Katy Hamilton

Earlier this week, I came across a post by a performer-musicologist friend of mine who was having a ‘what’s it all for?’ moment. ‘Do we really need historical musicology?’ he asked his Facebook friends. ‘Suppose it all just stopped right now, and we just made do with what we know, would anyone mind?’

As you would expect, firing off a post like that when a considerable number of your Facebook friends are historical musicologists prompted a great many thoughtful and interesting responses. Some spoke of changing approaches to dealing with history; others mentioned the side-lining of certain once common approaches to music study. A couple declared, with admirable sangfroid, that since pretty much all human activity was pointless, we didn’t need historical musicology – but that its existence helped enhance our understanding and quality of life when it was used appropriately.

For anyone who knows me, or who has been reading this blog for a while now, I shouldn’t think my response will surprise you one bit. ‘We do it out of passion and curiosity, do we not?’, I wrote. ‘And to share it with others, to help performers and listeners and to inspire people to get involved who have never done so before. We “need” it in the sense that we need all historical cultural endeavours – to help us understand our pasts, and what it is to be human and creative.’

For anyone feeling as sunny and idealistic as I apparently was when I wrote this, then all’s well and good. My own personal take on this happens to come from a very straightforward (and perhaps naïve?) line of thought, which goes like this: I love music and care about its story; I know other people who love music and care about its story; I believe that there are further people who are interested in music and would like to know more about its story; therefore there is a reason to find out more and share those discoveries. I also happen to think that history, in general, is something to which we should all pay more attention. Our lives, our culture, our social and political development – these are all long games. If you haven’t bothered to find out what happened earlier, you’re never really going to understand the significance of what’s happening now.

©Jisc and Matt Lincoln

So having read the rest of the thread, and thought about all those comments, I began to think about how we are able to implement and support this approach through current educational and public models.

To make musicologists, much like growing plants, there are a few key things that have to be in place. First of all, a love of music. This is most likely to be cultivated through playing an instrument. That means you need your budding musicologist to have good access to instrumental and/or vocal tuition at school age. You probably also need to provide an opportunity for them to make music with other children, in school clubs, youth orchestras, and so on. They need to listen widely – at least Spotify and YouTube have made this easier. They will also need to do well at school, be engaged with their subjects, have curiosity. Often music lovers are good at STEM subjects, which in the current climate will also mean their having to consciously choose music over a more ‘socially useful’ subject when they come to filling out the UCAS form. (I say this as someone who nearly ended up studying engineering at university; the thought of music becoming ‘just’ a hobby was so unbearable that I couldn’t do it, and thank goodness.)

Then they get to university. They have to study hard, and ideally continue to play, sing, compose alongside their written work. (There is nothing to beat practical engagement with a subject if you really want to understand it from the inside out.) Then they go on to do a Masters, and then a PhD. They need good lecturers, good resources – libraries, practice facilities, study spaces. They need an engaging subject, too. And around the edge of their studies, they really ought to be doing other things too, to demonstrate their commitment to their subject: say, writing review articles, giving conference papers, doing some teaching, perhaps performing, maybe some public engagement work if they can. Oh, and of course all those degrees are going to be costing them thousands of pounds, for which they might, if they’re very lucky, manage to wangle a bit of funding.

After all that, they need to get a job. And keep a job. And carry on researching, alongside teaching and admin responsibilities. They need to publish, present, get themselves eligible for the REF. And then, as far as we can see for now, rinse and repeat (including the constant adjustment to new technologies and ways of disseminating material) for the rest of their careers.

Being a historical musicologist is hard work. And, unlike most other subjects, getting into music in the first instance usually involves extra-curricular engagement from the get-go. That means more time, more money, more commitment. It’s an optional extra, a ‘nice thing’, an ‘accomplishment’, even. It is that practical engagement that is most likely to lead to later theoretical interest, and all the associated costs and resources required to continue this to make a career. And yet despite this mighty slog, this huge commitment across several decades to get yourself into an employable position, there are still many more applicants than jobs in musicology.

How amazing is that? All those years, all that effort, and there are still too many people for the posts available. To those who have climbed to the top of the educational mountain and are now looking for work, I would say: don’t despair. Firstly there are new jobs coming up all the time, and you never know where your break might come from. Secondly, there is also a huge range of other associated positions either within higher education or in related fields (recording labels, production companies, journalism, and so on) where your skills and passion can be well-used. And that’s great. But you know what? I’d love it if there were even more people who reach that stage. People who currently don’t have the necessary resources when they’re still musicologists ‘in-the-bud’, so to speak. These children need better school resources, better music services, instruments, ensembles, coaching, and ways in. Because you don’t actually need a PhD and a mortar board to be “A Historical Musicologist”. You just need a rich education, a healthy curiosity, and a sense of why music, and history, matters. Sounds like a pretty good recipe for enhancing our understanding and quality of life, if you ask me.