Doctoral research

Doctoral project 2

The topic of this doctoral project is distributed creativity in popular music, studied from a number of complementary perspectives. Recordings have been the principal medium for the consumption of popular music at least since the ‘youthquake’ of the 1950s and 1960s, but different popular music traditions embody maximally opposed ideologies of recording: on the one hand, the cult of authenticity in 1970s rock valorised live performance; on the other hand, the successive development of tape editing, multi-track recording and digital processing gave rise to studio productions which had no direct correlate in live performance. As in the case of classical musical traditions but more conspicuously, these technological developments placed sound engineers and producers at the heart of the creative process. The resulting distribution of creative input across composers/songwriters, performers and sound engineers/producers (a distribution that renders such distinctions increasingly untenable) is only one aspect of collective creativity embodied in popular music: even ‘classic’ rock groups committed to live performance typically developed their songs through playing together, whether in front of a microphone or not. Traditional musicological thinking about the creative process in music, however, remains dominated by individualistic approaches derived from the Romantic cult of the ‘great’ composer, even when it is addressing the work of rock bands (as for instance in the case of Dave Headlam’s writing on Led Zeppelin). The aim of this project is directly to address the phenomenon of collective creativity in popular music, drawing evidence from a variety of different sources.

One of these sources is the creative practice of contemporary rock bands and other musicians’ collectives, studied through an ethnography of rehearsal, recording and live performance events. (As Lucy Green has shown in her research on how popular musicians learn, it is not necessary for this purpose to work with high-profile bands.) This will encompass not only observational (including, if appropriate, participant-observational) approaches but also interview-based research, so linking to a second broad perspective: oral-historical work with popular musicians, sound engineers and producers active from the 1950s onward, aiming to document not only studio and related practices of the period, but also the values and attitudes of practitioners. This in turn will link with the third main research strand, which will involve the analysis of recorded materials – not only in the form of commercial releases, official or unofficial live recordings, off-air recordings and so on, but also such complementary materials as outtakes, demo tapes and master tapes. While many such materials are inaccessible (record companies increasingly appreciate their commercial value), some outtakes have been included in recent CD re-releases, while others are in the hands of precisely those popular musicians, sound engineers and producers with whom relations will be established through the oral-historical project. It will also be necessary for the student to acquire a good working knowledge of recording, studio effects and other relevant equipment as developed over the last half century, and here again these professional contacts will be crucial.

Whereas a number of individual aspects of this work have already been researched – outtakes have for example been analysed in the context of particular artists or songs, and the development of recording technology traced and analysed, particularly from a broadly sociological point of view – the focus on distributed and collective creativity promises a new perspective on these practices, and will help link the history of popular music recording technology and performance practice to central musicological concerns. It is this focus which also links the project closely to the core work of CMPCP: the student will be pursuing the central issues concerning the nature of creative practice that are the focus of the new Centre’s other projects (distributed creativity is in particular a central issue for the Creative practice in contemporary concert music project), but in a complementary musical genre. The link in terms of research questions and approaches with these other projects will provide a supportive environment for the student, who will benefit from the range of workshops and network events available through the Centre, and who will of course be encouraged to collaborate closely with the research student working in the area of ‘art’ musical recording and production. The focus on collective creativity is particularly germane to the topic of Nicholas Cook’s book on music as creative practice, and it is for this reason that Cook will supervise the project.

The range of possible material for study in this project is very large, and there is considerable scope for flexibility in the balance between the various research approaches described above; in this way there will be plenty of opportunity for the research student to adapt the project to his or her particular interests and skills, as well as to the most promising contacts and resources that emerge in the course of the research. We envisage that the student will benefit from a wide range of relevant expertise and resources available in the London region, including at Thames Valley University (popular music production), the British Library Sound Archive, the Music Producers Guild, and the Gus Dudgeon Foundation; CHARM established links with all of these except the last, and these links and new ones will be either strengthened or developed through CMPCP’s network and in particular its successive conferences. Driven largely by student demand, British universities are at present vigorously expanding their teaching capacity in the area of popular music; well-trained doctoral researchers in this field are scarce, however, so this doctoral student will be in an excellent position to build an academic career on completion.