Artistic Research In Music Discipline And Resistance

The Orpheus Institute celebrates 20 years of artistic research in music. Artistic research in music is now at a generational stage of development. How should it deal with its own maturing? From a kaleidoscope of individual pursuits, ethos and methodologies have emerged to encompass more distributed approaches. This transformation has taken place in parallel with changes in the dynamics and structures of culture, its institutions and constituencies. Artistic research maintains a productive dialectic between its potential status as discipline or as practice. It has developed topoi, tropes and its own canon of cases, texts and figures. How does it negotiate relationships with institutions, disciplines and bodies of theory while retaining the critical perspective of the artist? Twenty years ago the Orpheus Institute was founded in Ghent to pursue research through the practice of musicians and thus the Orpheus Institute is of the same generation as the field it was established to explore. This festive volume in honour of 20 years of the Orpheus Institute reviews the initial trajectory and looks ahead to the institute's new position.

The Orpheus Institute celebrates 20 years of artistic research in music Artistic research has come of age, and with it the Orpheus Institute. Founded twenty years ago, the Institute’s purpose from the start has been to pursue research through the practice of musicians. The Orpheus Institute is of the same generation as the field it was established to explore. Like many young adults, artistic research and its structures are still constructing their identity within a wider world. How have they developed? How will they mature? How can they negotiate relationships with institutions, disciplines, and bodies of theory and yet retain the essence of their work—the critical perspective of the artist? In the last two decades there have been major changes in the dynamics and structures of culture, its institutions and constituencies. How can artistic research maintain a productive dialectic between its potential status as a discipline and its core as radical practice? These and related questions are the threads woven through this collection of essays and assessments by present and past members of the Orpheus community—researchers, scholars, administrators, advisors. Together and separately they weave a tapestry of past accomplishments, current research, and future perspectives. They celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Orpheus not with congratulations but with challenges and questions—a job for research, a job for the Institute, a job for the future. The wide range of contributors to this volume includes practitioner-researchers, theorists, and academic leaders from institutions at the forefront of artistic research in music. Contributors Tom Beghin (Orpheus Institute, Ghent), Paulo de Assis (Orpheus Institute, Ghent), Leonella Grasso Caprioli (Conservatorio di Vicenza), Jonathan Impett (Orpheus Institute, Ghent), Esa Kirkkopelto (University of the Arts, Helsinki), Kari Kurkela (University of the Arts, Helsinki), Susan Melrose (Middlesex University, London), Stefan Östersjö (Orpheus Institute, Ghent), Gertrud Sandqvist (Malmö Art Academy), Huib Schippers, Vanessa Tomlinson, Paul Draper (Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Griffith University), Luk Vaes (Orpheus Institute, Ghent), Janneke Wesseling/ Kitty Zijlmans (Leiden University)

Artistic Practice as Research in Music: Theory, Criticism, Practice brings together internationally renowned scholars and practitioners to explore the cultural, institutional, theoretical, methodological, epistemological, ethical and practical aspects and implications of the rapidly evolving area of artistic research in music. Through various theoretical positions and case studies, and by establishing robust connections between theoretical debates and concrete examples of artistic research projects, the authors discuss the conditions under which artistic practice becomes a research activity; how practice-led research is understood in conservatoire settings; issues of assessment in relation to musical performance as research; methodological possibilities open to music practitioners entering academic environments as researchers; the role of technology in processes of musical composition as research; the role and value of performerly knowledge in music-analytical enquiry; issues in relation to live performance as a research method; artistic collaboration and improvisation as research tools; interdisciplinary concerns of the artist-researcher; and the relationship between the affordances of a musical instrument and artistic research in musical performance. Readers will come away from the book with fresh insights about the theoretical, critical and practical work being done by experts in this exciting new field of enquiry.

The increasing interest in artistic research, especially in music, is throwing open doors to exciting ideas about how we generate new musical knowledge and understanding. This book examines the wide array of factors at play in innovative practice and how by treating it as research we can make new ideas more widely accessible. Three key ideas propel the book. First, it argues that artistic research comes from inside the practice and exists in a space that accommodates both objective and subjective observation and analyses because the researcher is the practitioner. It is a space for dialogue between apparently opposing binaries: the composer and the performer, the past and the present, the fixed and the fluid, the intellectual and the intuitive, the abstract and the embodied, the prepared and the spontaneous, the enduring and the transitory, and so on. It is not so much constructed in a logical, sequential manner in the way of the scientific method of doing research but more as a “braided” space, woven from many disparate elements. Second, the book articulates the notion that artistic research in music has its own verification procedures that need to be brought into the academy, especially in terms of the moderation of non-traditional research outputs, including the description of the criteria for allocation of research points for the purposes of data collection, as well as real world relevance and industry engagement. Third, by way of numerous examples of original and creative music making, it demonstrates in practical terms how exploration and experimentation functions as legitimate academic research. Many of the case studies deliberately cross boundaries that were previously assumed to be rigid and definite in order to blaze new musical trails, creating new collaborations and synergies.

Artistic Research: Charting a Field in Expansion provides a multidisciplinary overview of different discourses and practices, exploring cutting-edge questions from the burgeoning field of artistic research. Intended as a primer on artistic research, it presents diverse perspectives, strategies, methodologies, and concrete examples of research projects situated at the crossroads of art and academia, exposing international work of significant projects from Europe, Asia, Australia, South and North America. The book includes chapters on diverse fields of thought and practice, addressing a common thread of questions and problematics. The comprehensive editors’ introduction offers a much-needed extensive overview of practice-based artistic research in general. This book is ideal for graduate students across philosophy, cultural studies, art, music, performance studies and more.

Postgraduate Research in Music: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Thesis is an essential text for music students who are undertaking postgraduate research. Unique in its approach and scope, this is a "how to" book, a practical guide that sets out, step-by-step, how to write a thesis. It discusses all key aspects of the research process in the order in which they are encountered, from the initial stages of a research project to completion of a thesis. It also offers a music-specific focus, with explanations and examples that are immediately relevant for all music research and which take into account the special characteristics of music as a discipline. At the same time, the book provides a useful teaching framework for lecturers. All key concepts are illustrated with music-relevant examples. Exercises, and in some chapters class seminar topics as well, are included to reinforce the concepts being discussed. Reading lists are appended at the end of most chapters, enabling students to explore topics in greater depth. Valuable supplementary information, such as referencing examples, is provided in the appendices. Postgraduate Research in Music is based on the premise that there are certain principles that underpin good scholarship, regardless of the area in which the research is conducted. In distilling and discussing these principles, this book speaks to all scholars working within the discipline of music.

Where is the academic study of music today, and what paths should it take into the future? Should we be looking at how music relates to society and constructs meaning through it, rather than how it transcends the social? Can we ‘remix’ our discipline and attempt to address all musics on an equal basis, without splitting ourselves in advance into subgroups of ‘musicologists’, ‘theorists’, and ‘ethnomusicologists’? These are some of the crucial issues that Nicholas Cook has raised since he emerged in the 1990s as one of the UK’s leading and most widely read voices in critical musicology. In this book, collaborators and former students of Cook pursue these questions and others raised by his work—from notation, historiography, and performance to the place of music in multimedia forms such as virtual reality and video games, analysing both how it can bring people together and the ways in which it has failed to do so.

The contributions to this Festschrift, honouring the distinguished Irish musicologist Harry White on his sixtieth birthday, have wide repercussions and span a broad timeframe. But for all its variety, this volume is built around two axes: on the one hand, attention is focussed on the history of music and literature in Ireland and the British Isles, and on the other, topics of the German and Austrian musical past. In both cases it reflects the particular interest of a scholar, whose playful, sometimes unconventional way of approaching his subject is so refreshing and time and again leads to innovative, surprising insights. It also reflects a scholar, who – for all the broadening of his perspectives that has taken place over the years – has always adhered to the strands of his scholarly preoccupations that have become dear to him: the music of the 'Austro-Italian Baroque', and Irish musical culture first and foremost. An international cast of authors announces the sustaining influence of Harry White's wide-ranging research. Professor Dr Thomas Hochradner Chair of the Department of Musicology University of Music and Dramatic Arts Mozarteum Salzburg