1.3 Methodology
In this section, I answer the question, “What methods are appropriate for carrying out creative practice within a research context?” Using the answer, I build a methodology that ensures my findings are critically informed and meaningfully contribute to artistic and scholarly knowledge. As a relatively new research paradigm with a myriad of approaches, developing a methodology for a research-creation project has its difficulties. Without recognized standards, artist-researchers often devise their own methodology to fit their project, rather than beginning with a methodology to follow using their practice. Perhaps this is related to the reflexive nature of some forms of research-creation, but it nonetheless is challenging to find applicable methodological models. This problem is compounded when artists do research in a niche area, as I am, meaning there are fewer established methods, sources, and practices to draw on.
Fig. 1-4 (right top): Bhagwati’s AGNI Methodology.1
Fig. 1-5 (right bottom): Skains' Practice-Based-Research method.2
To address the dearth of methodologies, I have found two models that can be employed in a broad range of research-creation projects: Bhagwati’s AGNI methodology and Skains’ practice-based research method. The primary feature of AGNI (fig. 1-4) is its focus on iteration. Many of the authors cited here have commented on the reflexive nature of research-creation. As artists pursue research on, in, and through their crafts, new insights and new questions regarding their research topic are often revealed. Bhagwati addresses this reflexive nature by suggesting that iteration is not only a primary facet of research-creation but also a fundamental part of scientific inquiry. “[I]f we accept iterative methodology as the fundamental gesture of research, the details, rationales, supporting methodologies and artistic approaches employed during such a process can be extremely varied and, most importantly, come from different intellectual and epistemological traditions – and yet can all be validated through the same iterative gesture.”3
Skains’ practice-based research method (fig. 1-5) is ideal for integrating creative practice with discursive writing. Her approach to research-creation incorporates iteration and ultimately ends in exegesis. Her methodology leads with a question or problem, which is in line with Borgdorff’s definition of research in the arts, and is followed by background research on the topic. The iterative, cyclical process occurs in the middle, whereby the researcher updates their question/problem as contextual and empirical (practice-based) research is carried out. While Bhagwati’s model may be more broadly applicable, Skains’ approach is compatible with graduate programs that require a thesis to accompany creative activity. To take advantage of both approaches, I have combined these methodologies to create a model for the thesis-centred research-creation that I am engaged in, the “problem-practice-exegesis” methodology (fig. 1-6).
Figure 1‑6: Problem-Practice-Exegesis Methodology.
Establishing the Research Problem
During my early days as a DMA student, I improvised a preliminary version of my first feedback saxophone piece. To my colleagues and I, this was a novel approach to saxophone performance, and it quickly overshadowed other potential avenues of research. Answering the question, “what are you interested in exploring through your practice?” helped determine my exact topic. I was interested in the saxophone and technology, but I needed to narrow to a specific subject, so I began by exploring areas such as interactive media, performer-controlled media, live electronics, and analogue technology.
This background research was conducted while I developed my artistic material and during courses where I was writing papers and giving presentations, whether on feedback saxophone or related topics. I eventually landed on the microphone as the most important piece of technology in my creative practice, after which my contextual research led me to discover microphone performance innovation in a wide variety of musical settings. I eventually discovered the term “microphonic process” to describe what I and many other artists were doing with the microphone and related media. Therefore, my three research goals became: 1) to discuss the history of the microphonic process, 2) to examine how the microphonic process has innovated contemporary saxophone performance practice, 3) to use these findings to contextualize and inform my feedback saxophone practice.
Background and contextual research are not often considered part of methodology, yet these steps inform research questions. This stage of the methodology provides the setting for which the creative practice may be understood: its historical precedent; its relation to artistic traditions and trends; and the degree to which it innovates. Describing how influential artists variously employed the microphonic process demonstrates the historical precedence for my research (Chapters 2 and 3), while examining contemporary examples of the microphonic process as it applies to the saxophone (Chapter 4) contextualizes my claims of novelty and how I expand on the practice (Chapter 5). Like many artist-researchers, these topics and perspectives were not obvious to me at the beginning of my program, and as I learned more, I updated my questions and methods. For instance, I had not discovered any feedback saxophone artists until my second year of studies, despite having done innumerable searches in academic journals, dissertation repositories, and popular search engines. That changed after I discovered the feedback saxophone work of John Butcher, whose name casually came up in conversation with a staff member at the university,4 and whose work contributes greatly to the topic of the saxophone and microphonic process. Although establishing research problems through background and contextual research is not uncommon, addressing the reflexivity of this process is constructive. As many researchers can relate to this process, it emphasizes the legitimacy of a systematic creative practice, as well as the iterative nature of scholarly inquiry itself.
Empirical Research / Creative Practice
This stage of my methodology incorporates AGNI – analysis, grammar, notation, implementation. According to Bhagwati, this process can begin at any point in the cycle and what constitutes each step of the cycle will vary depending on the project. This process is explained in detail in Chapter 5.
Documentation
The importance of documenting this iterative process should not be understated. For most artists, producing clear and thorough documentation is not necessary to convey the value of their work, as the final creative artefact is the goal. For research-creation, however, the project’s processes, iterations, failures, and successes must be documented to fully communicate the research, to allow for critical reflection, and to permit its results (whether successes or shortcomings)5 to be employed by others. This is especially relevant to research involving innovations in music performance technology, as mine does. With rapidly changing technology, many new instruments are rarely played by more than a handful of people, exacerbating the challenge of disseminating such research.6 Furthermore, electroacoustic music often breaks the link between performer gesture and sonic result, which reduces the effectiveness of audio-visual recordings as reliable sources for critical analysis. All these factors highlight the need for systematic documentation in research-creation. I therefore include audio-visual documentation for three feedback saxophone works I composed and performed, as well as excerpts from the creation process. Documenting my creative practice as described adds to the rigour of the project and provides deeper access to the research process.
Exegesis
The exegesis remains a fundamental product of scholarly research and should be part of most, if not all, research-creation projects. The increasing occurrence of monographs embedded with multimedia can only signal the importance of non-discursive forms of communication and is an encouraging development for those artist-scholars looking for a more holistic medium through which to present their work. For success in research-creation, Henk Borgdorff suggests that “the researcher is obligated to the research community to situate each study in a broader research context and to elucidate both the process and the outcome in accordance with customary standards.”7 To do so, this thesis follows the steps illustrated in my methodology: I form my arguments in the forward, I have just described my methodology, now I turn to the findings of my background and contextual research, followed by a discussion that connects my creative practice to those findings, ending with an examination of my creative practice and its significance.