to musical practice. This collaborativeresearch is undertaken in a hands-on fashion, with the topics serving as a basis fordeveloping a dialogue between the doctoral students.

The Tools & Techniques module is set up to inform and coach doctoral studentswith regard to skills and insights that pertain to the practical side of engaging inresearch. While doctoral research is the point of departure, the aim for masteryof practical research crafts is extended to the wider range of research types that apost-doc researcher will encounter in his professional life: specific matters such ascollecting and processing data, timing of a doctoral trajectory, determining researchquestions, dissemination of research results, etc.

Rather than staying at a level of explaining and listening, the doctoral candidatesare invited into three engaging artistic research and practice projects: an individualwriting project, a collaborative writing project and a doctoral conference organisa-tion project.

The Individual Writing Project allows the doctoral students to experience theprocess of scholarly writing at an early stage in the trajectory. Each student isassigned a personal coach from the docARTES team who may be consulted in caseof any problems. This coach is also primarily responsible for feedback at any stageof the writing process.

Development of dialogic and original content out of personal artistic researchcommitment as well as coping in practice with (academic) writing skills are thetwo aims of the Collaborative Writing seminar. In scientific research, collaborativewriting is a common practice. The accumulation of knowledge and ideas generatesnew knowledge and original reflections. Starting mainly from texts and discoursesfrom the Contours of Artistic Knowledge discussion group, the doctoral studentsare encouraged in constructive discussions to write a collaborative article in artisticresearch.

Finally, gatherings of researchers – conferences, seminars, symposia, etc. – serveto disseminate recent findings, to keep track of developments in specific researchfields, and to build and maintain a network of peers. Every professional researcheris confronted with the necessity to attend and even initiate such collective efforts.


docARTES fellows are therefore given the opportunity to devise and realise a small-scale artistic research conference to take place at the Orpheus Institute.

To enhance the working of the docARTES collective as a research group,expertise is drawn from ORCiM. ORCiM researchers are involved in the docARTEStraining, insights gained through research conducted at ORCiM are disseminated indocARTES for the benefit of the doctoral cohort, and a Doctoral Studentship hasbeen established to allow doctoral candidates to integrate their project in the largercontext of ORCiM.

3.4.2 ORCiM: Experimenting with Magritte’s Pipe

Let us return briefly to one of the artistic research projects at ORCiM that we startedwith.

Luk Vaes explored the work and experimental world of Mauricio Kagel, hadlong discussions with the performers Theodor Ross and Wilhelm Bruck, collectedall possible material, analysed the existing videos, and started experimenting withperformance-based, compositional, personal and other relevant artistic knowledge –both ‘know-how’ and ‘know-that’. He found out that Kagel’s Unter Strom (1969)is crucially akin to his composition Acustica (1968–70), which was intended for‘experimental sound producers’, i.e. involving musicians ‘who are prepared toextend the frontiers of their art’ (Kagel 1970). The extension lies in the fact thatthe objects to be played (in Unter Strom and Acustica) are not proper musicalinstruments; therefore, performing with them requires an experimental, i.e. trial-and-error, self-learning process. Virtuoso piano playing skills are useless whenone is confronted with buzzers, sirens, ventilators, table tennis balls, etc. Much ofthis confrontation and learning process is personal, and cannot rely on knowledgeaccumulated within and through a tradition, especially given difficulties of adequatenotation. As such, reconstructing the empty pages of an unfinished score for suchexperimental music entails more than asking the historical performers what theyused to do. It is the historically experimental process that needs to be reconstructed,passed on, and verbalized in such a way as to ensure that the result of the researchis as informative and instructive to a future performer as a traditional score is heldto be.

Tactil incorporates another type of experiment in the sense that it is part of thegenre ‘experimental music theatre’ (Heile 2014, forthcoming), requiring performersto embody the ‘curious combination of and tension between musical performanceand theatrical performance, aesthetic perception and semantic perception, presenta-tion and representation’ (ibid.). As with the experimental instrumentation of UnterStrom, the know-how of performing the theatricalised musical actions in Tactilneeds to be transmitted from historical performers from a bygone age to present-day musicians via a verbal or video-recorded explanation that is specific to this typeof knowledge and experience.


The whole trajectory of this artistic research project will end in differentperformances – starting at the end of 2012 –, and comprising a deeply informed tran-scription/composition of Kagel’s work and recordings, bridging and interweavingintellectual, historical, practical, artistic and aesthetic insights. The trajectory ofthe artistic research process resembles Peirce’s threefold model: observation,experimentation and communication.

The example given offers some important insights into artistic research, as wellas an important ‘challenge’ to artist researchers, as Peter Dejans remarks (2011,139). Those intellectually curious artists who are beginning to identify themselvesas artist-researchers

have argued that knowledge generated within the traditional academy represents a skewedperception of artistic reality. It could be seen as only partial knowledge and therefore notunambiguously applicable to a full understanding of artistic practice. (Dejans 2011, 142)

As the previous example shows, the best way to rectify this situation is to takeartists’ daily experiences, their artistic understanding and their informal theorizinginto account and, as a consequence, to acknowledge the artist as artist-researcher,combining theory, knowledge and artistic understanding both as a means of artisticdevelopment and as a species of research-oriented enquiry (Dejans, 142). Thedevelopment of artistic research as a new discipline in the arts, one that has its ownstrengths and is in constant dialogue with the more established research disciplines,serves as a general practice throughout the activities at Orpheus Institute and,specifically, within ORCiM.

ORCiM’s research explores shifts in the study and practices of music, movingthe discourse toward elements that go beyond score-based readings, somethingthat it shares with the field of Performance Studies. However, while PerformanceStudies established itself as a sub-discipline of Musicology, Artistic Research inmusic is a more recent phenomenon. Moreover, the understanding of artistic practiceas research, and, therefore, as a generator of knowledge, remains at the core ofan ongoing debate within the establishment (Borgdorff 2012). The evolution andadoption of the research agenda of Artistic Experimentation gives good insight intohow ORCiM has been developing as a young research centre in this new field ofinquiry. In itself, this process of development has become a form of experimentation.Following ORCiM’s first year of operation, in which it housed a small numberof diverse research projects, it became clear that a unifying strategy needed tobe developed to give a cohering logic to the work and outputs of the ResearchCentre. The ORCiM Steering Committee embarked on a concentrated process ofplanning in order to develop the Artistic Experimentation agenda, including a broadaudit of current work within ORCiM, alongside the posing of a series of questionsconcerning research trends in the wider world. The researchers discovered over50 topics that could relate to artistic experimentation, which they categorised intobroad groupings. This material was then shared outward with the ORCiM GeneralAssembly in brainstorming and mapping exercises, in order to determine theviability of the agenda. Researchers were then required to make research proposalsin light of the new agenda, which was officially adopted in Autumn 2010.


ORCiM Researchers continue to work within the over-arching Agenda of ArtisticExperimentation, which not only informs individual research, but also serves as acatalyst for collaborative projects, and a locus for discussion and debate about thenature of artistic research and its context in the public sphere. These exchanges gobeyond the music-related disciplines and enter other arts and humanities discourses,and even the realm of the ‘hard’ sciences, as exemplified by the ORCiM Study daybased on Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s work on the epistemology of experimentation.Overall, the work is divided into five sections, each of which is overseen by aresearcher-leader:

1. Towards an understanding of experimentation in artistic practice. The researchhere challenges existing discourses in order to create new conceptual contextsfor experimentation within artistic practice.

2. The role of the body: tacit and creative dimensions of artistic experimentation.This strand explores embodied dimensions of musical practice in order toarticulate significant aspects of tacit knowledge within the creative process.

3. Experimenting with materials in the processes of music-making: creating andevaluating new musical situations and challenging the frontiers of current andestablished interactions in performance, composition, and improvisation.

4. Sound and Space: environments and interactions. The research explores howartistic projects relate to environments and previously untried interactions inorder to generate innovative and experimental artistic practices.

5. Beyond experimentation: broadening contexts. How can we reconfigure bound-aries of artistic creativity, leading to transformation of aesthetic understanding,reception and evaluation?

A continuous exchange between artistic practice and research, between insideand outside, between information and experience, between embodied and cognitiveknowledge, nourishes the lively meetings, which happen every 2 months over 3or 4 days. During these meetings, approximately 15 artist-researchers explore,present and question the artistic research work they have advanced, opening it upto constructive debate. Through its network of institutional partners and contacts,and via the dissemination activities of its researchers both within and outside theOrpheus Institute, ORCiM provides a means of efficient transfer of knowledgefrom the world of research to that of musical practice and artistic education –and vice versa. While ORCiM acts as a stable constituent within the evolvingfield of enquiry that is artistic research, it is clear that it is also an experimentaland experiential space, for not only the content and topic of ORCiM research isArtistic Experimentation: the ORCiM environment itself acts as a laboratory, anexperimental space for artistic research, embedded in and explored through practice,opening an aesthetic and epistemic questioning of and to the world.


3.5 To Conclude : : : and to Continue : : :

This brings us back to Magritte’s pipe. The astonishment, the questioning of theartistic act is present in all levels of the practice and of its expression: creation,presentation, representation and reception. Artistic research needs observation,experimentation and communication of its subjects and practices. Experimentalrelationships take place not only inside artistic practices, but also at the interactionalplane where the sensorial, creative and aesthetic world of the artist meets the worldof science, research and explicit communication.

By presenting and investigating the artistic research examples and the designand content of the Orpheus Institute, we have aimed to demonstrate the potentialof this discipline, within and beyond its own borders. The development of artisticresearch empowers the artist(-researcher) searching for an equilibrium betweenartistic ‘know-how’ and the necessary background ‘know-that’, between artisticinvestigation and informed documentation. Artistic research expands both domainsof knowledge and domains of practice, offering new ways of bridging these. It notonly opens research spaces and discourses for itself as a growing discipline andfor other disciplines by communicating as a partner in dialogue, but also has thepotential to expand the possibilities of artistic practices and divulge these to diverseaudiences, from artists, to researchers, to an interested public outside.

References

AEC Third Cycle Working Group. (2004–2007). Guide to third cycle studies in higher musiceducation. The Association Européenne des Conservatoires, Académies de Musique etMusikhochschulen.

Borgdorff, H. (2012). The conflict of the faculties: Perspectives on artistic research and academia.Leiden: Leiden University Press.

Coessens, K., Crispin, D., & Douglas, A. (2009). The artistic turn – a manifesto (OrpheusGeschriften). Leuven: Leuven University Press.

Dejans, P. (2011). Doctoral studies in European higher music education: A challenge. In R. Janet,B. Gerald, & M. Jürgen (Eds.), Art and research: Can artists be researchers? Wien/New York:Springer.

Foucault, M. (1983). This is not a pipe. Berkeley: University of California Press.Heile, Björn. (2014, forthcoming). Towards a theory of experimental music theatre: ‘showing-

doing’, ‘non-matrixed performance’ and ‘metaxis’. In Y. Kaduri (Ed.), Oxford handbook ofsound, music and image in the fine arts. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hoyningen-Huene, P. (2006). Context of discovery versus context of justification and ThomasKuhn. In J. Schickore & F. Steinle (Eds.), Revisiting discovery and justification (pp. 119–131).Dordrecht: Springer.

Kagel, M. Unter Strom (1969) Music Composition. University Press Leuven.Kagel, M. Tactil (1970) Music Composition. University Press Leuven.Peirce, C. S. (1992). Reasoning and the logic of things. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Peirce, C. S. (1901). Unpublished manuscript the Houghton library, Harvard University (MS 692;

Brent 1993), 72.


Popper, K. (1982). Unended quest: An intellectual autobiography. La Salle: Open Court.Reichenbach, H. (1938). Experience and prediction: An analysis of the foundations and the

structure of knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Reichenbach, H. (1951). The rise of scientific philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press.Swedberg, R. (2012). Theorizing in sociology and social science: turning to the context of

discovery. Theory and Society, 41, 1–40.

Chapter 4Encouraging and Training ConservatoireStudents at Undergraduateand Taught-Postgraduate Level TowardsFluency in the Thought-Processes and Methodsof Artistic Research

Jeremy Cox

Abstract As more conservatoires across Europe become involved in developingand delivering 3rd-Cycle (Doctoral) programmes, the question of how these relateto already-established 1st- and 2nd-Cycle programmes (Bachelor and Master)becomes increasingly pressing. Many conservatoire students and teachers wouldlike to see the 3rd Cycle as an opportunity to extend (or, in some cases, restore toits former length) the timescale of traditional, practice-oriented study. For them,heavy emphasis upon a research dimension at this point may be a deterrent oreven an insuperable barrier. From the institutional perspective, this means that thestudents who do enter 3rd-Cycle study may not be the ones with the most excitingmusical potential, but those who can negotiate the requirements of programmesthat fit generic paradigms of Doctoral study. The problem has two dimensions:what kind of research could be thoroughly relevant and congenial for dedicatedmusical performers and composers; and how might the whole trajectory of highereducation study in conservatoires function in a more integrated way, preparing thosestudents who wish to pursue studies at 3rd-Cycle level with a good foundation forthis, while still retaining a strong professional focus and the flexibility of effectiveexit points after all three levels? Many institutions are feeling that the answerto the first dimension lies in the type of research now commonly referred to asArtistic Research. This paper starts from that assumption and concentrates on thesecond dimension. It argues that existing 1st- and 2nd-Cycle curricula will needto undergo further development and adaptation if they are truly to serve the twingoals of providing appropriate professional training in their own right and bringingstudents to the threshold of 3rd-Cycle study armed with the knowledge, skillsand competence they will need to enter this realm with confidence and a realisticexpectation of success.

J. Cox (�)European Association of Conservatoires (AEC), Surrey, UKe-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]


45



46 J. Cox

Keywords Post graduate • European • Artistic research • Curriculum

4.1 Background: Educational Philosophy and Pragmaticsin the Development of Conservatoire Programmes

The title of this chapter might be read as assuming that it is self-evidently a goodthing to encourage and train conservatoire students at undergraduate and taughtpostgraduate level towards fluency in the thought-processes and methods of artisticresearch. But is this necessarily the case – especially when we consider thosewho might leave higher education after their undergraduate or taught postgraduatecourses and for whom preparation specifically for 3rd-Cycle study is thereforeirrelevant? In practice, the question prompts a variety of responses, both positiveand negative. One might expect the thinking behind these to be firmly rooted ineducational philosophy. In practice, this is true of some of them, but others areinfluenced by a raft of more pragmatic issues: the status of conservatoires withinhigher education, the variable length of study available to conservatoire studentsin today’s patterns of training, the sources of funding available for study in anincreasingly squeezed arts sector, and so on. Little wonder, then, that despitegrowing debate around the subject, there is only patchy evidence of conservatoiresgenuinely placing the kinds of aspiration expressed in the chapter’s title right atthe heart of their implementation or review of 1st- and 2nd-Cycle programmes(Bachelor and Masters or their equivalents).

In addressing this situation, during the course of the chapter I intend first to mapsome of the competing priorities that have often moulded and, arguably, distorted thedesign of Bachelor and, especially, Masters programmes in conservatoires. Then, Ishall set out what I believe to be the case for a thoroughgoing re-evaluation of theseprogrammes. I shall examine the function of these programmes in relation to theentire trajectory of conservatoire training and the role they could, and in my viewshould, play in equipping music students for a lifetime’s engagement in their chosenprofession sustained by open-mindedness, abiding curiosity and constant renewal.Such a re-evaluation, I would argue, is not only desirable but, in many cases, islikely to force institutions into a more focussed examination than hitherto of whatgoes on in the core main-study teaching area. This is because if we do come to theconclusion that it is good for our students as musicians to acquire fluency in the kindof thought-processes and methods employed by artistic researchers, whether or notthey themselves go on to engage overtly in artistic research, it cannot be sustainablefor their primary source of influence and direction in their learning – the main-studyteacher – not to be fully integrated into the project to engender this fluency.

It seems to me that 2nd-Cycle programmes in particular hold an important key tohow the whole suite of cycles and programmes – Bachelor, Master and Doctorate –can be given coherence and a sense of logical progression. Not every graduate of aBachelor programme progresses to a Masters – although, in music, many do – andvery few musicians completing their Masters stay in higher education to undertake

4 Encouraging and Training Conservatoire Students at Undergraduate. . . 47

Doctoral work, although many feel that the time they have spent on their studies injust two cycles is insufficient for their complete professional preparation. Clearly,therefore, each cycle must have its own identity, shaped to its particular purpose.However, for those students who do progress through all three cycles, the Masterswill be crucial in how it confronts them with fresh challenges compared to theBachelor and, at the same time, prepares them so as not to be nonplussed by theeven greater challenges awaiting them as they progress to Doctoral study, where theywill leave the environment of the taught student and enter that of the autonomouslearner/researcher. Getting the design and delivery of the Masters programme right,in my view, is the single most important way that conservatoires can ensure that theyare simultaneously giving students an appropriate professional training and, whereauthorised to do so by national legislation, functioning as centres of higher learningwith a legitimate role in all three higher-education cycles.

4.2 Recent Developments: The European Perspective

In discussing these questions, it is important to acknowledge how much changehas already taken place in conservatoire training over the last 15 years or so.In this relatively short time-span, the level of challenge to traditional practices,and the magnitude of change in both organisational and pedagogical terms, hasvastly outstripped that of the preceding century-and-more since the paradigm ofthe conservatoire as institutionalised professional training school operating at thecivic, regional or national level became established in the nineteenth century. Theconservatoire teaching tradition, based as it is upon a kind of ‘apostolic succession’,whereby a set of musical skills – but also attitudes – is transferred from teacher tostudent and then from student-become-teacher to the next generation of students,is actually highly resilient against change. Rather than setting a premium uponinnovation, it emphasises the concept of lineage, with each generation of musiciansfinding an important element of self-identity in the pedigree they can trace – insome cases right back to direct contact with the very nineteenth-century composerswhose works they predominantly perform. Coupled with the concept of the teachingstudio as a ‘sacred space’, inviolate from external interference, this has madeconservatoires bastions against all but the most determined forces of change – atleast until recently. This, in turn, has meant that change, when it has come, hasnot necessarily been applied uniformly within institutions. All-pervasive though theprocesses of change in recent years may have felt, this does not necessarily meanthat there are not practices at the very core of conservatoire training that have largelyevaded scrutiny and that might still merit careful review in the light of changes tothe landscape surrounding them.

My observations will be made mainly from the European perspective, wheremuch of the impetus for the recently-accelerated change in conservatoires hascome from one overwhelmingly important external source – the reform processof European higher education ushered in by the Bologna Declaration in 1999

48 J. Cox

(European Commission 1999). The implications of this process at the institutionallevel for conservatoires, especially those in Southern European countries, wereimmediately felt. In the first instance, this was because, by calling attention to asharp boundary between higher education and other levels, a hinterland in whichmany conservatoires had operated rather ambiguously, the Bologna Declarationappeared to pose a real threat of excluding some music training institutions fromthe HE sector altogether. But even for those whose eligibility to function in the 1stCycle was not under threat, participating at any higher level than this was by nomeans assured and, initially at least, the prospect of any kind of engagement withthe 3rd Cycle seemed utterly out of the question for all but a lucky few institutionswhose previous histories had already established the precedent of their being activeat this level. Taken as a whole, these implications amounted to a challenge of seismicproportions to conservatoires’ prevailing desire to continue unmolested, with thesame teaching traditions and professionally-oriented qualification titles that, out-wardly at least, had served the sector well in the training of successive generations ofmusicians from the nineteenth century and through the twentieth. This was why, atthe annual congress of the Association Européenne des Conservatoires, Académiesde Musique et Musikhochschulen (AEC) held in Bucharest in 1999, members fromthe Southern European countries called for an emergency debate on the still freshlyformulated Bologna Declaration and its implications.

In an immediate response to these early concerns, the AEC put out a statementfollowing the congress in which, as can be seen, the focus is specifically upon accessto both the 1st and 2nd Cycles (the third is not even mentioned) and upon the need torecognise broad parity between conservatoires in the Southern European countriesand their more Northerly counterparts (AEC 1999):

The AEC Declaration (1999)

1. The AEC welcomes the principle, laid out in the Bologna Declaration, ofestablishing a Europe-wide co-ordinated system of higher education basedon national individual two main cycles, undergraduate and graduate.

2. The Association strongly affirms the principle, based upon substantialexperience from member institutions in many European countries andregions that programmes involving the pursuit of practical instrumental,vocal and compositional study to the highest levels of excellence can andshould be regarded as fully appropriate to both of the cycles describedabove.

3. The Association believes it to be essential to the optimum functioningof musical higher education in Europe that all its member institutions,among whom there is broad recognition of mutual compatibility, should beable to participate fully in exchange, transfer and progression of studentswithin both of these cycles. In this context, the Association particularlyurges the rapid recognition by countries such as Spain, Portugal, Italy and

(continued)


(continued)Greece that practically-based musical study is applicable in principle toboth cycles.

4. The Association would be pleased to place at the disposal of individualcountries and their education ministries the considerable expertise held bystaff from its member institutions in the evaluation and quality assuranceof programmes of study in music at both graduate and undergraduate level.

Declaration adopted by the General Assembly of the AEC on November8th, 1999 – G. Enescu Concert Hall – Universitatea de Muzica Bucuresti –Romania.

This document was the first of a number issued by the AEC during the first 10years of the Bologna Process, some of them jointly coordinated with the EuropeanLeague of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA) – the body which represents higher artseducation more generally and which therefore complements the AEC’s subject-specific representation of music in this sector. A key joint statement issued by AECand ELIA in 2007 shows how the terrain of concern had by then expanded to includenot only all three cycles but also wider questions of artistic development, researchand their equivalence (AEC 2007). The first two points in the statement are thecrucial ones in this respect:

Joint AEC-ELIA Position Paper 2007 DTOWARDS STRONG CRE-ATIVE ARTS DISCIPLINES IN EUROPED

[concluding statement]Taking these successful outcomes as a starting point, we invite the

Ministers:

1. To recognise higher arts and music education at 1st, 2nd, and 3rd levels inall Bologna countries and to resolve persisting problems in some countrieswhere the 2nd and/or 3rd cycles are not yet established in our sectors.

2. To recognise and acknowledge artistic development and research takingplace in higher arts and music education as being at a level equivalent toother disciplines of higher education and fully contributing to the EuropeanResearch Area.

3. To retain a strong emphasis on cultural diversity and artistic practice,whilst supporting the need for greater transparency and readability ofqualifications as the platform for a stronger, more integrated Europeanspace of higher education.

4. To engage in a more subject-specific approach during the next steps of theBologna process, so that the implementation of the Bologna principles is

(continued)

50 J. Cox

(continued)ensured at all institutional levels. As a consequence, to consider organisingan official Bologna seminar on higher arts and music education during2008–2009 in collaboration with the relevant European associations.

5. To acknowledge and make use of the developed expertise in the field ofquality assurance and enhancement.

6. To make use of the tools developed (descriptors, learning outcomes,competences, etc.) for the establishment of sectoral national and Europeanqualifications frameworks.

7. To fully invest in modern, well-equipped higher arts and music educationto maintain and further develop its unique qualities in an increasinglydigital society and economy.

What had been going on in European conservatoires between the promulgationof these two statements? The short answer is a great deal. One senses the greaterconfidence and ambition of the later statement. In general, the concerns dominatingthe 1999 AEC congress in Bucharest had receded by 2007, although they had beenreplaced by others relating to the 3rd Cycle and research, of which more later. Belowthis new arena of contention, access to the 1st Cycle – at least for conservatoires ofthe kind forming the active membership of the AEC – was universally assured, andeligibility to participate in the 2nd Cycle was recognised for such institutions in themajority of European countries. In Italy, for example, new post-Bologna Mastersprogrammes had actually been introduced ahead of the reform of the 1st Cycle.More recently still, Music in Italy has become one of the disciplines, along with theother Arts and Law, where there is a so-called ‘Laurea Magistrale Quinquenniale’fusing the first two cycles into a 5-year sequence.

This tendency to cling to the notion of a longer, unbroken pattern of study haswidespread parallels elsewhere in Europe, especially in those countries where highermusic training was previously a seamless linear regime and for whom the conceptof a caesura between the Bachelor and Master, with distinct learning and teachingstyles on either side of this divide, was not built into national traditions. In Germany,for example, introducing such a break seemed both artificial and alienating inits taints of undue Anglo-American influence. In the early years of the BolognaProcess, there were even suggestions from German conservatoires that, if they wereobliged to introduce a 1st – 2nd cycle divide, they would prefer to do so after 2 years,followed by 3 years of full ‘Magister’-level study, since this corresponded to thenearest thing in the German tradition to a meaningful point of articulation betweena student’s entering higher education and graduating with a Masters qualification.Ultimately, Bachelor and Masters degrees have been introduced in Germany, withan 8 C 4 semester (4 C 2 year) pattern being common.

In the UK, where the reforms and the three cycles of Bologna were widelyassumed to denote ‘business as usual’, conservatoires were already embarked on


a journey from diplomas to Bachelor degrees before the Bologna Process got underway. The adoption of Masters degrees as the standard postgraduate qualificationtook longer, with a dual system of professionally-oriented diplomas and moreacademically-challenging Masters degrees gradually giving way to one in whichthe gap between these narrowed and both types came to be regarded simply asdifferent species of Masters qualification. In the process, expectations of ‘Masters-worthiness’ undoubtedly became loosened, if not necessarily lowered, especially inrelation to requiring the submission of a significant written component.

Meanwhile, the French system of regional conservatoires and two Conserva-toires nationals supérieurs prompted initial thoughts that the former might takecare of the Bachelor level and the latter confine themselves to the Masters. Thiswas rapidly realised to be unworkable – not least in that it would potentially limitthe study period in the superior institutions to 2 years! In Paris and Lyon, aselsewhere, students and their teachers really wanted to be able to work togetherfor something closer to 7 years in patterns of study which, rather than movingfrom one clearly-defined cycle to another, largely consisted of ‘more of the same’but with an organic and individualised maturing process occurring along the way.Both Conservatoires nationals supérieurs now offer both ‘Licence’ (Bachelor) andMasters qualifications, as well as engaging with the 3rd Cycle.1

4.3 Engaging Constructively with Change: The AdditionalChallenge of the 3rd Cycle

This rapid and inevitably incomplete survey of European developments in the firstphase of the Bologna Process nevertheless gives some idea of how diverse have beenthe routes to developing Masters programmes. It also reveals how the process hasbeen dominated by conservatoires’ attempts to relate the new as closely as possibleto the old and familiar, and by a pre-occupation with resisting the tendency ofthe Bologna reforms to shrink the overall duration of study. At the risk of beingunduly cynical, it suggests that the development of such programmes has been onlytenuously connected to notions that the main driver for change might be a genuineappetite to explore ways in which new concepts of learning and teaching embeddedin the reforms could be harnessed as a means to modernise and enhance curricula.Of course, there have been notable exceptions to this, especially beneath the levelof institutional strategic positioning. Among those working in conservatoires withresponsibility for curriculum design and development, a generation of creativethinkers has undoubtedly emerged for whom the possibility of establishing a

1For example, the CNSMD in Paris operates two Doctorates, one a Doctorat d’interprète de laMusique – Recherche et Pratique and the other a Doctorat d’art et de Création – CompositionMusicale, in conjunction with the Université Paris Sorbonne-Paris IV. In addition, it offers threeDiploma-style qualifications of its own, deemed to be equivalent to 3rd–Cycle level.

52 J. Cox

coherently structured learning environment in their institutions has been seen asan opportunity, rather than a bureaucratic imposition. This is a phenomenon that theAEC itself has sought to encourage in its development of Learning Outcomes forhigher music education, in the first instance for the 1st and 2nd Cycles and, between,2004 and 2007 for the 3rd Cycle as well (AEC 2009). These Learning Outcomes,and a series of handbooks produced concurrently by the AEC, have subsequentlycome to be widely used by the community of curriculum designers and developerswithin European conservatoires (AEC 2013).

As well as its referring to all three cycles, and not just the first two, theother feature of the 2007 AEC-ELIA position paper that distinguishes it from the1999 statement is the second clause, calling upon ministers: ‘To recognise andacknowledge artistic development and research taking place in higher arts and musiceducation as being at a level equivalent to other disciplines of higher education andfully contributing to the European Research Area’. This shows how the principalarena of concern among European conservatoires and art schools had by thenshifted to the 3rd Cycle and research. The new struggle was primarily one ofgaining recognition as legitimate centres for such activity at all. However, it hadan important secondary aim of, on the one hand, resisting having to conform toscientific paradigms in this area and, on the other, avoiding being judged to bepractising some kind of inferior and ‘questionable’ species of research activity.Conservatoires’ emphasis upon the research practised within their walls needingto have a high-quality artistic component – or, at the extreme, upon their equivalentto research activity consisting solely of the development of this high-quality artisticpractice – meant that they were not simply bidding for entrance to the exclusive clubof research-active higher education institutions but also fighting for acceptance of awhole new paradigm for such activity.

As with the issues over 2nd-Cycle study, the impetus behind this new strugglewas by no means confined to matters of educational philosophy, and the motivesoperating at institutional level have remained varied and uneven. Not surprisingly,those at the forefront of the new phenomenon that has come to be known as artisticresearch are the ones who have most fully embraced it, at a profound level, as theway to fuse the very best of musical practice and musical understanding; for someat the other extreme, however, its attraction has been as a supposedly quicker, easierand less resource-intensive way of gaining access to the 3rd Cycle than would berequired by a more traditional research approach. In a field where definitions arehighly problematic, and only the further growth of a ‘repertoire’ of good practicewill ultimately tell us what are the essential characteristics of this new phenomenonthat we are in the process of creating, there are nevertheless impatient calls for somesimple sentence or paragraph to be formulated which will unlock the conundrum forthe whole sector – a kind of instant recipe that would enable institutions to go from astanding start to fully-fledged artistic research activity with minimal soul-searchingand delay.

In some regions, those making these calls do so because they are under pressurefrom their national ministries to inaugurate 3rd-Cycle programmes within the tightschedule of a particular phase of overall curriculum reform or, effectively, risk


‘missing the boat’ of being recognised to practise in this cycle.2 Another stimulusarises in those countries where moves are underfoot to make it obligatory forall those teaching in higher education to be qualified at 3rd-Cycle level. In thesecircumstances, artistic research is seen as a possible route towards conferring suchqualifications upon instrumental and vocal teachers for whom more traditionalresearch degrees would be unpalatable. And, of course, for those institutions thatoperate in national systems which still debar conservatoires from the 3rd Cyclethere is always the hope that artistic research will ultimately provide them withthe arguments to break down this barrier, if only it can be defined in sufficientlyconcrete and pithy terms to carry the argument to opponents, sceptics and thosesimply wanting to be better informed.

What is indisputable is that the strains associated with this newer battlegroundare more severe than those surrounding the campaign for recognition at 2nd-Cyclelevel. Five years after the AEC-ELIA position paper, the pattern across Europe of3rd-Cycle programmes and officially-recognised research activity in conservatoiresremains inconsistent, with several anomalies between what has become accepted insome countries and is still untenable in others. Even those institutions that now haveprogrammes in all three cycles are not thereby freed from tensions when it comesto progression from the 2nd to the 3rd Cycle. The competences needed to enter 3rd-Cycle programmes do not map directly upon those expected of those completing the2nd Cycle. Indeed, the students most likely to gain acceptance to the 3rd Cycle arenot necessarily those who will have achieved the most conspicuous success in the2nd Cycle. Whilst this latter point may not, of itself, constitute a problem, the morespecific phenomenon that the most obviously gifted practitioners among Mastersstudents frequently find themselves unable to satisfy the entry requirements for the3rd Cycle is of concern, both to the students themselves and to their teachers. Theseare the students who, in earlier circumstances, would have been welcome withinthe conservatoire environment for the longest number of years. They would havehad the time and relative freedom to hone their skills and, in consultation withtheir teachers, to choose the optimum moment for launching themselves into theprofession. In the modern European conservatoire, where the Bologna reforms havebeen implemented, they often have no alternative but to leave after a maximum of 6years’ study.

4.4 Addressing the 3rd-Cycle Challenge: An Issue forthe Whole Curriculum

One approach to this problem is to seek to liberalise the requirements of 3rd-Cyclestudy so as to create space for programmes at this level that are more in tune withthe capabilities and educational ambitions of highly-talented practitioners who are

2This has been the case, for example, with music academies in the Western Balkan region duringthe period 2009–2011.

54 J. Cox

focussed upon refining their artistic practice. However, there are obvious dangersin this approach since it risks fuelling the prejudices of those who believe thatconservatoires are engaged in a kind of training that has no place beyond the 2ndCycle and have a secret agenda of ‘dumbing down’ the historically demandingintellectual challenges of the 3rd Cycle. Even a phenomenon such as that of theDoctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in North America, although not without aspects ofreal success, has shown how hierarchical prejudices can emerge within one nominalCycle level, with the Ph.D recognised as the ‘gold standard’ and professionally-oriented Doctorates like the DMA being viewed more sceptically by many. Itis partly because of this that DMA-style 3rd-Cycle programmes have generallyfailed to gain a significant foothold in European conservatoires. Some 1–2 yearpractical programmes, typically named ‘Artist Diploma’ or something similar, haverecently emerged that are demonstrably ‘post-2nd Cycle’ in their timing, and in theartistic standards they set, but not comprehensively 3rd-Cycle in the total range ofcompetences they seek to develop.3 There may be a place for such programmes, butit is important that they are not confused with full Doctoral programmes, either inthe minds of their supporters or of their detractors.

The converse approach is to explore how far the 1st and 2nd Cycles may betailored so as to foster the competences of all students reaching the end of these twocycles in such a way that the transition to 3rd-Cycle study is congenial for a higherproportion of them, including at least some of the front-rank practitioners. This iswhere encouraging and training conservatoire students at undergraduate and taughtpostgraduate level towards fluency in the thought-processes and methods requiredin 3rd-Cycle study comes into its own. However, it is not sufficient justification todo so solely as a means of enabling more students to progress to the 3rd Cycle; thereneeds to be a valid argument for its beneficial impact upon all students. This is whythe legacy of the patterns by which conservatoires have responded to the Bolognareforms needs to be confronted. Doing ‘just enough’ to create programmes thatconform to the paradigms of Bachelor and Masters may have enabled conservatoiresto weather the stresses of unprecedented institutional change without incurringmajor internal rifts with their more conservative teachers, but it has resulted incurriculum reform unfolding as a fundamentally piecemeal process, where thechallenges at the level of each cycle have been dealt with sequentially and largelyin isolation from one another. Moreover, it has often involved greater innovationin the elements of the curriculum generally regarded as supporting the main studyarea – such as the widespread introduction of dissertation-style projects in Mastersprogrammes – than that seen in attention paid to the main study itself. Despitethe rhetoric now found in many conservatoire prospectuses and on institutionalwebsites, the overall coherence of programmes – the sense that each is built upof components that complement one another in a wholly integrated way and that

3See, for example, the Artist Diploma offered by the CNSMD de Lyon at www.cnsmd-lyon.fr.

www.cnsmd-lyon.fr


each prepares for the next but also requires a carefully planned step upwards fromits predecessor – has rarely been addressed through a truly synoptic review of allprogrammes.

In a small number of institutions, such ‘trans-cyclical’ reviews, where changesdemanded by the thinking emerging at one level are translated directly intoconsequences at another, are now beginning to take place.4 I believe that they willbe increasingly important if conservatoires are truly to move, as a whole sector, intoviable activity in all three cycles. Where reviews of this kind have been initiated, it iswelcome to see that they are usually accompanied by a return to fundamentals con-cerning the core mission of the institution and the modes of learning and teachingthrough which this is delivered right across the curriculum. There is still much workto be done in this area if conservatoires are to realise the prescription outlined inthe AEC handbook Guide to Third Cycle Studies in Higher Music Education wherethe authors stated that: ‘There should be as few spatial and psychological hurdles aspossible between the areas of teaching, performing and composing and researching’(AEC 2007, 28). In some conservatoires, work towards this goal has been facilitatedby curriculum development in which practical, theoretical and research-orientedstaff are encouraged to cooperate within a team structure. An example of this isthe Masters programme offered by the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. In thisprogramme, although the thought-processes and techniques of research are taughtwithin a dedicated area of the curriculum that is separate from the principal study,this research programme (worth 15 of the overall 120 ECTS of the programme) isdeliberately connected with input from the principal study teacher:

The research programme begins with an induction where the students meet with theirteacher(s) and a research coordinator, to discuss possible topics. The first piece of writing isa ‘research proposal,’ which follows rather strict guidelines, as such paperwork often doesin the real world.

However, these guidelines not only provide exercise in coping with formalities, but alsoencourage a student to organise a project coherently and practically.

Supervision proceeds individually for each student. It is divided between the threeresearch coordinators – who take care of the research proposal and of general issues, suchas time management and presentation skills – and an expert advisor – not uncommonly thestudent’s principal teacher – whose main concern is the artistic relevance of the project.(AEC 2010, 38)

Of course, the research project selected by the student in this programme neednot necessarily be of the artistic research variety; nevertheless, the concern for theproject’s having artistic relevance will tend to incline it towards research of thiskind. It is therefore probable, at least, that a greater number of students followingthis programme than those in many conservatoires will be gaining fluency in some of

4See, for example, the new institution-wide curriculum introduced for the academic year 2012–2013 by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (formerly Royal Scottish Academy of Music &Drama) following a 2-year curriculum review project involving teachers, students and adminis-trators across both music and drama.

56 J. Cox

the thought-processes and techniques associated with artistic research as part of theirMasters study. Even with this example, however, the assumption is that the impulsefor this process is located outside the principal study, notwithstanding the fact thatovert efforts are made to involve the principal study teacher as fully as possible.Once engaged in this way, it is possible that the teacher may be prompted to considerpossible implications for the teaching approaches that he or she uses in the principalstudy area itself, but there is nothing explicit in the curriculum to encourage this.Despite its admirable attempt at integrating teachers from different areas, the factremains that this initiative occupies a mere 12.5 % of the entire Masters programmeand, although this is surely not the programme designers’ intention, the attitudesit seeks to engender could perfectly well be ignored in terms of what goes on theremaining 87.5 %.

4.5 The Crucial Role of Work and Attitudesin the Principal Study Area

For the kind of encouragement envisaged in the title of this chapter to be realised,there is no circumventing the necessity to review the principal study area itself andthe teaching approaches featured within it. This, in turn, will oblige teachers to stepoutside the mind-set of their own experience as students and to consider whether,alongside the well-tested paradigm of ‘apostolic succession’, there may be other,more innovation-oriented, approaches that could re-invigorate their teaching andintegrate it more closely with developments going on elsewhere in the curriculum.In this respect, the ‘Innovative Conservatoire’ (ICON) network, with its seminarsfor teachers, has been not only a very welcome development but also aptly namedin pointing to this re-orientation from past to future (ICON 2012). The statedaim of the network: ‘to stimulate knowledge exchange, innovation and reflectivepractice in Conservatoires’ (ibid) offers one pointer to the way in which the thought-processes and techniques of research might find their way more systematically intothe teaching studio and the learning and teaching practised there.

Initiatives such as ICON are attracting a widening network of participants and,in time, may move from the vanguard to the mainstream. For this to happen willrequire champions for the approach among the main study teaching staff of eachinstitution who are ready to be pro-active about involving colleagues who maybe sceptical or simply unaware of such developments. But conservatoire leadersand curriculum developers have clear responsibilities, too. Whether or not theyendorse the specific approaches pioneered by ICON, they need to be thinking of theconsequences that flow, for example, from the move to a Learning Outcomes-basedlearning and teaching environment. To give just one example of this, the first ofthe AEC ‘Polifonia’ Learning Outcomes, concerning Skills in Artistic Expression,consists of two statements, one for the Bachelor and the other for the Masters, thatare obviously applicable primarily to the principal study area (AEC 2009, 57):


1st Cycle 2nd Cycle

Skills in artistic expressionAt the completion of their studies,

students are expected to be able tocreate and realise their own artisticconcepts and to have developed thenecessary skills for their expression

At the completion of their studies, students areexpected to emerge as well-developedpersonalities, having developed to a highprofessional level their ability to create,realise and express their own artistic concepts

A moment’s reflection makes it clear that these statements, and especially that forthe Masters level, pre-suppose a significant degree of student autonomy. If they areto fulfil the expectations embedded in these Outcomes, students, who often enter theconservatoire environment still heavily dependent upon their teacher’s input whenpreparing a piece for a concert or working through a composition project, need todisengage themselves progressively from this dependency as they move through thecycles of their higher education. This, in turn, means that teachers need to be awareof the level of study of each student whom they are teaching and to modulate theirteaching approach accordingly.

Such an idea is at odds with the traditional notion that vocal, instrumentalor composition teaching is a matter of finding quasi-spontaneously the adviceor suggestion appropriate for the individual student in a given musical situationirrespective of their study level. It would, of course, be counter-productive to replacethe one paradigm completely with the other; moreover, it is central to the convictionthat music teaching in conservatoires needs to be based around the one-to-onesituation that this permits a degree of individual tailoring that is indispensable to thelearning process. All the same, if we are truly committed to helping students findthe means to create and realise their own artistic concepts, we need at least somere-evaluation of our approaches to learning and teaching in the principal study area.

Insofar as the currently predominant model for this area still derives fromthe traditional, guild-based, master/apprentice paradigm, it implies a relationshipbetween these two protagonists that remains largely unchanged throughout theentire apprenticeship and is then resolved in a single, almost convulsive, rite ofpassage whereby the apprentice presents his ‘master-piece’ and, on the basis ofthis, graduates to equal status with his fellow-masters. The final recital of themusic student in front of a jury of ‘master musicians’ is a direct expression ofthis paradigm, especially when, as is still the case in some conservatoires, itforms the only assessment event taken by a student throughout his or her entirestudy trajectory. It implies that the student’s capacity to realise his or her ownartistic concepts develops almost subversively, and under a containing influenceof the master’s unquestioned infallibility, until the point when it becomes clearto both master and student that the latter has outgrown the apprenticeship phase.By contrast, the graded cycles of the post-Bologna Bachelor, Master and Doctoratespecifically demand progression from one cycle to the next and, in their shiftof emphasis from teaching to learning, make explicit the expectation that therewill be an incrementally-developing autonomy in the way the student works,

58 J. Cox

even while still in his or her phase of ‘apprenticeship’. The ‘Polifonia’/DublinDescriptors, developed to provide statements relevant to higher music education thatnevertheless conform closely to the original ‘Shared’ Dublin Descriptors, articulatethis progressive autonomy (AEC 2009, 52–53):

• Qualifications that signify completion of the first cycle in higher music educationare awarded to students who: [ : : : ] five. have developed those learning andpractical/creative skills that are necessary for them to continue to undertakefurther study with a high degree of autonomy.

• Qualifications that signify completion of the second cycle in higher musiceducation are awarded to students who: [ : : : ] five. have the learning andpractical/creative skills to allow them to continue to study in a manner that maybe largely self-directed or autonomous.

By the time the 3rd-Cycle level is reached, autonomy is effectively taken forgranted and the 3rd-Cycle student is expected to be able to: ‘play a creative,proactive role in the advancement of artistic understanding within a knowledgebased society’ (AEC 2009, 53–54). This can only be achieved if the teacher is awilling participant in the process – and, indeed, if he or she is aware of at least someof the pedagogical techniques used to encourage autonomy in students.

Key among these is the tactic of using questions, rather than assertions, tostimulate the student to find his or her own answers. This ‘Socratic’ method is farfrom unknown among instrumental and vocal teachers but, overall, is less commonthan the tendency to teach by assertion, by correction and by example. For thatmatter, if not adequately prepared for the experience, students themselves can feelundermined when a teacher’s previously reliable provision of ready solutions givesway to their formulating problems, and offering these back to the student to solve.This is where the thought-processes and techniques of artistic research can comeinto their own.

4.6 The Research Ethos as a Driver for Increased Autonomy

Part of what distinguishes artistic research from artistic practice more generallyis the artist/researcher’s readiness to formulate as specific questions his or herimpulses towards achieving a particular musical goal. The AEC ‘Polifonia’ hand-book on Third Cycle Studies sets this out in the following terms:

Conducting research means trying to extend our knowledge and understanding of theworld and ourselves. Research projects typically involve three components. The first oneinvolves formulating the research hypothesis or research question; the second addressesthe investigation or analysis; in the third, the results are evaluated, written up or otherwisedocumented and made available to interested parties. (AEC 2004–2007, 15)

Whilst the writing up and dissemination phase is specific to research, formulatingthe question, testing it out and then evaluating the results of that testing areall absolutely germane to the more general learning processes described above.Moreover, when the research takes the form of artistic research, it reflects back


into the very processes of musical self-realisation that all students in higher musiceducation are seeking, and which their teachers are hoping to help them achieve.Again, the handbook of Third Cycle Studies expresses this well:

All research follows this sequential pattern of Question-Investigation-Documentation. Whatdistinguishes Artistic Research is the way in which artistic experience, artistic knowledgeand skills as well as artistic goals are involved in research. (AEC 2004–2007, 16)

Synthesising all of the above, it seems to me that there is a persuasive argumentfor introducing at least the basic concepts of artistic research – and, above all, thatof the Question-Investigation-Evaluation [Documentation] sequence – as early asthe 1st Cycle. In particular, the art of formulating the right questions so as to makepurposeful progress towards creating and realising one’s own artistic concepts issomething that could be more systematically taught by research specialists withinthe institution, as well as practised by main study teachers. If it were to becomethe case that the primary distinction between the more overtly research-orientedparts of the curriculum – usually only a minority element – and the remainder werethat it was a place where the skills and habits of documentation were added tothose of questioning, investigating and evaluating, the result would not only be afar more integrated curriculum but also one that laid the foundations in studentsof a lifelong capacity to grow as musicians through self-reliant exploration of theirmusical environment. This would be as relevant for those exiting immediately afterthe 1st Cycle – whether as a discipline-specific skill for them to practise in the musicprofession or as a generic competence – as it would for those progressing to 2nd- or3rd-Cycle programmes in music.

There are issues relating to the embedding of a mature artistic-research researchapproach which, arguably, can only be fully achieved at 2nd-Cycle level. Thebringing to the fore of the individual musician’s own artistic sensibility whilst atthe same time avoiding a wholesale lapsing into solipsism is not an easy process tobalance. Many conservatoires have seen their well-meaning attempts to encouragestudents to articulate and reflect upon their artistic choices lead in some cases tothe syndrome of: ‘I do it that way because I like it that way’. It is a moot pointwhether this genuinely represents a step forward from the attitude that leads themsay: ‘I do it that way because that’s what my teacher told me to do’. It takestime and careful guidance to integrate subjective responses into a web of moreobjective reasoning in such a way that instinctive preferences can be tested –and either reinforced or undermined – by evidence and argumentation. Studentsgenerally find that, even when they have mastered these latter skills in relation tocurricular activity that keeps a safe distance from their own creative endeavours –traditional essays on composers’ works, analytical studies, etc. – it is a morecomplex challenge to bring the same techniques into play when grappling with theirown feelings and preferences as artists. The difficulty is partly intrinsic but it isnot helped by the extent to which many curricula still deploy different modes offunctioning in their different component areas. The schematic view of a 2nd-Cyclecurriculum in Table 4.1 may be something of a parody, but it will probably sparkat least some sense of recognition among those operating with such programmes inconservatoires.

60 J. Cox

Tabl

e4.

1Sc

hem

atic

view

ofa

2nd-

Cyc

lecu

rric

ulum

Mai

nst

udy

area

Ens

embl

eac

tivity

Res

earc

hpr

ojec

tE

lect

ives

(aim

edat

prof

essi

onal

orie

ntat

ion)

The

stud

ento

pera

tes

unde

rcl

ose

guid

ance

from

teac

her.

The

rew

illbe

dial

ogue

and

deba

tebu

tge

nera

llyw

ithas

sum

ptio

nth

atte

ache

r’s

opin

ion

take

spr

eced

ence

Indi

rect

eden

sem

bles

,the

dire

ctor

’sop

inio

nsar

eto

befo

llow

edw

ithon

lyve

rylim

ited

room

for

ques

tioni

ng

The

stud

enti

sen

cour

aged

toth

ink

inde

pend

ently

and

tous

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ete

chni

ques

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ce-b

ased

argu

men

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lf-r

elia

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anni

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hola

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docu

men

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n

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aybe

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tech

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tions

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san

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s

Inch

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ren

sem

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,gui

danc

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gene

rally

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ided

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h,al

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ghin

tern

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bate

with

inth

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sem

ble

can

deve

lop

the

facu

lties

for

mar

shal

ling

and

artic

ulat

ing

argu

men

tsIn

each

area

ofth

ecu

rric

ulum

,the

stud

enti

sex

pect

edto

depl

oya

diff

eren

tmod

eof

func

tioni

ng.T

heim

plic

atio

nis

that

thes

em

odes

are

noti

nter

chan

geab

le,

and

that

the

leas

tdeg

ree

ofau

tono

my

and

pers

onal

deci

sion

-mak

ing

isas

soci

ated

with

the

core

,pra

ctic

ally

-ori

ente

del

emen

tsof

the

curr

icul

um


In such a curriculum, the student is variously required to be responsive todominant opinion, able to negotiate opinions with peers, objective and systematic inhis or her thinking and open to his or her feelings as part of the process of judgementforming. All of these faculties are useful, of course, but in a curriculum such as thisit is only in the personal experience of the student that they find any integration and,even there, without some over-arching rationale for why one mode is appropriatein one setting but not in another, the result is likely to be a fragmentation, ratherthan integration, of the student experience. Above all, the potential for each modeto inform the other – vital if the faculties of the mature artist-researcher are to bedeveloped – is, at best, under-exploited and, at worst, suppressed.

Consider, instead, a curriculum something like that in Table 4.2.A 2nd-Cycle student working in an environment such as that represented in

Table 4.2 for 2 years would be likely to have a much stronger sense by the end ofthis period of how the various modes of functioning relate to one another and howto deploy them flexibly and appropriately in different situations. He or she wouldhave become confident in introducing personal feelings into disciplined, scholarly-rooted situations and, conversely, in bringing the vocabulary of critical reasoning tobear upon practical issues in the learning/rehearsing environment. In short, he or shewould have become something of an artist-researcher in embryo.

4.7 Progression Through the Two Taught Cycles

In creating the kind of learning environment described, it would be essential toconsider the fundamental differences of approach required between the 1st and 2ndCycles. To give just one example, the frequency and duration of main-study lessonsmight need to be re-thought. Currently, it is standard practice for these to continueon a weekly pattern at 2nd-Cycle level and to last a similar length of time to their1st-Cycle counterparts. The tacit message of this arrangement is that, far from beingencouraged towards autonomous study, Masters-level students still require frequentand regular input from their teacher in order to make progress. Realistically, thereare limits to how far a student can develop his or her thinking about a work beingprepared for performance or a composition taking shape in the space of a mere7 days. Therefore a weekly schedule of lessons is likely to restrict the subjectmatter for discussion at each lesson to smaller, more trivial issues. Meanwhile, if therepertoire being tackled by the student, or the compositional genre in which he orshe is working, is growing in substance and length commensurately with their owndevelopment, even a relatively generous lesson time may be insufficient for muchmore than a single working through all the material plus some brief discussion and afew reprises of sections. It seems to me that everything in this situation points to thedesirability of moving to a pattern of fewer, longer lessons, in which the onus is onthe student to make an extended demonstration, with or without verbal explanation,of how his or her thinking has developed over the intervening period. It may evenbe the case that students might benefit from having such sessions with a range of

62 J. Cox

Tabl

e4.

2A

ltern

ativ

evi

ewof

a2n

d-cy

cle

curr

icul

um

Mai

nst

udy

area

Ens

embl

eac

tivity

Res

earc

hpr

ojec

tE

lect

ives

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onal

orie

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ion)

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fin

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ulum

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kin

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tegr

ated

man

ner

toen

cour

age

thes

e2n

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ycle

stud

ents

toem

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atth

een

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thei

rst

udie

sas

‘wel

l-de

velo

ped

pers

onal

ities

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deve

lope

dto

ahi

ghpr

ofes

sion

alle

velt

heir

abili

tyto

crea

te,r

ealis

ean

dex

pres

sth

eir

own

artis

ticco

ncep

ts’

(‘Po

lifon

ia’

Lea

rnin

gO

utco

me)

The

stud

enta

ndte

ache

rop

erat

ein

am

ode

ofsh

ared

expl

orat

ion,

the

latte

rco

ntri

butin

gex

peri

ence

,but

the

form

er’s

fres

her

perc

eptio

nsca

rryi

ngw

eigh

tin

disc

ussi

ons.

The

stud

enti

sen

cour

aged

tota

kere

spon

sibi

lity

for

plan

ning

each

step

inth

ele

arni

ngpr

oces

s,su

bjec

tto

supe

rvis

ory

advi

ce

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rect

eden

sem

bles

,the

stud

enti

sgi

ven

men

tori

ngro

les

inre

latio

nto

mor

eju

nior

stud

ents

and

may

lead

sect

ion-

coac

hing

sess

ions

As

wel

las

the

stud

entb

eing

enco

urag

edto

thin

kin

depe

nden

tlyan

dto

use

the

tech

niqu

esof

evid

ence

-bas

edar

gum

ent,

self

-rel

iant

proj

ectp

lann

ing

and

scho

larl

ydo

cum

enta

tion,

heor

she

isac

tivel

ych

alle

nged

asto

how

they

are

brin

ging

the

sam

ete

chni

ques

tobe

arin

alla

reas

ofth

eir

stud

y

The

stud

entm

aybe

enco

urag

edto

use

tech

niqu

essu

chas

that

ofth

ere

flect

ive

diar

yto

repo

rton

aspe

cts

ofth

eir

prac

tice

and

mak

eev

alua

tions

ofits

stre

ngth

san

dw

eakn

esse

sbu

tis

also

give

nex

plic

itsu

ppor

tin

reco

ncili

ngan

din

tegr

atin

gsu

chte

chni

ques

with

mor

eob

ject

ive

and

scho

larl

yap

proa

ches

Inch

ambe

ren

sem

bles

,par

ticip

ants

are

give

na

high

degr

eeof

auto

nom

y,w

ithsu

perv

isor

yin

putb

eing

intr

oduc

edon

lyaf

ter

perf

orm

ance

sar

eal

read

yw

ell-

form

ed


different teachers, rather than remaining attached to a single ‘guru’ figure, albeitprobably still taking into account the guidance of their main supervising teacherwhen choosing whom to seek out for these targeted sessions.

The pattern described above already starts to resemble the supervision paradigmsof 3rd-Cycle study. Although not specifically related to artistic research – indeed,some 3rd-Cycle programmes with an orientation towards this latter kind of researchstill cling to the more regular pattern of lessons in the main study area – it suggestsyet another way in which encouraging and training students at taught postgraduatelevel towards fluency in the thought-processes and (teaching and learning) methodsof research degrees can be both a helpful preparation for further study and abeneficial influence in its own right.

4.8 Conclusion: The Need for Holistic Approachesto the Curriculum

I should like to conclude by issuing a call for more of the kinds of holistic reviewof conservatoire curricula that are beginning to emerge in isolated pockets acrossthe European higher music education landscape. Although many institutions maycurrently be experiencing high levels of ‘review fatigue’, and most are probably onlytoo happy to postpone any fresh review processes until the next cycle of externally-imposed exercises, there is an important opportunity for enhancement in our graspwhich, if missed, might contribute to further pressure being brought to bear uponconservatoires to justify their expensive practices in more convincing terms thansimply by invoking tradition. If we can show that each cycle of conservatoireeducation has been carefully thought out, both in its own terms and in relation to itspredecessor or successor, and if we can demonstrate that we are indeed developingstudents’ subject-specific and generic competences in ways that will enhance theiremployability in the music profession and elsewhere, we are much more likely to beeffective in defending the core ambitions of the higher music education sector. TheAEC offers a Quality Enhancement Process to its members within which institutionshave the opportunity to request a peer review visit that culminates in an advisoryreport, with recommendations for improvement, written by international specialistsin the relevant musical fields. This voluntary process could be a valuable adjunctto internally-initiated holistic curriculum review exercises and could help in thespreading of good practice.

As I have tried to demonstrate, encouraging and training conservatoire studentsat undergraduate and taught postgraduate level towards fluency in the thought-processes and methods of artistic research has the potential to be an important toolin the development of arguments for the legitimacy of conservatoire training in allthree cycles of higher education. But, more importantly, it is likely to produce moreversatile, open-minded and developmentally capable musicians, whatever the pointat which they exit higher education for the profession. As a coda to these arguments,

64 J. Cox

it is probably worth adding that professional musicians educated according to theprinciples advocated here, if and when they return to the conservatoire environmentas teachers themselves, are likely to have fewer inhibitions than their counterpartstoday about engaging with the whole curriculum and relating the work they carryout in their main-study lessons to this wider picture. Without undermining theimportance of lineage in conservatoire teaching, this phenomenon could offeran unprecedented opportunity to balance and complement it with the concept ofevolution from one teaching generation to the next.

References

AEC. (1999). The AEC declaration. www.aec-music.eu/about-aec/work--policies/policy-papers.Accessed 27 May 2013.

AEC. (2007). AEC position paper towards strong creative disciplines. www.aec-music.eu/about-aec/work--policies/policy-papers. Accessed 27 May 2013.

AEC. (2009). Tuning educational structures in Europe [brochure]. www.aec-music.eu/media/publications. Accessed 27 May 2013.

AEC. (2013). Website. www.aec-music.eu. Accessed 27 May 2013.AEC ‘Polifonia’ Research Working Group. (2007–2010). Pocketbook: Researching conservatoires.

AEC publications. www.aec-music.eu/media/publications. Accessed 27 May 2013.AEC ‘Polifonia’ Third Cycle Working Group. (2004–2007). Guide to third cycle studies in higher

music education. AEC Publications. www.aec-music.eu/media/publications. Accessed 27 May2013.

European Commission. (1999). Bologna declaration. http://ec.europa.eu/education/higher-education/bologna_en.htm. Accessed 13 Jan 2013.

Innovative Conservatoire (ICON). (2012). http://www.innovativeconservatoire.com. Accessed 13Jan 2013.

www.aec-music.eu/about-aec/work--policies/policy-papers



www.aec-music.eu/media/publications


www.aec-music.eu



http://ec.europa.eu/education/higher-education/bologna_en.htm

http://ec.europa.eu/education/higher-education/bologna_en.htm

http://www.innovativeconservatoire.com

Chapter 5Research Degrees in the Conservatoire Context:Reconciling Practice and Theory

Ingrid E. Pearson

Abstract In the context twenty-first century higher or tertiary education, MusicConservatoires offer opportunities to undertake a wide range of degree programmes,from Bachelors, through Masters as far as doctoral level (On the Continent andelsewhere in this volume, these may be referred to as first-, second- and third-cycle degree programmes). These institutions, which were founded primarily for theeducation and training of practitioners, continue to embrace the practitioner ethos.This aspect is particularly evident in doctoral work at London’s Royal College ofMusic. Recent writers, however, remind us that ‘the project of institutionalisingresearch in the arts, by putting it firmly into the established structures of highereducation, is an ambitious undertaking’ (Nowotny 2010, xvii). By necessity,research degrees have become subsumed into these structures of higher education,a process which has brought with it the institutionalisation of various developmentsin the arena of what is labelled variously ‘practice-based research’, ‘practice-as-research’ etc. Drawing upon the research of Walter Ong, this chapter explores waysin which practising musicians are similar to persons from primarily oral cultures,thus foregrounding the pre-eminence of the practitioner in the Conservatoire. It alsoelicits research by others exhibiting strong and meaningful interfaces with that ofOng. Indeed, research supervision within the Conservatoire environment providesan opportunity truly, easily and profoundly to manifest the reconciliation of practiceand theory.

Keywords Theory • Practice • Conservatoire

I.E. Pearson (�)Royal College of Music, London, UKe-mail: [email protected]


65


66 I.E. Pearson

5.1 Conservatoires: Then and Now

In Paris on 3 August 1795, the National Convention established the Conservatoirede musique as a legal entity. An institution born essentially out of the principles ofthe French Revolution, the Paris Conservatoire consolidated the former Ecole demusique municipale with the former Ecole royale du chant et de declamation (seeCharlton et al. 2012; Lawson 2000). That the Conservatoire was able to offer spe-cialised education and training in music at no cost to its students was a feature whichboth refined and elevated the status of performance and composition as never before.In October 1796 both female and male students, numbering 350 in total, commencedstudy at the Conservatoire. Their professors, active as practitioners in the areas ofperformance or composition, numbered some 115.1 These practitioner professorssystematically instructed their instrumental musician pupils. Many members ofthe professoriat subsequently documented their approach to instrumental teachingthrough didactic publications. The enduring legacy of several of these worksconfirms their continuing relevance to performers.2 These publications became partof the institution’s freely-accessible library, whose holdings were vital to bothstudents and professors.

Similar institutions were soon established in other European cities, including theKonzervator in Prague in 1811 and the Akademischer Musikverein in Graz in 1815.Like the Paris Conservatoire, London’s Royal College of Music (RCM) embraceda pre-existing institution.3 Since 1853 His Royal Highness The Prince ConsortAlbert had been keen to house a musical establishment in South Kensington, usingprofits from the highly-successful Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of allNations of 1851. Unsuccessful attempts were made to move the Royal Academy ofMusic, which had been established in 1822, to the area. However, the new SouthKensington institution was intended to be nationwide in scope, and open to all, withprovision for scholarships. This did not accord with the nature of the RAM, whichtook private fee-paying students. Thus the RCM was subsequently established bya Royal Charter in May 1883, and given the distinction, unique amongst BritishConservatoires, of being able to award degrees in its own right.4

It is vital to remember that Conservatoires were founded foremostly for theeducation and training of practitioners, and also that this instruction was delivered

1In Europe the term ‘professor’ is accorded someone who teaches at a Conservatoire, whereasin the university context, as ‘Professor’, it denotes the holder of a personal Chair. In AustraliaConservatoire teachers are more often referred to as ‘lecturers’.2The Méthode de Clarinette by (Jean) Xavier Lefèvre (Lawson 2000) is a salient example, havingbeen the basis for many subsequent French and Italian clarinet methods published until the early20th century.3This was the National Training School for Music which had been founded in 1873. See Wright(2003, 220–229, 237, 239).4Henceforth the term ‘Conservatoire’ is used throughout this chapter to indicate a specialistmonotechnic institution engaged only in the training and education of music.

5 Research Degrees in the Conservatoire Context: Reconciling Practice and Theory 67

by persons who were themselves practitioners. In the context of what is now knownas higher or tertiary education, Conservatoires of the twenty-first century offeropportunities to undertake a wide range of degree programmes, from Bachelors,through Masters as far as doctoral level.5 Their curricula continue to embracethe practitioner ethos to varying degrees. The majority of professors working inConservatoires are employed on a part-time basis, enjoying a portfolio career inwhich their teaching work complements activities undertaken at the forefront oftheir particular practical musical discipline. For example, at the time of writing thetotal professoriat at the RCM numbered 290, of whom 235 are practical professors.6

At the RCM, whose Doctor of Music programme I managed for 5 years,supervisory teams usually number three persons, routinely including both prac-titioners and scholars. Team supervisory sessions enable fruitful cross-supervisordialogues as well as creating a sort of polyphony for the student, which addsto and complements time spent with individual supervisors. Practitioners mayalso contribute to supervisory teams where the work is purely musicological orempirical, although this represents a smaller proportion than research across practiceand theory. Where practitioners are less experienced as doctoral supervisors, bothpractical and academic colleagues act as mentors. And in terms of research training,the regular in-house seminars include sessions where practitioners present anddiscuss their research, particularly in terms of the ‘process’ of their undertakings.On the ‘product’ side of the research degree spectrum, examination panels, at bothinterim and final stages, reflect the nature of the submission by the inclusion, whereappropriate, of a recognised practitioner, external to the institution. Performed andrecorded outputs complement text-based work in representing, reflecting on andarticulating both process and product.7

5.2 Practice and Theory in the Institution

Helga Nowotny reminds us that ‘the project of institutionalising research in thearts by putting it firmly into the established structures of higher education is anambitious undertaking’, and one which ‘brings to the fore inherent tensions, doubts,and disagreement, and yet comes at the right time’ (2010, xvii). By necessity,research degrees have become subsumed into higher education’s ‘established

5On the Continent and elsewhere in this volume, these may be referred to as first-, second- andthird-cycle degree programmes.6These figures include neither persons who teach for the RCM’s Junior Department (essentially aSaturday school for children aged between 8 and 18 years) nor research students with a GraduateTeaching position. I am grateful to Liz Ingram, the RCM’s Assistant Head of Human Resourcesfor this information.7The awareness of the need to reconcile practice and theory is also acknowledged by pan-institutional consortia, such as the European Platform for Artistic Research (EPARM), which heldits inaugural conference in April 2011.

68 I.E. Pearson

structures’. And similarly, this has brought with it the institutionalisation of variousdevelopments in the arena of what is labelled variously ‘practice-based research’,‘practice-as-research’, ‘research-through-practice’, ‘artistic research’, ‘artistic prac-tice as research’, ‘research in and through art practice’, ‘art-based research’ and‘creative research’. At this juncture it is worth noting how this plurality of nomencla-ture is reflected in the wide range of work being undertaken within Conservatoires.The sheer multitude of approaches to work across practice and theory serves asa reminder of the breadth, depth and wealth of these artistic endeavours. Let usleave epistemological wrestling aside, since the discipline’s fluidity, intangibilityand elusive nature demands that we in fact prioritise creating and disseminating asmany models of this type of research as possible!

The career of the English harpsichordist, musicologist and pedagogue (Robert)Thurston Dart (1921–1971) illustrates just how profoundly the lives of those of uswho work across practice and theory changed during the second half of the twentiethcentury. Whilst Dart was able to alternate 5-year periods as practitioner then asscholar, in order most effectively to function across practice and theory, nowadayswe are expected almost seamlessly to move between these two modes (Kerman1985, 186).

Drawing upon the research of Walter Ong this chapter explores ways in whichpractising musicians are similar to persons from primarily oral cultures, thus fore-grounding the pre-eminence of the practitioner in the Conservatoire. It also elicitsresearch by others that exhibits strong and meaningful interfaces with that of Ong.An awareness and understanding of what it means to reside primarily in the realmof practice is necessary for all who work across practice and theory, not least thosewho shape institutional governance, as well as its dictates, processes and products.The area of research supervision, in particular, is one in which the empowerment ofpractitioner colleagues can truly, easily and profoundly manifest the reconciliationof practice and theory.8 In what follows, the focus is primarily concerned withissues pertaining to performance and performers, rather than composition and itsexponents, and the terms ‘performer’ and ‘practitioner’ are used interchangeably.9

8I am grateful to Scott Harrison for the opportunity here to extend and revisit the paper given atThe Reflective Conservatoire: Performing at the Heart of Knowledge held at the Guildhall Schoolof Music and Drama in March 2012.9I use the term ‘performance’ to refer to that which is undertaken live. Too often and largely in thediscourse of that sub-discipline of musicology which since the late twentieth century has concerneditself with the study of recordings ‘performance’ is used erroneously to describe a recording. Inharnessing so-called scientific methodologies to legitimise musical performance some of thesestudies fail to disguise their overtly colonialist intentions. It is nothing short of disrespectfultowards practitioners as well as profoundly inaccurate to refer to recorded performances as simply‘performances’. We must use the terms ‘performance’ and ‘recording’ with greater care in orderbest to safeguard the semantic independence of these two musical products.


5.3 Orality and Literacy

First published in 1982, Ong’s monograph Orality and Literacy: The Technologizingof the Word interrogates and contrasts the characteristics of primarily-oral and-literate cultures (Ong 2002). His research now functions as a timely reminder tous of the profoundly literate society in which we exist. Earlier research of mine,grounded in that of Ong, identifies a practice/theory continuum, along which wetravel, from positions or moments manifesting significant components of oralityto ones where literate characteristics are more identifiable (Pearson 2011). Inperformance, that is, when we are functioning as a practitioner, we are more oral;when we reflect on practice in theory, we are more literate. Being aware of thesemoments of transition between more extreme states of orality or literacy, and thearticulation of such can be most beneficial to persons working across practice andtheory. Experience in working alongside supervisory colleagues, for whom actsof performance are their central and fundamental artistic realm, suggests that anyresistance, real or otherwise, towards articulating practice in theory may actuallybe a manifestation of their unfamiliarity with manoeuvring their journey alongthe practice/theory continuum. It is both enriching and revealing to interrogatethe manner in which such states, of practice and of theory, influence both theprocesses and the products of our artistic endeavours. The most revealing workacross practice and theory embraces both these modes, recognising a kinshipbetween performance and orality; and between reflection on practice in theory andliteracy. In the twenty-first-century it is improbable that practitioners of WesternArt Music remain untouched by the literacy/notation tradition.10 None the less,we can certainly draw upon Ong’s classification of the characteristics of orally-based thought and expression, in arriving at a greater understanding of the nature ofpractitioners.11

5.4 The ‘Psychodynamics of Orality’

Ong identifies some 11 characteristics of the interrelation between the featuresof primarily oral cultures, which he terms the ‘psychodynamics of orality’ (2002,31–76). Of these 11, several are usefully applied to musical practitioners. In directcontrast to the more visual nature of the written word, the spoken word derivespower from its evanescence, from the act of being sounded (Ong 2002, 32–33). Theparallel here with music is on obvious one; music exists primarily as a played and

10A term I prefer to the more narrow and somewhat misleading label ‘Classical music’ which oftenprivileges, often inadvertently, only those musics generated by Austro-German composers of theeighteenth century.11Ong (2002, 1) uses the term ‘primary orality’ to mean ‘cultures with no knowledge at all ofwriting’. This chapter uses the terms ‘orality’ and ‘primary orality’ interchangeably.

70 I.E. Pearson

sounded entity for the majority of performers and listeners. This analogy is readilyapplicable to those musics whose scores are less prescriptive then descriptive; forexample, jazz and non-Western repertories. However, let us not forget RichardTaruskin’s criticism of the historical performance movement for the significant mis-representation arising from its ‘text-fetishism’, which he described as ‘the exaltationof scores over those who read or write them’ (1992, 319). Taruskin even wondered if‘we could somehow abolish scores without abolishing pieces – that is, return musicto a fully oral tradition but with our cherished repertory intact’ (320)! Indeed, DanielTürk’s Clavierschule of 1789 suggests ‘certain subtleties of expression cannot reallybe described; they must be heard’ (1982, 337). Recordings might possibly beunderstood to bridge something of the gap between a score and a performance.Whilst an increasing amount of musicological attention was devoted to recordingsduring the latter half of the twentieth century, much of the current scholarly literaturein this area stands to benefit from an approach that is more oral and less literate.12

In oral cultures ‘you know what you can recall’, and the use of formulas andmnemonics is essential for peoples without recourse to written texts (Ong 2002,33). Thought processes occur in patterns that can easily be repeated and recalled.Whilst this feature is less applicable to the subject of this chapter, mnemonics doplay a role in the way we learn the theoretical concepts of Western music. Suchdevices can also be used to aid the memorisation of piece of music. It is the actof performing from memory that in Western cultures certainly distinguishes a highlevel of executant musical skill.

According to Ong, primarily oral thought is ‘redundant or copious’, largely aresult of the evanescence of oral utterances (2002, 32, 39–41). Therefore, repetitionis needed to keep both speaker and performer and listener attuned. With suchrepetition, in an oral tradition it is inevitable that there will be ‘as many minorvariants of a myth as there are repetitions of it’ and ‘the number of repetitionscan be increased indefinitely’ (Ong 2002, 42). Likewise, no two performances orrecordings of a piece of music will ever be identical, an equally liberating anddisconcerting feature of music. Whilst it is the so-called ‘the technology of writing’that creates literacy’s sparsely linear or analytic thought and speech, orality fosters‘fluency, fulsomeness, volubility’ (Ong 2002, 40).

Repetition is also a key factor in memorisation and therefore preservation, whichaccounts for the fact that oral cultures are more ‘conservative or traditionalist’(Ong 2002, 41). Writing, and printing, of course, are differently conservative but areessentially democratic in respect of knowledge. The energy necessarily invested inrepetition houses orally-based knowledge with a small minority, who, as custodiansand conservators of this precious knowledge, are usually respected members ofsociety. Similarly, the majority of my colleagues at the RCM are keepers ofknowledge, involved in preserving performing traditions, practices and repertoires.

12By which I intend an approach which seeks less to isolate, evaluate and recreate the elusiveevanescence of performance as another form of text, often harnessing quasi-scientific manifesta-tions of such.


In this way, manuscripts and scores, and other documentary manifestations ofpieces of music seem to favour equality amongst users, but a musically-meaningfulperformance of a work must have recourse to more than just its notation. Similarly,other text-based source materials, such as manuals and tutors assist and disseminatemusical learning, but one simply must turn to a living practitioner in order to learnboth the art and the craft of performance.

The oral world is intimately bound up with the experience of being human, and assuch, orality is characterised by a practice-based perception of and articulationof all knowledge, i.e. by way of personal knowledge derived from participation orobservation. Few facts known to oral cultures are not entrenched in the everyday.Learning takes place through observation and imitation, with modest recourse toverbal explanation. Performers in the Western Art tradition often learn imitatively,in the one-to-one lesson, as well as in the studio class and masterclass arenas.Much of the discourse that takes place within a music lesson is concerned witharticulating ways in which to deliver a performance, either explicitly or throughthe use of metaphors, with an emphasis on how to achieve its desirable features.The act of imitating another performance is often an effective way to render theexpressive nuances that musical notation captures all too ambiguously. Indeed, anindividual might further develop such an imitative gesture as a point of departurefor the formulation of their own interpretation. As musical performance is deeplyembedded within the world of experience, perhaps the most useful knowledge aboutperformance might be known only to performers!

Oral cultures draw upon a close communal identification with the known insteadof objective distance, and thus are, by nature, ‘empathetic and participatory’(Ong 2002, 45). In the early twenty-first century our lives are saturated with musicas never before. This feature has the potential to enable individual performers toattain international renown as interpreters of certain works, and to disseminate theirpersonal performing practices way beyond the reach of earlier generations.13 Weare all aware of a hierarchy amongst performers, particularly in our respectivefields. None the less, within the community of clarinettists, to which I belong, mycolleagues and I are bound by a collective identity.

Much of the world of performance subordinates the past in favour of the present,which is also a feature of primary orality. As such, a state of homoeostasispreserves equilibrium between interdependent elements, and knowledge deemedno longer relevant as well as the meaning of words no longer true are discarded(Ong 2002, 46–48). Redundant performance traditions are discarded by musiciansin favour of newer approaches to music. The various manuscripts, editions andrecordings of a piece of music could be more widely acknowledged as by-productsof practice, and thus only residues of a work’s constantly shifting performinghistory. As such, these entities can only ever partially represent fixed interpretative

13Indeed, practitioners in the popular music sphere are often so closely identified with individualpieces of music that it is often counterproductive philosophically to separate the work from theperformer.

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points in this history, and similarly incompletely embody the process of reinventionand renewal that the music has undergone. Nicholas Kenyon reminds us that‘performance is the primary means by which we experience music’ (2012, 12). Anynotated or documented record of a musical work is secondary.

As the journey from dialect to grapholect empowers a language so too notationand recording can empower musical performance. But we must be aware of the waysin which documentation can detract from the entity that is performance. A writtentext is the residue of spoken language, likewise a recording, which offers a residueof a performance, but only a residue. In her study of collection practices amongstItalian traditional songs, pre-1939, Linda Barwick reminds us that the history ofan orally-transmitted song is ‘the history of the lives and the experiences of thepeople who performed it. The song documents represent only random moments in aconstantly varying process of growth and adaptation : : : ’ (1988, 41). Through tran-scription, such music moves from a world of orality into the ‘other’ world of literacy,becoming, as Barwick suggests, ‘deflowered’ during this profound shift (41).

A final characteristic of orality pertinent to this discussion concerns the way inwhich practice, i.e. use, defines the manner in which objects are classified. Conceptsare employed within frames of reference shaped by an object’s location as well asits function, i.e. their use is ‘situational rather than abstract’ (Ong 2002, 49).Oral cultures do not deal in ‘abstract categorisation, formally logical reasoningprocesses, definitions, or even more comprehensive descriptions, or articulated self-analysis’ as these are by-products of text-formed thought (Ong 2002, 55). This is,of course, connected with the world of human experience in which orally-basedthought and expression is intimately nestled. In the realm of musical performanceone manifestation of this phenomenon is the contrasting ways in which performersand musicologists approach the task of analysing a piece of music. In directcontrast to the fixed permanence of written discourse, the arena of performanceprovides many opportunities to solve interpretational issues through in-the-momentexperimentation, suggesting that, for a practitioner, the notion of uncertainty ispossibly a less problematic than it is for the scholar.14

5.5 Contextualising and Applying Ong

Whilst the discussion above is a necessarily brief and therefore inadequate exposi-tion of Ong’s psychodynamics of orality, it is intended to provoke some recognitionof the manner in which the profound ‘literacy’ (i.e. as opposed to the ‘orality’)of the institution has challenged much of the existing work across practice andtheory. The profoundly germane nature of Ong’s orality/literacy contrasts in helpingto understand the nature of the practitioner in the institution is even more closelyrevealed when considered alongside the work of others.

14See the discussion in Brubaker (2007, 69).


Within the context of the institution, practice and theory can often seem like twoapparently polar-opposite states of artistic being. Their contrasting modes embodyOng’s orality/literacy contrasts, which can help us to reach a greater understandingof how practitioners and non-practitioners differ, despite being, as Henk Borgdorffmight suggest, ‘imperfect dialectical tools’ (2010, 62 n.1). None the less, informedby Ong’s exploration of the characteristics of orality, we can begin to reconcileourselves to the constant movement that our work across practice and theory musttake along the practice/theory continuum.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Michael Polanyi, in recognising that virtuosity wasnot fully able to be articulated in words, helpfully identified the concept of ‘tacitknowledge’ (see particularly Polanyi 1967). And by 1983 Donald Schön was ableto affirm that ‘competent practitioners usually know more than they can say. Theyexhibit a kind of knowing-in-practice, most of which is tacit’ (1991). Here wesee the re-articulation of both the oral culture’s practice-based perception of andarticulation of all knowledge, as well as its use of concepts within frames ofreference fashioned by an object’s role and its position. These features of orality arealso reflected in Terry Atkinson’s and Guy Claxton’s exploration of the relationshipbetween what they term ‘articulate/rational/explicit’ modes of knowledge andtheir acquisition as opposed to ‘inarticulate/intuitive/implicit ways’ (2000, 1).15

Claxton’s own examination of intuition reminds us how it ‘speaks through a range ofvoices’ : : : ‘the rational mind seeks articulate clarity, intuition reveals itself throughchannels that are hazier and more direct’ (2000). Atkinson’s and Claxton’s analysisalso embraces the intimate, collective and empathetic nature of oral learning andknowledge.

In this context, we can also explore problems identified by Borgdorff in hisrecent examination of ‘artistic research as a form of knowledge production’ (2010,45). He reminds us of the elusive content of research across practice and theory,with its ‘an experiential component’ which is unable to be ‘efficiently expressedlinguistically’ (45). The intangibility of the subject of work across practice andtheory is analogous to the evanescence of oral utterances. The particular problem ofBorgdorff’s also reminds us how work across practice and theory, like oral cultures,necessarily draws upon the reality of the lived experience, with a characteristic lackof objective distance. Work across practice and theory must necessarily prioritiseactions grounded in the present, using frames of reference that are hardly evernonrepresentational. These characteristics of orality are similarly reverberant withBorgdorff’s conviction that ‘knowledge and experiences are constituted only inand through practices, actions and interactions’ (2010, 45). And, finally, Borgdorffstates how ‘ : : : works of art and artistic practices are not self-contained; they aresituated and embedded’ (45), an opinion which again calls to mind many of thepsychodynamics of orality.

15In these modes we detect the faint echo of a rather more ancient classification, i.e. Artistotle’sphronesis: practical wisdom and his episteme: conceptual, scientific knowledge.

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Some delightful resonances between orality and the world of traditional Japaneseaesthetics provide a further opportunity for reflection on the nature of practitioners.In his study Donald Richie remarks:

In writing about traditional Asian aesthetics, the conventions of a Western discourse – order,logical progression, symmetry – impose upon the subject an aspect that does not belong to it.Among other ideas, Eastern aesthetics suggest that ordered structure contrives, that logicalexposition falsifies, and that linear, consecutive argument eventually limits. (2007, 11)

These sentiments clearly echo features noted above in the work of Schön,Atkinson & Claxton and Borgdorff. Likewise, we can read the next statementin confirmation of a belief in the applicability of Ong’s work towards a greaterunderstanding of practitioners: ‘What we would call Japanese aesthetics (in contrastto Western aesthetics) is more concerned with process than with product, with theactual construction of a self than with self-expression’ (Ritchie 2007, 15).

5.6 The Continuum: Reconciling Practice and Theory

In their chapter for The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts, MichaelBiggs and Daniela Büchler perceive dissatisfaction between practitioners and theacademy, brought about by the supposed ‘hasty academicization of the creativepractice community’ (2010, 87). They regard three areas as problematic for thecommunity of creative practitioners: firstly, the academic community’s distrust ofthe role of subjectivity in practice-based work; secondly, the creation and functionof non-text based outputs; and finally, the manner in which research questions aregenerated and addressed (90–91). However, an acknowledgement of Ong’s workand an awareness of the practice/theory continuum allows us to accommodateBorgdorff’s suggestion that ‘this state of uneasiness and reflexivity’ is possibly‘intrinsic to the place of artistic research in academia’ (2010, 62 n. 1). Indeedsubjectivity and objectivity can and do co-exist happily, productively and creativelyonce we recognise how practitioners make use of both features, as well as howthe complementary roles of subjectivity and objectivity help to shape and articulateboth process and product. Research outputs that eschew text are absolutely crucialif we are to represent and to re-enact the subject of work across practice andtheory appropriately and adequately. Institutions must facilitate approaches thatacknowledge research questions, per se, as either explicit or implicit, and generatedpre and/or post hoc.

There is certainly, as Borgdorff articulates it, ‘a self-evident kinship’ betweenartistic research and musicology (2010, 45). But an awareness of a practitioner’sorality is a necessary defence against the overtly literate origins of the latterin shaping the discourse (and often formulating guidelines) for research acrosspractice and theory. The relentless domination of the scholarly mind by textualityis mirrored by the often seemingly relentless domination by musicology of researchinto music and musical performance, as well as the relentless domination of written


outputs. It is both shocking but essential to realise that studies of fundamentallyoral procedures, i.e. performance, undertaken by fundamentally literate personsusing fundamentally literate means are flawed, and therefore, at best, potentiallymisguided, and at worst, meaningless.

Those who work across both practice and theory are most appropriately placed toredress this imbalance. In realigning their stance regarding literacy, all researchersmust accord primacy to the act of performance over that of any notated record.Furthermore, there is just so much to be gained by all members of the musicalresearch community from a more explicit awareness of and, where possible,utilisation of oral modes of thinking/being/reflecting etc. Research must alsoembrace and acknowledge those features of the master/apprentice model on whichthe basis of teaching and learning in performance is grounded, that is, the more oralnature of this relationship. A greater awareness of orality enables a more explicitlyexperimental crafting and interrogating of research questions and methodologies.

The journey made by practice-based researchers ‘between the creative practicecommunity values and the academically valid models of research’ (Biggs andBüchler 2010, 97), which Biggs and Büchler suggest is problematic, becomesnegotiable once we understand it in accordance with the journey along the prac-tice/theory continuum. Let us more explicitly acknowledge how this continuumis able to accommodate the many and varied locations or moments, however wechoose to define them. Let us also celebrate how, along the length of the continuum,we can pause, practise and reflect, during work across practice and theory. Indeed,the continuum and its way-stations of artistic endeavour are certainly sufficient, notonly to reconcile practice and theory, but to embrace and to celebrate the breadthand diversity of this research.

Working across practice and theory is certainly an ‘ambitious’ undertaking butConservatoires, enriched by and through the pre-eminence of practitioners, areindeed ‘one of the greatest resources for research in music’ (Schippers 2007, 38).All who research in music share a duty to recognise both this pre-eminence and theaffinity between practical musicians and persons from oral cultures.

References

Atkinson, T., & Guy, C. (Eds.). (2000). The intuitive practitioner: On the value of not alwaysknowing what one is doing. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Barwick, L. M. (1988). Transcription as deflowering: Collection practices in Italy, pre-1939.Musicology Australia, 11(1), 35–43.

Biggs, M., & Büchler, D. (2010). Communities, values, conventions and actions. In M. Biggs &H. Karlsson (Eds.), The Routledge companion to research in the arts (pp. 82–98). Abingdon:Routledge.

Borgdorff, H. (2010). The production of knowledge in artistic research. In M. Biggs & H. Karlsson(Eds.), The Routledge companion to research in the arts (pp. 44–63). Abingdon: Routledge.

Brubaker, B. (2007). Questions not answers: The performer as researcher. Dutch Journal of MusicTheory, 12(1), 66–87.

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Charlton, D., Trevitt, J., & Gosselinb, G. 2012. Paris, §VI: 1789–1870, 5. Education. In GroveMusic Online Oxford Music Online. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40089pg6. Accessed 29 Dec 2012.

Claxton, G. (2000). The anatomy of intuition. In T. Atkinson & C. Guy (Eds.), The intuitivepractitioner: On the value of not always knowing what one is doing (pp. 32–52). Buckingham:Open University Press.

Kenyon, N. (2012). Performance today. In C. Lawson & R. Stowell (Eds.), The Cambridge historyof musical performance (pp. 3–34). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kerman, J. (1985). Musicology. London: Fontana.Lawson, C. J. 2000. Lefèvre’s Méthode de Clarinette (1802): The Paris conservatoire at work. In

M. F. Cross, & D. Williams (Ed.), The French experience from republic to monarchy, 1792–1824 (pp. 140–154). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Nowotny, H. (2010). Foreword. In M. Biggs & H. Karlsson (Eds.), The Routledge companion toresearch in the arts (pp. xvii–xxvi). Abingdon: Routledge.

Ong, W. J. (2002). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word (2nd ed.). Abingdon:Routledge.

Pearson, I. E. (2011). Practice and theory, orality and literacy: Knowledge, memory and perfor-mance. In R. Pestana & S. Carvalho (Eds.), Performa’11 – Actas e Livro de Resumos dosEncontros de Investigação em Performance. Aveiro: Universidade de Aveiro.

Polanyi, M. (1967). The tacit dimension. London: Routledge.Ritchie, D. (2007). A tractate on Japanese aesthetics. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press.Schippers, H. (2007). The marriage of art and academia: Challenges and opportunities for music

research in practice-based environments. Dutch Journal of Music Theory, 12(1), 34–40.Schön, D. A. (1991). The reflective practitioner: How practitioners think in action (2nd ed.).

Aldershot: Ashgate.Taruskin, R. (1992). Tradition and authority. Early Music, 20(2), 311–325.Türk, D. G. (1982). Klavierschule (1789). (trans: Haggh, R. H.). Lincoln: University of Nebraska

Press.Wright, D. (2003). Grove’s role in the founding of the RCM. In M. Musgrave (Ed.), George Grove,

music and victorian culture (pp. 219–244). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40089pg6

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40089pg6

Chapter 6Research Skills in Practice: Learningand Teaching Practice-Based Researchat RNCM

Jane Ginsborg

Abstract First, I will define what we mean by ‘practice-based’ research, encom-passing composition and performance, as opposed to ‘performance practice’ and‘performative’ research, drawing on recently published examples of practice-basedresearch to illustrate the requirements of Ph.D research ‘by practice’ at the RoyalNorthern College of Music (RNCM). Next, I will show how we teach practice-based and performance practice research not only at taught postgraduate level viathe Music Research in Practice compulsory module and Lecture Recital option, butalso at the undergraduate level via Performance and Repertoire Studies 3 and 4.Finally, I will report on a symposium held in November 2011 at RNCM, Teachingand Learning Practice in/as Research involving staff and students as well as externalspeakers and performers, and raise for discussion some of the issues that arose at,and from the symposium.

Keywords Research skills • Learning • Teaching

6.1 Definitions

What is meant by ‘practice-based’ research? How does it differ from ‘performancepractice’ and ‘performative’ research? What is its relationship to ‘music perfor-mance research’? Let us start with some definitions. Practice-based research –otherwise known as ‘practice-as’ or ‘practice-led’ research, and particularly in

Note. Parts of this chapter are derived from an article by Jane Ginsborg, Roger Chaffin andAlexander Demos to be published in the Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies.

J. Ginsborg (�)Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, UKe-mail: [email protected]


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78 J. Ginsborg

Europe, ‘artistic’ research – is research undertaken by a practitioner such asa performer, composer and/or teacher on his or her own practice. Before welook at some examples of practice-based research, and how it can be taught, wewill consider first what it is not: performance practice, performative or musicperformance research.

6.1.1 Performance Practice Research

Performance practice research traditionally involves the study of performance indifferent eras, using a range of historical and music analytic methods to understandhow different musical cultures approach the task of performance. An early exampleis Arnold Dolmetsch’s The Interpretation of the Music of the XVIIth and XVIIIthCenturies: Revealed by Contemporary Evidence (1915), which he concluded thus:‘We can no longer allow anyone to stand between us and the composer’ (471). Morerecently, Mary Cyr has edited a series of four substantial volumes of essays onMediaeval (Meconi 2011), Classical and Romantic (Milsom 2011), Baroque (Walls2011) and Renaissance music (Kreitner 2011; Cyr 2011).

Performance practice in different cultures can also be explored. For example,Sophie Grimmer has undertaken research on the role of listening in the developmentof improvisatory expertise in the Karnatic singing of South India (Grimmer2012). Although her own professional career has encompassed operatic roles fromMonteverdi to Birtwistle, she could not have carried out her study had she notbeen, herself, a singer, albeit trained in the Western classical tradition. Researchon performance practice is surely enhanced when it informs and is informed by theauthor’s own experience. For the concert pianist and writer Roy Howat, researchand performance are inextricably linked (Howat 2004, 2009), as they are also for thedistinguished clarinettist Roger Heaton: practical knowledge of a range of genres,the result of having given innumerable performances of twentieth and twenty-firstcentury works, underlies his discussion of performance practice in contemporarymusic (Heaton 2012).

6.1.2 Performative Research

The concept of performativity was first introduced by the philosopher J.L. Austinin 1955. He noted that language can be performative insofar as certain utterances,subsequently termed ‘speech acts’ by John Searle (1969), can symbolise, or performactions, in specific contexts: ‘by saying something we do something’ (Austin 1962,94). The examples Austin used to illustrate this idea are often cited but are worthrepeating: “‘I do’ (sc. take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife) : : : ‘I namethis ship the Queen Elizabeth’ : : : ‘I give and bequeath my watch to my brother’ : : :

‘I bet you sixpence it will rain tomorrow’” (Austin 1961, 222). In these cases wordsare used not to describe deeds but – actually (pun intended) – to carry them out.

6 Research Skills in Practice: Learning and Teaching Practice. . . 79

Over the past decade the notion of performativity has been borrowed fromAustin and Searle, and extended, via cultural theorists including Butler (1988),Carlson (1996) and Conquergood (1989), to research in the arts. The first referenceto ‘performative research’ that I have been able to identify is from an article byDerrida, Pepper, Esch and Keenan (1990) who contrast “theoretical and necessarilydiscursive research on the one hand, and experimental, ‘creative’, and performativeresearch on the other” (33). In his Manifesto for Performative Research, BradHaseman contrasts quantitative and qualitative research paradigms – which I willrevisit below in my discussion of music performance and practice-based research –and argues for a third paradigm,

aligned with many of the values of qualitative research but : : : nonetheless distinct from it.: : : While findings are expressed in non-numeric data they present as symbolic forms otherthan in the words of discursive text. Instead research reporting this paradigm occurs as rich,presentational forms : : : they deploy symbolic data in the material forms of practice, of stilland moving images, of music and sound, of live action and digital code. (Haseman 2006, 5)

He goes on to say:

When research findings are presented as [performative] utterances, they too perform anaction and are most appropriately named Performative Research. It is not qualitativeresearch: it is itself. : : : The ‘practice’ in ‘practice-led research’ is primary – it is not anoptional extra [as in performance practice research] it is the necessary pre-condition ofengagement in performative research. (2006, 6)

An obvious example of performative research in music is composition. Becausethe first universities were established so many centuries before the first conser-vatoires – University College, Oxford, was founded in the thirteenth century,for example, while the Royal Academy of Music was not founded until 1822 –composition has been a recognised component of a degree in music for hundredsof years. According to Richard Ede at Oxford in 1506–1507, cited by Caldwell(1986), both BMus and DMus degrees were awarded for polyphonic composition,the details of the requirements (often a mass and an antiphon setting) sometimesbeing given in the candidate’s supplication for the degree. Typically, however, theDMus was ‘by acclamation’. Orlando Gibbons, for example, received his BMus in1606 from Cambridge but his DMus degree not until 1622. Haydn was awardedan honorary doctorate in composition by Oxford in 1791, and Brahms refused onefrom Cambridge in 1877 because he did not wish to travel to England.

The first doctorates in original composition were not awarded in the UK (andquite possibly the world) until 1970, when Graham Hearn received his DPhil inComposition from the University of York. His supervisors were Wilfrid Mellers,who had founded the music department in 1967, and Richard Orton. Given thatDPhil submissions at York can (still) consist solely of a portfolio of compositions,with no accompanying documentation, it is a little surprising that it is not possibleto obtain a Ph.D or DPhil in performance consisting of a portfolio of performances,say, or recordings. This is because, unlike composition, performance is consideredpart of research, but only very rarely, if ever, the research itself. So while there are orhave been many fine performers in university departments – John Rink at Cambridge

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and Peter Hill at Sheffield come to mind – they are perhaps better known for theirbooks on Chopin and Messiaen respectively; the great clarinettist Alan Hacker whowas recruited as a performer to York, or the leader of the Lindsay Quartet, PeterCropper, who was Professor of Performance at Sheffield for 3 years, are exceptionswho prove the rule.

It is of course possible in many American and Australian universities andconservatoires for performers to undertake a Doctorate in Musical Arts (DMA),but these are not research degrees, according to UK criteria. This is something thathas exercised a great many performers who work in conservatoires, particularlysince the mid-1990s when conservatoires started to offer degrees and submitresearch outputs to research assessment exercises. Thus, preparatory to the firstAustralian Research Quality Framework in 2007, Huib Schippers at QueenslandConservatorium wrote a highly influential article entitled The Marriage of Art andAcademia. He pointed out that all preparation for performance can be viewed interms of research: choosing the piece or repertoire to be performed is like defininga research question. Finding out about the repertoire by reading books or scoresor listening to recordings is like reviewing the literature, and making decisions asto how and where to rehearse and in what context to give the performance is likedefining the methodological approach.

Next, the musician typically moves to the studio. This is the lab or experimental phase ofthe research. Here, thousands of deeply considered and split-second decisions are madeusing music notation or memory; ideas from publications about music (structure, history);consulted or remembered recordings in private collection and libraries and performances;learned, acquired and developed values; experience and assessment of audience reactions;and probably most importantly an aural library, which, for a mature musician, wouldtypically consist of 20,000 to 50,000 hours of listening, learning and playing. The researchoutput often takes the form of a performance and/or recording. (Schippers 2007, 36)

The problem is, however, as Schippers acknowledges:

: : : although much music making involves research, the latter does not necessarily qualifyall music making as research. Not every rehearsal is a research project, and not allperformances are research outcomes. (2007, 35)

Furthermore, from the point of view of a research council or other funding body,or for that matter the members of an examination panel for a research degree, while itis not hard to assess a performance – adjudicators do this all the time – the researchprocess underlying the performer’s decision-making and implementation of theirdecisions cannot be made explicit, as it would be in a thesis or dissertation. Manycomposers, too, would argue that the fact their scores are notated – typically – meansthey can be interrogated.

It is for this reason that performative research is usually accompanied byexegesis. One by now very well-known example is Stephen Emmerson’s Around aRondo – not a Ph.D thesis but a research product submitted for the Research QualityFramework and available for sale via the Queensland Conservatorium website,where it is described as a set of two DVDs


[representing] a unique insight into the realities of being a contemporary performer ofWestern classical music. Emmerson traces in great detail his journey to interpret Mozart’sRondo in A Minor K511 on piano and fortepiano, referring to scores, technical challenges,period and contemporary literature on musical interpretation, recordings by other artists,and the arduous process that takes place in the musician’s studio. (QCRC 2012)

6.1.3 Music Performance Research

I use the term ‘music performance research’ broadly, to represent the approachesto research that Haseman rejects. Depending on the training of the researcher, thequestions that are raised and the methods that are used to address them, they mayderive from music psychology or the rapidly developing field of music performancescience.

Music psychology has burgeoned as a discipline over the past 30 years. JohnSloboda (1986) argued that it had come of age as a scientific paradigm withthe publication of Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s A Generative Theory of Tonal Music(1983), in that there was now an agreed set of central problems, methods for workingon them, theoretical frameworks in which to discuss them, techniques and theoriesspecific to the paradigm and research appropriate to the whole range of phenomenain the domain being studied. Only 20 years later, however, he wrote:

Music psychology is : : : not a coherent discipline, but a loose confederation of disciplinesconverging around the same object of study. It is hard, therefore, to agree on what theimportant problems are, or how they should be addressed. (Sloboda 1998, xix)

The field has continued to grow: for an overview of recent research, see Hallam,Cross and Thaut’s Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology (2009). Meanwhile,music performance science acknowledges its origins in sport science; there is aflourishing Centre for Performance Science at the Royal College of Music, London,and an increasing literature (e.g. Williamon et al. 2011). To summarise: whethermusic performance researchers take a quantitative or qualitative approach to theirinvestigation, they invariably use a theoretical framework. While much – althoughnot all – quantitative research is deductive, testing hypotheses using empiricalmethods, and most qualitative research is generally inductive, both involve theresearcher in rigorous and systematic data-gathering, analysis and interpretation offindings.

6.1.4 Practice-Based Research

While Linda Candy (2006) has argued that practice-based and practice-led researchhave different aims and outcomes, I will subsume the three categories named atthe beginning of this chapter – practice-as, practice-led and artistic research – intothe over-arching category of practice-based research. This has become increasingly

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popular since the 1990s. In addition to contributing to efforts to understand humanskill and creativity in a number of domains, such as art and design (e.g. Frayling1993/1994; Rust and Wilson 2001), dance (e.g. Protopapa 2012), nursing (e.g.Benner 2004), science (e.g. Osbeck et al. 2011), social work (e.g. Wade andNeuman 2007), surgery (e.g. Kneebone 2011) and of course music, practice-basedresearch enables practitioners to reflect on what they do and share it with others:colleagues, audiences, clients – where appropriate – and students. Some recentexamples of practice-based research in music include Martin Blain’s discussion ofhow compositional research can be disseminated, with reference to one of his ownworks (Blain 2012), Mine Dogantan-Dack’s account of live performance as a sitefor knowledge production (Dogantan-Dack 2012) and Helena Gaunt’s research onone-to-one tuition in the conservatoire, building on her own experience as a teacher(Gaunt 2007).

Music performance is particularly amenable to practice-based methods sincemusicians typically engage in regular, daily practice that can be recorded easily soas to provide an objective behavioural record of their activity; in addition, musicalnotation provides a precise yet flexible tool for describing their activity duringpractice (Chaffin and Imreh 2001). It could be argued that many other areas ofhuman creative endeavour, including those listed above, lack one or both of theseadvantages.

In some countries the move towards practice-based research in music has beenencouraged by government initiatives designed to put funding for higher educationin the arts on a common footing with the sciences. A local example is the Practiceas Research Consortium North West (PARC-NW), a loose grouping of highereducation institutions in the north-west of England, of which the author’s institutionis a member. According to its website, practice-as research focuses on ‘questions ofcontexts, histories and theories within practice training’ (http://www.miriad.mmu.ac.uk/postgraduate/parcnorthwest/). The term ‘practice-as-research’ is also usedspecifically in relation to theatre, dance, film, video and television performance:the UK Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB) funded a 5-year projectbetween 2001 and 2006 at the University of Bristol which ‘aimed to developnational frameworks for the encouragement of the highest standards in representingpractical-creative research within academic contexts’ (http://www.bris.ac.uk/parip/introduction.htm). A similar project produced the Practice as Research in MusicOnline (PRIMO) website (http://primo.sas.ac.uk/eprints/). The major funding bodyfor the arts in the UK, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) uses theterm ‘practice-led research’. The guidelines read as follows:

For your research to be considered as practice-led, your own practice must be an integralpart of the proposed programme of research, and the creative and/or performative aspectsof the research must be made explicit. : : : The research carried out should bring aboutenhancements in knowledge and understanding in the discipline, or in related disciplinaryareas. This requirement excludes research to provide content. (AHRC Research FundingGuide, November 2011)

http://www.miriad.mmu.ac.uk/postgraduate/parcnorthwest/

http://www.miriad.mmu.ac.uk/postgraduate/parcnorthwest/

http://www.bris.ac.uk/parip/introduction.htm

http://www.bris.ac.uk/parip/introduction.htm

http://primo.sas.ac.uk/eprints/


In mainland Europe, the term used is ‘artistic research’. In 2010 the PolifoniaResearch Working Group of the Association of European Conservatoires (AEC)published a ‘Pocketbook’ entitled Researching conservatoires: Enquiry, innovationand the development of artistic practice in higher music education, which definesartistic research as

an umbrella concept : : : (i) covering research activities with an artistic knowledge base andartistic outlook and (ii) : : : embedded in the conservatoire. (www.polifonia-tn.org)

It would seem, however, that the idea of practice-based research as described inthe guidelines and mission statements of these organizations is not well understood.Many of the research projects listed on the relevant websites as examples ofpractice-based research are perhaps more typical of the more familiar performancepractice approach. For example, among the projects listed on the PRIMO websiteis An introduction to the Renaissance flute: playing techniques, vocal quality,tuning and fingering; historical design and modern copies [including] performedillustrations from two repertoires (French, c.1530; German, c.1630), by NancyHadden. Similarly, some projects provided as examples of artistic research byAEC institutions clearly fall into the performance practice tradition, to the extentthat they include the term ‘performance practice’ in their titles (e.g. Extendedpiano techniques – in theory, history and performance practice, by Luk Vaes).Those that seem most clearly practice-based often involve composers (e.g. Co-ordination and subordination in harmonic relations by Adina Sibianu), and, apopular focus, collaborations between composers and performers (e.g. SHUT UP’N’PLAY by Stefan Östersjö). Mine Dogantan Dack recently made the following usefuldistinction that I should like to see adopted more widely:

I use the term ‘artistic research’ to refer to research activities that are methodologicallyintegrated with an artistic creation and cannot be pursued without art-making. In this sense,the domain of artistic research does not necessarily overlap with that of ‘practice-based’research where the practice involved does not always result in an art-product. (2012, 36)

6.2 Practice-Based Research Degrees at the Royal NorthernCollege of Music

Research degree students at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM; theprogramme is currently validated by Manchester Metropolitan University) followone of four broad strands: musicology, music psychology (including music edu-cation and cognate disciplines), composition and performance. The experience ofthe research student undertaking doctoral studies in musicology at RNCM is likelyto be very similar to that of the research student undertaking doctoral studiesin musicology at any UK university. By contrast, a relatively small number ofuniversities offer doctoral programmes in music psychology. The advantage tostudents of doing such research in a conservatoire rather than a university is that

www.polifonia-tn.org

84 J. Ginsborg

they have access to a larger number of expert musicians (teachers as well as fellowstudents) with perhaps even more varied professional experience.

The awards of Ph.D in composition and performance, specifically defined as‘including performance practice and practice-as-research’ (http://www.rncm.ac.uk/research-mainmenu-52/postgraduate-research-degrees-mainmenu-182.html),follow the regulations of Manchester Metropolitan University for Ph.D ‘bypractice’: candidates

must, through a portfolio of work and an accompanying analytical commentary, demon-strate a contribution to knowledge, and evidence of the development of research skillsappropriate to the focus of the research and the knowledge domains within which theresearch was conducted : : : The material submitted for the Ph.D : : : must be sufficientlyextensive as to provide convincing evidence that the research constitutes a coherent andsignificant contribution to knowledge or scholarship in a particular field. (MMU 2009, 62)

Accordingly, the awards are made on the basis of

a substantial portfolio of compositions normally between 90 and 120 minutes in duration /a series of substantial performances of c.180 minutes total duration (as appropriate) : : : acritical commentary, word count to be negotiated, but normally between 10,000 and 20,000words : : : and a viva voce examination assessing the entire submission. (RNCM ResearchDegrees Handbook 2012–2013)

Although we have only just recruited our first Ph.D candidate in performancepractice, innumerable examples of such research are carried out in conservatoiresand universities, as we have seen from the projects listed in the 2010 Pocketbookpublished by the Polifonia Research Working Group on behalf of the AEC. Whenassessing potential applicants’ proposals for Ph.D research in composition andperformance, however, we are bound to refer to the definition of research providedfor the research assessment exercise currently under way (Research ExcellenceFramework [REF] 2014): ‘a process of investigation leading to new insights,effectively shared’ (HEFCE 2011, 32). When assessing a potential applicant’sproposal for Ph.D in performance (practice-as-research) we must refer to the Artsand Humanities Research Council’s definition of practice-led research (see above).

Before I go on to consider how practice-based research can be taught to studentsin the pre-doctoral phase of their studies – at undergraduate and taught master’slevels – let me briefly report on two recently-published articles that are not justexamples of practice-based research but are also exemplary in the complimentarysense. I have already cited the first, by an experienced performer-researcher,Mine Dogantan Dack, on the Alchemy Project (http://www.mdx.ac.uk/alchemy).It is entitled Qualitative Transformations in Chamber Music Performance, and itincludes video recordings of rehearsals and performance (Dogantan Dack 2012).

The other is by Tanja Orning, (at the time of writing) a Ph.D student at the Nor-wegian Academy of Music, on her experience of preparing and performing HelmutLachenmann’s Pression for solo cello in the light of the development and practiceof what he calls musique concrète instrumentale. Tanja’s Ph.D submission will, Iassume, include recordings of her performance: her ‘practice is clearly an integralpart’ of her programme and there is no question but that the ‘performative aspects’of her research will be made explicit in her thesis as in the article (Orning 2012).

http://www.rncm.ac.uk/research-mainmenu-52/postgraduate-research-degrees-mainmenu-182.html

http://www.rncm.ac.uk/research-mainmenu-52/postgraduate-research-degrees-mainmenu-182.html

http://www.mdx.ac.uk/alchemy


6.3 Preparing Taught Postgraduate Students to UndertakePractice-Based Research: Music Research in Practice

Having established potential research processes and outcomes for doctoral studentsat RNCM, how do we prepare our taught postgraduate students to undertake suchresearch? We used to offer two optional modules preparing students to undertakemajor (12,000-word) or minor (8,000-word) dissertations or reports of researchprojects in musicology or music psychology, under the close supervision of tutors. InSeptember 2012, however, so as to enable more students to undertake practice-basedprojects in performance and composition, the two optional modules were replacedby a compulsory module, Music Research in Practice. Cohort lectures on thephilosophies underlying the different research paradigms outlined above, researchmethods and research ethics (particularly in the context of research involving theparticipation of other people) are interspersed with group seminars, led by membersof staff with expertise in a range of disciplines, designed to prepare students notonly for research in musicology and music psychology but also practice-basedresearch for composers, instrumentalists and singers, some of whom will specialisein twentieth century and contemporary music practice-based research.

It is too early to say how many of the students in this first cohort will progressto major projects and applications to embark on doctoral studies, but we do haveevidence that a sizeable proportion of undergraduate students, all of whom have 2years’ experience of Performance Studies (to be discussed below), go on to becomemaster’s level students and take the very popular module entitled Lecture Recital.While this provides training in performance practice research, one or two studentseach year use it as a basis for practice-based research. According to the RNCMGraduate School Handbook its aim is to:

provide students with a forum in which they can explore a chosen topic relating to PrincipalStudy work as instrumentalist, singer or composer, and to provide training to enablestudents to deliver an effective research-based presentation to students and staff on thistopic. Through individually tailored learning routes leading to the final [lecture] recitalassessment, students acquire an advanced understanding of the relevant scholarly literatureand an ability to relate its insights to the practice and experience of music. They are requiredto employ reasoning and logic in order to analyze research materials, to formulate relevantarguments and hypotheses, and to express these within the context of practical music-making. (79)

6.4 Introducing Undergraduate Students to Practice-BasedResearch: Performance and Repertoire Studies

Those taught postgraduate students who are RNCM graduates will have beenprepared for this module by undertaking two compulsory modules: Performanceand Repertoire Studies 3 in their third year, and Performance and Repertoire

86 J. Ginsborg

Studies 4 in their fourth year. In the first of these two modules they learn aboutmusic composed or conceived since 1950, focusing on

notational systems, extended techniques, analytical challenges, technological develop-ments, changing textual and source concepts, etc. (BMus GRNCM Year 1–3 HandbookSection 4, 30),

and give a presentation on a topic relating to post-1950 repertoire, chosen by thestudent in consultation with his or her seminar group tutor. The aims of the secondmodule include encouraging students ‘to reflect critically on the reciprocity betweentheir practical studies and musicology’ (BMus GRNCM Year 4 Handbook Section4, 2); they are required to

[develop] their knowledge base and skills in relation to performance practices and traditions,editorial practices and notational conventions, theory and analysis, reception and criticism,organology and instrumentation. (ibid.)

Their choice of topic is once again their own, in consultation with the seminargroup tutor, but – assuming the focus of their research is repertoire rather thanpractice – they are not restricted to twentieth century or contemporary music. Since2009–2010 I have tutored a group of singers every year whose approaches haveranged from the musicological (e.g. the history of trouser roles) via performancepractice research (e.g. the extent to which modern singers follow the advice of theeighteenth century Tosi) and music psychology (e.g. an empirical investigation ofthe use of physical gestures in the performance of operatic arias in the concert halland on stage) to the practice-based: for example, one student gave a presentation onher experiences of singing Mahler’s Rückert Lieder with piano, focusing on whatshe had learned from studying the orchestral arrangements of the same songs byMahler and others.

6.4.1 Teaching and Learning Music Practice as/in Research

In November 2011 RNCM held a symposium entitled Teaching and Learning MusicPractice as/in Research for the purpose of celebrating and promoting practice-based research of different varieties. The speakers included four highly experiencedpractitioner-researchers: Roy Howat (who describes his approach as ‘investigativeperformance’), John Rink (‘performance research’), the composer and pianist DavidHorne and the eminent trumpeter and organologist John Miller (‘performancestudies’). In addition, a small group of students who had taken Performance andRepertoire Studies 4 the previous year were asked to give short presentations onthe theme I could never have begun to play that piece, without : : : One student haddone some research on the singer for whom the operatic role she was currentlystudying had been written; another had made a comparison of different systems fornotating string harmonics; a third discussed the visual representations she had madeof her analysis of a contemporary work she was to perform. While the talks were allextremely engaging, it could be argued that they reflected research for the purposes


of practice, a necessary component of all preparation for performance, rather thanan innovative form of research suitable for dissemination to a wider audience. Bycontrast, perhaps the most compelling example of practice-based research at thesymposium was provided by Bridget Marsden, who studied Swedish folk violinplaying in Stockholm. Her master’s submission, When I listen to Bingsjö (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ1kV6BYAQI), consisted of a museum installationin which she also played live; the organization and arrangement of the installation,combining artefacts, video-recordings of other musicians and written materials, con-veyed a great deal more than could have been communicated via talk, dissertationor even lecture-recital.

6.5 Conclusion: Questions and Provocations

I will conclude this chapter with the series of questions discussed in the closinground-table session with which the Teaching and Learning Music Practice as/inResearch ended. They are listed here – with some tentative and potentially provoca-tive answers – to stimulate further debate:

1. What does ‘research’ mean in a conservatoire context? At the very least, to quotethe definition of research provided for the purposes of the Research ExcellenceFramework 2014, ‘a process of investigation leading to new insights, effectivelyshared’ (see above).

2. Does/can ‘research’ have a performative dimension? Without doubt, bearing inmind Huib Schippers’ caveat: ‘Not every rehearsal is a research project, and notall performances are research outcomes’ (see above).

3. What do professional musicians and conservatoire teachers need ‘researchtraining’ to do for students? Some researchers may suspect that their practitionercolleagues discount the value of research (qua research) and therefore researchtraining. My experience of professional musicians and conservatoire teacherswould, however, suggest that the majority strongly favour what I have calledabove ‘research for the purposes of practice’. One reason we have introducedresearch training – in the form of the compulsory module Music Researchin Practice – is to encourage students to undertake systematic investigations,grounded in existing knowledge, and to give them the opportunity to learn abouta range of disciplines from which they can borrow or adapt the methods mostappropriate to the questions they wish to ask.

4. What do students want research training to do for them? If we can convincestudents that their performances and compositions can only be enhanced byasking questions and addressing them appropriately, then they will want researchtraining to give them the skills I have outlined above.

5. What kinds of research training are appropriate/necessary in the conservatoireand how should they best be provided? This will vary from one institutionto another, depending on staff interests, skill-sets and funding. My hope is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ1kV6BYAQI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ1kV6BYAQI

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that through regular discussions and the sharing of experiences and materialspractice-based research of all the different kinds I have described will flourish, tothe benefit of practitioners, researchers – and ultimately audiences – alike.

References

Austin, J. L. (1961). Philosophical papers. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Benner, P. (2004). Using the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition to describe and interpret skill

acquisition and clinical judgment in nursing practice and education. Bulletin of ScienceTechnology Society, 24(3), 188–219.

Blain, M. (2012). Composition-as-research: Connecting flights II for clarinet quartet – a researchdissemination methodology for composers. In Z. Paulinyi (Ed.) Encontro Internacional deMúsica de Câmara (pp. 68–88). Unidade de Investigação em Música e Musicologia (UnIMeM).http://issuu.com/paulinyi/docs/1international-meeting-chamber-music-edition3. Accessed 13Jan 2013.

Butler, J. (1988). Performative acts and gender constitution: an essay in phenomenology andfeminist theory. Theatre Journal, 40(4), 519–531.

Caldwell, J. (1986). Appendix ‘Music in the Faculty of Arts’. In T. H. Aston & M. C. James (Eds.),The history of the university of Oxford (Vol. 3). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Candy, L. (2006). Practice based research: A guide. CCS report V1-0. Sydney: Creativity andCognition Studios, University of Technology.

Carlson, M. (1996). Performance: A critical introduction. London/New York: Routledge.Chaffin, R., & Imreh, G. (2001). A comparison of practice and self-report as sources of information

about the goals of expert practice. Psychology of Music, 29, 39–69.Conquergood, D. (1989). Poetics, play, process and power: The performative turn in anthropology.

Text and Performance Quarterly, 9, 82–88.Cyr, M. (2011). The library of essays on music performance practice. Farnham: Ashgate.Derrida, J., Pepper, T., Esch, D., & Keenan, T. (1990). Sendoffs. Yale French studies: No. 77,

Reading the archive: On texts and institutions, 7–43.Dogantan Dack, M. (2012). The art of research in live music performance. Music Performance

Research, 5, 34–48.Dolmetsch, A. (1915/2006). The interpretation of the music of the XVII and XVIII centuries:

Revealed by contemporary evidence. Keighley: Pomona Press.Frayling, C. (1993/1994). Research in art and design. Royal College of Art Research Papers 1(1),

1–5.Gaunt, H. (2007). Learning and teaching breathing and oboe playing: Action research in a

conservatoire. British Journal of Music Education, 24(2), 207–231.Grimmer, S. (2012). Creativity in perpetual motion: A perspective from South India. Music

Performance Research, 5, 79–95.Hallam, S., Cross, I., & Thaut, M. (Eds.). (2009). The Oxford handbook of music psychology.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.Haseman, B. (2006). Manifesto for performative research. Media International Australia incorpo-

rating Culture and Policy, theme issue ‘Practice-led Research’, 118, 98–106.Heaton, R. (2012). Contemporary performance practice and tradition. Music Performance

Research, 5, 96–104.HEFCE. (2011). REF 2014 assessment framework and guidance on submissions. http://www.

ref.ac.uk/media/ref/content/pub/assessmentframeworkandguidanceonsubmissions/02_11.doc.Accessed 13 Jan 2013.

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Howat, R. (2004). Performance as research and vice versa. In E. Michael, R. Halton, J. A. Phillips,E. Michael, R. Halton, & J. A. Phillips (Eds.), Music research: New directions for a newcentury. Amersham: Cambridge Scholars Press.

Howat, R. (2009). The art of French piano music: Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Chabrier. London: YaleUniversity Press.

Kneebone, R. (2011). The art, science and simulation of performance. In A. Williamon, D.Edwards, & L. Bartel (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Symposium on PerformanceScience 2011. Utrecht: European Association of Conservatoires (AEC).

Kreitner, K. (2011). Renaissance music. In M. Cyr (Series Ed.), The library of essays on musicperformance practice. Surrey: Ashgate.

Lerdahl, F., & Jackendoff, R. (1983). A generative theory of tonal music. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Meconi, H. (Ed.). (2011). Classical and romantic music. In M. Cyr (Series Ed.), The library ofessays on music performance practice. Surrey: Ashgate.

Milsom, D. (Ed.). (2011). Classical and romantic music. In M. Cyr (Series Ed.), The library ofessays on music performance practice. Surrey: Ashgate.

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Orning, T. (2012). Pression – a performance study. Music Performance Research, 5, 12–31.Osbeck, L., Nersessian, N. J., Malone, K., & Newstetter, W. (2011). Science as psychology: Sense-

making and identity in science practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Protopapa, E. (2012). Performance-making as interruption in practice-led research. Choreographic

Practices, 2(1), 103–117.QCRC. (2012). Around a rondo. http://www.griffith.edu.au/music/queensland-conservatorium-

research-centre/resources/around-a-rondo. Accessed 13 Jan 2013.RNCM. (2012). BMus GRNCM year 1–3 handbook, 2012–2013.RNCM. (2012). BMus GRNCM year 4 handbook, 2012–2013.RNCM. (2012). Graduate school handbook, 2012–2013.RNCM. (2012). Research degrees handbook, 2012–2013.Rust, C., & Wilson, A. (2001). A visual thesis? Techniques for reporting practice-led research.

Proceedings of 4th European Academy of Design Conference, Aveiro.Schippers, H. (2007). The marriage of art and academia: Challenges and opportunites for music

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Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Sloboda, J. A. (1986). Cognition and real music: The psychology of music comes of age.Psychologica Belgica 26(2), 199–219. Republished as chapter 5, Exploring the musical mind,97–115.

Sloboda, J. A. (1998). Preface. The musical mind [Polish edition], xix.Wade, K., & Neuman, K. (2007). Practice-based research: Changing the professional culture and

language of social work. Social Work in Health Care, 44(4), 49–64.Walls, P. (Ed.). (2011). Baroque music. In M. Cyr (Series Ed.), The library of essays on music

performance practice. Surrey: Ashgate.Williamon, A., Edwards D., & Bartel L. (2011). Proceedings of the International Symposium on

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http://www.griffith.edu.au/music/queensland-conservatorium-research-centre/resources/around-a-rondo

Chapter 7Learning on the Job: Designing Teaching-LedResearch and Research-Led Teaching in a MusicEducation Doctoral Program

Heidi Westerlund

Abstract This chapter deals with the basic principles in developing doctoral studiesin music education at the Sibelius Academy, Finland. Research is understood asa practice that demands not deep practice-based knowledge and understanding ofthe subject, music education. It also requires knowledge that is believed to developmost effectively through various ‘real-life’ research activities in which students canlearn formally and informally. In order to further develop the research practice inwhich individual researchers conduct solo projects, the doctoral program is builtaround collaboration and collaborative research projects. In these projects teachingis mostly related to publishing, peer-review processes, and taking place within smallresearch projects with the peers and senior researchers.

Keywords Curriculum • Participation • Mentoring

Doctoral studies can be experienced as lonely ride. With written course essays onlyseen by individual teachers, and thesis drafts being shared with a sole supervisor,there are few opportunities for social nourishment. Whilst the conventional edu-cational setting that focuses on passing exams, working with the master teacherand gaining a degree may be a safe study route, and seems efficient in terms oftime usage of the university staff, it has been argued that it does not prepare thestudents for today’s academic life. As Shacham and Od-Cohen (2009) claim, asolitary educational path that encompasses coursework coupled with research underthe supervision of an established scientist is unsatisfactory and fails provide studentswith experiences of ‘collaborative ways of thinking, the ability to work in teams,problem-solving skills [and] interpersonal skills’ (287; see also Mandl et al. 1996,

H. Westerlund (�)University of the Arts Helsinki, Sibelius Academy, Alppikatu 2, 00530 Helsinki, Finlande-mail: [email protected]


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400–401). In this familiar scenario, doctoral studies offer a limited environmentfor learning research skills beyond formal degree requirements, and, as it is arguedhere, this may have consequences for students’ experience of academic career,consequences potentially extending to the development of the professional field.

The traditional model of educating music education doctors, in which the attaineddegree is conceptualized as the terminal point of scholarly inquiry, has beenreconsidered at the Sibelius Academy’s music education unit in order to contributeto the change of academic culture. We asked: how can we better support theeducational journey of the students? And further, how can doctoral studies becomemore effectively linked to their potential postdoctoral career and to the nationaldevelopmental work in music education practice and in music teacher education?The main problem related tightly to the obvious situation: there was a distinct lackof a professional research community.

In this chapter, I will describe the process of changes at the program level and themain principles underlying the experiments with doctoral studies in music educationat the Sibelius Academy, also briefly reflecting upon their implications.1 In theseexperiments the learning of doctoral students is first and foremost understood interms of access for participation in the professional field as a researcher (Mandlet al. 1996; see also Wenger 1998). In other words, instead of simply rethinking thecourse selection and the cognitive and affective efforts that students make, doctoralstudents’ learning is viewed from a wider perspective in which social relationshipsand participating in research activities are set at the heart of doctoral studies. Thisview thus reaches into the doctoral student’s life after completing the degree atthe same time as it sees education itself as living an academic life, life understoodas individual and social, not simply preparation for such life in the future. Thechanges have required curriculum revision, redefining the work of supervisors andredesigning course work as well as constant evaluation. Subsequently, this consciousturn led to the launch of teaching-led research projects and establishing of thepractice of research-led teaching. In the following sections of this chapter, I willsynthesize the attempts to see students as active producers of research, to build upa larger research community in which people work together, learn together, solvecommon problems and also write and publish together. This widened the territoryof learning far beyond the university borders and professors addressing institutionalchanges in the following areas:

1. Curriculum and supervision;2. Course organization, completion and facilitation of collaboration;3. Evaluation, feedback activities and assessment.

1At the Sibelius Academy there are three Study Programs leading to a doctoral degree. In musiceducation, most students aim to finish a thesis according to the Research Study Program, i.e.Ph.D. The other lines are the Arts Study Program and the Applied Study Program of which thefirst involves artistic work and research components and the latter development project with theemphasis alternatively on artistic work or research.

7 Learning on the Job: Designing Teaching-Led Research. . . 93

7.1 Theoretical Starting Points for the ChangingLearning Environment

The central changes in music education program are related to the conceptualizationof learning, in seeing learning not simply as a transmission from the teacher tostudent or as isolated individuals’ acquisition of knowledge but as participation(e.g. Sfard 1998). One of the central figures in this approach to learning is EtienneWenger who has pointed out that learning in general takes place in, and through,communities of practice that are constituted by a set of relations among personsand activities over time and in relation with other tangential and overlappingcommunities of practice, and that learning within these collectives happens throughnegotiation (Wenger 1998; see also Lave and Wenger 1991, 35, 98). FollowingWenger’s idea, Phipps (2005) argues that the question of how to become anacademic today is rather ‘a question of the kinds of relationships, exchangesand the kinds of spaces that may foster faithful creative practice’ (143). In otherwords, learning to become an academic is a social journey in as much as it is anintellectual one. More importantly, like Hagyard and Watling (2012), Phipps arguesthat the relationships that are required for mutual academic engagements today arenot necessarily ‘ones between teachers as knowledge producers and learners asknowledge consumers’ (Phipps 2005, 144). Instead of individual problem seekingand solving, scholarly learning is seen through learning partnerships (Wenger et al.2011) among people who find it useful to learn from and with each other about aparticular domain, and who use each other’s experience of practice as a learningresource (9). In our context, we thus had to rethink how doctoral students can createlearning partnerships and be best led into an active participation in the professionalfield of music education research – within the limits of our economical and humanresources. As Robertson and Bond (2005) argue, instead of anticipating ‘a lengthyperiod of peripherality’ until ‘a sufficient number of “pieces”’ have been acquiredto put it all together and see ‘the bigger picture’, students needed to occupy ‘amore participative role in the disciplinary community right from the beginning’ (89,emphasis added). We needed to start emphasizing the ‘engagement of students indisciplinary conversation’; not limiting learning to authorized, reified knowledgedelivered by teachers only. Rather than waiting for students naturally and by timesearch for more central positions in the larger community (compare Wenger 1998),such positions are offered and planned together with them during their studies.

A recent study in Finland (Stubb 2012) shows that different disciplines havevarying practices in their integration of doctoral students in the larger researchcommunity, and that ‘students’ conceptions of their scholarly community may varyfrom describing it as one’s peers, closest colleagues, or research group; departmentor faculty; doctoral seminar group or program; to defining it as the internationalcommunity of researchers in one’s own field’ (39). In Stubb’s study, almost half(44 %, N D 669) of the doctoral students considered their scholarly communityas ‘an important source of support and inspiration’, and factors that were seenas engendering positive experiences were the feelings of meaningfulness (such as

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a sense of contribution, belonging and worthiness), intensification of researcheridentity, appreciation for the nature of research work, and good support for learningand doing research (41). Moreover, students who experienced a sense of being partof the academic community and who saw their scholarly communities as promotingand empowering reported less stress, anxiety, and exhaustion and greater interest intheir own doctoral projects (49). As a whole, Stubb’s study encourages viewingthe doctoral process as mediated by experiencing a sense of belongingness andmeaningfulness instead of simply through the end-product, the degree (42).

As a solution to new architectures for knowledge in higher education, Robertsonand Bond (2005) have suggested a hybrid relation between research and teachingso that “both ‘transmit’ knowledge and ‘engage’ students in its construction”(89). In the same vein, we came to understand that the music education doctoralprogram needs to provide more possibilities for social negotiation between thestudents and also beyond supervisory relationships, in other words possibilities forparticipation in activities of the wider national and, as Finland is a small country,particularly international research community. More importantly the change wasnot simply from one form of enculturation to another research model, since nomodels for open-ended collaborative projects existed. In order to create new kindsof learning environments teaching was more consciously integrated in research andresearch into teaching, so that doctoral program becomes a laboratory of knowledgeproduction. This laboratory approach demands a more socially experimental attitudefrom the students and particularly from the teachers, at the same time as it aims torecognise the individual, existential needs of the students.

7.2 Curriculum Changes and Mentoring Practice

7.2.1 Curriculum for Participation

In order to recognise the new social demands that relate to the experiencedindividual meaningfulness, the following areas of doctoral education in musiceducation were identified alongside the writing of the thesis to complement theprevious division between thesis writing and supporting courses:

1. Substance studies (including, for example, philosophy of science, researchmethodology, research ethics, principles of academic writing);

2. Specialist skills (leadership skills, problem solving skills, developing expertise,profiling your career);

3. Career and interactive skills (international interaction and communication skills,research cooperation, networking, peer review).

These areas of curriculum were expected to cover through a variety of activ-ities beyond formal teaching. The second curriculum area includes, for instance,


university assignments, assisting with the organising of conferences, co-leadingeducational and/or research projects together with professors, publishing of con-ference reviews, accounts that contribute the university’s public image and researchprofile, or popularising research in media in and out of the university. The thirdarea of education primarily consists of publishing and conference participation thatbecame compulsory for each student: students are expected to participate annuallyat least in one conference and publish conference/book reviews and above all peer-reviewed articles.2 In other words, the new curriculum heavily emphasises students’work as a publishing researcher, and this work is assumed to start in the beginningof the studies.

The structure of studies required at the 4–5 year music education doctoralprogram (altogether 240 ECTS) is as follows:

• Prerequisite studies (14–15 ETCS credits)• Research methodology (min. 10 ETCS credits)• Philosophy of science/art/music education (min. 8 ETCS credits)• Doctoral seminar (min. 10 ETCS credits)• Participating in national and international conferences as a presenter (min. 10

ETCS credits)• Academic publication individually and in a group (min. 5 ETCS credits)• University assignments, i.e. contributing to organising a conference (min. 3

ETCS credits)• Other studies (e.g. studies abroad)• Thesis (165 ETCS credits)

7.2.2 Supervision and Mentoring Practice

Despite the changes, one-to-one supervision still remains as an important part ofthe design, although supervision is not given a similar emphasis as in traditionalmodels (see for example Froehlich 2012). Each doctoral student has a supervisorygroup consisting of a responsible supervisor and 1–3 other supervisors, usually fromoutside the university and often from another country. According to the Strategy forDeveloping of the Unit’s Doctoral Studies and Research, the responsible supervisorcarries out annual discussions with each doctoral student on their study processand progress, including career planning. A supervisory contract is co-written andagreed annually, so as to document agreed tasks and workload. The responsiblesupervisor’s task is related to the mentoring of the student’s personal journey andits potential changes. Discussions involve not only choices of course work, but alsoissues such as which conferences the student will participate in during the academicyear and which publication forums to submit articles to, or which foundations to

2The university aims to cover as much as possible of the student’s conference expenses.

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submit funding applications. Changes in the student’s supervisory group are alsodiscussed annually. Students can also annually apply for extra supervision beyondtheir supervisory group.

It is also considered crucial that through the mentoring processes the studentunderstands that there are several different paths to live the life of an academicand that one does not need to follow one specific route. As Reason and Marshall(2001) argue, since research is a complex personal and social process, ideallysupervision takes into account the whole process so that the students can realizetheir potential project that has relevance to their lives (415). In addition, studentshave been encouraged to start writing their professional portfolios in relation totheir future professional plans in order to be able to look beyond the degree.3 LikeFroehlich notes, the thesis is simply one step in an ongoing journey of scholarshipand inquiry (2012, 56).

7.2.3 Developed Seminar Practice and the Piteå-Model

During the academic year, the weekly doctoral students’ seminar provides acontinuous platform for sharing of drafts and research proposals, learning ofprinciples of peer-review processes, analyzing of writing styles, and publishingcriteria of international journals. The goal of the seminar is to provide support forstudent’s thesis work and to steer the use of distributed expertise in students’ andpost doctoral researchers’ community and in this way to create shared knowledge.This goal is stretched further by the regular use of international visitors as one-time supervisors and commentators. More importantly, however, the continuouslydeveloped and changing seminar purposefully involves the learning of generic skills,such as writing abstracts, making posters, ethical rules for collaborative writing, aswell as participating in the practice of receiving and giving feedback. The studentsare introduced to the criteria of international journals as they comment on eachothers’ and senior researchers’ article drafts, and comments from blind-reviewersare shared collectively in order to learn to deal with even severe critique.

Together the professors and students have developed explicit rules concerning theparticipants’ roles and the activities related to the seminar with a focus on interactionwithin seminars. This so-called Piteå-model, adopted from a Swedish institution,aims to activate students, give the student presenter time to be prepared for critique,and put teachers on a more collegial position with the students. The main principlesinvolve for instance that every participant has to comment the student work notjust during but also electronically before the seminar. Students themselves chairthe seminar, and it is not possible to participate asa passive member. As new

3Instructions for how to write funding applications and professional CVs has become part of theseminar content.


students arrive annually these rules are constantly refined and repeatedly reviewedby professors and doctoral students working as research assistants (see details inRikandi et al. 2010).

7.3 Facilitating Learning Partnerships and the Creationof Mutual Trust

In Stubb’s (2012, 41) study, over half of the students (56 %, N D 669) described theirscholarly communities ‘as merely a burden on their own thesis work’ and as ‘hinder-ing their Ph.D. process’. Those who were positive about it identified that scholarlycommunities contribute to socio-psychological well-being in terms of feelings ofempowerment and inspiration. According to Stubb’s study, strengthened researcheridentity was often manifested in a student’s experience of seeing him/herself as ajunior researcher, a colleague or an expert instead of ‘just a student’ (41).

In order to avoid the risk of hindering students’ progress by involving them inthe running of university’s general routines, our unit has emphasized that mostacademic work included in the studies needs to contribute to students’ researcherprofile. In Hagyard and Watling’s (2012) terms, this could be called a turn ofstudent as producer: engaging students in collaborative research projects with eachother and with the staff or outside researchers; changing the angle from studentsas consumers of knowledge into students as producers of knowledge. During thepast few years numerous small and large-scale collaborative research projectshave therefore been initiated at the Sibelius Academy and doctoral students havebeen included in professors’ publishing projects, such as edited books, co-writtenarticles and educational projects that include empirical and theoretical research (seeFig. 7.1). Within the larger community of practice these projects aim to createlearning partnerships, and to build learning communities through specific tasks soas to strengthen the community as a whole. Following Riel and Polin, these smallerlearning communities could be called ‘task-based communities’ (2004).

Placing task-based learning communities at the heart of doctoral studies changesthe role of teachers radically. Professors need to involve themselves as teachers ininquiry-led learning (Elton 2005, 111) in which the outcome is not clearly predes-tined or in which the processes may be prolonged due to their collaborative nature.In other words, teachers need to engage themselves into dynamic processes of‘interpretative zones’ (Bresler 2005, 179; also Bresler et al. 1996) in which teachersand students ‘bring together their distinct voices – various areas of knowledge,experience and beliefs, to forge new meanings through the process of the jointinquiry in which they are engaged’ (Bresler 2005, 179). In the organization ofdoctoral studies this has meant a turn from conducting individual research projectsinto establishing several short or longer term researching ‘chamber ensembles’, asBresler calls them, in which scaffoldings, struggles and negotiations are intertwined(2005).

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1. Doctoral student’s bookproject involving individualand collaborative writing aswell as mutual peer-review

Collaborative thematic inquiry to produce a conference symposium with a senior researcher

Doctoral student’s seminar

2. Joint inquiry and co-authored articles bydoctoral students andsenior researchers

Writing articles, giving and receiving peer-feedback as part of a course

3. Collaborative research project involvingsenior researchers, doctoral students andmasters students

Collaborative writing with a senior researcher Thematic book project involving doctoral students, senior reseachers and teachers from the university and outside

International book project involving doctoral students and senior researchers

20112008 2009 20102007 2012

International book project involving onedoctoral student and a senior researcher

International book project involving onedoctoral student and a senior researcher

Fig. 7.1 Collaborative research projects during the years 2007–2012

7.3.1 Task-Based Learning Communities

The first research-led teaching project (Number 1 in Fig. 7.1) aimed to create adoctoral students’ learning community through the task of publishing a book onFinnish music education and the philosophical themes found in the participatingstudents’ own projects. The project was designed to be student-led and it involvedindividual and collaborative writing by altogether 11 students as well as extensivemutual peer-review over a period of 1½ years. For the student editor, the projectinvolved leadership practice, applying for funding, and maintaining schedules.Some lecturing was involved in the beginning and middle of the process, and to steerextensive collaboration the process included a 1-week intensive ‘camp experience’abroad. At that time, the main goal was to encourage the students’ mutual sharingof ideas through involving them in a meaningful and demanding shared project (seeRikandi et al. 2010): to offer a platform to find out who they were as scholars,and why their research matters. As Wenger and many others state, learning in acommunity of practice requires not simply mutual engagement with each other buttrust on one another and a sense of being included in something that matters, touse Wenger’s terms (see Wenger 1998, 73–74; also Davidson and Goldberg 2010,54–56; Phipps 2005, 145).


Figure 7.1 illustrates several other projects that have involved 1–8 doctoralstudents with one or more senior researchers. The second larger scale project (Num-ber 2 in Fig. 7.1) was led by a student pair aiming to produce several peer-reviewedtheoretical articles based on course reading and using international peer-reviewersduring the process. One of the most recent long-term project (Number 3 in Fig. 7.1)involves two doctoral students and three post-doctoral researchers in investigatingmusic education in Cambodian NGOs for vulnerable children and the experiencesof Finnish music education master’s students during cultural exchange periods inthese NGOs.

Projects and the emerging publishing practice amongst doctoral students havealso established a new form of thesis, common in many other disciplines in Finland:an article-based thesis consisting of several peer-reviewed international articlesthat may be written individually, or together with the supervisor(s) or other seniorresearchers.4 The projects usually last beyond the academic year and extend thestudents’ interaction between each other and the involving researchers, thus creatinga rhythm for the community beyond the duration of regular seminars run throughoutsemesters (Westerlund and Karlsen 2013). This is considered important since itbecame obvious that collaboration in the doctoral seminars only during academicterms was considered insufficient for sustaining the emerging learning community.

In the above-described research projects, teaching-led research and research-led teaching almost always involves the mixing of social relationships. The aimis in this way to create new professional relationships between people – includingpeer-students – other than supervisors: inquiry is done in pairs between studentsor between a student and a teacher, within small groups, or even as a largerproject involving more than ten junior and senior researchers, also outside the homeuniversity. The participation creates learning partnerships, partnerships that are notnecessarily simply harmonious or peaceful, but that result of ‘a collective process ofnegotiation’ over a joint enterprise (Wenger 1998, 77). According to Davidson andGoldberg (2010), in such a trusting community ‘learning is shifting from learningthat to learning how, from content to process’ (55). Indeed, although both contentand means can be seen important, in a community of music education doctoralstudents, experiences of and a reflective attitude to alternative ways of learning maybe considered as an additional value during the process of doctoral studies.

7.3.2 Technological Support

Hagyard and Watling (2012) argue that an important part of the role of student asproducer also includes the notion of digital scholarship in recognizing how Web 2.0technologies can support relationships between the teachers and students and in this

4An article-based thesis includes 3–6 articles on the study accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals or books and a published thesis (kappa) that summarizes the study.

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way facilitate peer production of knowledge. Indeed, Web 2.0 technologies havebecome important at the Sibelius Academy in supporting relationships, creatingthe networks and giving the platform for identifying who we were and how weexisted as well as to simply provide concretely a shared space for co-authoring.Active use of webcam communication, document sharing and various internetplatforms have become part of normal daily routines in both formal and informalmeetings between teachers and students as well as between the students themselves(see Westerlund and Karlsen 2013). Moreover, as Davidson and Goldberg (2010)argue, ‘new digital and collaborative models of learning, writing, communicating,and publishing inevitably disturb traditional definitions’ of authorship (31) so thatauthorship no more refers to one thing in which the singular author is the owner ofthe produced knowledge, but to various things and differing degrees of ownership.As this forms new challenges and ethical risks, we carry on constant discussion onissues related to ownership and ethics of collaboration as well as consciously placemore emphasis on publications where the student is the first author.

7.4 Continuous Evaluation and Participatory Assessment

In our context, it is also considered important that evaluation and assessment aredone in a plural manner in several levels, individually but also collaboratively, bystudents and by teachers. Like Hagyard and Watling emphasise,

[r]e-conceptualising students as collaborators in academic endeavor allows them to becomeengaged in every aspect of the university: participating in curriculum design and review,acting as consultants on teaching to help enhance its quality – and working alongside staffin pursuit of the production of knowledge. (Hagyard and Watling 2012, 79–80)

According to Hagyard and Watling (2012), engaging doctoral students in thedesign, delivery and review of their programs and in assessment and feedbackactivities produces ‘graduates with a stronger sense of social responsibility andbetter prepared for a world of complexity and uncertainty’ (80). However, ratherthan consultants, at the Sibelius Academy students are seen as co-researchers andthe program (with its informal aspects) as co-constructed and co-evaluated despitethe fact that the formal responsibility still lies with the professors.

Self-assessment and peer-assessment are central in this practice and easy tocarry out since at the Sibelius Academy course work at the doctoral studies inmusic education is almost never assessed with grades. Final comments are givenin most cases by editors, peer-reviewers and thesis opponents as part of publishingprocesses, thus assessment at the university is concentrating on the process feedbackand is mostly verbal in nature. A student panel gives credits of the seminar basedon student participation, and students themselves constantly evaluate the seminarpractice and refine the outspoken community rules (such as how and when tocomment on student drafts for discussion in the seminar). Moreover, this learningenvironment has become a field of inquiry in itself and students have produced


material for the practitioner inquiry that deals with their own learning. Studentshave also participated as collaborate authors in these inquiries (see Rikandi et al.2010).

As most doctoral students now work with an article-based thesis, a major partof the thesis goes through an international peer review before it is submitted. Moreimportantly, this means that the students’ imagined audience has changed. Insteadof writing for themselves and for their supervisors, they now imaginatively andconcretely produce texts for international audiences. Consequently, according tothe university’s internal research evaluation made in 2011, the publication rate ofthe doctoral students has risen during the years of the experiments. In 2007 over20 doctoral students produced altogether four publications with no peer-reviewedarticles in international journals, whereas in 2010 fewer than 20 students producedover 20 publications, including peer-reviewed articles in national and internationaljournals (Westerlund and Karlsen 2013). Hence, seeing doctoral students as pro-ducers of knowledge alongside staff and putting research and publishing at thecenter of studies is also seen as an increase of the whole institution’s national andinternational research contribution.

According to the collected assessment material and the evaluation of the doctoralprogram, there is already some evidence of wider change of academic culture andthat the students have learned to use their learning community for their own growthand wellbeing. After the major revision of curriculum and course work the intensityof informal contacts outside the university seminars between and across the studentpool has been increasing and supports their thesis writing (Westerlund and Karlsen2013). In their responses in the evaluation study students indicate that they use theirpeers as a supervisory resource (see also Stubb 2012, 67), but they also learn genericresearch skills with their extended networks and peers. Moreover, they are ableto use the diversity of their backgrounds. As the projects have increased informalinteraction between and amongst the students, the relationships that are supportedby the Web 2.0 also provide emotional support for the work (Westerlund and Karlsen2013).

7.5 Final Remarks

Despite emerging signs of success, it has to be noted that as some of theold challenges at the Sibelius Academy’s music education doctoral program aredisappearing, new ones have and will arrive through the experiments of research-led teaching and teaching-led research. Intense international interaction demandsthat the new emerging practice needs to be as explicit as possible to avoidmisunderstandings, and writing out rules and outspoken principles may become nec-essary. If competition between the doctoral students is minimized and collaborationcharacterizes best their interaction, teachers need to constantly monitor their newrole and adapt into the moving complex system and continuum of entirely student-led activities, shared research projects and more traditional lecturing. Moreover,

102 H. Westerlund

for teachers every academic year differs from each other as new research-led andteaching-led research projects are invented. Designing research-led teaching andteaching-led research in order to create on the job learning environments involveshowever a great promise. Like Hagyard and Watling argue, collaborative workingunits can fuel change in the whole university and strive for wider institutional change(2012, 80). By not trying to eliminate possible failures, but rather giving a chancefor the unexpected, unforeseen and uncontrolled to emerge, and to be ready forconstant reflection and developmental work we want to believe that the long-termconsequences of this practice will result in – however slow the process may be – awider collaborative research community of music education in Finland and beyond.

References

Bresler, L. (2005). What musicianship can teach educational research. Music Education Research,7(2), 169–183.

Bresler, L., Wasser, J., Hertzog, N., & Lemons, M. (1996). Beyond the lone ranger researcher:Teamwork in qualitative research. Research Studies in Music Education, 7, 15–30.

Davidson, C. N., & Goldberg, D. T. (2010). The future of thinking: Learning institutions in a digitalage. Cambridge/London: MIT Press.

Elton, L. (2005). Scholarship and the research and teaching nexus. In R. Barnett (Ed.), Reshapingthe university. New relationships between research, scholarship and teaching (pp. 108–118).Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Froehlich, H. (2012). Mentoring doctoral students in music education: Personal reflections aboutethical choices and conflict in higher education. ACT, 11(1), 43–61.

Hagyard, A., & Watling, S. (2012). The student as scholar: Research and the undergraduate student.In M. Neary, H. Stevenson, & L. Bell (Eds.), Towards teaching in public: Reshaping the modernuniversity (pp. 68–82). London/New York: Continuum.

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Mandl, H., Gruber, H., & Renki, A. (1996). Communities of practice towards expertise: Socialfoundation of university instruction. In P. B. Baltes & U. M. Staudinger (Eds.), Interactiveminds: Life-span perspectives on the social foundation of cognition (pp. 394–412). Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Phipps, A. (2005). Making academics: Work in progress. In R. Barnett (Ed.), Reshaping theuniversity: New relationships between research, scholarship and teaching (pp. 136–150).Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Reason, P., & Marshall, J. (2001). On supervising graduate research students. In P. Reason& H. Bradbury (Eds.), Handbook of action research: Participative inquiry and practice(pp. 413–419). London: Sage.

Riel, M., & Polin, L. (2004). Online learning communities: Common ground and criticaldifferences in designing technical environments. In S. A. Barab, R. Kling, & J. H. Gray (Eds.),Designing for virtual communities in the service of learning (pp. 2–50). Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Rikandi, I., Karlsen, S., & Westerlund, H. (2010). Bridging practices in Nordic music educationdoctoral programmes: Theorising and evaluating the Finnish application of the Piteå model. InC. F. Thorgersen & S. Karlsen (Eds.), Music, education, and innovation: Festschrift for StureBrändström (pp. 165–187). Luleå: Luleå University of Technology.


Robertson, J., & Bond, C. (2005). Being in the university. In R. Barnett (Ed.), Reshapingthe university: New relationships between research, scholarship and teaching (pp. 79–91).Maidenhead/Berkshire: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.

Sfard, A. (1998). On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one. EducationalResearcher, 27(2), 4–13.

Shacham, M., & Od-Cohen, Y. (2009). Rethinking PhD learning incorporating communities ofpractice. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 46(3), 279–292.

Stubb, J. (2012). Becoming a scholar: The dynamic interaction between the doctoral student andthe scholarly community. Doctoral dissertation, University of Helsinki. Research report 336.https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/32807/Becoming.pdf?sequence=1. Accessed 3May 2012.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Wenger, E., Trayner, B., & De Laat, M. (2011). Promoting and assessing value creation in commu-nities and networks: A conceptual framework. Ruud de Moor Centrum. http://bevtrayner.com/base/docs/Wenger_Trayner_DeLaat_Value_creation.pdf. Accessed 27 Sept 2012.

Westerlund, H., & Karlsen, S. (2013). Designing the rhythm for academic community life:Learning partnerships and collaboration in music education doctoral studies. In G. Helena &W. Heidi (Eds.), Collaborative learning in higher music education (pp. 87–99). London:Ashgate.

https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/32807/Becoming.pdf?sequence=1

http://bevtrayner.com/base/docs/Wenger_Trayner_DeLaat_Value_creation.pdf

http://bevtrayner.com/base/docs/Wenger_Trayner_DeLaat_Value_creation.pdf

Chapter 8The ‘little r’ in Artistic Research Training

Paul Draper and Kim Cunio

Abstract The idea of ‘artistic research’ is increasingly gaining acceptance in theacademy, one of its characteristics being that it accepts subjectivity (aka ‘little r’research) as opposed to traditional scientific or statistical methods (‘big R’ research).Artists investigate, test and question their work, where the personal insights gainedare placed in a context aiming to enhance knowledge both for themselves and withintheir own disciplines. This chapter details a number of interwoven componentswhich present both familiar and unfamiliar thinking about musical practices inorder to explore the following questions: How may musical thinking and its artisticoutcomes be considered ‘research’? And, in what ways may its artefacts best serveto exemplify this?

Keywords Research questions • Improvisation • Method • Design

In a recent visit to a European conservatoire one of the authors here was elated tohave been part of an examination team to experience a week of a so-called ‘researchfestival’. This provided an intensive framework for graduating Master of Musiccandidates to defend their research projects in compelling blends of talk, text, screenand performance. At end of the week, academics and administrators reflected onthis over dinner. Many spoke of the apparent ease with which students expressedthemselves to offer deeply personal insights into their artistic practices while neverseeming to offer any less than complete authenticity and trustworthiness. To whichthe institution’s principal enthusiastically exclaimed, “Ah no, not the British ‘big R’rhetoric. We do ‘little r’ research here – and we’re proud of it!!”

P. Draper (�) • K. CunioQueensland Conservatorium Griffith University, South Brisbane, Australiae-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]


105



106 P. Draper and K. Cunio

These notions of ‘big and little r’ we find provocative and inspiring, while atthe same time resonating with tacit understandings that are beginning to emerge inour own institution in Australia. In this chapter we therefore explore this further viarecent insights and activities of the authors as practicing artists and as supervisorsof student research projects. To do so, we now turn to examine the local context andrecent literature that informs our approach.

8.1 Context

Following the so-called ‘Dawkins reforms’ of the Australian federal governmentin the late 1980s, Colleges of Advanced Education and vocational institutionswere amalgamated with universities. Similar to the later Bologna processes inEurope, this was the beginning of accountability processes that imposed the policymetaphors of public service departments and governments (Bessant 2002). In thearts, this included the implication that research is produced via familiar formatsof text-based arguments by the theoretician and much less so by the practicingartist. This tended to be a natural fit with conservatories where musicology andcomposition were taught and disseminated along traditional lines that could easilybe easily recognised, while performance staff continued to teach (albeit somewhatinvisibly in relation to their own research traditions). More recently, the triennialExcellence for Research in Australia (ERA) evaluation exercise established therecognition of creative works. However, outputs continue to be measured along theboundaries of theoretician or artist – in the case of the former, via books, journals,citation indices, grant successes and so on; in the case of the musician, via relativelylow level proxy measures which include proof of (say) a performance, some formof peer review, and a self-authored 250 word ‘research statement’. Nowhere is therethe opportunity for researchers to portfolio both theoretical and artistic outputs andbe recognised for this – yet oddly, this is exactly what is asked of the higher degreeresearch candidates who are supervised by these same academics.

Research training in music commonly provides a supervisory team comprisinga theoretician as the ‘principal supervisor’ to assist in dissertation writing, theliterature review and method, together with an artist from the field in question toadvise on practical matters but often positioned as an ‘associate supervisor’. Perhapsthis may have been once reasonably conceived given that many practical staff weremature age musicians employed as teachers since before university amalgamations,and consequently their skill base did not usually include exegetical writing. Howeverit is clear that such higher degree qualifications can easily be skewed to inauthenticrepresentation just as Dieter Lesage writes:

The insistence of universities on the obligation of a written supplement seems to demon-strate the university’s lack of confidence either in the capacity of the arts to speak in ameaningful, complex and critical way in a medium of their choosing, or in the university’sown capacity to make sound judgements on the meaning, complexity and criticality ofartistic output as such. What might happen now is that juries will mainly based their

8 The ‘little r’ in Artistic Research Training 107

judgement on a reading of the written supplement, because it complies with a long-standingformat of the doctorate, as if it were the doctorate itself, while at the same time beingtempted to consider the artistic portfolio merely as a supplementary illustration. (2009, 8)

Most recently this has begun to evolve given two important change-enablingevents at the authors’ conservatoire, the first in relation to practice-based researchprograms, the Master of Music (M.Mus) and the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA).End 2011 was a watershed where record numbers of research candidates graduatedand in particular, some 12 doctoral completions presented formats which beginto ‘brand’ the DMA following its introduction in 2005. Within this mix wereinnovative and internationally successful outcomes beyond any unique selling pointof scientists or musicologists, and many of which presented insightful accountsof artistic knowledge. The second impact has been that of an influx of youngeracademics and early career researchers (ECRs). As the theoretical/artistic dividebegins to lessen, teaching and research supervision is increasingly informed by thosewith both Ph.D and artistic prowess to dissolve former notions about divisions oflabour. Further, as even more recent practice-based doctoral graduates begin to beemployed in universities we believe this will continue to accelerate these impacts(Draper and Harrison 2011).

8.2 Approach

In this piece we therefore wish to examine these events, place them in a practicalcontext, and begin to draw conclusions as to some of the next possible steps forartistic research training. To do so, we draw upon the authors’ experiences, researchqualifications, outputs and methods – both as practicing artists and as scholars –but also by virtue of the fact that one author is an older academic (since 1995), amusic technologist/jazz musician with a doctorate in education (EdD), while theother is a Ph.D-equipped composer and ECR who first joined the university in 2009.Our approach will focus on one particular aspect of the research continuum presentwithin our institution – while other projects may investigate education, technology,community music, musicology and so on, this exploration is only concerned withthe methods and issues relating to that of ‘artistic practice as research’ (APaR)(QCRC 2012).

We take clues from one of the earlier historical models for conservatoire researchtraining: the Ph.D-by-Composition presented as a folio of original scores togetherwith an analytical exegesis (vs. the Ph.D-as-book styled musicological dissertation).In our experience we observe striking similarities between this format and that ofthe wider APaR cluster where projects are concerned with artistic development,thinking-through-making and representative artefacts. However the primary barriersto confidence in methodology, questions, findings or outputs would appear to be inrelation to uncertainty about originality and the production of ‘new work’ (Draperand Harrison 2011; Harrison and Emmerson 2009). This is especially apparent forexample in the case of performing artists who interpret other’s materials for theirown applications.


8.3 Questions and Methods

We seek to offer implications for how compositional thinking might be utilized inother musical sub-disciplines and as generic attributes for artistic research in music.Overall, we provide thoughts about answers to the following broad questions forAPaR investigators:

• How may musical thinking and artistic outcomes be considered research?• In what ways might musical artefacts best balance and serve to exemplify this?• To what degree can the research be understood to be embodied in the artwork?• How might traditional notions of questions, literature or method be understood?

To examine these matters we frame an exposition (Schwab 2012) to reveal so-called ‘little r’ thinking in music making, and as such to meet the OECD definitionof research as,

Any creative systematic activity undertaken in order to increase the stock of knowledge,including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this knowledge to devisenew applications. Includes fundamental research, applied research : : : and experimentaldevelopment work leading to new devices, products or processes. (2008)

Drawing from local experiences, we begin with the view that artistic researchborrows and adapts from the social sciences by using qualitative research andintersubjectivity as methods to track and examine the work. Via narrative enquiryin particular (Polkinghorne 1988), we display a juxtaposition of our own creativeand academic texts together with recent research training exemplars in order todisplay both familiar and unfamiliar thinking about musical practices. We usea music composition workflow trajectory as a metaphor to examine processes,documentation and the relationships between the two as Michael Schwab suggests,

If the transformative chain is kept intact, a reader should be able to reconstruct from itstransformation elements of that practice that are essential to the epistemological claim thatis made. The transformation that comes with the ‘writing’ of the ‘article’ exposes practiceas research and develops an epistemological claim within an artistic idea : : : the expositionof research does not start with the ‘writing’ of an ‘article’ but has invariably already startedwith the making of the work. (2012, 25)

8.4 Exposition

Here we examine our design of a performance workshop at a recent interdisciplinaryconference (Draper and Cunio 2012) where we sought to unpack and exploreparticular musical provocations. Given that the audience comprised a wide range ofinterests, one could not assume detailed musical knowledge and we believed that weneeded to take this into account and to understand our audience as an explicit keyconcern (a notion we will later return to). We therefore began by working backwardsfrom a final piece of reasonably accessible, groove-based music to be performed at


the opening of the set, followed then a by an invitation for the audience to ‘livealongside’ us as the musical thinking and methods unfolded over time (Barrett andStauffer 2009), as follows:

1. In relation to musical improvisation (the beginning of a new work);2. The formalization of structure, form and repetition (the arrangement/composi-

tion);3. In the production and rendering of a final indicative work (sound recording

product).

We now document each of these themes in turn while at the same timecontextualising the exposition in relation to the aforementioned questions andresearch training contexts.

8.4.1 First Steps: Research Questions, the Literature,and ‘Improvisation’

Here we wanted to offer our proposal to the audience in a transparent way,not only in terms of how we spoke about our aims (musical thinking and itsoutcomes as research), but also via our live improvisations and the easily understoodrelationships between acoustic guitar and piano. We had earlier exchanged simplerecorded ideas to agree upon a concept that would lend itself well to furtherproduction, remix and performance as a world music influenced piece. This then wasto incorporate the attributes of both what we could do as performers and what wemight say as musicians. For the lay audience, it would seem that do-ing might havemore to do with many hours of physical practice and/or copying others to playbackthe results. In terms of say-ing, the idea of a research process was considerably morealien, that is: to draw upon and combine our personal influences and ‘aural libraries’to consider style, genre, instruments, audiences, and technologies as part of whatcould be described as the ‘lab’ or ‘experimental’ phase of the artistic research justas Huib Schippers writes,

: : : thousands of deeply considered and split-second decisions are made using music nota-tion or memory : : : consulted or remembered recordings in private collection and librariesand performances; learned, acquired and developed values; experience and assessment ofaudience reactions; and probably most importantly an aural library, which, for a maturemusician, would typically consist of 20,000 to 50,000 hours of listening, learning andplaying. (2007, 3)

Other intangibles may also come to bear, for example: while intuition, inspira-tion, interaction, or serendipity may be centrally important they are usually omitted(but in truth, often employed) in many research write-ups which prefer a focuson measurement, statistics and proof of outcome assertions. Still, while proof maydisplay in the artistic ‘products’, the more tacit routes to these achievements are lesswell understood or documented. To this end, the authors have produced a number of


works that examine this further. Some were published as traditional research articlesemploying ethnographic and phenomenographic methods but which also drew uponsoftware technologies to capture, review and present the in-progress works (Draper2011). In other cases, early inner musical workings were explored in internationalconference events to reveal the pathways to realisations of musical outcomes bytaking early ideas and interrogating them via a range of live, improvised variations(Cunio 2011).

These examples tend to be in contrast to two atypical profiles aspiring toenter music research programmes in Australia. In the first, a proposal and entrysuccess is based upon earlier qualifications (in this country, mostly via a first classhonours thesis) and certainly useful writing skills which take a well-worn approach:literature review, methodology, data and findings. The second cohort do not usuallypossess research experience and almost exclusively draw upon traditional musicqualifications and/or their own professional track record to argue a proposal.Application numbers continue to grow, as do practice-based research programmeswhich offer parallel research training as part of a mix of ‘thesis’ and courseworkto meet the government funding requirements for higher degree research. Notably,at this institution a performance audition is not yet part of the entry criteria foreither pathway. Despite best intentions, the practice-based programmes tend toemulate the traditional model. In the first year leading to defence of the project’scontinuation (known as ‘confirmation’ in Australia) many candidates may becomeconfused with a smorgasbord of methodological suggestions from well-meaningtheoreticians. They can begin to lose track of the original proposal while becomingfixated on the mimicking of citations from scholars in distant disciplines. Eventuallymost get through the early milestones and back on track to completion, yet for manyeducators there is uncertainty in how to effectively scaffold the work of practice–based music research.

To return to the improvisation metaphor, there is much in every musician’s tacitknowledge that might be unveiled, explored and pedagogically celebrated. In anearly research proposal, there is usually a vision relating to the candidate’s ownmusic-making, together with their knowledge of others in performance, on record,on the Internet. They follow niggling aspirations for a specialised topic, but thepersonal quest may simultaneously be very broad in terms of ‘can I do that?’,or ‘how can I do better?’, or ‘do I have something unique to offer?’. In reality,more detailed research features only begin to emerge over time and in response tothinking through making (Newbury 2010), and importantly – to then authenticallymake increasing sense to the candidate (and the audience) as new knowledge.Similarly indeterminate elements are also familiar to experienced improvisers, yetin everyday speech and/or many theoretical disciplines this may convey ‘somethingthat is insufficiently prepared and of no lasting value’ (Peters 2009, 9). However asit has been argued in the work of Schippers (2007) and others, clearly there is muchwe might draw upon in response to these common characteristics for early artisticresearch en route to developing the formalised outputs that inevitably arise for allmusic making.


8.4.2 Framing the Work: Method, Design, and ‘Composition’

For the next stage of our conference piece (Draper and Cunio 2012) we workedthrough more of the inner workings – from inspiration and improvisation, to the firststages of formalisation, arrangement of key ideas and the outline of ‘a composition’.In this context it would be fair to say that the computer has not only revolutionisedmusic-making, but all creative endeavours (including that of exegetical writing,versioning, collaboration and dissemination). With music software, early ideas caneasily placed on the page, manipulated, repeated and added to in a fluid waywhere the actual composition takes place after the recording of the individual parts(Cunio et al. 2009). And so here we showed how the same acoustic guitar andpiano improvisations were recorded into a computer, edited, repeated, reflexivelystructured and composed as a narrative to unfolding musical questions that couldhave not been asked earlier. Horacio Vaggione elaborates,

: : : musical processes : : : are not situations ‘out there’ waiting to be discovered: they arerather composed (since they did not exist anywhere before being composed), and hence theycannot be considered properly as modelling activities, even if they use – and deeply absorb –models, knowledge, and tools coming from scientific domains : : : In fact, music transformsthis knowledge and these tools into its own ontological concern: to create specific musicalsituations (musical ‘states of affairs’). (2001, 54)

As we progressed, we added a drum/percussion groove, a ‘B section’ (chorus)in response to the original ideas, new instrumentation, some improvised vocalmelodies, and finally, all overall sketch or ‘tree’ of possible forms – now a detailedproposal with implications for timelines, structure and outcome. At this point, anartistic research methodology began to emerge from such ‘little r’ thinking, but withvariations still on offer, still in play.

These points are examined in some of our earlier work. In the case of RemixingModernism (Emmerson and Draper 2011), a double CD was produced to featureinterpretations and variations on classical piano repertoire. Alongside this a numberof academic publications tracked and analysed the transformation of the musicas it spiralled forward (Draper and Emmerson 2009, 2011; Draper 2010). Inthis it is made clear how musicians draw upon their embodied knowledge toinform both discursive and practical outputs – from one perspective as a concertpianist/musicologist, the other as a record producer/jazz musician. The workresponds to the creation of music in multiple contexts to inform critical thought, andin turn, to stimulate new rounds of music making and writing about it. Elsewhere,in The War on the Critical Edition Volume 1 (Cunio 2010) it is argued that multipleiterations comprise a crucial part of the research evidence, in this case, that sessionson a computer are to composition what revisions are to historical score, what ‘trackchanges’ are to a text document. The tree of music creation therefore becomesmarkedly different if the protagonist devises effective processes to document andpresent these revelations accordingly.

In terms of doctoral projects, many dissertations may have been once presented tooffer exactly the opposite logic – that is, as if the questions, methods, and outcomes


were designed and conceived at the outset according to ‘big R’ best practice. Inreality there may be much to-ing and fro-ing where the work is highly iterative –questions are revised, methods changed as the data emerges, scope reduced as morefindings come to light – all of which is a natural process in harmony with theguidance of good supervision. What is less conventional until only quite recently, isthat the authentic ‘messiness’ of practice-based research is displayed in coherentrepresentations of an evolving trajectory. The Intersection of Improvisation andComposition (Knight 2011) is one such DMA that clearly brings together many ofthe artistic research elements discussed thus far. The project scrutinizes the author’spersonal development as a jazz musician alongside an historical account of relatedAustralian music practices. This context is then used as a framework to examinea series improvisation and experimentation events that form the raw materials forthe author’s on-going compositional and performance outcomes. The ExtendedFlautist (Penny 2009) is another doctoral project that traces such a journey througha discursive musicology, an embodied scholarly encounter of narrative, analysisand performance. Much decision-making and variation on the ‘composition’ ofperformances is displayed through a series of figures, concept maps, scores andaudio-visual recordings in order to thoroughly reveal the emergence of complexmethodological design.

Common to these examples is the interplay of thoughtful multimedia artefacts,compelling reflective writing and an overall sense of transformation to display thedynamic nature of time-based works essential to the epistemological aims of theauthors. There is an evolution of thinking shown to be driven by the music-makingand embodied in both text and artworks, and notably presented via a carefully stagedportfolio of events and outcomes.

8.4.3 Final Stages: Presentation, Dissemination, and ‘Product’

The final stages of our conference workshop (Draper and Cunio 2012) involved theways in which we considered our preparation for dissemination (another emergentquestion). Many would have thought this to be via a trajectory of making an album,working with a record company or publisher, or at its most contemporary, by self-publishing a sound recording though an outlet such as Apple’s iTunes store. Therewas an overarching conception of ‘one composition, one product’. In the twenty-first century social networking world, there are many opportunities for other thanthis and so we explored common approaches including: this performance itself asan outcome; the on-going curation of a website around the project; the viral natureof cross-posting documentation and media on other social networks, seed video andaudio hosting/embed sites; and the ‘mastering’ of works for multiple formal outletsincluding via scholarly in-text publication and indeed, on-line commercial musicoutlets.

There were also two other key points we wanted to explore and believe are salientto the discussion here. The first is in terms of differentiating between the internal,


technical aspects of music and the artistic goals that a project may set out to achieve.While the two are essentially interrelated, for performing musicians this may oftenbe difficult to reconcile given their long experience of taking lessons, doing practice,then performing outcomes vs. an often much later conceptual undertaking that mayapply to research projects. Henk Borgdorff elaborates,

Art practices are technically mediated practices. Whether this involves the acousticalcharacteristics of the musical instruments, the physical properties of art materials, thestructure of a building or the digital architecture of a virtual installation, art practices andartworks are materially anchored. Artistic practices are technically mediated at a moreabstract level of materiality as well. Consider the knowledge of counterpoint in music, ofcolour in painting, of editing in filmmaking, or of bodily techniques in dance. (2012, 52).

So, as researchers we need to be clear about technique and artistic aspirations, thelatter of which in our experience extends far beyond the do-ing of it, to the say-ingof it, and importantly – to whom? Again, this is taken up by Borgdorff,

[artistic research] does not limit itself to an investigation into material aspects of art or anexploration of the creative process, but pretends to reach further in the transdisciplinarycontext. Experimental and interpretative research strategies thus transect one another herein an undertaking whose purpose is to articulate the connectedness of art to who we are andwhere we stand. (2010, 57).

All of which is clear is terms of song writing, performing, recording andaudiences – the musician wants to reach out, to communicate something aboutthe world. For example, in Garden and Cosmos, the Royal Paintings of Jodhpur(Cunio et al. 2009) creative works were disseminated via performances and CDsin conjunction with liner notes, web publications and other reflections to presenta range of insights into a single project while responding to multiple audiencesof art aficionados, composers and scholars – a criss-crossing of the material tooffer artistic research as a reading greater than the sum of its constituent parts.Elsewhere, the Swedish-based Society for Artistic Research hosts its ResearchCatalogue to disseminate ‘little-r’ research, and one such piece (Draper 2012)explores asynchronous Internet collaboration to reveal the creation of number ofpieces of music over time, the core data comprising a multi-voice narrative togetherwith emerging music forms. In this online work, each component of the hyperlinkedexposition may be read standalone by various audiences (the musician, the lay-academic etc.) or to be digested and woven together as a rich tapestry of insightsand products.

Similarly in the doctoral cohort, innovations continue to emerge. The interactiveweb-based exegesis, Creating a Virtual Heart (Webber 2011) allows the reader/userto enter and explore the project via a flexible array of entry points and pathways.In this, through his music-making the author uniquely reaches out to a number ofaudiences and powerfully comes to terms with themes of mental disorder, creativityand communication. In another active Ph.D project (Barclay 2012), the candidatepresents an account of music making over time together with the documentation ofa range of international site-specific projects. The work is transdisciplinary, multi-cultural and multi-exegetical while making extraordinary use of broadcast-qualityvideo documentary components, versions of which are designed for free-to-airtelevision audiences.


8.5 Conclusions

In each of the three components of this exposition we have sought to draw out anumber of elements common to our experiences as publishing academics and assupervisors of student research projects. In so doing, patterns and implications haveemerged, all of which now inform a synopsis of these materials in order to providesome answers to our original questions, and in turn, to offer suggestions for theevolution of our research training curricula. As it has been revealed, academics anddoctoral research graduates are on their way to making a difference in the worldof music research and especially as this applies to practicing artists. It is clear thatthree of our four questions have been answered and will continue to be answered assuch artistic research endeavours continue to evolve and flourish. To review these:

• How may musical thinking and artistic outcomes be considered research?• In what ways might musical artefacts best balance and serve to exemplify this?• To what degree can the research be understood to be embodied in the artwork?

In all of the examples explored above, international peer review has it that suchhighly personal musical thinking and its artistic outcomes are indeed research.That portfolio display and/or non-linear representational approaches have beensuccessful, and which make explicit the embodiment of the research in theartwork(s). The commonalities involved would seem to involve a careful craftingof exegetical components through excellent first-person writing skills and associatedqualitative research methods, together with capacities to design and display inherentmultitasking via interwoven representations of images, words, events, and soundsover time. Improvisation begets a clearer sense of self and while exploring theseboundaries, leading to better articulation of an artistic context within its relatedliterature; formalisation and composition leads to structure and method, whiledissemination options and products are in keeping with the time-based nature ofmusic as a discipline. What is less clear is how these same elements relate to ourexisting research training methods and our fourth question:

• How might traditional notions of questions, literature or method be understood?

By using the Ph.D-by-Composition metaphor to explore this, we believe thatimportant attributes have emerged in relation to the sequencing of core elements.Firstly, that some ‘research questions’ develop over time and following of theactual making of the work (Schwab 2012) in highly iterative ways. Similarly formethodology, while this may be emergent it is by no means is less stringent thanwithin other disciplines once a creative context is established, reviewed, and re-adjusted as required through the lifespan of the project. Given these somewhatinverted analogies to conventional research methods, this then begs a furtherquestion as to what might we then consider for our present research trainingcurricula. As outlined earlier, first year training is driven by the necessity to presenta defence at a confirmation event designed to assess a proposal according toits articulation of literature review, research methodology, timelines and chapter


structure (that is, like a conventional text-based thesis). It is therefore clear thatour present early research training responds to this milestone while almost entirelyexcluding any practical music-making considerations. It is also clear why universityregimes might want to avoid the inference of ‘navel-gazing’, unsupported assertionsor simply talking about oneself endlessly. Both extremes are undesirable, just asGregory Bateson quips, ‘rigor alone is paralytic death, but imagination alone isinsanity’ (2002, 7).

Consequently there are indeed plans to restructure our confirmation requirementswhich aim to provide opportunities for alternative formats and creative componentsin concert with a re-examination of supporting course content sequencing (and byway of extended logic, to include auditions for practice-based research applicants).Donald Schön’s seminal work The Reflective Practitioner (1983) offers perceptiveclues as to how this might be conceived for early developmental targets. In this, thenotion of repertoire is key:

When a practitioner makes sense of a situation he perceives to be unique, he sees it assomething already in his repertoire. To see this site as that one is not to subsume the firstunder a familiar category or rule. It is to see the unfamiliar, unique situation as both similarto and different from the familiar one, without at first being able to say similar or differentwith respect to what. The familiar situation functions as a precedent, or a metaphor, or : : :

an exemplar for the unfamiliar one. (138)

This then might usefully pause the quest for detailed research questions as suchan early stage of the process but rather, to clarify the place of the artist within agiven disciplinary terrain, and in so doing begin to naturally explore the notion of‘a literature review’ that may well be a little different to academic norms. While setreadings and introductory methods may be appropriate – including by drawing fromcompletion exemplars and/or ECR publications – what has been locally termed a‘context scan’ (Brown 2011) has resonance for many. In this, candidates expandtheir ideas of repertoire by exploring the work of others through scores, recordings,performances, interviews and Internet artefacts. It is also key that at this point thereshould be a focus on reflective writing methods and ‘a voice’, as Alfonso Montuoriaspires,

: : : a voice or voices, that incorporate both subjective and objective, rational and emotional,theory and experience, risk and trust. This makes the task of being [an artist] also a task ofself-development, of finding one’s own identity in dialog with and through the world oneis studying. Then indeed, our work can become an inquiry into the dialogic and recursiverelationship between subject and object, self and other, head and heart, an ongoing invitationto, and navigation of, the paradoxical nature of the creative process. (2003, 253–254).

Post-confirmation we suggest the sensible application of ‘just in time’ peda-gogy (Watson and Temkin 2000) like for other professional fields where specificmethodologies are bought to bear as required and in terms of fitness for purpose ona per-project basis. At this conservatoire, we might relocate but continue to drawupon an established range of qualitative research training expertise, including forauto-ethnography, action research, phenomenography, narrative enquiry and so on,but where an overall trajectory is customised through the practice itself and thedetailed research questions which will emerge en route, as Mark Smith elaborates,


: : : it is here that the full importance of reflection-on-action becomes revealed. As wethink and act, questions arise that cannot be answered in the present. The space affordedby recording, supervision and conversation with our peers allows us to approach these.Reflection requires space in the present and the promise of space in the future. (1994, 150)

Our final comments would be in relation to the ever-present use of softwaretechnologies in the display of the many portfolio works we have reviewed here.It would seem that the multidimensional representations move beyond the simplebinaries of professional practice or scholarly research, but genuinely into a ‘thirdspace’ as Borgdorff describes,

: : : a discursive justification of the research will be necessary with the academic discoursein mind, while the artistic findings will have to convince the art world as well : : : a thirdpossibility is to express something in and with language which can be understood as a‘verbalization’ or ‘conceptual mimesis’ of the artistic outcome. The concepts, thoughts andutterances ‘assemble themselves around the artwork, so that the artwork begins to speak’. Incontrast to and interpretation of the artistic work or a reconstruction of the artistic process,the latter option involves an emulation or imitation of, or an illusion to, the non-conceptualcontent embodied in the art. (2010, 58)

This is a work in progress. In the very first designs of our practice-basedprogrammes, ideas for the nature of portfolios were clear. Opportunities to supportand develop technological skills were made available through course work offerings,yet puzzlingly were met with resistance and/or dissatisfaction by candidates. Somesaw this as an unnecessary distraction from their musical work (but which infact more closely resembled Ph.D theses at the time), others did not appear tounderstand the potential application of generic tools (taught largely by technologystaff). Nonetheless, it is clear that the creative drive will win out (Barclay 2012;Knight 2011; Penny 2009; Webber 2011), sometimes by drawing upon existing skillsets, in other cases once again via a just-in-time approach. Technological support issomething we will need to revisit in the future in terms of course work offeringsand/or dedicated associate supervisor support. However, as i-devices, the web andsocial networks continue to impact on our capacities as ‘pro-sumers’ and mediaauthors it may well be that these concerns recede ever further into the background. Ina world that is ever-connected to a clangourous ecology of do-it-yourself content andshort term thinking, one can only be positive about the potential for excellent art.

References

Barclay, L. (2012). Personal website. leahbarclay.com. Accessed 1 Dec 2012.Barrett, M. S., & Stauffer, S. L. (2009). Narrative inquiry: From story to method. In M. S. Barrtett

& S. L. Stauffer (Eds.), Narrative inquiry in music education: Troubling certainty (pp. 7–17).Dordrecht/London: Springer.

Bateson, G. (2002). Mind and nature: A necessary unity. Cresskill: Hampton Press.Bessant, J. (2002). Dawkins’ higher education reforms and how metaphors work in policy making.

Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 24(1), 87–99.Brown, A. R. (2011, August 30). Context scan. Queensland Conservatorium research colloquium

presentation. Brisbane: Griffith University.

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Cunio, K. (2010, November 30–December 3). The war on the critical edition, volume 1. InProceedings of CreateWorld 2009. Brisbane: Apple University Consortium.

Cunio, K. (2011). The war on the critical edition, volume 2: Piano games, artistic experimentationand new composition. In X-periment: An international dialogue on artistic experimentation,Orpheus Research Centre in Music (ORCIM) Third Annual Research Festival. Ghent.

Cunio, K., Ramani, N., Lee, H., Beier, T., Al-freh, N., Ng, N., & Cunio, B. (2009). Garden andcosmos: The royal paintings of Jodhpur. Exhibition, performance and music CD. Lotus FootLFP 112.2. Performance video available at www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/channel/clip/160.

Draper, P. (2010). Foreign objects and the art of interpretation. In Proceedings of The SecondInternational Conference on Music Communication Science. Sydney, 3–4 Dec 2009.

Draper, P. (2011). Toward a musical monograph: Working with fragments from within theimprovisation-composition nexus. Journal on the Art of Record Production 6 [online].

Draper, P. (2012). Toward a personal understanding of artistic research through musical improvisa-tion, performance, and the production of sound recordings. Research Catalogue [online]. http://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/24832/24833. Accessed 1 Dec 2012.

Draper, P., & Cunio, K. (2012, December 3–5). The little-r in artistic research. Performance andworkshop, in CreateWorld 2012 conference. Brisbane: Apple University Consortium.

Draper, P., & Emmerson, S. (2009). Music, recording and the art of interpretation. In Proceedingsof CreateWorld 2008. Brisbane, 9–12 Dec 2008.

Draper, P., & Emmerson, S. (2011). Remixing modernism: Re-imagining the music of Berg,Schoenberg and Bartok in our time. Journal of the Art of Record Production 5 [online].

Draper, P., & Harrison, S. (2011). Through the eye of a needle: The emergence of a practice-leddoctorate in music. British Journal of Music Education, 28(1), 87–102.

Emmerson, S. (Performer), & Draper, P. (Sound producer). (2011). Remixing modernism: Musicby Berg (Sonata), Schoenberg (3 Pieces opus 11) and Bartók (Bagatelles op.6). Double MusicCD. Move records. MD 3341. Project overview at www29.griffith.edu.au/apar. Accessed 12March 2013.

Harrison, S., & Emmerson, S. (2009). The challenges of supervision of a doctorate in practicebased research in music: Perceptions of students and supervisors. TEXT 6 [online].

Knight, P. H. (2011). The intersection of improvisation and composition: A music practice in flux.Doctor of Musical Arts dissertation. Brisbane: Griffith University. www120.secure.griffith.edu.au/rch/items/90c4f35c-c284-e54a-1e3f-6b9d5fabcad8/1. Accessed 1 Dec 2012.

Newbury, D. (2010). Research training in the creative arts and design. In M. Biggs & H. Karlsson(Eds.), The research companion to research in the arts (pp. 368–387). Oxon: Routledge.

Penny, M. J. (2009). The extended flautist: Techniques, technologies and performer perceptionsin music for flute and electronics. Doctor of Musical Arts dissertation. Brisbane: Griffith Uni-versity. www120.secure.griffith.edu.au/rch/items/3291d372-069a-9296-bbff-4134d332f48a/1.Accessed 1 Dec 2012.

Peters, G. (2009). The philosophy of improvisation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Polkinghorne, D. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. Albany: SUNY Press.QCRC. (2012). Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, ‘artistic practice as research’

cluster. www.griffith.edu.au/music/queensland-conservatorium-research-centre/research/artistic-practice-as-research. Accessed 1 Dec 2012.

Schippers, H. (2007). The marriage of art and academia: Challenges and opportunities for musicresearch in practice-based environments. Dutch Journal of Music Theory, 12, 34–40.

Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. London: TempleSmith.

Schwab, M. (2012). Exposition writing. In Yearbook for artistic research and development (pp.16–26). Stockholm: Swedish Research Council.

Watson, C., & Temkin, S. (2000). Just-in-time teaching: Balancing the competing demandsof corporate America and academe in the delivery of management education. Journal ofManagement Education, 24(6), 763–778.

Webber, C. (2011). Creating a virtual heart: Arts practice with a defective mind. Doctor of MusicalArts dissertation. Brisbane: Griffith University. colinwebber.com. Accessed 1 Dec 2012.

www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/channel/clip/160

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http://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/24832/24833

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www120.secure.griffith.edu.au/rch/items/90c4f35c-c284-e54a-1e3f-6b9d5fabcad8/1

www120.secure.griffith.edu.au/rch/items/3291d372-069a-9296-bbff-4134d332f48a/1

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colinwebber.com

Chapter 9Some Challenges of Practice Based/CentredEnquiry

Oscar Odena

Abstract Finding a methodological approach within which to work is notstraightforward for practitioner-researchers engaged in practice centred enquiry.These enquiries typically have a qualitative orientation, sometimes centred on asmall sample of participants, allowing for an in-depth analysis of particular casesand interactions rather than a general analysis of populations. These projects tendto result in knowledge that is useful for other practitioners and in the researchers’enhancement of their own reflectivity skills-set. Authors of such projects alsobecome practitioners with increased sensitivity and understanding of how researchknowledge is produced and reported. This chapter focuses on these issues withinthe context of music education research.

Keywords Research approach • Dissemination • Practice-centred research

9.1 Introduction

There is an expanding body of literature on applied social research, focussing on anumber of aspects such as undertaking a research project and achieving a researchdegree.1 This literature has developed rapidly with the increasing number of higher

Parts of this chapter draw on and rework Odena (2004, 2007) and Odena and Cabrera (2006).1The growing body of literature on research degrees covers a number of areas, including bookson how to achieve a doctorate (Burgess et al. 2006; Phillips and Pugh 2010; Smith 2009),how to develop academic writing (Kamler and Thomson 2006), and how to supervise researchstudents (Lee 2011; Määttä 2012; Thomson and Walker 2010). A few publications focus on thestudents’ viewpoints (e.g. Forrest 2003, 2010; Odena and Burgess 2013) but most are based on theperspective of the authors as supervisors.

O. Odena (�)University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UKe-mail: [email protected]


119


120 O. Odena

degrees that include an element of ‘professional’ or ‘practice based’ enquiry. Overthe last three decades such degrees were introduced across knowledge areas asdiverse as Business, Education, Creative Arts and Engineering in many English-speaking universities (Gregory 1995; Green et al. 2001). Although what is offeredunder this umbrella varies between universities, professional and practice basedresearch generally means that the enquiry is centred on the professional practiceof the student.

A number of implications of the introduction of professional research degrees tothe landscape of research degree programmes have been considered in the literature(e.g. Taylor 2008). These programmes are often part-time (but not always) and tendto attract candidates that are in employment or have a number of years of workexperience. For example, a study of professional doctorates in 12 UK universitiesidentified the differences between the students and tutors relations/pedagogic modesacross three areas: the Doctorate in Education (EdD), the Doctorate in BusinessAdministration (DBA) and the Doctorate in Engineering (EngD); whereas EngDstudents, who were called ‘research engineers’, received specialised input fromindustry engineers and moved ‘between distinct communities of practice underthe guidance of expert practitioners’, EdD and DBA students were presented as‘expert practitioners’ on entry to the programme (Lunt et al. 2002, 8). EdD andDBA supervisors were described as ‘facilitating critical reflection on practice andguiding the development of research’ (8). In all programmes the importance of thetutors’ role in guiding the production of the final thesis was highlighted, with sometensions between the stress placed on the development of practical knowledge andthe ultimate examination of the thesis against largely individual academic criteria.These tensions echo the assessment of many masters and undergraduate researchprojects centred on the students’ workplaces and placements.

Although the term ‘practice based research/enquiry’ is used in prospectusesand handbooks, the assessment of written research reports and dissertations is notbased on the quality of the authors’ practice but their research, so perhaps the term‘practice centred research’ would be more appropriate. This chapter is aimed at dis-cussing some of the challenges encountered by students and practitioners engagedin this type of enquiry. Centring one’s research on one’s own practice brings with ita number of particular challenges for practitioner-researchers. For reasons of spacein the following three sections only three challenges will be considered: findinga valid research approach; addressing multiple audiences; and the possibility ofdisseminating results with research participants. The words enquiry and researchwill be used interchangeably, both meaning systematic collection and analysisof data to address a particular aim (or aims) and its subsequent dissemination.Implications for practice centred enquiry are considered in the concluding section.Most of the examples and literature discussed below draw on music educationresearch but it is acknowledged that similar implications would apply to otherdisciplines.

9 Some Challenges of Practice Based/Centred Enquiry 121

9.2 Finding a Valid Research Approach

For practicing musicians and teachers who are undertaking research as part ofa degree and/or for their continuing professional development, finding the rightresearch approach is not always straightforward. The issue at stake for most ofthem is the need to develop an approach that is fit for purpose: one that allowsthem to continue working while they carry out their enquiry, and that is likelyto assist in producing knowledge relevant for enhancing their own practice. Dueto the nature of the projects, often carried out singlehandedly within a limitedtimeframe and sample, a number of qualitative research approaches appear to befavoured. These include, for example, case study and action research, althoughsome researchers describe their methodology as ‘qualitative enquiry’ if what theydo does not clearly fit any given methodological approach as described in researchhandbooks (e.g. Cohen et al. 2011). In recent years, elements of narrative enquiryare increasingly being used in masters and doctoral dissertations, some authorsemploying terms such as ‘narrative case study’ to acknowledge their particularmethodological stance (Barrett and Stauffer 2009). Two illustrative examples fromdissertations that embraced case study and action research approaches are outlinednext, with particular attention to the focus, setting and knowledge generated by theirauthors.

In the first example, Pim (2009) chose a case study methodology to investigatehow music was used as a tool for early intervention to develop communication withtwo twins on the Autistic spectrum. The project was based in the school where sheworked and access was easily negotiated with staff, children and parents. She usedobservations, interviews and questionnaires to explore the interactions of the twinswith the peers in their class, as well as to gather the perceptions of their parents andteachers, including a music specialist whose one-to-one sessions where the mainfocus of the case study. She summarised her findings and the practical implicationsemerging from her study as follows:

Listening skills, turn taking, eye contact and attention skills, all of which are essentialwhen learning to speak, can be developed through 1:1 music sessions. After one year, andcompleting 1:1 music sessions weekly, Ben’s speech (pseudonym) had changed from singlevowel sounds in a quiet monotone whisper to that of a confident child whose speech wasfull of intonation, pronunciation and controlled projection of his voice. The results suggestthat the twins would benefit from continuing the extra music sessions to promote theircommunication. These suggestions will be added to each twin’s individual interventionprogramme in order to further develop their speech and language skills. (Pim 2009, 2)

Out of a systematic enquiry based on just one set of twins in a single school overa period of two terms, she developed knowledge which was (a) useful to enhancethe learning opportunities of her participants as well as (b) valid to develop herprofessionally. Even though she was not sure what methodology to choose at thebeginning of the study, after exploring the literature and attending a few supervisorymeetings she decided to embrace a case study approach, as she was not directly

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teaching the twins and this approach appeared to be fit for purpose. At the end ofthe project, she fed her findings back to the school’s Board of Governors, staff andparents, making sure the data collected and its interpretation could be used by themto further develop the brothers’ communication skills.

In the second example, Cabrera et al. (2006) used an action research approachto explore the use of dramatisation as a tool to improve musical learning anddecrease performance anxiety of conservatory students. This project was the finaldissertation of Cabrera’s 4-year advanced music degree, who developed an originalidea from her clarinet teacher (Lluna). She tried to go beyond the music score,looking for alternative sources that could help in the performance of a pieceand potentially improve the students’ understanding of the score. In order to dothis she worked with Mozart’s clarinet concerto in A Major KV622, a frequentchoice in orchestra auditions, with the assistance of five advanced clarinet studentsfrom Barcelona, Spain. Following a number of stages akin to those of a literatureinformed one-turn action research project (e.g. Cain et al. 2007), a study methodwas created to enhance the students’ understanding of the music score. First theytalked with three experienced performers who acted as key informants prior tofinalising the research design. Over a period of 2 months the participating studentsworked with the concerto’s first movement, whose musical passages were associatedwith the different characters of a selection of roles from Mozart’s opera TheMagic Flute (i.e. Tamino, Pamina, Queen of the night, Papageno and Sarastro).A total of four individual and group study sessions were video recorded with thestudents.2 The researcher continuously assessed the participants’ development andthe implementation of the activities following a cycle of planning, acting, observingand reflecting. Students also completed an initial evaluation questionnaire and wereinterviewed at the end of the project.

The music study method that was developed helped the students to betterunderstand the concerto, seeing the music like a large theatre play where thecharacters interact telling a story, and in doing so, giving a greater meaning towhat they try to communicate. In the first session, participants completed the initialevaluation questionnaire and they were introduced to the project. In the secondsession they analysed the plot of The Magic Flute and the concerto’s score, watchingextracts from a DVD and considering the historical context of Mozart’s life. Inaddition, two professional clarinet players demonstrated the differences betweenthe clarinet and the di bassetto clarinet, for which the concerto was originallywritten. With the aim of revising the structure, phrasing, articulation, sound andthe orchestral part, participants took the third session individually. In the finalsession all the students played together the concerto’s first movement accompaniedby a pianist. They wore costumes inspired by the characters of The Magic Fluteand the concerto was transformed into a ‘Magic clarinet’ opera. Just before thisperformance they acted a short theatre scene inspired in the opera’s characters, andthe score was analysed once again distributing the musical passages between the

2A discussion of the use of video in educational research is available in Odena (2001, 2002).


Fig. 9.1 Advanced clarinet students playing in the final public session of the ‘Magic clarinet’(Photo by the author)

five characters (the clarinet melody was divided into passages and allocated to thedifferent characters trying to match the emotions depicted in the music). In the finalgroup performance each participant played only the musical passages allocated toher/his character. As a result, only one clarinet player (in costume and ‘in character’)played at any one time, apart from the movement’s final phrase that was played byall at unison (see Fig. 9.1). All project sessions but the third were open to the public.

Considering the data from the research diary and the students’ initial and finalassessments, it is apparent that participants not only perceived an improvement oftheir performance but also felt a positive change regarding their implication and atti-tude towards performing this otherwise technically demanding piece. Participantssaid that acting the short play before the final concert helped them to rememberthey were ‘actors playing on stage’ and that they had ‘to entice and persuade thespectator’. Being part of this enquiry helped these advanced students to ‘loosefear of the concerto’, and to ‘see it with renewed eyes’. The activities assistedthem in better communicating their emotions through music. Several theories maybe used to understand the improvements reported (e.g. Wilson and Roland 2002;Gardner 1993; Odena 2007, 2008). For instance, Gardner (1993) describes sevendifferent types of capacities that he calls intelligences (musical, mathematical,kinaesthetic, interpersonal, personal, spatial and linguistic) and argues intelligencescan be developed, especially with activities combining two or more. He observesthat even though professional musicians use the capacities related with the musicalintelligence, they also use other intelligences depending on their job: for instancekinaesthetic (string players), interpersonal (conductors), spatial and linguistic intel-ligences (opera conductors). Score dramatisation as described above appears tohave aided in linking together visual, aural and sensory-motor representations ofthe score, enhancing individual and group learning. The conclusions of the project

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suggested that this method could be adapted to students and performers at all levelsas using different capacities may enhance the players’ understanding of the piece,aiding self-confidence and decreasing performance anxiety. Emotional involvementwhen learning a piece would also assist memorisation and develop the players’ ownpersonal significance of the score (Odena 2012).

As in the previous case study example, at the beginning of her enquiry Cabrerawas not sure about which methodological approach to embrace and she spent anumber of weeks exploring the literature and talking with key informants. Actionplans were drafted and, in the end, action research felt naturally as the most validapproach given the exploratory and applied nature of her enquiry process.3 Eventhat this was not the obvious choice of approach from the outset, keeping an openmind when developing the music study method allowed her to incorporate relevantideas and, ultimately, produce useful knowledge.

9.3 Addressing Multiple Audiences

Practitioner-researchers often need to feed their results back to a variety of audiencessuch as employers, colleagues and research participants, as well as the broaderprofessional and research communities in which they serve. Some reasons for doingthis include good practice (debriefing participants), making a positive impact in theworkplace (sharing results with colleagues) and disseminating results beyond theresearch setting (through publications and conferences organised by subject, pro-fessional and research associations). To increase the impact of research on practicethere is a need to engage in a range of dissemination activities addressing multipleaudiences. Hence each audience’s particular needs and expectations would seem tobe important issues to take into account. However, these are not often consideredin the calls for papers and codes of ethics for research dissemination. For instance,the code of ethics for research publication/presentation of the American NationalAssociation for Music Education (MENC) includes the following statement:

Papers submitted for presentation via any format (e.g., posters, paper-reading sessions)should not have been presented at another major conference. If the data have been presentedin whole or substantive part in any forum, in print, or at previous research sessions, astatement specifying particulars of the above must be included with the submission. (MENC2009, 285)

3Some education scholars that developed action research as an approach for curriculumdevelopment in the 1970s (e.g. Elliott and Adelman 1975) argue that nowadays it has becomeover-individualised because the university assessment criteria has a bearing on students (Elliott andNorris 2012). Elliott argues that action research has been colonised by university ‘methodologists’(Elliott et al. 2012). Nevertheless, ideas can take a life of their own after publication and it is notpossible to predict how readers may use them.


This code of ethics is based on the publication manual of the AmericanPsychological Association (2001) and taken as an example by journals (Journalof Research in Music Education) and major conferences in the field (ResearchCommission of the International Society for Music Education). But given thatseveral national and international associations exist with their particular audiences,strengths and geographical locations, it would be reasonable to assume that, as longas the audience is properly taken into account, an investigation should be allowed tobe reported at more than one major conference.

Hargreaves (2002) observed that when delivering papers one had to take intoaccount the professional practices of the audience and in so doing change theemphasis of the communication to reflect whether they were educators, psychol-ogists or musicologists. In fact the dissemination of research projects in differentformats to a variety of audiences is a fairly common practice, for example whenauthors present papers based on their (larger) research reports. And as long as this isopenly acknowledged, there does not seem to be a strong reason why this should becensored when the implications may be of value for educators elsewhere, and whenone of the aims of our open research culture should be this, i.e. communication.

9.4 The Possibility of Disseminating Results with ResearchParticipants

An additional issue to consider, particularly in qualitative studies focussed on asmall number of individuals, is the involvement of participants in disseminationactivities. This is discussed very little in current research in music education.Following social sciences’ research ethics the identities of participants are oftenautomatically undisclosed. For example, the latest guidelines of the British Educa-tional Research Association include the following recommendation:

The confidential and anonymous treatment of participants’ data is considered the normfor the conduct of research. Researchers must recognize the participants’ entitlement toprivacy and must accord them their rights to confidentiality and anonymity, unless they ortheir guardians or responsible others, specifically and willingly waive that right. In suchcircumstances it is in the researchers’ interests to have such a waiver in writing. (BERA2011, 7)

And the guidelines of the British Psychological Society state:

Researchers will respect the privacy of individuals, and will ensure that individuals arenot personally identifiable, except in exceptional circumstances and then only with clear,unambiguous informed consent. They will respect confidentiality, and will ensure thatinformation or data collected about individuals are appropriately anonymised and cannotbe traced back to them by other parties, even if the participants themselves are not troubledby a potential loss of confidentiality. (BPS 2010, 9)

Following standard practices, sharing the data analysis with participants is notoften considered as it could break confidentiality, ruling out most possibilities of

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research dissemination with them, for instance at conferences. In practice centredresearch there may be good reasons to keep names of practitioners and placesundisclosed, for example, when focussing on an underperforming school. Whenthis happens, it is difficult to describe and illustrate the project’s setting in detail,as photos and video recordings cannot be disseminated. The side effect of blanketconfidentiality protocols, nevertheless, is that papers may end up being formatted asstandard pieces of academic text – with plenty of references to other similar pieces –which may increase the perceived gap between research and practice observed to theauthor by some practitioners attending major conferences.

Perhaps a more case-by-case ethical protocol may be used to share data whenfeasible. For example, an article by Rex et al. (2002) shows that participants’identities may be disclosed and they can be acknowledged as authors when theywillingly contribute to the final report. Their article illustrates to what extent theteachers’ pedagogical stories shape the students’ classroom participation and perfor-mance, focussing on two teachers of English literature and their classrooms. At theoutset, the two teachers (Hobbs and McEachen) and the university researchers (Rexand Murnen) agreed to share the data and the analysis to serve their professionalpurposes, and they also agreed that ‘all four voices would be represented in anypublications based on the data’ (Rex et al. 2002, 795). To this end a section isincluded in the paper with the teachers’ response to the researchers’ analysis,providing their own perspectives of the investigation. These are then taken intoaccount in the final discussion of implications by the researchers.

In another example, Cain et al. (2007) shared the dissemination of three of hispostgraduate music education students’ one-turn action research projects, showinghow an international audience can be reached even with small-scale enquiries led bystudent teachers. Indeed, discussing and sharing decisions with participants through-out the different stages of a research project, including analysis and dissemination,may be a useful strategy to increase the project’s validity and relevance for all(Leitch et al. 2007).

9.5 Conclusion: Some Implications for PracticeCentred Enquiry

If one of the aims of our open research culture is to disseminate the results of studiesamongst a multifaceted and growing community, it would be reasonable to assumethat any guidelines for participation give further consideration to the sensitive issuesdiscussed above. To overcome any over-individualised trends in practice centredenquiry (in part brought about by individualised assessment criteria) collaborationbetween researchers focussing on practice may be encouraged further. For example,Burnard and Younker (2002) discussed aspects of their investigations on creativityin composition, considering sets of data from their previous studies in Canada, UK


and Australia. Combining data from previous investigations could be encouragedespecially when the datasets come from different school systems and are used todevelop further reflection. Lepherd (1995, 3) observes that the study of differenteducation practices offers music educators ‘a broader perspective within which theycan assess and attempt to resolve their own problems’. Re-examination of existingdata has been recognised as a good exercise in educational research:

It is only by drawing upon and drawing together the findings from each other’s work that asynthesis of research in a particular area can begin to influence and improve music teachingpractice in the way that it should. (Stevens 2000, 72)

Burnard and Younker (2002, 248) observed that reusing data from their earlierprojects for further interrogation ‘offered the opportunity to construct links betweenfindings’ and to develop ‘conceptual frameworks and theoretical positions’ fromthem. In fact, as long as some basic information such as the provenance andauthorship of the original studies are disclosed, authors would need to be allowed topresent new research from old data without restrictions, always taking into accountthe particular audience to be addressed.

Consequently addressing the audience and previous dissemination would needto be considered further in codes of practice and calls for papers, which might needto incorporate specific guidelines to report these issues if they aim to be inclusiveof practice centred enquiries. A further issue has been discussed concerningthe possibility of dissemination activities with research participants. It has beenobserved that although ethic protocols advise researchers to protect the participants’identity, in some qualitative studies where a small number of individuals areinvolved confidentiality could be negotiated on a case-by-case basis. Data andits analysis could then be used to serve the professional purposes of all actorsinvolved. For example in investigations where educational settings are observed(e.g. musical development studies) there would be no apparent reason to keep theidentity of participants confidential as long as it was agreed beforehand. In addition,if prospective participants were willing to share the analysis of data, their point ofview from both the practice perspective and the research process experience couldbe incorporated into the final analyses (e.g. Leitch et al. 2007; Rex et al. 2002). Theywould then be able to share the research dissemination with the researchers, whichin turn might increase the relevance and impact of research on practice. Invitationsfor researchers to share the dissemination with participants could be included incalls for papers, and this may potentially enrich the overall experience of conferencedelegates and readers.

Sharing dissemination poses added challenges regarding authorship. The codesof ethics referred to earlier concur in that contributions of a professional charactermade by individuals to a common project would need to be recognized by jointauthorship of publications. In the case of students and tutors, there should be aserious conversation between them from the first year of supervision regarding thefuture use of the student’s project. The data from students’ investigations needs tobe acknowledged by anyone using it, especially their supervisors. In this way both

128 O. Odena

students and supervisors can engage in an intellectual dialogue that is enriching andcan open paths for further research.4

As observed above, finding a methodological approach within which to workmay not be straight forward for practitioner-researchers engaged in practice centredenquiry. These enquiries often (but not always) have a qualitative orientationand are centred on a relatively small sample of participants, allowing for anin-depth analysis of particular cases and interactions rather than a general analysisof populations. These projects tend to result in knowledge that is useful forother practitioners and in the researchers’ enhancement of their own reflectivityskills-set. Researchers in turn become practitioners with increased sensitivity andunderstanding of how research knowledge is produced and reported. The discussionin this chapter has been focussed within the context of music education research.Nevertheless, a glance through the World Wide Web shows that these matters arealso relevant to other areas in the arts, humanities and social sciences, due to theincreasing number of degrees, publications and conferences with an element ofpractice centred enquiry.

Acknowledgments Special thanks to the staff and students at the Superior School of Music ofCatalonia where the Fig. 9.1 photo was taken.

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4Examples of this positive interaction are the studies by Lennon (1996), França e Silva (1998) andMarkea (2002), who explored some of their supervisor’s ideas in different educational settings.For example, Lennon (1996) and Markea (2002) used Swanwick’s musical development theoriesto analyse piano teachers’ thinking on practice, in Ireland and Greece respectively. França e Silva(1998) used them to assess musical understanding across various modalities of music making(composing, performing and audience-listening). Swanwick (2001) then referred to some of thesestudies when developing his later work. These intellectual dialogues sometimes crystallised incombined authorship of papers (Swanwick and França 1999). In the author’s case this dialoguewas started with former doctoral supervisors (Odena et al. 2005; Odena and Welch 2007, 2009,2012) and continued with students and colleagues (Odena and Cabrera 2006; Cabrera et al. 2006;Odena and Spruce 2012; Spruce and Odena 2012).


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Chapter 10Addressing the Politics of Practice-BasedResearch and Its Potential Contributionto Higher Music Education

Pam Burnard

Abstract This chapter makes the case for why music institutions and academiesshould count on practice-based research as vital modes of postmodern knowl-edge. Practice-based research offers new priorities, new narratives, new forms ofknowledge, new ways of ‘knowing how to speak’ and ‘knowing how to hear’.Practice-based researchers are people who put themselves into ‘play’ in theirinstitutions by assigning themselves the posts of enquirer. They thus define whathas the right to be said and done in the learning culture in question and since theyare themselves a part of that culture, they are legitimated by the simple fact that theydo what they do.

Keywords Politics • Policy • Higher education

10.1 Introduction

Practice-based research is not new. The granting of masters or doctorate degrees tomusicians (performers, composers, improvisers, sound designers and sound artists)on the basis of their artwork is not new. The idea of art practice as research isalso not new: artistic research programmes are a feature of most music institutesoffering doctoral arts studies in Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States andAustralia (Borgdorff 2012). The debates concerning criteria for assessing whetheractivities qualify as ‘art practice-in-itself’ and ‘art practice intended-as-research’

P. Burnard (�)University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UKe-mail: [email protected]


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(Borgdorff 2012, 43) have been simmering quietly for some time.1 In fact, theway in which practice coupled with research advances knowledge, generally, andinterest, more specifically, in visual and performing arts practice-based research2

has mushroomed in the past couple of decades. This interest in higher professionaleducation (as carried out in art academies, conservatories and other professionalschools of the performing arts) and in university music education has been drivenmainly by: (i) the growth of postgraduate and higher degrees in music in theuniversity and conservatoire sector; (ii) new thinking and insights being appliedwithin the field of music performance in the attempt to extend the methodologicalscope of research on music performance; (iii) the ever-expanding practice-basedenvironments and enquiries that form the foundations of music; (iv) the expectationsarising from higher education reforms in many countries, in terms of a morepluralistic approach to the interpretation and evaluation of research outputs; and(v) the lack of professional norms and scholarly propositions that describe howthe research-practice gap in music can be addressed. Recently, however, the debateover competing approaches has been intensified. The debates are best known toadvocates of the use and development of the field of arts practice. Artistic researchor situation-oriented research as practice advances and makes explicit what is beingclaimed as original by the author for the research as a paradigm for higher degreesin music performance (for practice-based research across generations of researchersand contexts see: Candlin 2000; Gabrielsonn 2003; Leder 1995; Schippers 2007;Bennett et al. 2010).

Practice-based research, where the role of practice is the focus, is often devolvedfrom the reflexive process of documenting and self-describing the making of acreative artwork, and is developed and communicated across different fields ofinquiry. The role of practice, either in research on music performance for higherdegrees, or in the creative industries, requires an understanding of ‘practice’ andthe way in which one conceptualises artistic practice as a research site (Sullivan2005). As argued by Bowman, ‘the simple question “When is : : : .” when applied to

1See Borgdorff (2012) for a plurality of discussions of the ontological, epistemological andmethodological questions that combine to form a different paradigm or world-view at work in artsresearch in general. I argue, however, that the utility of a new paradigm or worldview will depend,to some extent, on how it fits a particular culture and the culturally located and current theoriesat the centre of the activity and performance being conceptualized. Thus, all these activities areculturally located at their core, and any impression of objectivity and (rather than as opposed to)subjectivity is an illusion. In this sense we are free to describe the essential features of researchin any discipline, whilst recognizing that, in so doing, we are describing the relationship betweenknowledge and experience as a form of a hermeneutic process of interpretation and disseminationor interpretive dialogue with the practice-based research and researcher.2Practice-based research is a term used in current discussions to describe the profile of ‘making’music in higher education and is used in debates about the status of research in conservatoriumsand faculties of music. The characteristics of the practice-based doctorate, according to Candlin(2000) are to advance knowledge partly by means of practice but also by making a contribution tothe field which demonstrates originality, mastery and scholarly analysis as a form of research andpractice.

10 Addressing the Politics of Practice-Based Research and Its Potential. . . 135

a piece of music shows clearly that each and every performance is a new member ofa potentially infinite family of events’ in the application of practice-based researchin a performance-education environment (2005, 209). This understanding can bebuilt into the language one uses; the limit of one’s language, however, can becomethe limits of what one might intend and strive for.

The politics of practice-based research and practices in music performance, likeforms of creative authorship and claims of authority, can be institutionally boundup in the place and space that authorize the practice.3 Appraisal of the performanceof individual artists and artist-researchers and the pressure for the introduction ofperformance appraisal derives from a number of sources, but the most important isthe desire for greater central control of education, which has been apparent since themid-1970s. Most governments are trying to make education conform to new social,economic and political purposes. Most governments generally seek reforms withinHigher Education which link and locate innovative research, quality of studentexperience, engagement, access, impact and knowledge exchange to performance-related appraisals as critical thresholds. In the creative and performing arts thesepractices are grounded in certain principles. They can operate at the centre or theborders of cultures, in spaces with ‘authorized languages’ that have particular modesof expression. Bourdieu (1996, 77) refers to ‘authorised languages’ as the particularforms of cultural authorization that provide legitimacy for certain practices withina particular space and place. Performances, for instance, are authorized to greateror lesser degrees by music creativities that can take myriad forms and which aremultiply mediated. Each practice can be identified, and contains within it sets ofrelations that operate in the context of the academy and professional practices thattake place within the social spaces in which other fields of music are authorized.These fields are linked to fields of industry, commerce and cultural productionand are characterized by the defining structural logic of differentiation of thefield, including its links with other fields. Musicians, strong in their particularcompetence as emerging or experienced professionals, become well-established invarious musical practices and contexts. It is in these contexts that questions are askedpertaining to: the value and contribution to the wider political agenda relating toknowledge exchange; enhanced engagement with research and student learning; andthe growing complexity of the relationship of the academy to the creative industries.

To appreciate the politics and potential contribution of practice-based researchwithin the wider agenda relating to the arts and humanities in higher educationwe need, as Calvin Taylor (2013) argues, ‘to understand the complex interactionbetween academy and society and economy that informs the development of newdisciplinary areas’ (120). We also need to examine the rules and orientations of thedominant discourse or ‘authorised languages’, whereby particular types of research

3See Burnard (2012) for more examples of territorial practices involving socio-spatial dimensionsof place and space (played out particularly in dance clubs by DJs where the ‘authorised language’of DJs include ‘place making’ and ‘self-making’) allowing particular types of music creativity toemerge.

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practices emerge and are privileged institutionally (Bourdieu 1990), as well as the‘reformulation of assessment practices that focus on the assessment for learning andthe assessment of learning’ (Taylor 2013, 120).

In terms of practice-based research in music performance, the field of practicemay be transubstantiated into profit or economic capital through social recognition,employment and remuneration. The musician’s field of practice may be restrictedby presuppositions inherent in membership of the field, as in the case of tacitknowledge that is held in common by members of a profession, such as performers,singer-songwriters, DJs, composers, improvisers, or sound designers. Their prac-tices are bound up in the broader institutionalized culture and institutional forcesthat appear in the guise of organisational processes, structures and contexts ratherthan in individual attitudes or actions. These forces are political and privilege certainperformance modalities, practices and cultural influences. Understanding the way inwhich these political forces operate and the pressures under which practice-basedresearchers work, and examining the strategies with which they respond, we maycome to challenge certain assumptions about the ways in which we do practice-based research and learn to make better use of research evidence in music in highereducation (Fenwick and Farrell 2012).

10.2 The Discourses of Practice-Based ResearchOrthodoxies: The Research-Practice Gapand New Knowledge

Whilst the creation of new knowledge has become critically important in educationalresearch, the interest in, and conduct of, research and scholarly inquiry related tothe performance of music has had a limited direct impact on how practice-basedresearch is understood. In the main, practice-based research is thought to takeplace in a context where arts practices and products play a substantive role in boththe research process and its outcomes (Frayling 1993). For example, a practice-based researcher might examine his or her own human-computer interface and workintentionally to contribute knowledge that is personally new but also knowledge thatis new to the discourse (Scrivener 2006). Within this process, material and non-material modes of thinking in dialogic relation as thinking and making will promotereflection, action and thought through the framing of the individual thinking-makingdiscourse within the relevant collective discourses that the individual has set out toaddress. My key point is that the subjects are addressed by arts research. However,the discourses are not necessarily the same between different arts. There can bedistinctions between the music practices of diverse cultures and industries (e.g.film, video or gaming industries). Again, these discourses are not necessarily thesame, because the terms and forms of knowledge acquisition and exchange are notnecessarily the same. So, how practice-based research works may lead to diversediscourses. How these discourses are addressed may differ dramatically. In somecases an author’s own artwork can be excluded from discussion giving preference,


instead, to the artwork of other established artists. It can be that the artwork is poorlyserved in the preservation of research outcomes, which may be such that artworkbecomes hard to access and to view. The potential contribution of practice-basedresearch to higher music education is extremely uneven across music institutes andoften seriously compromised by a lack of established supervisory conventions andassessment models for higher degrees in music (Harrison and Emmerson 2009).

Under pressure from governments, and because of the political problem ofinstitutionally valuing something beyond traditional dominant methodological‘scientific’ or ‘empirical’ methods (where what is imagined can be perceived andmeasured), it is difficult to give increased attention to practice-based researchembedded inextricably in new technologies – practice-based research that strivesto achieve something quite different from traditional forms of research throughits focus on things less referential than language, leaving more room for whatMassumi (2003) calls affect. (This would mean that disciplinary power is nolonger fundamentally normative but works by modulating affect through selectingparticular stories for analysis and feeding them back in ways that change how weexperience the potential we have.) International agencies such as the Organisationfor Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD 2002) are trying to strengthentheir own use of evidence in a number of countries by making more use of researchevidence in education. The infrastructure to support better use of evidence ineducation is gradually being built. But the impact of unstated orthodoxies, whichFrench sociologist Bourdieu (2005) describes as ‘doxa’ (that is, the universe oftacit presuppositions that we accept as the norms of a certain society (37) which,he suggests, operates within disciplines, defining perceptions and opinions andchallenging the traditional models of professional status), changes very slowly.

In the field of music, there are norms or doxa that determine the musician’sposition and actions. The doxa of performance practices will play out differentlywith different social groups vying for influence in, for example, the value of differentmusic genres, or the formation of disciplinary identity and practice between theacademy and the creative industries, moving away from the singular artistic identitytowards professional practices. Practice-led research, where methodologies featuredoxas of data ‘creation’ rather than ‘collection’, also places the practitioner-researcher at the interface of practice and research, where the discourse is aboutpractice as an individual or collaborative creative activity and the changing role ofartists and their tools, as well as the techniques used in the development and makingprocess. Practice-led research attempts to conceptualise the contribution of creativepractice, making the invisible visible.

Sociological in orientation, this chapter seeks to describe and explain therelationship between practice-based research and influences of the wider society ofwhich we are a part. Bourdieu (1990) used the term field to describe the hierarchicalrelations between social groups. Any individual may exist within and move betweena number of fields, each field valuing different types of capital and having a differenthierarchical structure. The fields of most relevance to this chapter are the fields ofmusic and the fields of higher education and the labour market; these are significantin that they are fields in which educational inequality becomes social and economicinequality once musicians go out into the world to seek careers.

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Musicians are constantly repositioning themselves across multiple fields. Fromthe collective of collaborative performance practices established in string quartetsand rock bands, to the empathic practices in improvised music ensembles, we seemusicians broaden their remit and locate their work across different industries. Newindustries overlap the music industry (see Fig. 10.1).

Think, for example, of the practices of DJs, producing and remixing, re-using,decomposing and organising sound for dance clubs – all of which are now commonand well-established practices. In contrast, the performance of live improvisedmusics draws on an array of unexpected sounds in the ‘moment-to-moment interac-tion of improvisation’ where musicians instantaneously create responses to fellowperformers. Or, again, consider the meanings that are attached to the practices oflive coding programmer-musicians working with algorithms. Different techniquesof performance, differences in disciplinary identity and practice, and the processof interchange between the academy and its communities, all acknowledge thegrowing complexity of the relationship of the academy to the creative industries andinvolve unwritten rules of the game. However, they generate practices and attributemeanings in accordance with the values of a musical community in opposition to amusic industry or institution of higher education – an industry or institution that mayvalue commodities or traditions over objectifying the measurement and assessmentof performers who can operate in a wide range of modes in a diverse range of newcareers.

Bourdieu, commenting on the meanings that are attached to the complexinteraction between the academy, society and the economy and the practices thatconstitute the field of cultural production, says: ‘There is no way out of the gameof culture; and one’s only chance of objectifying the true nature of the game is toobjectify as fully as possible the very operations which one is obliged to use inorder to achieve that objectification’ (1984, 12). This means that higher educationneeds to provide opportunities for researching practices in ways that mediate theknowing-doing divide. Institutions need to offer a means of supporting music (andmusic performance) as research. They need to acknowledge the myriad of fieldsin which music practices arise as codified (and commodified) by corporations andorganisations within the creative industry. My point here is that what might be seenin one industry as being evidence-based knowledge, creative, and at the forefront ofdevelopment, may not be valued in another.

10.3 Positioning Practice-Based Research

While there is an ever-expanding number of books available to support doctoralresearch and the process by which doctoral researchers become scholars there ismuch less literature on coming to terms with practice-based (rather than simplypractice-led) research. Governments are giving increasing attention to ‘evidence-based decision making’, including the establishment of new policies and organi-sations to this end. International agencies such as the Organisation for Economic


Field of TechnologyDigitalDigital media/devicesComputer/machinesSoftware/hardwareComputing devicesGames consulesWebsite-relatedInternet-relatedMobile technologyTV & Broadcasting Recording studios Social NetworksYou Tube (etc.)

Field of CommerceMusic CompaniesMusic RetailersRecord CompaniesMusic ProductsMerchandiseDesign ManufacturingApplicationsMusic ProducersEntertainment ConglomeratesTourism sponsorshipCultural sponsorshipCommercial sponsorshipMusic PublishersMusic MagazinesCorporate MediaNewspapersManagement ServicesMarketingJournalists/Editors/CriticsAdvertising firmsDistributorsCorporations Copyright & Royalties (etc.)

Field of Music Contemporary artsClassicalRockPopular (arts/media)Performing arts/mediaJazzFolkWorldTraditionalMulticulturalEthnicCommunityDance music FilmSub-genres (etc.)

Field of Cultural Production and Social SpacesPubs, Clubs & BarsArenas & Concert hallsMusic HallsMusic TheatresSocial NetworksYouTubeTelevisionTemples & ChurchesCommunitiesCultural sitesDance clubsFestivalsNational sitesLocal sitesUrban sitesEvents

Institutions (public & cultural)Music SchoolsArt SchoolsUniversitiesConservatoriesMusic OrganisationsAcademiesColleges Musical SocietiesProfessional OrganisationsStudiosCorporate CentresCommunity CentresTerritoriesNeighbourhoods Awards (MOBO, Grammys, MTVBillboard) (etc.)

Field of Industries(Creativity-intensive enterprises)

CreativeCulturalPopular musicDance musicGamesDigital mediaRecordingBroadcasting

FilmTelevisionServicesPublishingCopyrightFashionAdvertisingInternet (etc.)

The Fieldswithin theFields of Power

Fig. 10.1 The fields within the fields of power in music

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Co-operation and Development (OECD) or the World Bank are strengtheningand promoting their own use of evidence and encouraging and assisting membercountries in doing so. An OECD report on the issue (2002) describes initiativesinvolving several countries that were making more use of research evidence ineducation.

Accompanying the rapid increase in institutional interest in practice-basedresearch in Music in Higher Education, the traditional doctorate in Social Sci-ences and Education is rapidly changing and evolving. Historically, the traditionaldoctorate involved a period of research by an individual student, supported bya supervisor, advisor and/or supervisory team, culminating in a dissertation ofapproximately 80,000–100,000 words; the text was required above all to makean original contribution to knowledge. The Ph.D used to be primarily recognisedas the standard entry qualification for an academic career but is now considered,along with Educational Doctorates, to be of vital importance as a qualificationfor ever-widening professional fields, such as arts leadership, arts and educationaldevelopment roles in higher education, and for contemporary professional practi-tioners in the creative and performing arts, new media art and related industries(Smith and Dean 2009; Thomson and Walker 2010).

Many musicians and practitioners working in cutting edge fields such as newmusic and digital media4 are creating new knowledge by virtue of their unconven-tional artistic practices and artwork, embodied in physical and psychological states,and employed in production. Researchers of their own and others’ practices aredeveloping new research modalities (and forms of project evaluation), objectifiedby means of external goods such as books or the media or new artworks. Thenthere are the institutional forms of practice that are given social and culturalrecognition by conferring degrees. Bourdieu’s theory that human engagementand behaviour are socially constructed within fields is fundamental to the notionof practice. Artists undertake the production of art in a field of engagement inwhich forms of capital – in symbolic, cultural, economic and social terms – areembodied in practice. Bourdieu equates the ownership of this capital to power andagency, describing the ownership of capital in three forms: as embodied throughphysical and psychological states; objectified by means of external goods such aspublications, books or the media; and institutionalized through social and culturalrecognition such as degrees or other marks of success (e.g. the publication ofresearch) (1990).

While in the field of music there are norms, doxa may inform both the academyand its communities, including students’ taken-for-granted beliefs, about theirconduct as artists in the field. This may, however, be informed by contradictorydoxae, as tacit knowledge shared between professionals may be neither homogenous

4See Simon Biggs’ chapter New Media: The ‘First Word’ in Art? (2009). Biggs argues that ‘Newmedia art can be defined as creative arts practice that involves the development and/or applicationof emergent mediating tools and systems. New media art necessarily researches novel means andreflects upon them in its outcomes’ (66).


nor static. So, hegemonic views about what constitutes good art and arts-basedresearch becomes a struggle between those who lack power and who seek togain social, economic and cultural capital, and those in power who have a vestedinterest in excluding others from access to such capital. There can be conflictbetween institutionalised views of what constitutes empirical evidence and thosethat regard artists’ views and practices as valid sites for research and as anexpression of culture’s hybridity. The caveat that aspects of cultural capital mayresult in traditional, fixed understandings of a collective, through its recognitionof only certain cultural norms and values, requires us to theorise practice-basedresearch as situated, relational and contextual.

For example, the ideological hegemony expressed in systems of assessment (suchas positions taken by university research assessment exercises and institutionalassessment practices which legitimize both control and passivity) and the assertionof dominant values through assessment provide deeply embedded and very oftenhidden messages of power; they are interwoven in the form of doxic beliefs(orthodoxies) and institutional learning cultures. This raises the question of howinstitutions express and reflect values about practice-based research, particularlyin music performance: they may be seen to favour the objective interpretation ofepistemologies in focusing on what can be measured and tested. Here Bourdieuoffers the challenge that, increasingly, ‘rational, scientific, technical justifications,always in the name of objectivity, are relied upon. In this case, the audit cultureperpetuates itself’ (Bourdieu 1999, 90). Learning and assessment need to beinformed by a range of models of practice-based research as a way out of thepolarisation wrought by the distinction between the conditions of epistemologicalcomplexity that inform objective ‘scientific’ models and the newer practice-basedresearch model which sees the practice-based researchers trying out new approachesand exploring the ways in which artistic research tries to achieve something quitedifferent from traditional forms of research through its focus on affect.

Similarly, Denzin and Giardina (2008) retain a dominant position in empiricalresearch of the purposes of research and the role of practice in research and thepractices of arts-based research. Despite pervasive debates, the sense-making andartistic activities of practice-based research often emerge as representations of anartistic process, an event or an activity. Forms of artistic knowledge emerge in thesites of arts practice which shape artists’ understanding of themselves as membersof a community of practice. These knowledge forms are bound to larger questionsof legitimacy and classificatory practices which impact on how artists see andinterpret. ‘Being in the know’ (e.g. having specialist knowledge which serves asa form of cultural power) and having cultural capital are therefore not only tied toinstitutions but are also linked with the ways in which assessment is presented byactors in the field and the authorised relations and institutions linked to its symbolicorder. Particular institutions may validate or censure particular artistic works orworkers and, indeed, may even censure ways of measuring success in practice-basedresearch.

Some practice-based forms of research are devalued if there are too fewincentives to invest in diverse arts practices; they can be unpopular, with little power

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and – crucially – positioned separate from performance. Distinctions are madebetween ‘practical’ and ‘theoretical’ approaches to music, with a general consensusthat a conservatoire is the institution of choice for those wanting to ‘do’ music. That‘doing’ music is seen as distinct from not ‘doing’ music is made clear by privilegingthe development of highly specialised performers/composers.

The ‘culture of specialism’ (Burt-Perkins 2009), a characteristic of conser-vatoires, sees performers of classical music assume superiority over specialisedperformers of jazz music, pop music or folk. The ways students learn to navigate thelearning site as they seek to become professional musicians and performers reflectssocial navigation practices that may be deemed deviant or compliant to particularcultural brokers. As the aesthetic guardians validate and censure, they attemptto remove art from the distasteful realm of the ideological so that connoisseurscan focus on the formal aspects. There exists a complex dynamic of institutionalexpectation, peer influence, social capital and cultural capital, something whichBurt-Perkins (2009) identified as a kind of ‘pecking order’, in choosing a formof research which has prestigious value in terms of social positioning within theinstitution and alignment with social networks and musical hierarchies built aroundthose who are celebrated as the ‘big names’ or influential figures in contemporaryfields.

10.4 Defining ‘Practice’ in Relation to ‘Research’ in Termsof a Knowing-Doing Orientation

If the aim of the musician-artist is to transform practice, is the same true of practice-based researchers? Being a musician-artist involves commitment to looking anew atthings as they are, giving form to the idea that a consistent feature of tradition is thatpast practices are continually changing, as are values and practices that make, onewould hope, radical improvements to the processes and outcomes of any particularmusical project. The same holds true for practice-based researchers.

Practice-based researchers, working in the fields of music generally and musicperformance specifically (including research at schools, colleges and universitiesand informal learning environments), are concerned with the production anddissemination of art, with the art object being a form of subjective reality andsubjective knowledge.

Objectivism holds that reality operates away from conscious thought, judgementor feeling. Objectivism uses methodologies such as survey research and methodssuch as questionnaires, measurement and scaling. Objectivity informs the positiviststance that originated in the seventeenth century period of the Enlightenment andis frequently associated with August Compte, who believed that it was possible toapply the value-free methods of the natural sciences to the social sciences in orderto understand an absolute reality.


At the opposite end of the spectrum from objectivism is subjectivism. Withsubjectivism, meaning is completely imposed on the object or constructed by theartist or audience. When artists work as practice-based researchers they are seekingto understand experience and critically examine and describe arts practice as theexploratory epistemology of subjectivism, aware of their own bias and reflexivity,in a way that satisfies and extends the institutional priorities or government policyon research practice. This may entail developing new understandings, new practices,new tools, and access to new forms of purposeful activity inspired by contemporaryfields of music. It may require a shift from a narrowly specialised view ofthe ‘subject’ of music, where, for example, researchers learn through doing andpromoting the application of what they have learned through the conduct of research(Ball 2012). This knowing-doing orientation champions theorising practice, froma perspective that works within institutional parameters while maintaining profes-sional credibility, a position that is both distinctive and defensible.

What musicians know and do, of course, is not clear-cut. They do more than‘doing’ music. The ‘doing’ or making or creating of music is an object and subject ofstudy which has been well picked over by historians, psychologists, sociologists andcultural commentators. If the goal of artist musicians is to make music, then researchby musicians about music making helps us to get a sense of how practices in the fieldcan be conceptualised. Furthermore, by positioning the way music is ‘done’ (that is,created and performed) in individual, historical and cultural contexts, discrete andcomparative approaches to musical performance inquiry ‘in’ music, ‘about’ music,‘of’ music and ‘through’ its performance, become the premises of research in music.The process of seeking explanations that can be captured in elegant yet powerfulways carries high status as a goal of enquiry. What are the principles underlying howmusical performances are made and viewed and what is their cultural impact? Whatrules are carried within their own legitimation? Is it possible to know what the stateof knowledge is – in other words, the problems its development and distribution arefacing today – without knowing something of the society within which it is situatedand the stock of human knowledge that frames practice-based research activity?

Musical practices should be ‘known’ and the knowing-doing orientation interro-gated and studied as fields of music performance, as diverse as performance creatingin originals bands, performance creating as singer-songwriters, performance creat-ing as DJs, performance creating of composed musics and performance creating inlive improvised musics. So, why is it that practice-based researchers are having ahard time equating the research coming out of their advanced degree programs withmeasurements of research outcomes maintained by others within and beyond theacademy? What can be done to overcome the source of the methodological dilemmathat artists are not social scientists? What are the challenges facing practice-basedresearchers? How can they adjust the parameters that define the kind of researchundertaken in studio contexts so as to more adequately represent what it is thatmusician-artists do when carrying out research?

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10.5 Addressing the Knowing-Doing Gap: Orientingthe Development and Distribution of Practice-BasedResearch

Our everyday academic conversations with colleagues inside and outside of musicinstitutions suggest that the issue of getting artist-musicians involved in and coor-dinating practice-based research in diverse spheres is challenging. Policy agendason, and the politics of research training in particular disciplines and discoursecommunities for doctoral education published in the UK (QAA 2008) containstatements concerning the forms of expertise at the forefront of an academic orarts discipline or area of professional practice. In the case of music, professionalknowledge, researcher support, new tools for networking and supporting networksand venues to disseminate findings are some of the institutional commitmentsessential for research sharing and evidence-informed policy decisions. The growingcomplexity of practice-based research imposes a range of responsibilities and pri-orities on the academy. These include: enhanced practice-based research education;engagement with the disciplinary specificity of musician-artists; the process of two-way interchange between the academy and its communities; engaging professionallearning communities in the process of learning practice-based research strategieson long-term transformation as well as on immediate achievement gains; and beingpersistent about improvements in students’ practice-based research as well as patientin waiting for the outcomes. Acknowledging the need for these changes within andacross the fields of music, the workplace and society leads to the creation of newknowledge that translates into economic, social and cultural innovation. This is theessence of what may be learnt from skilful performances by gifted musicians withextensive disciplinary knowledge.

The issue central to building, addressing and representing this knowing-doinggap can be represented as four models (as adapted from Ball 2012 in her addressto the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Presidential Address).These four models (see Fig. 10.2) are:

1. The Research Development Diffusion Model2. The Evidence-Based Practice Model3. The Boundary-Crossing Practices Model, and4. The Knowledge Communities Model

The four models reflect different perspectives regarding promotion of andengagement with practice-based research in higher music education. They also offersolutions to some of the challenges of helping to foster cross-sector communication,networking and knowledge mobilisation to stakeholders.

1. The Research Development Diffusion Model characterises practice-orientedresearch that draws on theories and practice in the dominant research field.Music needs to be understood as an agency of cultural production, construed asacademic practice and as a mode of research. This model represents a framework


Mediators PractitionersPractice-orientedResearchers Researchers

Mediators PractitionersPractice-orientedResearchers

Policy-makers

Practitioners

Practice-orientedResearchers

Policy makers

BlurredRoles

Practice-oriented

ResearchersPractitioners

Mediators

Model 1 (The Research Development Diffusion Model)

Model 2 (The Evidence-Based Practice Model)

Model 3 (The Boundary-Crossing Practices Model)

Model 4 (The Knowledge Communities Model)

Fig. 10.2 Four models that represent how the knowing-doing gap can be addressed in practice-based research in music in higher education

that depends upon the academy playing the mediating role for promoting linksbetween research and practice. Institutional practices are central in mediating theresearch-practice gap by developing, supporting and promoting practice-basedpolicies, research programmes and published practices with explicit learningtasks, frameworks and materials. For example, the question of how practiceinforms research and research informs practice is a pervading theme that involvestwo worlds through the notion of activity and performance. It is culturally

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located and often shared through exhibition spaces, performances of researchand research forums such the Arts Kaleidoscope student-run event at CambridgeUniversity (see Fig. 10.3 in Appendix 1, a poster characterising the processesand products of practice-based research designed by Edward Demelza Tindall,a practice-based researcher, which, in advertising the event that consisted ofexhibition spaces of diverse artwork forms and practice-based research, describesthe ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’ and portrayal of arts practice. The pervading theme ofthe event is ‘multiple identities’ and their portrayal in art and how art informsresearch and advances knowledge by means of practice).

2. The Evidence-based Practice Model values diverse research and emphasisesthe central role of empirical evidence in translating findings from effectiveresearch into practice. The mediators can be institutions, organisations, andprofessional societies who: determine what counts as impact; review and publishpractices; provide activating materials; make explicit to practitioners ‘whatworks’, how ‘results’ of practice-based research work and what is ‘best practice’;and bring together what is effective (see ‘designer description’ in Appendix 1, inwhich poster designer Edward Demelaza Tindall discusses and contextualiseshis creative work. The artist provides a statement on how art has informed hisresearch and offers ways of reinventing the relationship to the research object).In this, what constitutes arts knowledge is seen within institutional structuresas questions of theory and practice and forms of research which open uppossibilities of how knowing and doing can be conceptualised and embeddedin institutional practice. When considered this way, practice-based researchis considered a codified form of academic enquiry that informs institutionalpractice. This provides an example of knowledge embedded in practice and theinterdependent relationship among the artwork, the artist, the research, and theinstitution.

3. The Boundary-Crossing Practices Model emphasises the importance of collab-oration in ensuring that research translates to practice, as with previous models.Institutions have diminished responsibility as mediators and there is more blur-ring of roles by policy makers, researchers, and practitioners. The nexus of theseroles is played out simultaneously by multi-skilled individual researchers whoseapproach to research and knowledge is to develop practice-based research inwhich they operate and move between creative possibilities as artist, researcher,academic/scholar, industry innovator, educator and policy developer (see Bennettet al. 2010; Hartley 2005). The essence of this methodological position is to setup the conditions and parallel processes of research as practice.

4. The Knowledge Communities Model addresses the research-practice gapthrough knowledge transformation and impact by means of cross-sector collab-orations, networks, website hubs, and knowledge exchanges. It brings togetherknowledge mobilisation by specific stakeholder groups in the sectors to whichresearch projects relate, who then take responsibility for the practical mobilisa-tion of the knowledge that they have generated from diverse occupational and


theoretical locations. Knowledge mobilisation processes can be enacted in andmediated by research programmes which combine authentic user engagementwith high quality science; appropriate outputs that are then targeted on contem-porary issues (see Levin 2004; Fenwick and Farrell 2012).

10.6 Concluding Thoughts

Music institutions and academies should count on practice-based research’s vitalmodes of postmodern knowledge, and orient its development and distribution inthat direction. Thus, one of the principal roles and relevance of knowledge creation,an indispensable element in the functioning of society, is defining ‘know-how’,‘knowing how to speak’ and ‘knowing how to hear’ through which the professionallearning communities relationship to itself and its environment is played out. Whatis transmitted and represented through practice-based research are narratives whichallow the society in which they are told to define its criteria of competence andto evaluate according to those criteria what is performed or can be performedwithin it. Massumi (2003) refers to ‘the margin of manoeuvrability’, the ‘where wemight be able to go and what we might be able to do in every present condition’(3). Practice-based research activity constitutes and represents something quitedifferent from traditional forms of ‘doing’, ‘knowing’ and ‘know-how’. Practice-based research offers new priorities, new narratives, new forms of knowledge,new ways of ‘knowing how to speak’ and ‘knowing how to hear’. Practice-basedresearch concerns and interests both for academic learning communities within theperforming and creative arts and for higher education funders and wider publicstakeholders. Practice-based researchers are people who put themselves into ‘play’in their institutions by assigning themselves the posts of enquirer. They thus definewhat has the right to be said and done in the learning culture in question and sincethey are themselves a part of that culture, they are legitimated by the simple fact thatthey do what they do.

I believe that these ideas are more than my own personal aspirations, but haveintrinsic value and are worth holding on to as we prepare for the next round inthe politics of education. Our professional strength in the political battles that arestill to be fought over teaching, learning and assessing practice-based research willcome from our principled understanding of what we fight for. The conceptual graspof performance as a research site, the status of knowledge creation in music, andthe knowledge embedded in, and constructed as, discourse in practice within theinstitutional settings of music academies in higher education, all contribute to newunderstandings and a new era of music research as a way of legitimating knowledgeand its institutions of learning in the realm of politics and the pragmatics of knowingand doing music.

148 P. Burnard

Appendix 1: Arts Kaleidoscope Flyer and DesignerDescription

Fig. 10.3 Arts Kaleidoscope flyer (Copyright Edward Demelza Tindall 2013. Reprinted withpermission)

Designer Description:

“The Arts Kaleidoscope event in the Faculty of Education, Cambridge, was a showcase ofworks produced by students for whom their arts practice informed their research practice,and vice versa. This went alongside the Kaleidoscope research conference, with the diversearts-based exhibitions and performances centred on the theme of how multiple identitieslink with and enhance research practice as creative thinkers and arts practitioners.

I designed this poster using a self portrait examining construction of identity, withtextures and filters applying multiple ‘lenses’ through which to view each image of atransgender body. My own visual art and research concerns identity and cyborg theory,which derives from a journey through industrial design to teaching design and technology,and realising that how our identities and perspectives are constructed affects our ability toexpress ourselves authentically and think creatively (outside the box) as children and youngadults, and most pertinently as creative and original researchers. Creative arts practice is animportant part of my thinking process when reflecting on my research and looking to sparkoff new ideas or lines of thought.”

-Edward Demelza Tindall, MPhil Children’s Literature/ MPhil Arts, Culture andEducation/ PGCE Design and Technology/ BA Automotive Design.


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Bennett, D., Wright, D., & Blom, D. (2010). The artistic practice-research-teaching (ART) nexus:Translating the information flow. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 7(2).http://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol7/iss2/3. Accessed 1 Feb 2013.

Biggs, S. (2009). New media: The ‘first word’ in art? In H. Smith & R. T. Dean (Eds.), Practice-led research, research-led practice in the creative arts (pp. 66–83). Edinburgh: EdinburghUniversity Press.

Borgdorff, H. Y. (2012). The conflict of the faculties: Perspectives on artistic research andacademia. The Hague: Leiden University Press.

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(trans: Parkurst Ferguson, P., Emanuel, S., Johnson, J., & Waryn, S. T.). Cambridge, UK: PolityPress. [Originally published as ‘La Misere du monde’ (Paris: Seuil)].

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Bowman, R. (2005). Performance teaching as a form of research. In G. Odam & N. Bannan (Eds.),The reflective conservatoire: Studies in music education (pp. 207–220). Aldershot/Hants:Ashgate.

Burnard, P. (2012). Musical creativities in practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Burt-Perkins, R. (2009). The learning cultures of performance: Applying a cultural theory of

learning to conservatoire research. In A. Williamon, S. Pretty, & R. Buck (Eds.), Proceedingsof the international symposium on performance science (pp. 249–54). London: EuropeanAssociation of Conservatoires (AEC). www.leacyweb.rcm.ac.uk/ISPS/ISPS200/Proceedings.Accessed 1 Feb 2013.

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Chapter 11Creative Arts Research Assessmentand Research Training in Hong Kong

Samuel Leong

Abstract Creative arts academics in Hong Kong have been facing enormouschallenges in recent years, including debates surrounding ‘what counts as research’and ‘what constitutes scholarship’, as well as the new requirements of the upcomingResearch Assessment Exercise (RAE) in 2014. This chapter provides an overview ofthe research support system in the increasingly competitive higher education sectorof Hong Kong and the key criteria governing the assessment of academic staff’s‘non-traditional’ or creative output in music and visual arts. It also discusses recentdevelopments in research training with examples of research projects undertaken byacademics and doctoral students in the creative arts within a multi-disciplinary andteacher education context in a predominantly Chinese society.

Keywords Creative arts • Research assessment • Hong kong

11.1 Research in Hong Kong’s Higher Education Sector

Hong Kong ceased to be a British colony in 1997, when it returned to Chinesesovereignty as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) under the “One Country,Two Systems” of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). More than 90 % of HongKong’s seven million inhabitants are of Chinese descent, living in a cosmopolitansociety with a dynamic and entrepreneurial economy, a materialistic culture andhigh levels of consumerism. It is strategically located within the rapidly growingPearl River Delta region (PRD) comprising Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong, aregion identified as the world’s first and largest “mega-region” by a United Nations’State of World Cities Report (Vidal 2010). The central government’s long-term plan

S. Leong (�)The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong, Chinae-mail: [email protected]


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for the PRD would see it become ‘globally competitive’ and the ‘most vigorousarea in the Asia-Pacific region’ by 2020 (Huang 2009) with partnerships fosteredamongst nine Chinese Mainland provinces and China’s two special administrativeregions (Chen and Wu 2012).

Education is highly valued in Hong Kong, with nearly 20 % of the Hong Kongpopulation attaining educational qualifications at the degree level (Governmentof the HKSAR 2012). “Education services” has been identified as one of six“pillar industries” in which Hong Kong enjoys a clear advantage during the 2009Chief Executive’s Policy Address. The Address announced new initiatives thatwould further internationalize the sector, including allowing Mainland students topursue studies in non-local programs at a degree level or above in Hong Kong,and encouraging higher education institutions to step up exchange and promotionin Asia. To further diversify the sector, more privately financed degree-awardingprograms would be introduced. Given the considerable expansion of Hong Kong’spost-secondary sector in recent years, the government’s Higher Education Reviewsought to assess whether the existing system was fit for its purpose and capableof producing “contributing and responsible individuals as future active participantsin our evolving society” (UGC 2010, 1). It also emphasised ways in which thesystem “could strengthen Hong Kong’s ability to maintain its role in the globalisedworld and make its own specific contribution to the development of MainlandChina” (ibid., 1). The Review acknowledged the “impressive performance recordin research” of the higher education sector “despite its relatively short historyand Hong Kong’s general under-investment in research” (149), recommending themove to a “more competitive funding regime” (Recommendation 25). This wouldinvolve a “critical review of how the Block Grant for research is allocated througha review of the Research Assessment Exercise” (Recommendation 31) and the“competitive allocation of research postgraduate places” that should be underpinnedby a “credible system to assess the quality of graduates” (Recommendation 32)(ibid., 149).

Eight higher education institutions are funded by the government’s UniversityGrants Committee (UGC), which offers impartial and respected expert advice tothe Government on the strategic development and resource requirements of highereducation in Hong Kong. The UGC supports academic research activities throughthe allocation of the block grant, funding for research postgraduate places and vari-ous competitive research funding schemes such as Theme-based Research Scheme,Areas of Excellence Scheme, General Research Fund, Collaborative Research Fundand Joint Research Schemes with the Mainland and overseas countries. Throughfinancial incentives and encouraging sharing of best practices among institutionsand with overseas counterparts, the UGC also encourages institutions to furtherstrengthen and broaden their endeavours in transferring knowledge, technology andother forms of research outputs into real socio-economic benefits and impacts forthe community and society (UGC 2011a). In the financial year 2011/2012, 4,834academic staff members were employed by the eight UGC-funded institutions,which were allocated a total of US$2.1 billion in operating funds, equivalent to4.5 % of total government expenditure (UGC 2012a, b).

11 Creative Arts Research Assessment and Research Training in Hong Kong 153

Research funding for UGC-funded institutions mainly comes from twosources – UGC and RGC (Research Grants Council of the UGC) – in the formof block grants and competitive research grants. The bulk of the recurrent grantsare disbursed to institutions normally on a triennial basis to tie in with theacademic planning cycle, and in the form of a block grant to provide institutionswith maximum flexibility in internal deployment. Once allocations are approved,institutions have a high degree of freedom in deciding on how the resources availableare put to best use. Determination of the grants to institutions is largely based onan established formula. The amount of block grants comprises three elements:Teaching (75 %), Research (about 23 %), and Professional Activity (about 2 %).The Research element is primarily related to the research performance of academicstaff, and the cost of research in respective fields. The number of active research staffin each cost centre is identified in the context of a Research Assessment Exercisethat assesses the research performance of different cost centres within institutions(UGC Annual Report 2010–2011). In 2009, the government introduced the US$2.3billion Research Endowment Fund for the UGC sector, but the Higher EducationReview (UGC 2010) noted that the overall level of research funding available andthe diversity of sources in Hong Kong “remain[ed] well below what those expectedin a developed economy dependant on its human capital and innovation” (150).The Research Endowment Fund would generate some US$115 million of incomeeach year for research projects, with up to US$26 million being allocated forresearch into “themes” identified by the Government as being of strategic benefitto Hong Kong. The government has also allocated additional resources to providean extra 800 research postgraduate places, with about 30 % reserved for the newHong Kong Ph.D Fellowship Scheme designed to internationalize Hong Kong’sPh.D programmes. The remaining places are allocated to institutions throughother means of competitive allocation. Since 2009 the UGC has introduced anadditional stream of recurrent funding earmarked for the institutions to strengthenand broaden their endeavours in “knowledge transfer”. In addition to teaching andresearch, institutions have to embrace “knowledge transfer” as the third pillar oftheir core activities, to set out institutional-wide strategies, policies, action plansand performance targets that embed and step up their efforts in knowledge transfer,commensurate with their respective roles and missions. UGC-institutions also setaside some of their own funds to match the government knowledge transfer fundingallocation in support of their strategy and plans. By and large, the effort is focusedon building up institutional capacity and broadening their endeavors in knowledgetransfer, specifically in three aspects:

(i) Capacity Building (e.g., dedicated knowledge transfer office, databases, stafftraining, internal reach-out, process management);

(ii) Front Line Knowledge Transfer Activities (e.g., patent filing, publicity, incu-bating spin-off companies);

(iii) Knowledge Generation (e.g., proof-of-concept projects, or matching funds fordownstream research) (UGC Annual Report 2010–2011).

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Fig. 11.1 Budgeteddistribution of earmarkedresearch grants 2011/2012(Source: UGC Annual Report2011/2012 (77))

Fig. 11.2 Research expenditure of UGC-funded institutions 2010/2011 (Source: UGC AnnualReport 2011/2012 (75))

Apart from the block grants allocated by the UGC, the Earmarked ResearchGrant (ERG) is the largest single source of funding for supporting academic researchin Hong Kong’s higher education. The UGC’s Research Grants Council (RGC) isresponsible for carrying out assessment of research grant proposals for competitiveprojects, and manages the highly competitive Earmarked Research Grant (ERG)scheme comprising four main funding schemes: the General Research Fund (GRF);the Collaborative Research Fund (CRF); the Direct Allocation (DA); and the JointResearch Schemes (JRS). The budgeted distribution amongst the major fundingschemes is set out in Fig. 11.1.

The reported aggregate expenditure on research by UGC-funded institutions in2010/2011 amounted to US$902 million, representing 41 % of the total expenditurein academic research of the institutions, or 0.38 % of Hong Kong’s GDP. Thetwo sources of funding made up about 74 % of the total research expenditure in2010/2011 (see Fig. 11.2).


In 2011/2012, a total of US$72 million was awarded to 801 research projectsunder the General Research Fund scheme, representing an overall success rateof 31 % (UGC 2012c). With funding provision from the government’s CentralPolicy Unit (CPU), the RGC launched a Public Policy Research Funding Scheme(PPR) that would run from 2005/2006 to 2014/2015, supporting 17 projects in2011/2012. The Strategic Public Policy Research Funding Scheme (SPPR), set upin 2008/2009, was to support larger scale projects with longer duration that wouldgenerate research outcomes of strategic significance for Hong Kong’s public policydevelopment. This scheme is dependent on funding from the central Administration,which recently announced its continuation till 2014/2015; three projects wereawarded with US$1.25 million in 2011/2012. In September 2011, the RGC created anew peer reviewed funding scheme to attract, support and nurture new junior facultymembers to work in Hong Kong and to strengthening the teaching-research nexus byproviding support to undertake independent research work and develop educationalactivities. There are two levels of award: (a) Early Career Grants, and (b) EarlyCareer Awards, in which the top awardees would be given an honorary title inaddition to the funding for research and educational activities. The RGC is assistedin its work by five subject panels: (1) Biology and Medicine Panel; (2) BusinessStudies Panel; (3) Engineering Panel; (4) Humanities and Social Sciences Panel;and (5) Physical Sciences Panel. Both local academics and overseas academicswho are recognized experts in their fields serve on these panels. In 2012/2013, twopools of Subject Panel members were formed, with one being responsible for theevaluation of applications submitted under the various research funding schemesand monitoring the approved projects, while the other is solely responsible forapplications and projects submitted under the Joint Research Schemes.

Hong Kong academics as also supported in research that are categorized as“knowledge transfer”, defined as “the systems and processes by which knowledge,including technology, know-how, expertise and skills are transferred between highereducation institutions and society, leading to innovative, profitable or economic orsocial improvements”. This is sometimes referred to as the “third mission” (apartfrom teaching and research) of higher education institutions. The government hasallocated new recurrent funding to UGC the sum of US$6.5 million each year from2009/2010 onwards for UGC-funded institutions to build up further their capacityand broaden their endeavours in knowledge transfer. It is hoped that this additionalfunding would have a “ripple effect” and facilitate institutions to strengthen theirknowledge transfer in both technology and non-technology disciplines, to shareamong themselves and with their overseas counterparts their experience and goodpractices.

11.2 Assessment of Research Output

Hong Kong was one the first of the East Asian countries to apply quality measuresto higher education, instituting the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in 1993,based on the UK’s RAE. This was a move away from the historical-based model

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for assessing public recurrent funding requirements of UGC-funded institutionsto a more performance-based funding model.1 The UGC conducted Hong Kong’sfirst RAE in January 1994, using its results as the basis for allocating some of theresearch portion of the institutional recurrent grant for the 1995–1998 triennium.For that exercise, research was broadly defined to include, in addition to traditionalacademic research outputs, contract research, art objects, performances, designs andother creative works (RGC 1994, para 1.24). The research element of the recurrentgrants was primarily related to staff numbers. For the 1995–1998 triennium, it wascalculated by multiplying the number of active research workers in each field by afactor that took into account the cost of research in that field. An element of fundingwas also provided on a fixed per capita basis for all academic staff to take accountof the time that they may be expected to spend in professional activities which werenot able to be assessed in the RAE. Three other research assessment exercises wereundertaken in 1996, 1999 and 2006, with the next RAE is scheduled to take placein 2014.

The UGC has noted that the RAE placed “undue emphasis on research” giventhe “significant marginal returns”, and acknowledged concerns about “perceivednarrow focus on traditional research, insufficient differentiation on performanceat the top-end, and the absence of any consideration of institutional roles” (UGC2006, 4). The Higher Education Review (UGC 2010) recommended that the RAEwould need to “be sharpened and a multi-point scale to be used : : : [and] ‘[c]riticalmass funding’ [should] be considered” (150). The methodology to be used wouldneed to adequately differentiate excellence at the top end and to achieve oneof the government’s objectives – differentiation of research funding based onmerit/excellence (ibid., Recommendation 13). In a study of Hong Kong’s researchasessment mechanism and context, Katyal and Evers (2009) have noted variousconcerns including ambiguity in the terminology used, local impact, local versusinternational, and units of assessment.

The UGC has clarified that its intention of adopting the Carnegie Foundation’sdefinition of scholarship as a guiding reference for the scope of the RAE 2014 is toindicate UGC’s “inclusive” view of research and that all four types of scholarshipare deemed important and relevant (UGC 2012). The framework for assessingscholarship as propunded by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement ofTeaching (UGC 2005) accorded a broader meaning to scholarship that considersthe particular work of university teachers, recognising four separate but overlappingkinds of scholarship: (1) the scholarship of discovery research; (2) the schol-arship of integration, including the writing of textbooks; (3) the scholarship ofservice, including the practical application of knowledge; and (4) the scholarshipof teaching. For UGC’s annual collection of common data exercise,2 research

1See http://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/publication/prog/rae/raegn99f.htm for more information.2The UGC requires information about the activities of the UGC-funded institutions for a varietyof purposes, including assessment of recurrent and capital funding requirements, monitoringprogress, advising on academic developments generally, monitoring of recurrent and capital

http://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/publication/prog/rae/raegn99f.htm


is “broadly defined to include, in addition to the traditional academic research,contract research, art objects, performances, designs and other creative works”(UGC 2011b). Specifically, creative output may include the following (under thecategory ‘Creative and literary works, consulting reports and case studies’):

• Authored play, poem, novel, story – fictional or similar works, published in aform appropriate to the type of work;

• Painting, sculpture, drawing, photograph – creation of artefacts capable of beingreviewed for merit, generally but not exclusively of an artistic nature [excludingthose in ‘Performance and participation in exhibits’];

• Film, video – creation of films, videos, multimedia, and similar productionsfor research, educational, cultural or entertainment purposes [excluding those in‘Performance and participation in exhibits’];

• Performance and participation in exhibits – drama, musical and similar perfor-mances; participation as an exhibitor of paintings, sculptures or other artefacts:the exhibit may be sponsored by the institution or externally; it should attractsignificant public or professional attention.

The census date of the RAE 2014 is 30 September 2013, with the period ofassessment set from 1 October 2007 to 30 September 2013. RAE 2014 shares thefollowing main features similar to those of the RAE 2006: (a) benchmarking againstinternational research standards; (b) comparing cost centres (rather than individualstaff members): the research quality of a cost centre (or an academic unit) withinan institution will be compared with cost centres of a comparable discipline inother institutions (e.g., History with History, not History with Physics); (c) usingthe Carnegie Foundation’s definition of four types of scholarship stated above;(d) co-authored research outputs from different institutions may be submitted; and(e) appointing local and non-local members on the assessment panels. Non-localpanel members will be appointed with due consideration given to discipline-specificexpertise, including knowledge of the Chinese language and local conditions asnecessary. New features have been introduced in the RAE 2014: (a) research outputswill be classified into the following categories to sharpen measurement of researchquality, especially at the top end:

• 4 star: world leading;• 3 star: internationally excellent;• 2 star: international standing;• 1 star: regional standing;• Unclassified;

(b) research outputs will account for 80 % of weighting; research inputs (i.e.,external competitive peer-reviewed research grants) and esteem measures (e.g.,

expenditure, monitoring progress and expenditure on RGC-funded research projects, reportingto the Government, the Legislature and the public, etc. Much of this information is statistical innature and the UGC has accordingly developed a Common Data Collection Format (CDCF), whichis designed to collect statistical data from the UGC-funded institutions in a common, computer-processable form for all UGC and RGC purposes.

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research awards and industry research grants and contracts) together will accountfor 20 % of the weighting; (c) each eligible academic staff member may submit upto four research outputs; up to two items may be submitted for double-weightingif justifiable by the amount of research effort (e.g. single-authored monographs);(d) institutions will not be required to classify an output as one of the CarnegieFoundation’s definition of four types of scholarship; (e) a new researcher whocompleted a Ph.D degree, or first took up an academic appointment in Hong Kong orelsewhere (whichever date is the earlier) within 50 months before the census date orearlier may proportionately reduce the number of submitted outputs; (f) increasednumber of non-local experts in assessment panels: non-local experts will form amajority to minimize conflict of interest and enhance the credibility of assessment;and (g) both Convenors and Deputy Convenors of the RAE panels will be non-local;every effort will be made to ensure that the panels will have a good mix of expertiseand understanding of local issues as necessary. In addition, Ph.D dissertations willnot be accepted as research outputs.3

In the 2006 RAE, there were no official guidelines or criteria for assessingcreative/transient research outputs by the UGC. Given the broad definition ofresearch by the UGC and the inclusivity of the categories of creative output inwhich data are collected from UGC institutions, there has been no accompanyingmechanism that specifies how these outputs might be evaluated. In view of the2014 RAE, an initiative to develop such a set of guidelines was spearheaded bythe main teacher education institution in Hong Kong, which houses the city’s onlyacademic department focusing on creative arts education. The range of creativearts output by academic staff within the department includes music, visual arts,media and interdisciplinary arts. This UGC-funded institution offers a wide rangeof graduate and undergraduate degree programmes including research-intensivedegrees – Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Philosophy – and taught postgraduatedegrees (e.g., Doctor of Education). Its 16 departments (in three Faculties), aGraduate School, and four Institute-level research centres provide about 9,000students (24 % in postgraduate programmes) with a multi-disciplinary academicenvironment for learning, teaching and research in education and related areas suchas humanities, social sciences, language and linguistics, health studies, and thecreative arts and culture. While the Doctor of Education programme was launchedin 2007, the Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Philosophy programmes werelaunched in 2010.

11.2.1 Creative Output Assessment Framework

The assessment framework for “non-traditional research output” (hereafter referredto as creative output) was constructed with reference to the models from Australia’s

3See http://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/rae/rae2014.htm.

http://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/rae/rae2014.htm


2010 Excellence in Research (ERA4 and the United Kingdom’s 2008 ResearchAssessment Exercise (RAE).5 Various rounds of consultations were conductedinvolving departmental academic staff and the engagement of local and overseas“external” reviewers in an attempt to provide an objective, inclusive and comprehen-sive structure for assessing the submissions of creative outputs. The framework alsoserves as a transparent and fair platform upon which colleagues within the institutioncan gauge their “non-traditional” research output performance. Some of the keyconsiderations include the nature of discipline and output, ownership, audience,rigour, evidence/substantiation, communication/documentation, and collaboration.

The framework6 has identified and categorized four creative output formatsas well as provides a set of clear and workable criteria and stipulations for therecognition of creative output. The four distinct categories of creative outputs thatmay be recognised are:

Category A: Original creative worksCategory B: Performance of creative worksCategory C: Rendered or recorded creative worksCategory D: Curated or produced substantial public exhibitions or performance

events.

These four categories of output are ‘output-based’ rather than discipline oriented,allowing for outputs from any discipline to be submitted under any one of thesecategories as long as they satisfy the required criteria. In order for any submissionto be considered a valid creative output under any of the four categories, it mustfulfill the both the general criteria as well as the specific criteria applicable to eachcategory. The general criteria are:

1. The submission must have been made publicly available through a specificperformance, exhibition or event during the eligible period ascribed by therelevant RAE guidelines.

2. Apart from the usual data accompanying the submission, a ‘Statement ofResearch Relevancy’ of no more than 300 words addressing the followingresearch-related issues is required:

• Research Background – field, context and research question;• Research Contribution – innovation, discovery and contribution to new knowl-

edge;• Research Significance – evidence of excellence.

4Excellence in Research for Australia 2010. See http://www.arc.gov.au/era/era_2010/era_2010.htm.5RAE 2008 Guidance on Research Outputs. Available at: http://www.rae.ac.uk/aboutus/policies/outputs/resoutputs.pdf.6‘Mechanisms on Evaluating Non-traditional Research Outputs’: unpublished document by theDepartment of Cultural and Creative Arts, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, The HongKong Institute of Education.

http://www.arc.gov.au/era/era_2010/era_2010.htm

http://www.arc.gov.au/era/era_2010/era_2010.htm

http://www.rae.ac.uk/aboutus/policies/outputs/resoutputs.pdf

http://www.rae.ac.uk/aboutus/policies/outputs/resoutputs.pdf

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3. The submission concerned should in most cases have gone through some kind ofpeer review or refereed process (such as commission, selection for programmingor exhibition, etc.), physical evidence of which (such as commission contract,CD publication, recording, event brochure, etc.) should be included. If thiscannot be fulfilled – as some activities/events could be self-initiated or initiatedby organizations with direct interest/link to the author/owner of the outputwhere potential ‘conflict of interests’ might occur – evidence of post-eventreview or critiques would be necessary to help assessors gain a more objectiveunderstanding of the background and significance of the output.

In addition to the general criteria listed above, submissions under each of the fourcategories of output should also comply with the specific criteria listed below.

Category A: Specific criteria for ‘Original Creative Works’

1. An original creative work must have a physical presence applicable to theart form or discipline concerned. For transient creative outputs without adefinitive physical presence, the work must be adequately documented (e.g.video or sound recording) to enable subsequent evaluation and assessment.

2. An individual original creative work can only be claimed once, based onthe date of its significant public presentation (not necessarily the premiere).The date of such presentation must fall within the relevant RAE period. Any‘work’ without being made publicly available cannot be considered as a validoutput submission under this category.

3. A group of works being presented (exhibited) at the same occasion (e.g.,concert, exhibition, etc.) in a cohesive or thematic collection should beconsidered as one single claim only. Multiple works presented (exhibited) atthe same occasion can only be claimed as separate individual outputs providedthat they address distinctively different research concerns and approachesas outlined in their respective ‘Statements of Research Relevancy’. TheAssessing Panel at the Institute level may consider grouping any number ofsuch individual submissions into single submissions if deemed appropriate.

4. No qualifying physical attributes are necessary to define an individual creativework as long as it fulfills all stipulated criteria as detailed in these guidelines.A submission under this category may include multiple evidences collectedduring the relevant RAE period to show the scope of its impact and excel-lence. Examples may include subsequent repeated performances, publications(ISMN, CD, DVD), critical reviews, awards, etc.

Category B: Specific criteria for ‘Performance of Creative Works’

1. This type of non-traditional research output addresses the research relevancyof the actual ‘live performance’ of specific creative work and not the workitself. The owner of the research output is the performer and not the author ofthe work being performed.

2. The owner must be the leader of such live performance or at least play aleading role in the performance whereby the success of which to a great extentdepends on his/her active artistic and creative input.


3. Performance of a collection of individual creative works under a collectivetheme, or on one single occasion/event should be considered as one submis-sion only. Common examples include conducting a concert, as soloist, orgiving a solo or joint recital (music); or directing a dramatic play, ballet ormultimedia performance (performing art).

4. On the contrary, a partial performance appearance during an occasion can onlybe counted as a full submission if that partial performance is of substantiallength and significance such as premiere of a substantial and significantmusical work in a mixed programme. Otherwise, the submission could at bestbe counted on a pro rata basis provided its research relevancy is proven.

5. Multiple performances of the same creative work can only be claimed once(such as on occasion of a tour or series of themed demonstrations) and thedate(s) should fall within the relevant RAE period.

6. To qualify for inclusion as a non-traditional research output, a perfor-mance must demonstrate considerable research relevancy in the accompany-ing ‘Statement of Research Relevancy’ to show how the interpretation of thesaid creative work contributes to research concerns. A submission under thiscategory may also include multiple evidences collected during the relevantRAE period to show the scope of its impact and excellence. Examples mayinclude subsequent repeated performances, broadcasts, publications (CD orDVD), critical reviews, awards, etc.

Category C: Specific criteria for ‘Rendered or Recorded Creative Works’

1. This type of non-traditional research output caters for original creative worksproduced/created specifically for a rendered or recorded medium.

2. Simple documentation/reporting of live performance of creative works shouldnot be considered in this category, but rather as supporting materials in othercategories such as ‘Original Creative Works’ or ‘Performance of CreativeWorks’.

3. The creation and production of such rendered or recorded creative works mayoften involve more than one author/creator. If it could be shown that each co-creator/author contributes to a distinctly different discipline (e.g. music, setdesign, costume design, etc.) in the production, individual co-authors couldclaim full submission status for the work. Otherwise, credit will be shared ona pro rata basis.

Category D: Specific criteria for ‘Curated or Produced Substantial Public Exhibi-tions or Performance Events’

1. This non-traditional research output type aims at curators and event/exhibitionorganizers who are also researchers to the extent that a substantial publicexhibition/event is being brought to take place which bears significant impacton the discovery of new knowledge and experiences.

2. The claim for research output is targeted at the whole exhibition or perfor-mance event (such as festival, tour or campaign), and not at the individualworks or performance of the works therein.

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3. Multiple events/exhibitions cannot be counted as multiple research outputsif they do not introduce any new research component to the event. Exam-ples of this kind of multiple events may be tours of an exhibition or aperformer/performance festival in different cities or places with varying pro-gramme content but similar thematic/artistic/personality components. On theother hand, recurring events with different themes and programme contents(such as biennales, annual arts festivals, etc.) may be submitted as separatesubmissions.

11.3 Examples of Research Projects

The criteria described above, having undergone extensive consultations with localstakeholders and external reviewers, are deemed broad enough to accommodatethe range of research approaches and methodologies that academics in the creativearts are likely to apply. Both practice-based and practice-led research projects areencouraged as long as they contribute to new knowledge and/or understandingabout the nature of practice, and the outcome may include the production of acreative work. This may involve the generation of: (a) data that shed new knowledgeabout the content and context of a creative project; (b) new knowledge or deepenedperspectives about techniques, approaches and thinking related to how some aspectof practice is carried out in the creative arts; (c) knowledge about a social,political, philosophical or other issues using creative techniques, often together withtraditional methodologies. Eight projects are briefly described below to illustrate therange of research undertaken in the creative arts.

Example 1 Cultural and national education through schooling is required afterHong Kong’s return of sovereignty to China in 1997. Consequently Cantoneseopera has been included in different school subjects such as Chinese Language,General Studies and Music. Extra-curricular group teaching of the genre are alsofound inside and outside schools. As master artists have gradually retired fromthe sector, the transmission of Cantonese opera has been regarded to be at riskin terms of continuity. Moreover, the young generations place limited value toand support for the genre, despite it being recognized as an Intangible CulturalHeritage by UNESCO. The study addresses four issues related to the transmissionand transformation of Cantonese opera in Hong Kong: (1) the nature and attributionsto the difficulties in transmission, (2) nurturing future audience through schooleducation, (3) transmission from the master artists to young performers, and (4) thelinkages between school education, professional training and the cultural context ofHong Kong.

Example 2 This study investigates the learning journey of two music students intheir musical experiences from a jazz arranging project in the undergraduate course‘Music Arrangement for Jazz and Pop’. Their musical experiences are presented as


two in-depth case studies to reveal the new awareness of Chinese jazz and how theyfaced cross-cultural issues in learning how to re-arrange a cantopop tune into a bigband/combo jazz arrangement.

Example 3 A significant number of studies have been conducted into creativity inthe educational context. Most of these have focused on the discussion of the methodsand strategies in facilitating creativity in a school settings. However, an increasingnumber of independent amateur groups such as dojinshi (どうじんし) groups –amateur creators interested in reading and creating manga in Asia – have createdtheir own manga and participated in animation-comic-game conventions to showand sell their creative works every year. Few studies have been concerned with thegroup creativity in the popular culture context, such as focussing on the creativityof Asian ethnic dojinshi groups in Hong Kong and Taiwan. This study examines thecreativity of these groups and argues that a group-based approach to creativity canprovide a dynamic model that highlights group creativity, identity, and the popularvisual cultural context for art education at the theoretical level.

Example 4 Community orchestras in Hong Kong are amateur ensembles in whichmusicians do not receive any payment. The desire of amateur musicians to performwith others, the leadership styles of conductors and audience’s feedback/support arekey factors that motivate amateur musicians to participate in community orchestras.However, the retention rate of musicians in Hong Kong’s community orchestrasis low. As conductors in community orchestras play a vital role to motivatethe musicians remaining and performing with high artistic quality in communityorchestras, this study examines the relationship between the leadership styles ofconductors, turnover of musicians and orchestral performance quality.

Example 5 A combination of multimedia, movement, music and theatre transformsthe theatrical space into a dream-like reality of a painter’s mind and his strugglefrom the 1950s to 2012. The stage with performers in movement is juxtaposed withstreams of Hong Kong cityscapes, merging with original composed music, motiongraphics and interactive technology.

Example 6 Hong Kong prides itself as Asia’s world city with an ambitious visionof a US$3 billion project cultural and arts hub – the West Kowloon CulturalDistrict (WKCD). Its frantic pace of life is not graced with a strong level ofinterest in and knowledge of the arts. Indeed there are prevailing misconceptionsthat the Arts are unimportant, have little or no social value to the community,and they belong exclusively to the elites and privileged few who have much freetime on their hands. This large-scale community project brings the arts into thecommunity, involving the partnership of six sectors – the higher education sector,performing and visual artists, commercial sector, school sector, media sector andthe general public. It adopts an action research approach involving the cycles ofplanning, acting, observing and reflecting (cf. Lewin) components of a communityengagement project that was initiated to address the needs in Hong Kong of

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engaging the community in the arts. It includes an evaluation and reflection thatinform the planning and implementing for the next season of the project to establisha sustainable community arts engagement project.

Example 7 Music CD project (Hugo Productions 2011): ‘Searching for PlumBlossoms in the Snow’. South China Normal University Chorus, The Hong KongInstitute of Education Chorus, The Educators’ Singers.

11.4 Research Training

Research training in the creative arts is available through two kinds of programmes:(a) research postgraduate programmes, and (b) taught postgraduate programmes.The former focus mainly on research work and require applicants to have a goodacademic background and preferably sound research experience. These programmesprovide students with training in research methodologies in a specific discipline,and students are required to become substantially involved in research projects.Research postgraduate programmes lead to the qualifications of Doctor of Philoso-phy (Ph.D) and Master of Philosophy (M.Phil). Taught postgraduate programmes,in contrast, focus mainly on coursework, and the submission of a thesis may not berequired for graduation. Programme structures and assessment methods vary acrossdifferent programmes and areas of study, conferring the qualifications of Master ofArts (MA) (thesis component optional) and the Doctor of Education (EdD) (thesisrequired).

The EdD, Ph.D and M.Phil programmes are designed for students wishing to pur-sue academic or research careers in the creative arts and culture. Upon completionof the training programme, students are expected to have made substantial originalcontribution to knowledge, and have demonstrated: (a) the ability to criticallyappraise the literature; (b) a comprehensive understanding of the theories and/orpolicies as applied to the creative arts; (c) advanced skills in research design aswell as methods for data collection and analysis appropriate for the creative arts; (d)competency in understanding and commitment to the underlying values and ethicsin the scientific inquiry in the creative arts; and (e) effective presentation skills forthe dissemination of research results and outcomes.

The research training programme consists of core and specialist courses. Thecore courses provide a broad coverage of the central skills and ethical andmethodological issues of research in education and the creative arts and culture.The specialist courses provide greater depth in specialised skills. The courses,workshops and seminars provide opportunities for students to become part of thelarger research community. They will be able to meet and discuss their work withstudents and staff from different academic departments and learn more about theresearch that are taking place at the institution. Each research student will follow aprogramme of study under the guidance of a principal supervisor and a supervisioncommittee. Students will draw up a plan for their research at the commencement of


the programme in consultation with their supervisor, aiming for completion of theirthesis within a specified period. Completion of a doctoral degree normally requires3 years of full-time study while the M.Phil degree normally requires 2 years of full-time study. Students’ work plan and training programme will be reviewed annuallyin the light of their research needs and progress.

The research training program in the creative arts is founded upon the belief thatMusic and the Arts play a critical role in human and community development aswell as the cultural and creative industries. The rapid and ongoing transformationof the cultural landscape and economic environments in a globalised world presentsenormous challenges to educational and artistic leadership in areas such as pol-icy making, innovative programme/curriculum development and interdisciplinarylearning. Hence the programme is designed to provide stimulating opportunitiesfor students to be engaged as lifelong learners with exciting research projects andsignificant global trends in Music and the Arts. Class discussions include currentand emerging issues such as arts-based research, evidence-based and research-basedteaching and decision making, change leadership, cultural entrepreneurship andbrain-based learning emphasize the vital role of creative music and arts leadershipin the twenty-first century. These are covered in the four specialised courses of:

• Critical Literature Review in Music and Arts Education• Research Methodology and Proposal Writing in Music and Arts Education• Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Music and Arts Education• Entrepreneurship and Leadership in Music and Arts Education.

11.5 Implications and Coda

The Hong Kong higher education sector has witnessed the increased emphasison international benchmarking of research output, development of an enhancedresearch support system, and more focus on quality research training. As researchand research training in the creative arts are relatively recent developments in HongKong, creative arts academics have been facing enormous challenges with the gov-ernment’s heightened emphasis on quality research output and the new requirementsof the RAE 2014. The trend towards performance-based system poses several keyimplications for the creative arts in the near future. While it is beyond the scopeof this chapter to discuss all these implications in detail, key implications includethe way competitive allocation of research funding would impact on operationalbudget and employment, and how a more competitive research environment wouldlead institutions to augment research capacity building, nurture a positive researchculture, explore new approaches to collaboration and competition, handle mattersrelated to staff workload and stress, establish practices that would ensure the qualityof research training outcomes and postgraduate supervision, as well as clarify ethicalissues relevant to creative outputs (see Wiles et al. 2012).

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Although research has been broadly defined to include creative outputs such asart objects, performances, designs and other creative works, no official guidelines orcriteria for assessing non-traditional research outputs exist that specify how creativeoutputs might be evaluated. This chapter has described an initiative that successfullydeveloped a set of guidelines with extensive consultations, spearheaded by a UGC-funded institution which houses the city’s only academic department focusing oncreative arts education. Creative arts academics would need to become familiarwith the new mechanism when justifying for academic recognition of their non-traditional outputs.

The chapter has also provided an overview of the research support system inthe increasingly competitive higher education sector of Hong Kong and the keyexpectations of the RAE 2014. It also discusses recent developments in researchtraining with examples of research projects undertaken by academics and doctoralstudents in the creative arts.

Given the government’s increased investment in research and the developmentof the US$3 billion West Kowloon Cultural District project, the higher educationsector is expected to strengthen with creative arts research outputs increasing inboth quality and quantity.

References

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Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. (2012). Hong Kong in figures: 2012edition. Hong Kong: Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. www.statistics.gov.hk/pub/B10100062012AN12E0100.pdf. Accessed 20 May 2013.

Huang, C. (2009, January 9). Beijing reveals blueprint for delta’s economic growth. SouthChina Morning Post. http://www.scmp.com/article/666306/beijing-reveals-blueprint-deltas-economic-growth. Accessed 20 May 2013.

Katyal, K., & Evers, C. W. (2009). Ambiguities in assessing higher education research in HongKong: Critical reflections (157–171). In T. Besley (Ed.), Assessing the quality of educationalresearch in higher education. Boston: Sense Publishers.

Research Grants Council (Hong Kong). (1994). RGC annual report 1994. http://www.ugc.edu.hk/chs_rgc/english/documents/annual_rpt94/chapter1.html. Accessed 20 May 2013.

University Grants Committee (Hong Kong). (2005). Research assessment exercise (RAE) 2006Carnegie workshop – Annex B: Scholarship assessed. Letter from UGC to Heads of UGCinstitutions dated 25 November 2005. http://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/publication/prog/rae/rae.htm. Accessed 20 May 2013.

University Grants Committee (Hong Kong). (2006). Research assessment exercise 2006. Guidancenotes. Hong Kong: University Grants Committee (Hong Kong). http://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/publication/prog/rae/rae.htm. Accessed 20 May 2013.

University Grants Committee (Hong Kong). (2010). Aspirations for the higher education system inHong Kong: Report of the University Grants Committee. Hong Kong: University Grants Com-mittee (Hong Kong). http://www.edb.gov.hk/index.aspx?nodeID=8277&langno=1. Accessed20 May 2013.

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University Grants Committee, Hong Kong (UGC). (2012b). UGC annual report 2011–2012: Research and knowledge transfer. Hong Kong: University Grants Committee,Hong Kong (UGC). http://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/publication/report/AnnualRpt_2011-12.htm. Accessed 20 May 2013.

University Grants Committee, Hong Kong (UGC). (2012c). General research fund: Summary ofstatistics from 2001/02 to 2011/12. Hong Kong: University Grants Committee, Hong Kong(UGC). http://cdcf.ugc.edu.hk/cdcf/statIndex.do?language=EN#. Accessed 20 May 2013.

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Chapter 12Complicated Conversation: CreatingOpportunities for Transformative Practicein Higher Education Music PerformanceResearch and Pedagogy

Susan A. O’Neill

Abstract Longstanding traditions in research methodologies and disciplinaryapproaches actively communicate singular and situated visions that ‘polarize’heterogeneous practice-based approaches that attempt to step outside thesetraditions. Too often, polarization is equated with controversy when researcherswith different perspectives attempt a conversation. However, as William Pinar(2012. What is curriculum theory? (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge) reminds us,‘complicated conversation’ is an ethical, political and intellectual undertaking, aswell as a form of curriculum that ‘enables educational experience.’ This chapterdiscusses these ideas, drawing on an illustrative ‘provocation’ for exploring someof the challenges and constraints that doctoral students, supervisors, committeemembers, course instructors and examiners encounter when negotiating thecurrent research terrain in music performance and pedagogy (incorporating boththe conservatoire and university schools of music and education). Althoughresearch paradigms and methods may be incommensurable, understanding differentresearch intentions is reconcilable provided we place collaborative transformativepractice as the principled grounding for teaching-learning and research activities.In exploring these ideas, I put forth the notion that the knowledge revealedthrough transformative practice in higher education music performance researchand pedagogy is inextricably linked with revealing paradoxes and relationalunderstandings, and striving for the ideal of academic integrity in any researchendeavour.

Keywords Collaboration • Transformative • Provocation • Curriculum

S.A. O’Neill (�)Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canadae-mail: [email protected]


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12.1 Introduction

A number of paradoxes exist in higher or tertiary education’s current musicperformance and pedagogy research landscape. There is an innovation paradox,for example, whereby innovation (or novel ideas) can be the outcome of practice-based research (sometimes referred to as practice-led research or research in creativepractice); and yet, traditional scholarship and empirical approaches (sometimesreferred to as basic research) only rarely produce predictable and planned outcomesin terms of innovation in the short-term (although historically basic research hasbeen found to be a strong indicator of change that leads to eventual innovation).Another paradox relates to the notion that arts-based or practice-based researchactivity is an experiential and reflective process; and yet, the characteristics, sig-nificance and implications of these processes for music performance and pedagogymay not be immediately apparent. On the other hand, the outcomes of traditionalforms of scholarship or basic research may not involve research activities that areviewed as experiential and reflective; and yet, they can produce outcomes that havea significant influence on these practices in music performance and pedagogy.

Paradoxes create opportunities for perspective transformations precisely becausethey challenge our thinking and understanding. They are full of seemingly contra-dictory and yet interrelated features or qualities that on closer examination mayappear far less polarized than they first appeared. The philosopher Gilles Deleuze(1994, 286) argued that even though there are different kinds of paradoxes, theyare all opposed in some way to good sense or common sense. They have a way ofconfronting us with something that is seemingly unrelated or incomparable therebyforcing us to see something that may have been hidden or ‘totalized within acommon element’ or that might have been equated or cancelled out by commonsense. In both education and research, paradoxes are often manifested throughtheories and methods that seem to be based on consensus but are in fact derived(at least in part) from misperceptions, misinterpretations, or misunderstandings thatnevertheless lead to courses of action that defeat the original intention. Revealingparadoxes helps us to (a) move through and beyond oversimplified labels andbounded categories, (b) recognize the complexity and ambiguity in existing theoryand pedagogy, and (c) raise our critical consciousness by problematizing and de-mythologizing existing structures and potential blind spots in our theories andpractices.

However, revealing a paradox is not an easy task. Fear and uncertainty oftensurround attempts and these reactions fuel arguments and unexpected and unwar-ranted reactions that can lead to extreme, entrenched and polarized positions.Despite the wireless connectivity that gives us access to an unprecedented amountof information and exposure to diverse research epistemologies, our universityclassrooms and research perspectives seem more ‘polarized and confrontationalthan ever’ (Li et al. 2009, x). After decades of working in the area of research onteaching, Gage (1989, 10) described the ‘paradigm wars’, such as those betweenthe scientific tradition and perspectives associated with interpretative and critical

12 Complicated Conversation: Creating Opportunities for Transformative. . . 171

traditions, as an attempt by each paradigm to ‘grind the others into the dust’.Indeed, our current systems and practices in higher education music and musiceducation research continue to create, sustain and even police polarized positions.At a time when complexity, multidimensionality, multimodality, and multiplicityare increasing features of nuanced and scholarly educational discourses, we wouldexpect to see expansive and collaborative learning opportunities and innovativepractices exploding the boundaries of knowledge production and communication.Instead, for many educators and students working in higher education musicperformance research and pedagogy there appears to be an increasing retreat intoforms of scholarship that are inherently lacking in reflexivity and steeped in whatKincheloe (1991, 198) described as ‘the cult of the expert’.

Longstanding traditions in research methodologies and disciplinary approachesactively communicate singular and situated visions that ‘polarize’ heterogeneouspractice-based approaches that attempt to step outside these traditions. Institutionalresearch cultures tend to cultivate a ‘one size fits all’ approach to pedagogy andresearch ‘training’ (Coyne and Triggs 2007). Too often, polarization is equated withcontroversy when researchers with different perspectives attempt a conversation.And so I begin this chapter by asking whether it is possible to view polarized posi-tions as opportunities for collaboration and understanding rather than constraints?How might we begin the process of braiding, blending and blurring our researchculture and practices (O’Neill 2012a) in ways that create opportunities for doctoralstudents in music performance and music education to become reflective problemsolvers and agents of change, critical consumers of research, and generators of theirown knowledge regardless of whether their sought-after destination is professionalpractice or academic research-oriented careers? What might braided, blended andblurred approaches look like as a form of transformative practice that enablestudents to express their subjectivity through academic knowledge in ways that linkthe lived curriculum with the knowledge, structures, expectations and regulations ofthe institutional context?

The research that we engage in is basically defined by the significance thatit has for us – how it enables us to feel connected with issues that matter tous and to our community and that we see as ‘good’. These research intentionsare something that we can all share, understand and mutually define, even ifour paradigms and methods may be incommensurable. By adopting a relationalpedagogy around polarized positions, or William Pinar’s (2012, xiii) notion of‘curriculum as complicated conversation’, we can begin to set up expansive andcollaborative learning opportunities that foster relational understanding. Curriculumas complicated conversation is a way of engaging students dialogically in revealingparadoxes and seeking the critical understandings necessary for negotiating bothpersonal and professional future challenges within shifting cultural and technolog-ical landscapes. In exploring these ideas, I put forth the notion that the knowledgerevealed through transformative practice in higher education music performanceresearch and pedagogy is inextricably linked with revealing paradoxes and relationalunderstandings, and striving for the ideal of academic integrity in any researchendeavour.

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12.2 Curriculum as Complicated Conversation

‘To be educated’, according to the educational theorist R. S. Peters (1973, 20),‘is not to have arrived at a destination; it is to travel with a different view.What is required is not feverish preparation for what lies ahead, but to workwith precision, passion and taste at worthwhile things that lie to hand’. Peterscaptures something that has long been recognized in the field of curriculumtheory: education is an ethical, political and intellectual undertaking involving aconscious, ongoing attempt to incorporate the past into the present in an effortto make meaning of our lives. As such, curriculum needs to be characterized byeducational experience, not as a predetermined formulation of objectives to beevaluated or a linear progression of moving from point A to point B. Curriculumtheory is an interdisciplinary field in which higher education in general and teachereducation or education in professional practice in particular is regarded as the‘professionalization of intellectual freedom’ (Pinar 2012, 183). As such, curriculumfor research education in higher education institutions needs to foster educators’ andstudents’ individuality, originality and creativity, as well as ‘protecting opportunitiesto dissent’ and to engage in ‘ongoing if complicated conversation informed by aself-reflexive, interdisciplinary erudition’ (Pinar 2012, 183). In short, the researcheducation curriculum in higher education can be understood as ‘communicationinformed by academic knowledge’ – or as ‘complicated conversation’ (Pinar 2012,xiii).

Pinar draws on Michael Oakeshott’s (1959, 10) characterization of conversationas ‘not conforming to a predetermined end’ and with ‘no ‘truth’ to be discovered,no proposition to be proved, no conclusion sought’. Rather, there needs to be a‘meeting-place’ that provides opportunities for educators and students to articulateand co-construct meaning in their own terms, informed by the academic knowledgeand ‘scholarly discourses’ they are studying, and situated within their lived experi-ence and ‘current human intercourse’ (Oakeshott 1959, 10). Oakeshott remarks onhow ‘remote’ the concept of conversation has become in education.

The concept of conversation, as Ted Aoki (2005 [1991], 180) points out is not‘chit-chat’, nor simply the exchange or transmission of messages or informationwhere language takes on the significance of a mere tool for coding and conveyingthoughts. Rather, curriculum as conversation requires a ‘true human presence’ thatis improvisatory (Aoki refers to jazz improvisation specifically) with the intention ofpurposeful understanding through intellectual play. Although described as play, it isconsidered a ‘deeply disciplined and creative undertaking’ that involves a relationalunderstanding between what we study and our lived experience. According to Pinar,

understanding the relations among academic knowledge, the state of society, processes ofself-formation, and the characters of the historical moment in which we live [ : : : ] informsthe ethical obligation to care for ourselves and our fellow human beings, that enables us tothink and act with intelligence, sensitivity, and courage. (2012, 190)

Curriculum as complicated conversation is the threading of one’s subjectivity(which is simultaneously socially structured and historically informed) ‘through


academic knowledge to communicate with others’. For Pinar, ‘expressing one’ssubjectivity through academic knowledge is how one links the lived curriculum withthe planned one, how one demonstrates to students that scholarship can speak tothem, how in fact scholarship can enable them to speak’ (2012, xv).

Curriculum as complicated conversation differs dramatically from traditionalforms of instruction, which require students to regurgitate others’ conversations(albeit often critically) rather than pursue their own intellectual explorations.Instead, Pinar proposes that we employ academic knowledge to complicate ourunderstanding of self, others, society and culture. This creates a sense of academicdisciplines as ‘living traditions’, which Applebee (1996, 20) refers to as ‘dynamic’and ‘changing’ ‘knowledge-in-action’. It is a form of understanding that is not astatic state of being but is always in the process of becoming – a nature infusedwith notions of unfolding, openness, and dynamic potential (O’Neill 2012b).Becoming ‘conveys the sense of ontological existence as a path of a continuous,ceaseless, and dynamic moment-to-moment transformation in one’s standing andrelations vis-à-vis the social world’ (Stetsenko 2012, 1). Through this lens, musicperformance research and pedagogy are viewed as continuous processes, whileacknowledging at the same time that our research intentions are historically situatedand simultaneously connected to our ‘lived experience’ (Althusser 2001).

A lack of complicated conversation entrenches polarized positions and distortedstereotyped notions, such as what ‘counts’ as research versus what does not ‘count’.Too often, polarization is equated with controversy when researchers with differentperspectives attempt a conversation. As a starting point, we might consider howto use existing polarized positions as an opportunity for generating ‘complicatedconversation’ rather than an obstacle in graduate student research or something thatwe avoid or position ourselves in opposition to. Instead, we might work toward amore relational understanding. According to Pinar (2012, 230), through complicatedconversation we experience intrasubjective and intersubjective dialogical encountersthat permit possibilities for communicating meaning and fostering understanding.

12.3 Collaborative Transformative Practice

Understanding persons as engaged agents of their personal and social lives isparticularly prominent in Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theorizing. Within thisview, we develop through embeddedness in sociocultural contexts and withinrelations to others in constantly ongoing, open-ended and ever-changing (dynamic)interactions, as well as through back and forth exchanges with the world. Thenotion of collaborative transformative practice is Anna Stetsenko’s (2010) ped-agogical reconceptualization of foundational assumptions in Vygotsky’s theory(1978, 1997). According to Stetsenko (2010, 11), Vygotsky’s approach brings theprocesses of teaching-learning to the forefront of human development becausethey provide a ‘pathway to acquiring the cultural tools that allow for contributionto social practices’. Stetsenko argues that relational understanding helps us move

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beyond dualistic and polarized notions and recognize bi-directional relationships.Collaborative transformative practice is ‘contingent on the vision for the future’and is ‘therefore profoundly infused with ideology, ethics, values, thus constitutingactivist projects of historical Becoming’ (Stetsenko 2010, 9).

In relation to research in music performance and pedagogy, Stetsenko’s notionof collaborative transformative practice provides a unique lens through which toexamine and expand on curriculum as complicated conversation. For example,collaborative transformative practice acknowledges that research has to rely oncollective experiences and efforts to bring about changes in practice, as ‘newlyinvented and discovered ways of doing things have to be crystallized in variousforms of artifacts (including concepts, norms, rules, rituals and procedures) tomake them available to others including future generations, while relying onand building upon experiences of others including those from the distant past’(Stetsenko 2010, 10). Further, new ways of ‘doing research’ have as much to do withhistorical tradition as they do with innovation precisely because historical tradition‘provides ways to gradually elaborate on them through historical practices’. Finally,completed research often takes on a seemingly static sense, with artifacts such aspublications, audio/video recordings, analyses, and so on; however, ‘these artifactsremain dynamic and fluid even in their seemingly reified incarnations in the sensethat they embody patterns of activity and exist only through being involved and re-enacted in the ever-expanding cycles of human transformative activities’ (Stetsenko2010, 10).

Research activity and transformative practice are embedded in temporal andspatial dimensions. Indeed, as Wells points out,

any activity is situated in place and time; although there may be common features acrossactivities and settings, each activity is unique, since it involves the coming together ofparticular individuals in a particular setting with particular artifacts, all of which have theirown histories which, in turn, affect the way in which the activity is actually played out.(2000, 59)

Wells draws on Vygotsky’s concept of artefact-mediated joint activity, whichinvolves change and transformation of people and settings over time and a focus onrelational understanding. I have developed these principles for music performanceeducation and cultural diversity (O’Neill 2011) and for transformative musicengagement (O’Neill 2012b) and I offer here a re-visioning of them for musicperformance research. Each focuses a lens on relational understanding in ways thatmight serve as catalysts for curriculum as complicated conversation:

1. Music performance research is collaborative in nature. According to Wells(2000, 60), ‘joint activity, by definition, requires us to think of the participants notsimply as a collection of individuals but also as a community that works towardshared goals, the achievement of which depends on collaboration’.

2. Music performance research should be purposeful and involve ‘self and culturein action’ by taking into account the lived experiences of the whole person.‘Learning is not simply the acquisition of isolated skills or items of information,but involves the whole person and contributes to the formation of individual


identity’ (Wells 2000, 60). As Gergen and Gergen (1997) remind us, engagingdialogically with others, particularly with those who are not like us, offers thepotential to transform ourselves through the process. Learning activities shouldbe aimed at increasing learners’ sense of the different cultural lenses throughwhich they come to see themselves and others.

3. Music performance research is situated in place and time; each encounteroffers unique ‘contact zones’ of interaction. Hermans (2001, 273) refers to these‘contact zones’ as a meeting point between cultural groups where ‘meaningsand practices of the contacting partners change as a result of communication,understandings and misunderstandings’. Stories are shared and meanings arenegotiated among individuals ‘all of which have their own histories, which, inturn, affect the way in which the activity is actually played out’ (Wells 2000, 61).

4. Music performance research is a means, not an end, to fostering meaning andunderstanding. Music performance research should not be seen as part of acultural ‘tool kit’ but as a means for carrying out activities that are personal aswell as culturally significant to all participants. Sullivan (2007) reminds us that itis in the struggle for meaning, as an ambiguous, creative and dilemmatic process,that we may begin to understand the variety and complexity of self and culturein action.

5. Music performance research outcomes are both aimed for and emergent. Accord-ing to Wells (2000, 61), outcomes of activity cannot be completely known orprescribed in advance. ‘Although there may be prior agreement about the goalto be aimed for, the route that is taken depends on emergent properties of thesituation – the problems encountered and the human material resources availablefor the making of solutions’.

6. Music performance research must allow for individuality, originality and cre-ativity. ‘Development involves ‘rising above oneself,’ both for individuals and forcommunities. Solving new problems requires diversity and originality of possiblesolutions. Without novelty, there would be no development; both individuals andsocieties would be trapped in an endless recycling of current activities, with alltheir limitations’ (Wells 2000, 61).

A key feature of Stetsenko’s collaborative transformative practice for teaching-learning is the need for goal-directed pursuits aimed at changing existing practices.The most fundamental goal-directed pursuit for researchers is to make a contributionto a body of knowledge in a given area. According to Stetsenko (2010, 13),for knowledge to be meaningful ‘it needs to be turned into a tool of one’s lifepursuits whereas one’s pursuits and life agenda should reciprocally build upon one’sknowledge and concepts’. Stetsenko argues that teaching-learning should be orga-nized with this understanding in mind, in that we might also consider its potentialfor music performance research and pedagogy as well. In this view, teaching-learning and research activities would be organized in ways ‘where knowledgeis revealed’: (a) as stemming out of social practice – as its constituent researchtools, methods, approaches and practices; (b) through social practice – wheretools, methods, approaches and practices are rediscovered through students’ active

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explorations and inquiry; and (c) for social practice – where knowledge is renderedmeaningful in light of its relevance in research activities significant to students, thatis, where knowledge is turned into a tool of identity development. A key pedagogicalimplication of collaborative transformative practice is its contribution to ‘revealingeducation as a simultaneously personal and ethical/political endeavour in which thepursuits of one’s identity, learning and of social transformation are seen as broughttogether within one meaningful life project’ (Stetsenko 2010, 15).

Understanding these complex notions in concrete ways that are capable ofmaking an impact on students is a tremendously challenging aspect of instructionalpractice in higher music education. Brookfield (2000) argues that only through acritically reflective stance focused on ‘hunting assumptions’ that underpin our taken-for-granted beliefs about the world, can we hope to increase our chances of creating‘enough energy and sense of purpose to have some real effect on those we teach’(Brookfield 1995, 2). This form of critical reflection is ‘inherently ideological’ andyet grounded in reference to students’ experiences. The provocation that follows isoffered as an illustration of the potential for collaborative transformative practiceand curriculum as complicated conservation.

12.4 Provocation: Medium Specific Versus MediumNeutral Research

One of my colleagues1, 2 was asked to be an examiner for a doctoral comprehensiveexamination. The student submitted the answer to the comprehensive examinationquestion in the form of a poem. The poetry was considered by the student to bea form of arts-based research and therefore an appropriate ‘method’ for conveyinginformation in response to the examination question. In addition, because the poemwas arts-based research, the student thought that no further written explanationor justification was required. Thus, the student did not submit any additionalwritten document that might provide the scholarly background or description ofthe methodology or theoretical grounding for the ‘poem-as-research’. Further, nowritten critical reflection by the student was submitted even though this wouldnormally be expected in professional practice-based research.

My colleague decided to approach the ‘reading’ and evaluation of the student’spoem by asking, ‘Does the poem answer the comprehensive examination question?’.A careful reading and thoughtful interpretation of the poem revealed that it didindeed answer the question albeit from a rather singular perspective that was notoverly developed or critical. Although my colleague was willing to pass the studenton this basis, he decided to engage the student in a complicated conversation

1Lars Lindström (2012) proposes a conceptual framework that characterizes these two dimensionsas the means of aesthetic learning.2My thanks to Yaroslav (Slava) Senyshyn for permission to convey this account of his experience.


about this form of practice- and arts-based research. During the course of thisconversation, my colleague asked the student if he thought what he had producedwas a ‘good’ poem. He wanted the student to consider if anything inherent in the artform of poetry was compromised to achieve a poem that answered a comprehensiveexamination question. The student had an ‘aha’ moment when he revealed theparadox of what was seemingly an appropriate arts-based form of research wasin fact not a good poem as an art form in-and-of-itself precisely because itwas restricted temporally, spatially, and epistemologically by the requirements ofanswering a predetermined comprehensive examination question. In short, poets donot impose these types of restrictions on their art form in order to create an ‘object’of study that is conducive to scholarly evaluation criteria within an authoritariancontext (examiners must evaluate the examination in terms of pass or fail).

The student recognized that by creating the conditions for others to interpret andunderstand his research through reading a poem not only transformed the art form,it also transformed the research practice. Left unexamined, or if the complicatedconversation had not taken place, the student may not have revealed the paradoxnor engaged in the perspective transformation that challenged his thinking andunderstanding. The seemingly contradictory and yet interrelated features or qualitiesof the ‘poem-as-research’ were revealed through an ethical, political and intellectualundertaking involving a conscious, ongoing attempt to incorporate the past intothe present. In this way the student expressed subjectivity ‘through academicknowledge to communicate with others’ (Pinar 2012, xv). Through complicatedconversation the student was able to understand how academic knowledge links thelived curriculum with the planned one. The educator was also able to demonstrateto the student how scholarship can speak and simultaneously enable the studentto speak. By ‘experiencing education’ in this way, the educator and student co-constructed a curriculum in higher education as ‘communication informed byacademic knowledge’ and in doing so they were both able to move beyond polarizedpositions through collaborative transformative practice.

12.5 Conclusion

Research intentions are something that we can understand and mutually define,even if our paradigms and methods may be incommensurable. Attempts to elimate,compromise or waterdown polarized positions may do little to overcome inherenttensions and conflict while at the same time contributing to overly simplistic notionsof what constitutes valued and valuable research. By adopting transformativepractice and pedagogy we can begin to set up expansive and collaborative learningopportunities for relational understanding that comes about through complicatedconversation. Transformative pedagogy is not a method of teaching but rathera set of principles that guides teaching and learning interactions. A key featureinvolves the creation of expansive learning opportunities. According to McCaleb(1997, 1), transformative pedagogy ‘attempts to facilitate a critical capacity within

178 S.A. O’Neill

the classroom while promoting the integration of students, families, communities,and the world’. Similarly, transformative practice involves students in a criticalexploration of their own knowledge of music through representations that involveexisting artistic and cultural ecologies.

Complicated conversation is a way of engaging students and researchers dia-logically in revealing paradoxes and seeking the critical understandings necessaryfor negotiating both personal and professional identities. According to Popkewitz(1988):

Understanding research . . . requires thought about the intersection of biography, history,and social structure. While we are immersed in our personal histories, our practices are notsimply products of our intent and will. We take part in the routines of daily life, we uselanguage that is socially created to make camaraderie with others possible, and we developaffiliations with the roles and institutions that give form to our identities.

Complicated conversation in research education cultivates understanding ofdifferent research intentions through educational practices that are inextricablylinked with revealing paradoxes and relational understandings, and striving for theideal of academic integrity in any research endeavour. Academic integrity is morethan honest and responsible scholarship. It is an ethical principle that helps fosterthe conditions necessary for preparing students for personal and professional futurechallenges that will help them navigate and transform their own meaningful lifeproject.

Acknowledgments Parts of this chapter were presented at the panel discussion on Preparing thenext generation of music researchers: Exploring approaches to research education in tertiary music(S. Harrison, Chair), at the 8th International Research in Music Education (RIME) Conference,University of Exeter, UK in April, 2013.

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Aoki, T. (2005 [1991]). Layered understandings of orientations in social studies program evalua-tion. In W. F. Pinar & R. L. Irwin (Eds.), Curriculum in a new key: The collected works of TedT. Aoki (pp. 167–186). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Applebee, A. N. (1996). Curriculum as conversation: Transforming traditions of teaching andlearning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Brookfield, S. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Brookfield, S. 2000. Transformative learning as ideology critique. In J. Mezirow & Asso-

ciates (Eds.), Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress(pp. 125–148). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Coyne, R., & Triggs, J. (2007). Training for practice-based research: Adaptation, integrationand diversity. Paper presented at the conference Creativity or Conformity? BuildingCultures of Creativity in Higher Education, University of Wales Institute, Cardiffin collaboration with the Higher Education Academy. Retrieved from: http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&ved=0CHgQFjAI&url=http%3A%2F

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students, families, and community. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.O’Neill, S. A. (2011). Learning in and through music performance: Understanding cultural

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2009.11.008

Chapter 13“No Two are the Same”: A Narrative Accountof Supervising Two Students Through a Doctorof Musical Arts Program

Stephen Emmerson

Abstract This chapter reflects upon some of the issues arising from the author’sexperience of undertaking and supervising practice-centred research in relation tomusic performance. My research in this emerging field provides the backgroundagainst which some of the diverse challenges that have arisen through the processof supervision are illuminated. In particular, this chapter will contrast two cases ofstudents within the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA), a program that has practice-based research at its core and which the author convened for its first few yearssince its introduction in 2005. The chapter is written in the form of personalreflections in conjunction with a form of narrative enquiry whereby issues that havearisen through personal experience are presented through fictionalised cases andsituations. In particular the chapter contrasts the cases of two fictionalised studentsin the DMA whose personalities, backgrounds, musical experience and academicabilities present different challenges within an academic context. The emotionalvulnerability of both student and supervisor is explored together with the challengesof negotiating both the professional and personal relationships when working withhighly creative musicians within this context.

This paper gives a fictionalised narrative account of my experience of supervisingtwo students through the Doctor of Musical Arts program. The context is that ofmy own work environment at Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University inBrisbane, where I have been supervising postgraduate research for over a decade.I was convenor of both the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts whenthey were established as Higher Degree Research programs at our institution, andhave supervised students through to completion in these as well as in the Ph.Dprogram. The student cases discussed in this narrative are fictionalised. Thoughsome aspects of them may reflect interactions with specific students I have known,

S. Emmerson (�)Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australiae-mail: [email protected]


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182 S. Emmerson

the two central characters of Christina and Michael have been developed to reflectcontrasting responses to various factors that arise through doctoral candidature.I hope that these fictionalised cases can shed some light on the nature of theexperience for many research students as well as some of the significant differencesin the way a supervisor may work with individual students at this level. Manyfactors have a significant bearing upon the supervisory relationship, including acandidate’s research background, research topic, age, personality, ability to dealwith criticism, as well as their personal circumstances and motivations. Of coursedifferent supervisors will approach the challenges of supervision differently and Ido not intend to suggest that my approach to the task is in any sense exemplary.Nonetheless it is hoped that it may provide some insight into the complexity of theissues involved, the very real challenges that arise throughout the process, as wellas the deeply satisfying sense of achievement that can come from the experience.

Keywords Narrative • Supervision • Student perspectives

It was deeply gratifying to see them both recognised at the graduation last night.Christina had not wanted to attend the ceremony but I had insisted and I hope shewas pleased that I had. ‘You owe me that’ I’d told her, but in fact, I sensed that it wasimportant for her to receive that formal public acknowledgment. It has been such along journey for her, one so much tougher than either of us had anticipated. Theapplause she received was merely polite and her moment in the spotlight passedby quickly but, for me, the moment was one of intense satisfaction. She did lookgenuinely happy, in fact considerably more so than I had seen her for a long time.So few of the people there really had much sense of what had been involved. Isuppose that is the case with every individual awarded at any graduation but, ofcourse, some journeys are more difficult and more rewarding than others. On onelevel, I feel greatly relieved that she has made it through to the end, but the over-riding sense for me was one of pride in being a not-inconsiderable part of what shehad achieved. Seven years is a long time to work together on a project.

Also among the group of candidates whose doctoral degrees from our Conser-vatorium were conferred that evening was Michael, who I had also supervised. Ashe was called up, I could see that he was trying not to smile but couldn’t help itespecially when the chancellor read out that rather longwinded – some might say,pretentious – title of his thesis. He had brought along his own support group, whichyelped enthusiastically as his name was called. Already he had found a way ofwearing the Tudor bonnet that looked impertinent. At least he wasn’t wearing shortsand sandals as I’d feared he would but the bonnet and his bright flowery shirt underthe academic gown made me smile. Like all the doctoral candidates I’ve supervisedthrough to completion, I feel a special bond with each of them and genuine affection.There are some mixed feelings in there to be sure but, at this end, the celebrationof their achievement is lying somewhere very deep inside. I was pleased to be withMichael, Christina and their families for a celebratory drink after the ceremony,though I was sorry to see that the sincerity of Christina’s smile did not seem to last.

13 “No Two are the Same”: A Narrative Account of Supervising. . . 183

Nonetheless, it was particularly pleasing to see Christina and Michael celebratingtheir graduation together. He is much younger and less mature in so many ways. Onthe surface she would seem to have so little in common with this young, ratherawkward yet cocky guy from North Queensland. However over the last couple ofyears they have built an unlikely but surprisingly close friendship. She had taken uphis offer to proof-read her thesis and his somewhat pedantic yet pragmatic approachhad been most useful. Having just finished his own exegesis quite recently, he waswell attuned to the task and made some eminently practical suggestions includingfinding a significant number of mistakes in the formatting of the Reference List.Christina was not strong at attending to such details. But beyond that, in recent yearshe had provided invaluable emotional support to her on more than one occasion,most notably through what had been a traumatic examination process.

One of the examiner’s reports on her thesis had distressed her deeply. There hadbeen some grudging acknowledgement of what seem to me to be its undeniablestrengths but also some criticisms that seemed to me to be distinctly mean-spiritedand unreasonable. Unexpectedly, the examiner turned out to be ideologicallyopposed to the underlying qualitative research paradigm that had been adopted.Christina could take no comfort from the other examiner’s report that was abound-ing in praise (a report, I might add, that would have pleased anyone else) and a hostof deep insecurities and vulnerabilities evidently could no longer be suppressed.This was not the first emotional collapse I had witnessed during her candidaturebut it was the most distressing. As usual, her husband hadn’t been much help orsupport.1

I had thought it strange that, of all people in her midst, it had been Michael whohad been able to provide most tangible support to her at that point of crisis. Theexamination reports on his thesis had come through a few weeks earlier with bothendorsing his work, in fact more enthusiastically than I had expected. He was onlyrequired to make a handful of minor corrections. I had imagined that this, in itself,might have made it awkward for her to face him, let alone confide in him at sucha time. But then you never really know what unsuspected sides of a person willcome to the fore when called upon. One needs the support of more than a couple ofsupervisors to get through a doctorate.

Christina has been for many years widely recognised as one of the finestprofessional clarinettists in the country. The quality of her musicianship – a totalinvolvement and strong sense of personal authenticity – is immediately evidentwhen one sees or hears her play. She has had a long and successful career asfreelance performer and teacher within her university’s music department in NewSouth Wales, but had confided in me that she had always felt apart from the‘academic’ staff there. Whether they did look down on her I couldn’t say –personally I doubt it – but she certainly perceived that to be the case. She had told

1He had never understood why she was doing this research in the first place. He is also a fineprofessional musician, but like most of them, he loses no opportunity to pour scorn on anythingassociated with research. He just “doesn’t get it”.

184 S. Emmerson

me that the desire for academic recognition was one of the driving reasons for herundertaking a doctorate from the start. She said to me recently ‘Even now, they willstill probably look down to me as it’s only a professional doctorate rather than thereal thing.’ Of course I responded along the lines of:

DMAs and practice–based doctorates may have been established in this country quiterecently, but I expect that they will become to be respected equally with Ph.Ds sooner thanyou think. And moreover, excellent examples such as yours will be great models of whatpractice-based research2 can be at its best.

‘Not everyone agrees with that judgement of my work’, she added wryly. (Damnthat examiner!)

Actually for an established professional to put herself (or himself) up forjudgement and criticism at the highest academic level does take a considerabledegree of courage. And moreover one is particularly vulnerable when undertakingan open and honest examination of one’s artistic practice. I recall Ruth Behar writingabout how making one’s self vulnerable to your reader can invite a sympatheticresponse (1996). But, as the examination reports of Christina’s practice-basedresearch reminds me, that is not always the case. In my experience, performingmusicians have a paradoxical combination of deep insecurities together with self-belief and, in dealing with them, one needs to be sensitive to both sides of thatequation.3 The challenges of providing support balanced with sensitive yet clearcriticism in such cases should not be underestimated.

I find Christina’s research deeply engaging to read. Certainly it shows a clearand open mind, even if one that is somewhat idiosyncratic. The clarity of thoughtis evident more when she writes than when she speaks and that is not always thecase with doctoral candidates! In fact all too often that is the other way around.Her research examined the psychological strategies of high-level performers andshe embraced the ambiguities and complexities of the topic in a uniquely personalway. I admire that distinctive aspect of her work very much. It is not the way I wouldhave tackled such a topic – and certainly it was not the way one of the examinerswanted it to have been done – but her approach was original and, ultimately, I believewas able to offer some valuable insights. I have only ever wanted to encourage herto find her a voice as a researcher as distinctive and authoritative as that whichshines through when she plays her instrument. For her topic she read widely andinterviewed some of Australia’s leading musicians, analysing their views throughthe prism of her own extensive experience. In particular she had documentedand interrogated the strategies she herself employed in preparing for two recital

2Throughout this paper I have used the term practice-based research rather than any of the otherrelated terms – such as practice-led research, artistic research etc – because this is the terminologythat he been built into our the components of our program at QCGU. Students enrol in coursestitled practiced-based research.3Well, maybe that’s not just performing musicians! I tried to reflect on this once in a paper called –pretentiously perhaps – The performer’s voice and ‘his dualistic soul’ (that was Hindemith’s term)but in that I only scratched the surface of the topic (Emmerson 2011).


programmes, the recordings of which were included in the research submission.Though evidence of high-level professional practice was provided through theserecordings, the intellectual engagement with the topic had been her primary concernand motivation throughout. It had resulted in a thesis considerably longer than thatrequired, in fact well over twice the length of Michael’s. She had done an extensiveamount of background work on all sorts of related cross-disciplinary areas, againmuch more than was ultimately required (a great deal more than Michael evercontemplated I might add!). But at the core, the thesis represents a very personaljourney that provides a unique insight into the world of a highly sophisticatedperformer. The journey resonated with me and, I expect, would do so with mostmusicians. But in that I could be wrong.

Michael’s doctoral submission had also been a combination of practice andexegesis but had resulted in a very different type of research submission. He is acomposer and his practice was presented in the traditional form of a portfolio ofscores accompanied by a thesis of around 20,000 words. Throughout the writing ofthis exegesis he had been determined to keep what he perceived to be objectivity tothe fore. In fact his writing style is somewhat stiff, lacking Christina’s fluency andimaginative sense of style. For anyone who knows him, his personal idiosyncrasiescome through this document in all sorts of ways, but these were largely uninten-tional. ‘You are allowed to write in the first person’, I would tell him. He had satthrough the classes on qualitative research and particularly autoethnography4 in thecoursework within the first year of the program, but he resisted such approaches. Ithink he thought that acknowledging any form of subjectivity was a sign of weaknessor of fuzziness – ‘too New Age’ as he expressed it to me once. That did not matchthe self-image he wished to promote as composer and academic – one markedly atodds with other aspects of his personality. But, given that he was writing about hisown compositions, it seemed to me that some insights into how his personal worldintersects with his creative work would not have been out of place nor lacking inrelevance or interest. There was of course no inkling of that sense of humour that ispart of every personal interaction with him. But actually, in the long run, the safer,more traditional analysis of his own music couched in quasi-objective terms, allneatly dissected and organised, got him the result he was after. The approach wasin line with certain established traditions within musicology and composition. Hisexaminers did not comment on the lack of a personal dimension. The presentationof both portfolio and exegesis was highly polished and with close attention to detail.Michael is undoubtedly a talented composer but my impression is that he stillhas a long way to go until something aesthetically coherent, let alone emotionally

4During the first year of candidature the DMA students undertake two coursework mod-ules in Research Methods and Research Design respectively. There they are introduced to arange of methodological approaches suitable for practice-based research. Among the qualitativeapproaches, many students are attracted to the possibilities of autoethnography. Contributors to abook on Musical Autoethnographies (Bartleet and Ellis 2009) were largely from our institution.

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engaging, emerges in his music. I’ll be very interested to see where our Dr. Michaelends up in 10 years’ time and, more to the point, what his music sounds like then.5

Michael was just starting his undergraduate degree when Christina embarkedon her doctorate.6 She had originally applied to do a Ph.D but, after somepersuasion, we convinced her that she would be better suited to the Doctor ofMusical Arts program that had recently been instigated at our Conservatorium.Moreover the emphasis on Artistic Practice as Research was one of the focus areasof the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre that had also been recentlyestablished. Keen to break down the traditional distinctions – some might say,barriers – between musicologists/researchers and music performers, the institution’sresearch agenda welcomed the reflections of experienced practitioners. This was intune with developments in the United Kingdom and Europe, most explicitly perhapsat the Orpheus Institute in Ghent, Belgium, whose manifesto The artistic turn (2009)articulates the desirable shift towards valuing the performing artist’s voice and thespecial insights that an ‘insider’ can provide. Such priorities were in tune withvarious developments across the diverse fields within qualitative research but, asone of Christina’s examiners reminds me, it remains a paradigm shift that is notembraced or even welcomed by all.

Christina had the sort of profile we sought for candidates in the DMA program:a mature established professional, keen to contribute from the perspective of anexperienced performer and, through the documentation of and reflection uponher professional practice, we hoped would be in a position to offer valuableinsights from an insider’s perspective. Though from that point of view she seemeda most appropriate candidate for the program, her undergraduate training hadoccurred some decades earlier and she had no research experience at an honoursor postgraduate level.7 Beyond her extensive professional experience in tertiaryeducation, it was clear that she had a keen mind and a wide range of intellectualinterests within and beyond music. Her breadth of cultural knowledge and awarenessway extends beyond Michael’s. In recent years she had taken some undergraduatecourses in psychology and European cinema. (That we could discuss the films ofIngmar Bergman sealed it for me.) In any case, I strongly supported her applicationinto the DMA program and was happy to take on the role as her principal supervisor.Moreover she seemed to have strong motivation to pursue doctoral studies thoughthe reasons behind that only became fully apparent at a later stage. When she began,I had anticipated that her candidature would be straightforward.

5I should note that he’s such a striking contrast to Kelly, his former girlfriend, who was theother really talented composer in his year as an undergraduate. I found her music to be far moredistinctive and compelling. I was so sorry she had dropped out of her Masters program. Her musicwas fresh and, moreover, she could offer many really striking insights when she talked about it.But when she tried to write a coherent paragraph about it : : : never mind. It’s pleasing to hear howwell she’s doing nonetheless, even without the higher degree.6Having an on-going professional career, she undertook the degree part-time.7Understandably, the University was concerned about admitting into a doctoral-level researchprogram a candidate who was untested in research and a case needed to be made in suchcircumstances.


I recall that I had been much less enthusiastic about accepting Michael into theDMA program. We normally required 5 years of high-level professional experienceafter completion of an undergraduate degree, but Michael had been proactivearranging performances of his music for some years so that was taken into account.His Honours dissertation had been very solid – if not particularly imaginative –and, surprising for his age, he had published a number of articles in various journalsconcerned with contemporary music. And so the case was made and he was acceptedinto the DMA at an unusually young age.8 As it turned out, my initial concernsproved to be unfounded. It was Christina’s candidature that proved to be far moredifficult.

At the time, I had felt somewhat bull-dozed into supervising Michael. In fact,I’d only agreed to be the associate supervisor when Joe Green, the compositionlecturer here, had initially been so keen to accept him into the program. But whenthose two fell out after 18 months, I was obliged to step in and take over principalsupervision as well.9 I’m not a composer myself but by this stage his compositionalfolio was largely complete and my task was primarily to work with him on theexegesis. Unfortunately, even before their relationship soured, Joe had no interest inthat aspect of the research and saw his role exclusively in guiding the compositionalportfolio. As I understand it, they had had a major disagreement over one of thecompositions that Joe felt was too long and convoluted. Michael however was veryhappy with the piece and insisted that its length was justified – he had planned theproportions of the piece very carefully and was loath to change it. ‘It’s my pieceand that’s the way I want it to be’, he said to me. But Joe did not like his authorityto be challenged and so an unfortunate standoff resulted in a breakdown of theirrelationship.

I was willing to take on the role of principal supervisor as I felt that Michael hadcome too far to give up the program at this stage. The days when one only supervisedin areas of specialist expertise seem long gone, as do the days when one supervisedonly one or two dissertations at any one time. In recent years, at any one time I aminvolved with the supervision of around ten of them and these would range acrossa broad range of topic areas. Some of these topics extend significantly beyond myown areas of research – areas of interest even – ranging from issues of musician’shealth through to repertoire for brass bands.10

I do at times feel quite vulnerable in supervising those outside areas whereI am familiar with the literature but they do give me the opportunity to expandmy awareness of other fields that I would otherwise not encounter or explore in

8At our university, students with a first-class honours degree – even Honours 2A sometimes –can proceed directly into a Ph.D programme if their research proposal is convincing enough andwe have staff that can supervise the project. But entry into the DMA, as a professional doctorate,usually requires the requisite professional experience.9In our institution, doctoral candidates are assigned two supervisors from the faculty and, ifrequired, a third from outside the Conservatorium may be appointed if an academic with suitableexpertise is available and willing to take on the role.10I am a pianist and my postgraduate research was on the music of Béla Bartók.

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any depth. For example, I recall supervising some years ago a Swedish student,called Marianne, who was examining the role of number symbolism in certainchoral works of Isak Borg, an obscure nineteenth-century Scandinavian composer.I realised that there were probably not many supervisors in Australia with thespecialist knowledge needed for that one. I learnt much through the process andshe got her piece of paper and seemed happy enough with that.

It saddens me that the certificate Christina received last night has probably notgiven her comparable satisfaction – at least not yet. The report from the thirdexaminer – required when the recommendations of the original two examiners areirreconcilable – had been positive enough and actually had made a number of validpoints, but some criticisms remained that had stung her nonetheless. I don’t thinkhe had listened to the recordings of her playing – he made no reference to them inhis report – and the focus of his assessment was entirely upon the written words.Moreover he had recommended some changes to the thesis and, as a result, it wasdeemed by the Chairperson of Examiners that some sections needed to be cut, onechapter needed to be extensively rewritten and, elsewhere, some relatively minorchanges and re-writing were required. In fact the changes were not particularlyonerous nor was the extent of the changes required unusual. I could tell she wasbitterly disappointed but it took a while to realise how devastated in fact she wasby the criticism from two of her examiners. Having agonised over every sentenceof that submission to get it just the way she wanted it, being forced to changeit – to ‘mutilate it’ as she put it – in order to please someone else was somethingshe resented. She did not feel that many of the required changes were a genuineimprovement and, having put so much of herself into this work over many years,the criticisms were taken very personally. Of course I tried to persuade her not to dothat: ‘The nature of academic life : : : ’ or indeed ‘Anyone who wants his/her work tobe published will tell you that : : : ’ etcetera. But, given her nature, I suppose it wasinevitable that the criticisms would shake her self-confidence. Of course the arts ofboth giving and receiving criticism are subtle and demanding ones over which fewof us have any real sense of mastery. I hope I am getting better at it but it remains achallenge that I feel keenly.

The effort she had made over the preceding 18 months to finish the thesis hadtaken a significant toll on her health. Bouts of anxiety had contributed to herdifficulty in sleeping that, in turn, led to various breakdowns and her seeking varioustreatments. The details don’t need to be set out here but it was very clear to me thather fluctuations in health were tied to the stresses and anxieties emanating from herresearch. It would be all too easy to be hard-headed about this and say that criticism,including that which one perceives to be unjust, is a part of academic life – just as itis in music performance – and she just needed to learn to accept it and deal with it.But that would be to dismiss a genuine issue and what appears to me to be a crucialaspect of the process.

I had been optimistic about the work when it was finally submitted for assess-ment. It seemed to me that her professional stature as a musician was self-evidentin the recordings and was complemented by a genuinely insightful and valuableexegesis. I had told her that I expected this to be recognised by the examiners. In


truth, I was less concerned about sending this thesis off to be examined than someothers I have supervised. Christina has a fluent command of the language and thoughher arguments can be somewhat idiosyncratic, a coherence emerges. Moreover attimes some complex ideas are handled with disarming clarity. Certainly I have readPh.D theses that were, to my mind at least, much less worthy. Certainly I have readdoctoral theses that had involved much less work, certainly ones that were muchless original and ambitious, not to mention much less sophisticated in grapplingwith difficult ideas. But her examiners had very different positions on these complexissues, different, I might add, not only from her position but also from each other’s.

In retrospect, I should have recommended that her work be sent to differentexaminers, ones that would have been concerned as much with the quality of theprofessional practice as with the intellectual content. Certainly ‘easier’ examinerscould have been found. But Christina was not needing or wanting certification as aperformer. She had undertaken the research to investigate some difficult issues thatshe and many other performers face. Given this emphasis, the work had been sentto highly regarded international figures in the field of music psychology though infact neither of the original two were clarinettists or even experienced performers.Perhaps that was a major misjudgement on my part. It seems so unfair that so muchhinges on finding the right examiners.

There is no doubt that her practice could have been foregrounded more promi-nently in the submission, as the portfolio had been in Michael’s. At some institutionsthat offer doctorates in performance, the balance between practice and exegesisis specified – a few recitals of a certain duration and a thesis of so-many words.Surprisingly, at some Australian institutions that word limit is little more than whatelsewhere might be expected for a Masters degree. While such specifications appearto provide clear guidelines to student and supervisor, when designing our DMA wedeliberately resisted prescribing a specific balance between practice and words. Wefelt that the balance should be determined by the particular nature of the researchproject – its particular questions and goals. Clearly students such as Christina andMichael had distinct needs, priorities and motivations in pursuing their research andI am pleased that a diversity of approaches and outcomes can be accommodated.However this does add significant challenges both to the student and to the role ofsupervisor. While it can be exciting to be part of a recent and fast developing fieldsuch as practice-based research in music, it has its dangers.

There is no doubt that it would have been safer for Christina to have exploreda less ambitious and more tangible topic, moreover one that doesn’t bleed overinto other disciplines. Perhaps I should have discouraged such an unorthodox orambitious thesis, and advised an approach that would not have had such a toll on herhealth and, ultimately, her self-confidence. And the University – not to mention herhusband! –would also have been happier to for it to be completed sooner. Of course,keeping the scope of the investigation manageable is one of the primary tasks ofa supervisor. But on the other hand, one does not wish to discourage a student –especially an apparently capable one – of pursuing a challenging and ambitious taskif they are driven to do so. As with so many aspects of supervision, it is a delicatepath to tread.

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Of course individuals will have many different ways of working. I know studentswho have to plan it all out before they start and have all chapter and sub chapter titlesand word-lengths for each section decided before they start writing. Michael was astriking example of that way of working but, in my experience, again the extentto which the final product matched the preconceived plan was unusual. Such anapproach might appear eminently sensible but it certainly has never worked for meand neither did it for Christina. She had been very thrilled to encounter the conceptof ‘emergent methodology’!

The experiences of supervising Christina and Michael were very different ofcourse – in retrospect neither was particularly unusual but, in reality, no two arereally at all alike. With each candidate, one tries to find a way of working thatmatches the individual’s skills and needs, not to mention personality and circum-stances. Some, such as Christina, have demanding professional commitments –within a professional doctorate that is to be expected – not to mention familyobligations, health and other personal issues. I certainly don’t try to impose myway of researching or supervising and make them all fit in with that. Some doctoralstudents are more demanding of their supervisors than others – fortunately neitherChristina nor Michael was at either extreme end of the spectrum there.11 ThoughMichael needed more chasing up in the early stages, both of them were in regulartouch with me throughout their candidature. In fact I wish that all my doctoralstudents keep in touch so regularly.

The ways I communicate with my postgraduate research students can also varygreatly, as does the nature of the critical feedback I provide. I supervise somestudents who live outside Brisbane from a distance using a combination of email andSkype, which is clearly less than ideal but can work with some students. (Christinaspent several years of her candidature living outside of Brisbane and, though wenegotiated the supervision over that time pretty well, in fact it has been so mucheasier since she has lived here.) Some students want to talk and develop their ideasthrough verbal discussion, while with others that is less effective. With some ofthem, one can talk with them at length – they will nod their heads, take noteseven, and seem to understand – but nothing one says seems to stick. Sometimesit’s only when writing comments on a written document – at times unsubtle ones –that certain points that seem to register. With some students, one builds a strongpersonal connection while with others one doesn’t. With some, the interaction isprimarily an open discussion while others need more direct and firmer guidance.For example, Christina frequently needed to talk at length before having a sense of

11Some students send you three emails a day and phone you at home at night or on the weekendswhile others you don’t hear from for months until they are nudged to report on what they’ve beenup to. Some, who you may not have heard from for months, then expect that you will have nothingelse to do when they want your full attention. I recall the case of a student who emailed me adocument of around 20,000 words at 8 pm one night and then knocked on my office door thenext morning at around 9 a.m. asking ‘What did you think of it? I’d like to get your feedback’.I gave him some immediate feedback! I’m sure all supervisors have experienced students withexpectations like that.


how to proceed. Michael on the other hand developed his own clear idea of whathe wanted to do and how he would go about it largely independently. My role assupervisor was primarily to probe with questions firstly, to make him articulate andjustify what he had in mind and, secondly, to convince myself that his conceptand approach was viable. My task was largely to help him refine and focus hisproject/thesis/portfolio as it took shape but, in truth, he took charge and directed theprocess himself. I was happy for him to do so. For others, one is much more closelyinvolved with the actual shaping of both the concept and methodology as well as, ofcourse, the written research document.

In the case of Christina, the supervisory relationship was complex in so far asshe was around my own age (shall we just say middle-aged) and, moreover, a highlyrespected colleague for whom I had known professionally for some years before hercandidature. We had in fact performed chamber music together on a few occasionsand, though I did not know her closely, we had many friends in the profession incommon. That is not always easy, particularly in the inevitable giving and takingof criticism involved. In some ways I saw my role more as an advisor more thansupervisor – someone who could recommend resources to explore, someone shecould bounce ideas off, provide support and reassurance and, in general, to help keepher on track. She had a less comfortable relationship with her associate supervisor.She found his criticisms blunt and difficult to handle, and thus rarely sought hisinput. And unless it was sought, he did not seek to be involved any more thannecessary. I am unsettled by the thought that with stricter supervision from me aless ambitious but perhaps better-focussed thesis may have been completed sooner.However, my abiding impression throughout her candidature was that her work wasunfolding organically at the optimal pace she could manage. I found with her (andwith some others I’ve supervised) that my attempts to accelerate that pace were noteffective. For example, when I would try to set deadlines along the lines of: ‘I wantyou to get the full draft of this chapter to me by the end of next month’, almostalways they were never met. It was not that the deadline was disregarded but a goodreason why it had not been achieved was always provided.

I found a marvellous new book – 700 pages long – that’s just been published that opens up agreat new way to approach this whole issue, so I had to rethink and rewrite all that materialabout : : :

Or

As I was writing it occurred to me that this needs to consider the question of : : : . and so Ihad to go back to the literature on : : : and found that : : :

Or

This chapter is now over 16,000 words and I still haven’t covered the issue of : : :

‘I am guilty of guilt’, she would say smiling, knowing that I would recognisethe reference to Bergman.12 In fact I did find that, especially in the last 18 months

12From Wild Strawberries (1957) written and directed by Ingmar Bergman.

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before submission, the imposition of such deadlines resulted more or less directly ina breakdown of her health on more than one occasion (and then yet more deferralsof her final submission date on medical grounds). Despite the timelines that theUniversity would like doctoral programs to stick to, setting rigid deadlines is notalways helpful and, in some cases, can be distinctly counterproductive.

Michael, on the other hand, responded very well to deadlines. He completedhis doctorate in 3 years. His composition portfolio was largely complete withinthe first two and the supporting exegesis was essentially written in the last yearof candidature. In my experience, such an orderly candidature that completes adoctorate within 3 years is very rare, much rarer than the University would like.Most candidates take at least 4 years even when enrolled full-time. I would saythat the challenge of completing within this timeframe is greater when the data isqualitative, the research is practice-based, and there is a personal dimension. Theseaspects can exert a range of pressures.

Fiona Candlin has written about the various forms of stress associated withpractice-based research.

Anxiety is endemic to doctoral study; abnormally balanced or overly arrogant candidatesaside, virtually everyone suffers from it. : : : Like any other Ph.D, practice-based Ph.Dsare also the focus of much anxiety but, significantly, those anxieties reach beyondpersonal doubt and are often shared by supervisors, examiners and senior academicmanagement. (2000)

Such issues are inescapably part of the territory, and I believe need to be facedin any discussion of supervision and its challenges. Michael showed few signs ofanxiety during his candidature but, from what I know of his personality, he wouldhave considered any acknowledgment of them as a sign of weakness. Christina ofcourse was so different in this regard, but again in fact was closer to what I wouldperceive to be the norm. It seems to me that for supervisors to be effective they needto be highly attuned to the individual personal needs of each candidate and to adjustthe nature of their support and critical feedback accordingly.

There had been a stage a few years ago when Christina had been very close todropping out of the program. In my experience it is not uncommon among studentsat some point in the doctoral journey to feel that the whole thing has got out ofcontrol, become unmanageable, and that their lives would be so much better withoutthis seemingly relentless pressure. I’m sure that most have asked themselves manytimes, ‘Why am I doing this?’ For a young person like Michael, the answer isobvious given that a doctorate would significantly enhance his future employmentprospects in tertiary education.13 But for Christina who has already worked in aUniversity music department for many years, the question remains a valid onewithout a self-evident answer.14 Though she evidently did have an answer for that,

13It will give him the edge over Kelly. Certainly if he wants to teach in a tertiary institution it ismost likely to be one of the required selection criteria.14Apparently the question ‘Why are you doing this?’ was frequently asked by her husband so sheshould have been well practiced in responding to it.


there did come that time, after having spent several years on it (and after havingcollected a huge amount of material on her topic) that she was ready to throw it all inand admit defeat. I told her of the similar point of crisis I had also experienced whenwriting my own doctoral thesis and, since then, have observed comparable low-points in the candidatures of many others I’ve supervised. Hopefully it is comfortingto know that one is not the first or last to experience such doubts15 and that feelingsof deep insecurity as a researcher are not uncommon.

The 6 months after that crisis turned out to be the decisive period for the writingof Christina’s thesis. There was a breakthrough that seemed as much in her attitudeas in the nature of her work. Somehow things that had been disconnected anddisparate seemed to come together with an unforseen coherence and clarity. Itwas a passage of her candidature when we were in irregular contact – certainly Iknew she was putting her head down, retreating into that private world known topeople who have done intense creative work. She was still maintaining her teachingcommitments but was now getting up at around 4.30 a.m. each morning and writingfor a couple of hours before breakfast (that is, I might add, before dropping herteenage children at school.) Uncharacteristically, she did not want to show me anyof what she was writing until the chapter was complete. It was evident to us boththat this was the central and best chapter of the thesis. Moreover, once that had beenwritten, it had become much clearer how the other chapters should be reworked andreshaped. It did seem to us both that the time had come when it was ready to comeout and take its form.

Inevitably there are many ups and downs when doing research at a doctorallevel – not only periods of more or less motivation and commitment but genuinebreakthroughs when a new clarity can emerge. As supervisors we need to be patientand remind ourselves of this through those periods when progress is frustratinglyslow. Of course, with some students one waits in vain for a clarity that never arrives.With some students, such as Michael, there is a straightforward correlation betweenthe hours spent and the progress made. But, with qualitative research that is practice-based and personalised, I find this to be rarely the case.

Many students find it difficult for to let go of work on which they have spentconsiderable amounts of time. Michael fortunately was surprisingly willing to dothis. If I suggested that a paragraph was not clear or that a point needed to be mademore strongly, he was just as likely to just cut it as to work on it further. Anythingthat I identified as risky he seemed perfectly happy to discard immediately. (‘Canyou back up that assertion with a reference?’ I would ask. ‘Okay, I’ll cut it’, he’dreply.) I found this disconcerting as opportunities to improve the work were therebymissed but, in retrospect, it was characteristically efficient and pragmatic.

Christina, on the other hand, found criticism much harder to deal with. It took mea while as her supervisor to realise the extent of how difficult – threatening even –

15My own experience in writing my Ph.D had involved a deep sense of isolation which only inretrospect did I realise was not uncommon. Though in fact in some ways this had suited me, it wasalso deeply unsettling. Certainly I now recognise that I should have used my own supervisor better.

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she found it to be. (I’m sure her associate supervisor never realised it and his lackof tact in this regard contributed to their less-than-ideal relationship.) I recall thatwhen preparing her confirmation document, she had been quite put out when I hadcrossed out sentences or passages or written comments like cut this or not necessaryor had suggested alternative wordings. She did not want what she had written to bedismissed before she’d been given her the chance to defend her words and explainwhy she felt they had to be in there. On one occasion when I suggested changing asentence she had ‘worked on more than you could realise’ she suddenly burst intotears. Until that I had not appreciated how much of herself she had invested in whatshe had written. I tried to explain to her as calmly as I could how important it is tobe able to let go of passages that turn out not to be suitable to the purpose.

You know that Beethoven filled 650 pages of sketches for his Quartet opus 131 – over fourtimes the length of the final work.16 And think of how much music Brahms discarded if itwasn’t good enough : : :

But from then on, I was particularly careful in the framing and articulating mycriticisms and I felt guilty that it took a middle-aged woman bursting into tearsfor me to fully realise how sensitive I should be. Of course one has to continueto be critical. But if a point I found to be questionable could be defended wellenough, I was happy enough to let it stand for the time being. I recall one memorableencounter when she was defending the words she had written quite vigorously – Ifelt, defensively – and I backed away to dispel the sense of confrontation that wasbuilding. However this was not the only occasion when a point that she had defendedstrongly at the time either disappeared or came to be reworked – and ultimatelyargued much more convincingly – in the next version. But it was clearly importantfor her to feel that the judgement was her own and I came to respect that.

With Michael the criticisms could be much less subtle – in fact the moredirect and specific they were, the better. But these and other cases remind mehow carefully one moves back and forth along the spectrum between minorsuggestions/advice/constructive criticism at one end and, at the other, where firmerrecommendations/specified changes are less negotiable.

Undoubtedly some students need much more help than others (just as someare more or less forthcoming in requesting that time from you).17 In fact I foundmyself wondering at the recent graduation what would be the proportion betweenthe number of hours of supervision I had spent each with Christina and Michael. Not

16As described in Winter and Martin (1994). The Beethoven Quartet Companion. Berkeley:University of California Press, 4.17Usually supervision requires many more hours than are allocated on an academic’s workloadcalculations. Admittedly there are weeks when one doesn’t see the student or any of their workbut then there are other periods when many hours a week are required to read their work andprovide detailed and appropriate feedback. The theory of course is that it all evens out in the end,but ultimately I think most supervisors realise that they need to give much more than the timeofficially allocated but, from what I can tell, most are willing – if not happy as such – to do that.Similarly, I should add, the rewards for examining a thesis is in no way commensurate with themany often-difficult hours involved.


only had hers taken over twice as many years but, as I said earlier, she required muchmore intense discussion and regular interaction through the process. (This shouldnot be surprising given that her topic dealt with much more demanding conceptualchallenges.) Moreover she had written so many different versions of each chapterbefore we reached its final form. If I had to put a number on it, my estimate wouldbe that I had spent would be at least four times the hours with her, not to mentionthe extra emotional energy involved. I don’t resent or regret that at all. Undoubtedlythere are rewards and satisfactions to be derived from working closely with suchadvanced students and the sense of gratification achieved through observing thedevelopment of their work can be deeply rewarding. But once again it is strikinghow different individual cases can be.

I am very proud of how Christina’s mind developed through the process.The summative assessment of research, with the submission sent off to externalassessors, usually gives no sense of the personal growth that may or may not havebeen involved. For some students such as Michael that growth is significant but,for many – I suspect, most – it can be deeply transformative and life-changing.One learns not only about one’s topic but also a great deal about one’s self– howone’s mind works, how to articulate ideas, to think critically and build arguments.In essence, one learns not only how to write but how to think more clearly. Certainlythese aspects are the most valuable things I gained from the experience of writing myown thesis. Statistically, of course most theses are only be read by a small handfulof people (often by no one else beyond the couple of examiners) but increasinglythe work’s external impact – its contribution to the field – seems to me to be muchless important than the student’s development. Of course it is gratifying for anyindividual to find that his or her work is of interest to others and makes a genuinecontribution to our understanding to a field of knowledge. To have it publicallyvalidated through conferring the title of doctor is of course valuable. But for me, theindividual’s trajectory of personal growth is the far more important outcome and, assupervisor, I believe that that needs to be the priority. The full realisation of how fara doctoral candidate has travelled may only be recognised down the track. I thinkI can perceive the extraordinary distance that Christina has travelled much moreclearly than she can at present, but I hope that she will come to appreciate that andeventually derive some appropriate satisfaction from it.

I had been very pleased to meet the parents of both Michael and Christina at thegraduation last night. Michael’s had come down from Mackay for the occasion andthey were particularly warm and generous towards me. ‘He’s such an anxious boyand he found the process so stressful. But he was so grateful that you were there tosupport him throughout all the ups and downs.’ That’s not what I’d expected to hear!

Christina had never mentioned her parents to me and I had not been expecting tomeet them that night. Her mother said little but had a gentle manner and a genuinewarmth to her smile. On the other hand her father, a tall and rather imposing man,greeted me quite formally, almost brusquely. He lost no time informing me thathe had been a professor of Science at Melbourne University for many years. I amguessing that he would have been in his late 70s but was clearly still very sharp inmind and, evidently, rather impatient in manner.

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‘Well, she certainly took her time getting this, didn’t she. A waste of time if you ask me. Shewas never cut out for academic life. Of course she wouldn’t be up to doing a real doctorate,’he said.

I saw Christina blush at this point and avert her eyes. I had thought that overthe years I had built a pretty good sense of Christina as a person but only then didmy understanding of various things she had said and done over the years fall intoplace. There are many aspects of each candidate’s personal life that of course onenever knows – or wants or needs to know – but one supervises not only the researchproject but the individual, and no two are the same, or even much alike.

References

Bartleet, B., & Ellis, C. (Eds.). (2009). Music autoethnographies: Making autoethnographysing/making music personal. Brisbane: Australian Academic Press.

Behar, R. (1996). The vulnerable observer: Anthropology that breaks your heart. Boston: Beacon.Candlin, F. (2000). A proper anxiety? Practice-based PhDs and academic unease. Working papers

in art and design 1. http://sitem.herts.ac.uk/artdes_research/papers/wpades/vol1/candlin2.html.Accessed 1 Dec 2012.

Coessens, K., Crispin, D., & Douglas, A. (2009). The artistic turn: A manifesto. Leuven: LeuvenUniversity Press.

Emmerson, S. (2011). The performer’s voice and ‘His Dualistic Soul’: Hindemith reconsidered.In A. Marshman (Ed.), Performers’ voices across centuries and cultures (pp. 27–42). London:Imperial College Press.

Winter, R., & Martin, R. (1994). The Beethoven Quartet companion. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press.

http://sitem.herts.ac.uk/artdes_research/papers/wpades/vol1/candlin2.html

Chapter 14Weaving Together Disparate Threads: FuturePerspectives for Research and ResearchEducation

Scott Harrison

Abstract A number of commonalities are evident in the writing on researchand research education. There are also several disparate threads that pervade thediscussion. Conflicts around definition, the relative status of research in internationalcontexts, dissemination and format of research outcomes and the management offuture perspectives for the discipline remain unresolved. This chapter seeks to drawtogether those threads and seeks to provide some potential platforms for approachesto the future of music research in performance and pedagogy.

Keywords Artistic research • Future directions • Policy • Practice

14.1 Introduction

This chapter seeks to bring together the threads drawn out by authors across thevolume and to provide some possibilities for the future in the field. Taking eachchapter in order, the main ideas are summarized, and parallels are drawn with thethinking and practical suggestions of other contributors where appropriate. Thesecond part of the chapter focuses on some emergent themes, and offers somepractical applications and new directions for exploration.

S. Harrison (�)Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, South Brisbane, Australiae-mail: [email protected]


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14.2 Weaving Together Disparate Threads

In the opening chapter, Schippers reminds us that although music-making involvesresearch, not all music-making is research: nor would we want it to be. Not everyrehearsal is a research project, nor is every performance necessarily research.Schippers also calls us to marry creative integrity and academic rigour and leavebehind the posturing that was required to win artistic research a place at the table.His reference to aural libraries as an essential form of literature for the artisticresearcher has resonances for other authors in the volume, particularly Cox, Pearsonand Emmerson.

Harrison and Draper bring up several operational issues but a core aspect oftheir argument is that depending on epistemological and ontological positioning,the artist can determine the nature of new knowledge. They colourfully cautionabout the distinction between truth and bullshit, but the chapter is centered on thelocation of the work in the artistic setting and the ways in which tacit knowledgeand processes can be articulated. There is also the suggestion that disseminationshould be suited to the context and audience for which it is intended. This relatesto the concept of generalisability mentioned in the Odena chapter, where the ideaof research for whom is brought up. Earlier writing by Harrison (2013) who alsoponders the question of audience.

The work of Coessens and others emphasizes the dangers of valuing the writtenword over the artwork. Like Harrison and Draper, they recommend moving awayfrom the frozen aspects of symbolic language to celebrate the experimental andimprovisational nature of artistic expression. They also draw our attention to thenature of failure, noting that all research has elements of failure that we shouldaccept as part of the process of arriving at our outcomes. Their explication of a four-step process to arrive at a research product gives a template for potential applicationin other settings. They sum up by drawing on their earlier work that clearly definesthe nature and sanctity of artistic research, referring to the location of this formof research in the recording, expression and transmission of the artist’s researchtrajectory.

Still in the Conservatoire setting, Cox advocates for encouraging and trainingconservatoire students to embrace fluency in the thought-processes and methodsof artistic research. This, he says, brings the benefit of producing versatile, open-minded and capable musicians. This notion finds also support in the work of Gaunt(2011), Carey et al. (2012) and others. Cox also refers to the oral/aural natureof learning, noting that orality enables experimental crafting and interrogating ofresearch questions and methodologies. Pearson explores the role of orality furtherand calls on us to celebrate how we can pause, practise and reflect. Like Schippers,Ginsborg reminds us of the origins of performative research in composition,including degrees in this discipline dating back over 500 years. She reminds us of thedefinition of research ‘a process of investigation leading to new insights, effectivelyshared’ and also re-emphasizes Huib Schippers’ mantra that all performances arenot necessarily research outcomes. Like Draper and Harrison, she questions why

14 Weaving Together Disparate Threads: Future Perspectives for Research. . . 199

professional musicians and conservatoire teachers need research training and arrivesat the conclusion that we need research for the purposes of improving practice.Her hope is that regular discussions and through the sharing of experiences andmaterials, practice-based research will flourish. O’Neill pursues this later in thevolume in her chapter. Westerlund also advocates for structured approaches toshared practice as a means to overcome the isolation so often experienced inresearch. Other related recent research (see Harrison and Dwyer 2013) has alsonoted the concerns all academics face in professional isolation, and how thisinfluences pedagogy in research degrees. Westerlund suggests that we need to beready for constant reflection and developmental work. This approach is exemplifiedin the renowned practices at the Sibelius Academy, and taken up further in Draperand Cunio chapter, in which four questions are posited:

• How may musical thinking and artistic outcomes be considered research?• In what ways might musical artefacts best balance and serve to exemplify this?• To what degree can the research be understood to be embodied in the artwork?• How might traditional notions of questions, literature or method be understood?

In responding to the first of these questions, they conclude that the process isas important as the product. In this sense, their thinking aligns somewhat withthe views of Coessens et al. from Chap. 3. The role of artefacts is enjoying arenaissance in the examples of digital documentation of projects explored in theirchapter. For the last two questions, Draper and Cunio, like Ginsborg, suggest usingthe Ph.D by composition as a metaphor for other forms of creative research. Theyalso recommend consideration of material thinking, long used in visual art andfilmmaking, concluding that may provide a useful reference point for music.

Odena approaches the problems of finding appropriate methodologicalapproaches for practitioner-researchers engaged in practice-centred enquiry. Manyprojects in this domain are qualitative in orientation and involve in-depth analysisof particular cases and interactions. Like other authors in the volume, Odena notesthat these projects typically result in knowledge that is useful for other practitioners.Therefore, the issue of generalisability, so frequently questioned in artistic research(along with the associated accusations of naval-gazing), can be addressed, in part,by considering the audience to be practitioners.

The approach of the Burnard chapter is to focus on the political agenda andthe need for recognition of the status of knowledge creation in music. Leonghas a similar mantra, with the battle for recognition of art objects, performances,designs and other creative works as research achieved, he turns to the guidelinesfor assessing non-text based outputs. He claims that these are nebulous and thistherefore present challenges for increasing both quality and quantity. These tensionsspill over into the assessment of research degrees as noted by Webb et al. (2013) andHarrison (2012). O’Neill’s chapter similarly asks for respect for knowledge equityand emphasizes the need for relational understandings, and acknowledgement ofidentity the academic integrity of any research endeavour that aims to preparestudents for personal and professional future challenges. The Emmerson chapterlooks at two cases where students are entering the profession at the conclusion of

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7435-3_3

200 S. Harrison

their doctoral degrees. The vulnerability of the student and supervisor is exploredrecognizing, as O’Neill does, the challenges of negotiating professional personalrelationships. Emmerson also extends our thinking in his courageous use of anarrative approach, ending with a reminder that formulaic approaches to researchand research education in performance and pedagogic are doomed to fail.

14.3 Emergent Themes

14.3.1 Terminology

One of the few certainties to emerge from this volume is that approaches toresearch and research education vary widely because of the geographic, politicaland institutional context as well as the interactions of the individuals involved.While there are some immutable definitional constants, the terms employed at thesites explored in this volume are as divergent as the cases described above. Theterms practice based, practice-centred, practice-as and practice-led are used almostinterchangeably along side artistic research or, in some cases, simply research. Thelast of these has considerable merit. Perhaps the time for justifying our research withadditional descriptors is past, and we are in a position to claim the territory withoutthe need for complicated conversations about the nature of what we do. This is not toimply that we shouldn’t constantly question our practices – rather that we shouldn’tbe apologetic about the processes we employ and the outcomes we achieve.

14.3.2 Recognition of the Status of Artistic Research

A second theme to emerge in the volume is that music research has statusin government research evaluation exercises and increasing comparability withother forms of research degrees in the tertiary setting. Even if the debate aboutterminology is passé, there is remains a lingering hint of equivalence in somerespects i.e. that a performance equals a book, or a composition equals a journalarticle. What artistic research requires is complete parity with other forms of staffand student research so the work can continue undeterred. This does not imply thatall artistic practice is research: this is made patently obvious in the arguments ofSchippers, Ginsborg and others. It is perhaps more clearly articulated by Tomlinsonwho notes that creative work ‘becomes research when you put forward a hypothesisand proceed with an experiment. [ : : : ] When you investigate with some clarityor consciousness the process becomes fascinating in all areas, music included’(Tomlinson in Lorenzon 2012). This is not to say the experimentation must bedocumented and disseminated in scientific terms. Increasingly, research questionscan be answered in musical ways that musicians understand and apply.

14 Weaving Together Disparate Threads: Future Perspectives for Research. . . 201

14.3.3 From the Political to the Personal

If the first two themes are about defining terms and achieving status, the thirdmoves to the nature of research interactions. This theme refers relational concernsand speaks to the very nature of music as a means of communication, and ofthe ways in which exchanges take place between academics as co-researchers orbetween experienced academics and beginning student researchers. As O’Neillasserts, and Emmerson concurs, these communications can be complicated andmust be individually mediated. No project is identical and no research studentcan be treated in same manner as another. To negotiate these exchanges requiresemotional intelligence and deep reflection on practice. Such an approach does notnegate the importance of community in supporting research. Each of the chaptersin this volume is situated in a place where shared practice is commonplace. This ismost apparent in the examples provided by Westerlund, Ginsborg and, to a lesserextent, Harrison and Draper. Within these communities, or as Harrison (2012) callsthem, affinity spaces (after the work of James Gee 2004), fluidity of identity and thewillingness to accept different types of knowledge (including tacit knowledge) arevalued and respected. Under these circumstances music research has the potentialto thrive.

14.4 Future Perspectives for Researchand Research Education

These three themes: consigning arguments about terminology to history, recogniz-ing and maintaining the status of music research and finding ways in which theindividual and community space can co-exist provide a platform for the future ofour discipline. The recognition by peers of non-linear, boundary-stretching repre-sentations of music research undertaken by experienced and emerging researchersdemands re-thinking and skilful articulation in written and musical forms. Thevolume has merely scratched the surface by providing some positions and practicesthat might be emulated in other settings. Our peers, and the new wave of musicresearchers, will no doubt carry the banner into the future. But enough of readingand writing – bring on the music!

References

Carey, G., Lebler, D., & Gall, S. (2012). Investigating the one-to-one teaching model in highermusic education: Developing a collaborative model of inquiry. Scientia Paedagogica Experi-mentali: International Journal of Experimental Research in Education, 47(2), 175–198.

Gaunt, H. (2011). Understanding the one-to-one relationship in instrumental/vocal tuition inHigher Education: comparing student and teacher perceptions. British Journal of MusicEducation, 28(2), 159–179.

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Gee, J. (2004). Situated language and learning: A critique of traditional schooling. New York:Routledge.

Harrison, S. D. (2012). Letting go: An auto-ethnography of supervising the research higher degreein music. International Journal of Music Education, 30(2), 99–110.

Harrison, S. (2013, in press). Finding the balance: Creativity and text-based approaches in researchand research training programmes. In P. Burnard (Ed.), Developing creativities in higher musiceducation. London: Routledge

Harrison, S., & Dwyer, R. (2013, April 10). Self-perpetuating learning and teaching practices inmusic: breaking the cycle in research higher degree pedagogy. Research in Music EducationConference, Exeter.

Lorenzon, M. (2012, August-September). Performance-led research in music. Real Time 110, 8.Webb, J., Burr, S., & Brien, D. (2013, February 15). Standards, not standardisation: Examining the

creative arts doctorate in Australia. Paper presented at Creative Arts Learning and TeachingConference, Hobart.

pedagogy education in music research - universitas...

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