Composition is not research by John Croft

“Composers in academic institutions are increasingly required to describe their activities in terms of ‘research’ - formulating ‘research questions’, ‘research narratives’, ‘aims’ no ‘outcomes’. Research p;and and funding applications require one to spicify the nature of the original contribution that will be made by a piece of music, even before it is composed. These requirements lead to an emphasis on collaborative work, technology and superficial novelty of format. Yet the very idea that musical composition is. Form of research is a category error: music is a domain of thought whose cognitive dimension lies in embodiment, revelation or presentation, but not in investigation and description. It is argued here that the idea of composition as research os not only objectively false but inimical to gemuine musical originality.”

“Composing of course, might on occasion depend on research - how I make an orchestra sound like a bell? How do I electronically sustain a note from an instrument so that it doesn’t sound mechanical? What is the best way to notate microtones our complex rhythms so that they can be accurately played? But none of these is actually the composition of music.” — in response to this: composing is not research vs. Certain kinds of techniques. Engagement with other composer’s work, sketches, resolving problems are research but no the act of composing it self - although all these can be the act of composing.

“But this is in fact what grant applications, composition PhD btrcts. And the ‘research narratives’ we are required to write for the ‘Research Excellence Framework’ (or its equivalents in an increasing number of other countries) tend to look like. Sometimes, as if aware of the problem, we insert an evaluative term: ‘can a coherent musical structure be developed for sonificarion of the human genome?’ Without the word ‘coherent’ the answer is of course yes. So we put something in to make it seem like the result is not a foregone conclusion. But of course it is a foregone conclusion, because what one generally means by such a question is ‘can I write convincing music with this technique?’ Where the person to be convinced is... me! Can I write music that I thing is good? It turns out I can. Now, we could of course conduct research into questions like this: we could, for example, empirically test the perceived cohesion of. Music constructed in a certain way. But composition in that case would be the test stimolus for a music psychology experiment, not itself research.” — in response to this:  “yes of course I can write 10000 words about how immaculate my music is.” Better write this in this way: “can I write 10000 words about my own music? The answer is yes”

“There is a fundamental distinction at work here: research describes the world; composition adds something to the world. Research, at lest of the scientific kind to which musical composition is generally assimilated, aims to produce generalisable results; the significance of a piece of music lies, on the contrary, in its particularity.”

“Research about music that already exist is a real activity; composition-as-research is not. The most original things that happen in music are usually not ‘ideas’ had in advance, but striking or idiosyncratic musical solutions to problems of musical material that arise only during the process of composition. Beethoven is again a good example: we hear him composing himself into a corner,  ecessitation a radical way out of the resulting musical impasse. (Try putting something like that in your research grant application.)”

“ ‘research questions’ don’t really have anything to do with composition, and to insist on using a vocabulary appropriate to music even when under pressure o write in ‘researchese’”