In education, ethnography has proven itself to be an appropriate framework in which to observe practice’ (Barton, 2014, p. 97), and in order to make decisions regarding a suitable pedagogic approach to the teaching of expressivity, in its various guises, it was imperative to observe how students approached the learning and delivery of pieces in an ensemble environment, without any external input being offered.
Observation is one of the key data collection methods of ethnographic research and Bayley highlights the learning importance of observation studies by stating that ‘research findings resulting from observations of musicians’ interactions during rehearsal can directly inform the practice of other composers and performers’ (2011, p. 387). The objective of the observations was to monitor not only their expressive delivery, and the varying factors which were found to be of influence in this area, but also to examine the formation of any performance persona, to watch how the inter- ensemble communicative relationships were formed, to engage in a post-process discussion with the participants on these areas and others which may have arisen during the documenting process, and to establish areas which were in need of much more pedagogical exploration and inclusion. Although it was of benefit to the output of the research to have students involved in the data collection process, it was hoped that the participating students would also benefit educationally, and informatively, from the research. The communication of live music performance is a key aspect of a professional musician’s skills, and allowing students to explore and understand this imperative skill area without the potential pressures of a commercial project and alongside a structured reflection of the process, would hopefully provide them with a much clearer insight into the communicative, technical and artistic skills of their musicianship; required in both live and recorded performance environments.
Creating an immersive learning environment by encouraging the students to prepare for performances as they would do in real life is an important facet of the
pedagogical aspect of the research. However, for the students, because these projects were constructed for research, not commercial purposes there may also have been a sense of artificiality about the process and some members of the projects may not have taken it as seriously as they might have done in other circumstances, a point which was acknowledged by one of the participants during the interview process from the student project detailed in section 4.5.1.1.
One of the positive outcomes from this is that, as educators, we want to create a ‘safe’ environment for students who should not feel afraid or cautious about experimenting and making mistakes during the learning process. Therefore it is important to acknowledge that, in ways similar to the ethnographic research involving the Kreutzer Quartet and Michael Finnissy (Bayley, 2011), this research was
undertaken in an environment which resembled a real life situation but which was openly understood by the participants to be for research purposes. This situation reflects a broader ethnographic problem; the result of the researcher immersing themselves into a cultural situation that they want to study is that they alter it.
Two separate case studies were undertaken with undergraduate participants, one with an ensemble, and the other with a soloist. The ensemble was comprised of first- year, undergraduate popular music performance students, and the solo study
featured a pianist who, at the time of filming, was about to embark on his degree studies in the same field. An important consideration in selecting the case study students, was to ensure that they were each at the early stages of their higher
education experience. This is because although they would have each experienced performance teaching, they were unlikely to have encountered any pedagogic focus on the area of expressivity. As such, they were likely to be more receptive to the ideas generated by the discussions which occurred through the interview process.
Although the students were aware that they were being filmed for a research project, and also understood its overall purpose, they were not made aware of the particular areas under investigation. It was hoped that not disclosing specific information would help to ensure that the results were not biased by the students feeling that they should behave in a certain way in order to create the results that they assumed were desired.
4.5.1.1 Case Study 1 - Ensemble
The first of the undertaken projects took place over a six-month period, and the data collected was based on three separate rehearsal procedures, and a follow-up live performance of the prepared material. The students selected for this first project were all first-year, undergraduate, popular music performance students, and were selected in order to cover the following self-imposed parameters:
1) Participants should comprise of a variety of popular-music centred instrumentalists, including vocalists.
2) The ensemble should comprise of a balanced number of male and female participants; ensuring that not one gender type was given greater inclusion than the other.
3) The participants of the study should represent a suitable mix of personality types.35
4) The participants of the study should be varied in the level of their own performing experience.
In order to accommodate the different styles, tones and ranges of the participating vocalists, the students chose their own performance material, although they were encouraged to choose material which demonstrated a variety of styles and genres. It was hoped that variety with the stylistic choices would showcase different
performance aspects and traits of the performing musicians. The songs chosen were A Long Walk (Jill Scott, 2000), Aida (Sarah McLachlan, 1997), and You and I (Lady GaGa, 2011) and the original ensemble line-up was three female singers, two guitarists, a keyboardist, a bassist, an accordionist and a drummer. As is archetypal of rehearsals in western popular music, rather than providing the students with full scores, they were encouraged to source the original recordings and bring an understanding of their individual parts to the first rehearsal.
The rehearsals and live performance were all held at the University of West London, and each event was recorded using a multi-camera set-up. I was present at all these events in a discreet, non-participatory role, undertaking and manually recording
35 In order to examine the areas of leadership and trust, it was important that the ensemble was not
made up solely of extraverted, or introverted, students, but to represent a realistic mix typical of a real-life working environment.
observed findings. In order to answer the research questions of this project, notes were specifically made concerning the following areas:
1) Comparing the use of expressive gesture in both the rehearsal and live performance environments, and which musical elements were found to be triggers for the delivery of such stimuli.
2) The interactive and communicative relationships between the performing musicians in both the rehearsal and live performance environments, and how they were used for musical purposes.
3) The non-musical interactive and communicative relationships between the performing musicians in both the rehearsal and live performance
environments; focusing particularly on the areas of leadership and trust. 4) The students’ approaches to independent learning and delivery of new pieces
without the guidance of external input.
4.5.1.2 Case Study 2 – Soloist
In addition to the observations of the physical delivery of ensemble performers which featured vocalists (and the inclusion of the subsequent lyrical narrative), it was
important to include observations focused on an instrumental performance. This study featured a recorded performance by a solo pianist, who performed three instrumental tracks; All of Me (comp. Jon Schmidt, 2011), Body and Soul (comp. Edward Heyman, Robert Sour, Frank Eyton and Johnny Green, 1930) and River Flows in You (comp. Yiruma, 2011). The participant was a male performer who, at the time of filming, was about to commence his first year of undergraduate popular music performance study at the Royal Northern College of Music.
This recording was taken without the presence of an audience, in a lesson
environment, using a single-camera set-up. As with the other previous studies, I was present at the recording in a discreet, non-participatory role; undertaking and
manually recording observed findings. Whilst the use of sheet music is tacitly
discouraged in popular music performance, this participant used sheet music for two of the pieces, with the third being performed from memory. As a result of the different construction of this recording, notes were taken solely on the inclusion of expressive gesture in an instrumental performance, identifying which musical elements were found to be triggers for any physical movements.