Music Discipline Norms

PROFESSORIAL BANDING

DISCIPLINARY NORMS AND EXPECTATIONS

Department/School: Music

Discipline (only if different to the above): Discipline

Faculty: Arts

I confirm that the discipline norms detailed below were completed following consultation with Professors in the department, and have been verified by an external advisor.

Completed by: Professor Stephen Downes; head of music Date: 12/08/2014

RESEARCH

1. What are the top-rated forms of research work in your discipline? E.g. journal articles, monographs, editions

For text-based scholars, these remain the single-author monograph and the academic journal article but with increasing weight shifting to the chapter in edited collections. Among print-based scholars it is unusual to see a CV containing mostly journal articles. There is no codified sense of ‘top-10’ journals.

For concert composition one sign of prestige is to be with a publishing house, but equally important is the status of the performance site, the commissioning body and the performing ensemble and the issue of a CD recording with an appropriate company. For other forms of composition, such as experimental music, jazz, pop, film and media, and electro-acoustic music, equally important might be international conferences and specialised academic symposium, and with the more commercial types of composition international broadcast. Esteem and quality in compositional work is often helpfully elucidated by a portfolio of related material such as reviews, analyses by a second party, along the lines of the portfolio creative practice submission in REF 2014.

2. What lesser publications such as encyclopaedia entries, programme notes, reviews etc. command respect in your discipline?

These kinds of outputs are of value when they represent overt connections with the author’s research gains, in short, as clear and demonstrable ‘impact’.

3. What are the top-rated outlets for dissemination of research in your discipline? E.g. major publishers, top journals?

Traditionally, monographs with University Presses, but there are many others who are significant in music books publishing, and these vary by subdiscipline. Often a press which does not necessarily have a developed music list is an excellent place for publication on other grounds (where the work is markedly interdisciplinary, for instance, and a particular series is the exact right choice).

Journals: top outlets once again vary considerably according to subdiscipline and the nature of the research. The major learned societies and university presses have a large range of journals suitable for high-quality music research, but it is often the case that music studies are published in the specialist journals of other disciplines too, again on grounds of interdisciplinarity.

There is an increasing trend to consider a broader audience over simply publishing books with the premier (but very expensive) outlets. This is sometimes for ethical reasons (as in Ethnomusicology) where authors want those who are being studied to be able to access and benefit from the study. For others, it has to do with impact and public engagement in the broadest sense.

For composers, many types of public exposure are possible and depend largely on the style of music in question. Film music may be associated with a successful film, or a concert work may be played by a major orchestra, but these are not the only markers. High-quality composition may equally be associated with a small art-house film, or high-quality electro-acoustic or experimental music may have a largely university-based audience. Composition can be as specialist or as public-facing as musicological research, and requires as sensitive a response to its ‘outlets’ as scholarship does.

For both books and journals, choice of publisher (which charts prestige) is ultimately much less significant than the quality of content of the research, and it must be noted that the publishing environment is now highly pluralistic.

Overall, the following paragraphs of the REF guidelines, Panel D output assessment criteria, must be kept in mind:

48. The sub-panels will neither advantage nor disadvantage any type of research or form of output, whether it is physical or virtual, textual or non-textual, visual or sonic, static or dynamic, digital or analogue. 52. In accepting the widest range and types of research output, the sub-panels will employ assessment methodologies appropriate to all of these outputs and judge them entirely on research quality. 53. No output will be privileged or disadvantaged on the basis of the publisher, where it is published or the medium of its publication.

4. What are the guiding assumptions about sole authorship, PI status, percentage contribution, joint editorship, etc.?

Single author is the norm for research and outputs in Music Studies. However, increasing amounts of collaborative work are taking place, including interdisciplinary collaborations, and co-authored or multiple-authored outputs will be judged in terms of their content and significance, as with other outputs, and could potentially become more important.

5. What is the volume of productivity over what sort of timeline that might signify a.) a reasonable performance; b) a positive step-change for a professor in your discipline?

Monographs can vary vastly in terms of the level of time consuming data gathering or analysis involved, and related levels of originality and newness, and this must be taken into account. Hence, not producing a monograph every 5 years in no way necessarily represents under-performance.

Two publications per year (articles/ chapters or equivalent) is also a desirable level of publishing, but again, these must be judged in terms of quantity of new and/or time-consuming work involved.

Significant step-change may be hard to spot from the outside – the rare book project or influential article that really does change intellectual paradigms in the field is just another item on a list of publications on the CV. Alternatively, it might be more to do with leadership, a sudden and successful move into a new research area, or spearheading a significant research grant whose publications and/or students and postdocs etc are changing the landscape. Similarly, in composition the quality of work may be difficult to measure purely in terms of crude metrics: a small piece of experimental music may have a major research impact whereas an opera may contain little. The cumulative store of new ideas, theories and technologies as a composer’s work develops may also be important. In some cases it is reasonable to expect one or two composition outputs per year, but, like text-based work, judgements should be made in the context of scale, process, originality and other factors.

6. What are the top-rated funding sources for Research in your discipline? E.g. ESRC, AHRC, Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome etc. These remain the standard funding councils for arts and humanities and social-science researchers, in the UK and the rest of the world and the larger value charitable sources: AHRC, Leverhulme and British Academy awards. Success with EU funding sources is also highly regarded.

For composers, grants may come in various forms: from the BBC, an orchestra, a festival, or a publishing contract. Composers may also secure funding from the research councils or other grant-awarding bodies that focus particularly on composition, while commercial composers may also secure commercial contracts and industrial sponsorships/support.

7. What levels of funding would you regard as indicating a) a reasonable performance; or b) high performance in your discipline?

In general any grant or commercial contract over 100K would be considered a major achievement in Musicology, which has few large awards and is not based, as a discipline, on the pursuit of them. Smaller grants and commercial contracts also carry prestige. However, much of the best and most influential work in the field is not associated with major grant funding, since it requires no more than research time. There is no equivalence between high levels of funding and the most intellectually important work in the field, nor with the international regard of scholars. While in some sub-disciplines of the subject group projects and collaborations are increasingly important, elsewhere the field remains defined by the work of lone scholars for whom grant funding is not a key performance indicator.

Funding of composition performances/ broadcasts/ recordings normally works very differently to funding which supports musicology. Such costs are supported by non-HE institutions (orchestras, festivals, etc), and commissions from prestigious institutions are a valuable marker of performance.

8. Are invited lectures/ conference plenaries/ conference organization/ visiting professorships/ particularly significant in your discipline, and in what sort of ranked order?

Keynotes are significant, and might also depend on the prestige and size of the conference meeting. A one-off keynote at a highly specialised conference can be highly prestigious as it indicates peer esteem within a particular field of interest. Frequent invitations for keynote lectures indicates wide peer esteem. Named lectures sometimes lead to a publication (eg, Bloch Lectures at the University of California, etc), and keynotes at annual conference meetings of music societies are especially prestigious. Visiting professorships are also strong markers of esteem, particularly where the host department is of recognised stature.

In composition being a featured composer at a festival, holding a composer in residence post, or curating an exhibition/installation are high of high value.

9. What awards, prizes and honours if any, are significant in your discipline?

As in other Humanities disciplines, the British Academy Fellowship (FBA) is regarded as a major accolade (there are only a few Fellows in Musicology nationwide), but there are other awards peculiar to Music (the Dent medal of the Royal Musical Association, for example) that are highly valued. Awards particular to composition include British Composer Awards, Ivor Novello and BAFTAs etc., and vary according to the style of music. Prizes of high prestige are awarded for journal articles and books by the RMA, AMS and Music & Letters trust.

In certain forms of composition Grammys and Gramophone awards carry very high prestige.

10. Membership of which learned societies or other discipline-specific groups or organizations carry weight in your discipline?

Editorial board memberships and editing roles Appointments for Research Council assessments and university reviews Peer reviewing for publications Society and Council appointments, especially elected positions For composers: Honorary awards and positions in conservatoire type institutions TEACHING

1. How many PhD students (in FTEs) would you expect to be supervised by Professors in your discipline?

This is highly variable and numbers can shift across an academic career quite markedly. A professor can be expected to have supervised anything from a small number of students to completion (c.5) to much larger numbers; the discipline does not normally have research groups and seldom has outputs co-authored by a supervisor and a research student as is common in sciences.

2. What are the norms for contribution by Professors to Masters courses and their validation in your discipline?

Professors are normally expected to contribute regularly to the development, delivery and assessment of Masters courses

3. What are the norms for Professors devising and teaching undergraduate courses in your discipline?

Professors are normally expected to contribute regularly to the development, delivery and assessment of UG courses

EXTERNAL ENGAGEMENT AND IMPACT

1. What are the norms for external involvement in your discipline within University of London, UK universities, international HE activity etc. that indicate a) a reasonable performance; b) a high performance?

Reasonable performance: PhD examining, external talks (such as research colloquia), external examining (UG and MA programmes), participation in conference organisation High Performance: external advising for curriculum reforms; membership of review panels; leadership or consultancy roles in collaborative projects such as festivals

2. What particular forms of external academic, and where relevant non-academic, impact would indicate an acceptable and high performance in your discipline?

Dissemination of research through public performances, broadcasts, recordings, webcasts, talks, interviews; maintenance of up-to-date, research-based website(s) or archives; new initiatives, methods, and topics in non-HE education

3. What kind and volume of Third Stream activity (including patents, spin-outs, outreach, knowledge transfer, consultancies, cultural interventions etc.) of benefit to the College etc. would be important in your discipline?

Consultancies/participation in relation to concert series, broadcasts and recordings, exhibitions, music and academic publishing, educational projects (eg, composition projects in schools), national reports Practical or advisory involvement in community projects and/or humanitarian initiatives as a result of research activity

LEADERSHIP AND ENHANCEMENT

1. What forms of leadership, internal and external, command respect in your discipline?

a. Academic and intellectual (see above re keynote invitations, editorships, etc). b. taking leading roles in major research projects and initiatives (thus redefining the field, mentoring PhD and postdoc researchers) c. key roles on main national subject groups (such as RMA)

2. What forms of enhancement, such as support of improved performance by colleagues, command respect in your discipline?

Mentoring colleagues, supervision of doctoral and post-doctoral research, leading research groups with more junior colleagues, editing collections of the work of colleagues