{"id":341,"date":"2021-09-29T12:13:01","date_gmt":"2021-09-29T11:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mrunderwood.co.uk\/dev\/?p=341"},"modified":"2021-09-29T12:15:42","modified_gmt":"2021-09-29T11:15:42","slug":"how-it-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrunderwood.co.uk\/research\/how-it-started\/","title":{"rendered":"How it started…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have been pinching myself since the start of last week. I have secured funding via the Arts and Humanities Research Council<\/a> (Midlands4Cities) to carry out my research to PhD at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire<\/a>. I applied for this funding a year earlier but was unsuccessful, so I studied part-time in the interim, completing my Postgraduate Certificate (PgCert). I found this really challenging but also rewarding and informative, and it sets the tone for where I start\/continue my PhD from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have used elements of my PgCert submission to indicate where my full-time research embarks. Publishing such early work (and work that wasn’t intended for public consumption) fills me with a certain amount of trepidation but it also serves to frame my planned research and development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s start with my research title, as it stands…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside-out Orchestrions: designing new embodied and reflexive acoustic modular mechanical instruments <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This feels a little clumsy still but it is at least trying <\/em>to cover all of the aspects of my research in this context. *whispers*<\/em> Secretly, feedback instruments are also part of what I am researching but I am not yet clear how these fit with my wider research<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the challenges I encountered early on in my PgCert was how to show my practice-based research in a suitable manner. Writing about my musical instrument design process without presenting any opportunity to hear or see the results seemed unsatisfactory. So, unusually, I submitted two videos. I believe people have been known to submit videos for Element Two, which covers how they have developed as a researcher, but that it is not commonplace for Element One, which covers the research findings, context and methodology. Looking back at this video now, alongside the text-based submission, I see it as setting my initial trajectory as I switch to a full-time mode of study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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