Three Studentships are available for full-time doctoral research starting in Autumn 2010 in association with the AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (CMPCP).

Two of the studentships will be based at the University of Cambridge; details are available here.
The third studentship will be based at King's College London; click here for further information.

Two AHRC-funded PhD Studentships are available for full-time doctoral research at the Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge as part of the AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice. Both research students will be supervised by Professors John Rink and Nicholas Cook.

Doctoral Student 1 will conduct research and write a thesis on Distributed Creativity in the Production of Classical Music Recordings. One of the aims of this project is to document the role of the producer in ‘art’ music recordings and to develop approaches to the analysis and critical evaluation of the producer as creative practitioner. An indicative description of the project can be found here.

Doctoral Student 2 will conduct research and write a thesis on Distributed Creativity in Popular Music, which will be studied from a number of complementary perspectives. An indicative description of this project can be found here.

Each of these research projects will have four main strands: 1) observational; 2) ethnographic; 3) oral-historical; and 4) analytical, ideally involving a range of released and unreleased recorded materials.

The two doctoral students will enrol at the University of Cambridge and begin their studies on 1 October 2010. They will be expected to complete their research by September 2013 and to submit their theses by no later than 30 September 2014.

The eligibility criteria for these studentships are comparable to those described in the AHRC’s Guide to Student Eligibility. In brief, applicants must normally have already completed a Master’s degree in Music or an associated subject; furthermore, only UK or European Union applicants and those meeting the special eligibility criteria set out in the AHRC’s Guide will be considered for these awards.

Studentships will be awarded on either a full (maintenance + fees) or fees-only basis, in accordance with the criteria stipulated in the AHRC’s Guide. Current maintenance and fee rates are published on the AHRC’s website.

Applications (consisting of a downloaded or online application form, a 1,000-word research proposal, writing samples, transcripts and references) are due by 31 March 2010 and must be submitted directly to the Faculty of Music at the University of Cambridge according to the procedures described here. Details of graduate study in the Faculty of Music at Cambridge can be found here. Information about and advice on the application process can be obtained from Mrs Jenny Mallindine (Graduate Secretary) at jm628@cam.ac.uk. More general information is available at the University of Cambridge’s Graduate Admissions site.

If you would like further information about these studentships or about the AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice, please contact Professor John Rink (CMPCP Director) at jsr50@cam.ac.uk or Professor Nicholas Cook (Associate Director) at njc69@cam.ac.uk.

back to top

funding full-time doctoral research starting in September 2010, in association with the AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (CMPCP)

Context

This PhD Studentship, funded by the School of Arts & Humanities at King's College London, is part of the King's-based CMPCP research project on 'Shaping Music in Performance'. 'Shaping Music' aims to explore how musicians use the notion of shape (and underlying or related perceptions or mechanisms) in preparing, engaging in, and experiencing performances. The main research work, undertaken by two post-doctoral research assistants working with Professor Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, takes two converging approaches: 1) documenting and analysing performers' reported experiences of the way music 'takes shape', and the ways in which a sense of shape influences detailed decision-making in performance; and 2) experimental and/or observational studies testing and refining the data generated under 1) which may use recorded musical performances and may extend into computer modelling. In their early work the project team are using questionnaires and interviews with professional performers, teacher and students in order to explore perceptions and beliefs about music as shaped. Follow-up studies will be designed to answer specific questions arising from the results.

'Shaping Music' is one of five large-scale research projects within the Centre, each of which includes a variety of research activities, including empirical investigations, theory development, analytical work, and creative practice. The research projects also involve a series of workshops, to which experts and post-graduate students in related fields will be invited, the first of which (for 'Shaping Music') is to be held in March 2010, and will examine links between music and shape from a number of perspectives. A Centre-wide Performance Studies Network will enable collaborative research between scholars and performers from around the world, and Visiting Fellowships will be awarded for short periods of collaborative work with the CMPCP research teams.

The Studentship

Applicants for the PhD studentship should propose a research project that will feed into the 'Shaping Music' project by investigating a closely related question or by bringing other methodologies to bear upon the work of the research team. Although imaginative and well-argued proposals from other disciplines are not ruled out, we expect that the successful proposal is most likely to use empirical approaches from music psychology or music sociology. We are also willing to consider applications that involve the visualisation of music audio or other computational approaches likely to shed light on notions of music as shaped. Whatever approach is taken, the emphasis will be on music as performed and as perceived through performance, not on musical compositions or scores.

The following questions touch on some of the areas already discussed by the team. They are intended only to stimulate thought and for purposes of illustration. Applicants are encouraged to develop their own proposals which may or may not be related to the ideas suggested here.

1) Visualisations of music as shaped. Recent increases in the sophistication of hardware and software approaches to music visualisation suggest new possibilities for the representation of music in the visual domain. How might the ongoing findings of the 'Shaping Music' research team, gathering data from what musicians say about music and shape, be enhanced by a computational approach to visualising sound?

2) Listeners and shape. To what extent do listeners (with and without musical training) experience music as shaped or as having shape?

3) Music is linked to shape through physical movement such as dance, gesture in performance, and the physical movements made by performers to make a sound. To what extent do visual representations of such movements influence listeners' responses to music and the shapes they perceive while listening? NB this is envisaged as an empirical study involving varied visual stimuli applied to the same performance(s).

4) Musical shape in education. Many musicians appear to use the idea of shape in teaching. Educational methods such as the Kodály method also link music and shape. To what extent might the findings of the 'Shaping Music' project inform music education practices at primary and/or secondary and/or tertiary levels? NB this is envisaged as an Action Research-type collaborative design.

5) Is it possible to assess the similarities and differences between composers' ideas about the shape of their music, the sounds performers use to convey those ideas, and the shape listeners perceive through the performances? In other words, is shape a communicable feature of music? NB this is intended as an empirical, not a theoretical, philosophical or historical study.

6) Therapeutic uses of musical shape. To what extent is shape used by music therapists? Do therapists instinctively respond to certain gestures with certain types of musical sound, or musical shapes?

7) Synaesthetes and shape. How common is, and what is the nature of, music-shape synaesthesia? What can it tell us about the apparently widespread perception among non-synaesthetes that music in performance has shape?

Value, Timetable, and Application process

The value of the studentship will, for three years starting no later than October 2010, cover the full-time home/EU tuition fee plus a maintenance grant of £15,000 per annum to cover the cost of living in London. The successful appointee will be expected to complete their research by September 2013 and to submit their thesis by no later than 30 September 2014.

Applicants should apply online using the process described at www.kcl.ac.uk/graduate/apply/rstep4.html. A detailed project proposal is required. Previous work or further information may be requested from shortlisted candidates. The deadline for online submissions is 1 April 2010. Please address any queries or requests for specific details to the project director, Daniel Leech-Wilkinson:daniel.leech-wilkinson@kcl.ac.uk.

back to top