Affordance Ecologies: Practitioner Case Studies in Musical Composition and Arrangement

Mullett, Chloe Maria (2022) Affordance Ecologies: Practitioner Case Studies in Musical Composition and Arrangement. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

Musical creativity attracts debate about how it embodies self-expression, originality and education. This research approaches those themes as processes, applying affordance theory to the author’s musical development and experience of practice (Gibson, 1968; Gibson and Pick, 2000). Beginning with the proposition, ‘a perceiver is a self-tuning system’ (Gibson, 1968:171), the author’s musical creativity is interpreted as sensitisation towards that which is ‘of interest’ (Gibson, 1968:130;175). Interpreting ‘interest’ as ‘musical values’, the research adopts a phenomenological method within the Practice as Research methodology, in which creative courses of action are analysed as autobiographical (‘genetic’) and/or contemporary (‘static’) attunement to affordances. The author’s skills development from childhood to undergraduate study is accounted for as her sensitisation to instrumental performance, music theory, aural skills, jazz improvisation, composition, and recording. This provides the background for finer-grained analysis of those skills as they are applied and adapted in the specific case study contexts. Each case study presents a ‘situation’ explaining the author’s initial orientation to the project and its theoretical emphasis; each insight has an ‘affordance ecology’, addressing motivations, actions, and outcomes. The case study practice is varied: Le Spectre Rouge (1907), a composition/live performance for a short film; Instar, a multimedia dance collaboration; Purchase, May 14th, a BBC commission for shop music; performed arrangement for songwriter Gary Daly; arrangement and recording for the band China Crisis; mixed sextet arrangements for John McGrath and The IMMIX Ensemble. The research insights cluster around enacted forms of musical listening, encompassing ‘listening-for’ musical connection, constraints afforded by musical associations, including those in briefs and musical direction. Completed pieces are conceived as sound objects incrementally ‘sculpted’ to materialise a specific musical journey for listener exploration, discussed as aesthesic agency for composers. In addition to their academic contribution, the thesis’ findings offer a practicioner perspective on how agency is differentiated in composition and arrangement practice. The insights are also evaluated for their potential as developmental tools for creative action by practitioners. Cumulatively, the research insights articulate musical creativity as contextually bound agential arcs of musical values, shown to manifest in the smallest of actions, which can even arc across projects.