Does outside research get in the way of the PhD?

You betcha! Although, in my case, my outside research is directly relevant to my studies. I am co-editing a book on singing teaching, which should be published in July 2013. I have to co-write the first and last chapters and also write my own. This, while directly relating to my studies, reduces by a month the time to work on my own thesis.

I am also doing a study on assessment practices, for which I am the project manager. I am also the main analyst – through a grounded study – so I’m the one who has to sit with the data and analyse all the interviews. And we’re presenting the findings in October, so I have to get cracking with that. This is about 5 hours a week of work, for which I only get about $40 an hour, but because my stipend runs out at the end of June, I have to do the work to stay fed.

And of course, now that I have no stipend, I have no visible means of support. I have to make the hard decision about whether to stay full time or to go part time on the PhD. Either way I hope to submit at the end of the year, so it’s no skin off my nose, but it will allow me to justify why I’m going full time with work commitments.

I have a few small commitments that, while only lasting a few hours, still take up precious time. Such as doing a critical reading for someone’s PhD; singing workshops and vocal health lectures. That sort of thing. Should I be employed full time at a university? I’m not sure. I’ve seen how hard my husband works, and I don’t think I want that. On the other hand, I’d love a few more teaching hours and then if you chuck in some lecturing and research – well, it all adds up. One can only hope. Anyway, I will certainly be applying for any gig that comes up at Uni over the next 12 months in research and project management, 2 things I thought I’d never do.

But do all these things impact on my study? Yes, they do. The learning from each of these endeavours enriches my knowledge about singing, about how to do research, about what is needed in a decent PhD, and about how to make the most out of my time. These activities might get in the way, but only in a good sense.

Narratives are done!

Today I sent off the last of my three narrative chapters and my autoethnography to my supervisor, who is currently overseas. I’ve managed to keep the narrative of this final chapter to just under 16000 words, but I have hit the wall and have had to let her know I am a little bit stuck on the analysis of the findings. My supervisor sent me some really great comments about my autoethno that I greatly appreciated and I have sent her a revised account, almost entirely rewritten and more detailed.

First of June: I thought I would be much further along than this! I am now ready to tackle my discussion chapter. A girlfriend asked me the other day what my findings were and I still had trouble articulating them, so the discussion chapter will be an excellent way of unpacking the findings and making them explicit. Currently I am still in the exhausted phase of just having finished the main part of my analysis, so I really don’t want to think about it ever again, but I need to get cracking on the discussion while the memories are still fresh.

I am realising my method for working is hopelessly intuitive. I have such trouble seeing the bigger picture for my study, yet I always thought I was a big picture thinker. I wonder if what I am seeing now is a change in how I approach large details. Reflecting on the essays I used to write as a young person, they were nearly always better when I didn’t have to worry about structure. I intuitively understood how to do it, without knowing precisely how I got there. Now when I write, I have to remind myself of the topic sentence, of the flow of the paragraphs, of the connecting sentences and the overall argument. Bloody difficult and annoying.

I read someone else’s thesis last week – one not yet ready for submission – and there were glaring errors in spelling, grammar and even the ideas were dodgy. There was no literature review to speak of and no methodology. The discussion chapter was ok. Thank goodness. It reminded me that my supervisor is really very good, that she has for the most part been understanding and rigorous in her supervision. And at the time when I have felt the least able to cope she has been able to listen to me and propose a solution for my angst.

So, now that I am about 47000 words down (hopefully only requiring light editing now), I can move onto the last part of my thesis. I’m still avoiding the literature review, but I have a cunning plan. My discussion will determine my literature. Those resonant bloody threads so important in narrative inquiry will help realise my literature. I’ve avoided writing about cultural psychology but I think now is the time to write a short essay on how it aligns with my research. Hopefully then the draft will be good enough to edit for the thesis. That’s the way I’m looking at most of my chapters, anyway!

I’m still uncertain whether I should write a survey chapter, given that it is descriptive analysis. Still, that’s a topic for another time.

I can smell the end.

I can, you know, smell it. A few more days of throwing together my third narrative chapter (5 months overdue now), and my narrative drafts will be at their penultimate stages. And then I can get on with the rest of the show.

I’ve started reading again, and I’m getting quite excited about some ideas I’ve been trying to articulate for the last three years. I think I have found a path through. My theoretical framework has some scaffolding at last. Something to do with the value of apprenticeship, perhaps?

But this last hurdle has been huge. Yesterday, when I couldn’t do ANY more of my narrative, I rewrote my autoethnography. I think I’d like to make it more poetic and sparse. But the ideas are now there. I just need to find a rhythmic voice for it and I’ll be fine.

I can smell the finish line, still a long way away, but OH so evocative. (Hang on, that’s the shit behind me and the shit still in front of me. Plus Attar of Roses. And sweat.)

Oh no! $129 on one book and it’s NOT VERY GOOD.

So, as a singer and PhD candidate researching singing, I was deeply interested in the new Potter and Sorrell publication: A History of Singing, published only 2 weeks ago by Cambridge Uni Press. I stumped up $129 for the privilege to have it sent out and it arrived, parcel post, this week. $129 is a substantial amount for a book. I am always prepared to spend good money on books when they contain something I might find useful. Well. Ahem. I was a wee bit disappointed.

Not by the writing, which is fine. Not really by the content, which, when you add it to Potter’s other works about singing, is a useful addition to his oeuvre, but because there is nothing new in it for me. Bugger. The authors write about the history of the conservatoire and quote Burney. I’ve read Burney. Bugger, and more bugger. Luckily, they do make a pretty contentious argument about the conservatoire environment on page 215, which is about the most useful paragraph in the book.

And some of the chapters are just plain weird. Why name the chapter currently titled “A great tradition: singing through history – history through singing” when it’s really “Classical music of the Indian Subcontinent”? Obfuscation there, IMHO. And why is it in the section called Recorded Voices? The layout of this book makes no sense. And also, why a bloody apologia at the beginning of this chapter? What is there to defend? I’m not sure why the authors are defending a perfectly reasonable subsection in their book. No-one has offered up a kategoria as yet. Why jump the gun?

Anyway. I’m a bit grumpy about it. So I now have to wait for the Oxford Handbook on Singing. Which isn’t due for publication until I’m ready to submit, darn it. On the other hand, my reading of Richard Sennett’s excellent book “The Craftsman”, which cost me $14 including postage, is making up for my financial loss on the other book. There are lots of stickies in this book, and I’m only up to chapter 4. It’s great. This book, plus my books on Cultural Psychology are becoming very useful theoretical underpinnings for my study. Definitely.

Now. Back to work on my last narrative.

And, just for a change, I’ve got some Monteverdi madrigals (Book 3), recorded in 2002 by Delitiae Musicae, Marco Longhini conductor, (Naxos) playing in the background. I’ve missed my Renaissance/early music connections. Earlier, I listened to Canteloube’s Chants D’Auvergnes, sung by Veronica Gens. Amazing how soothing to the savage breast music can be. Especially this grieving one.

 

The Valley of Shit*

There’s a great post on PhD blog The Thesis Whisperer about the Valley of Shit which sums up my journey of the last six months. It has been a terrible time. I have found that more time for study=less study, and that without some strict goals and regular supervisor meetings I’ve been missing all sorts of deadlines, mostly self imposed.

Now I feel I am escaping the Valley. Notwithstanding the shit week I’ve had now that my dog has died (unexpectedly and traumatically), I feel I have found my study mojo again. I am out of Shit Valley and walking through the valley where I can see the sunrise. A nice feeling. I’m about to finish my last narrative chapter. Then I will be forging along trying to write my methods chapter, and my lit review and my introduction, and my discussion – oh dear. Now I just want to chuck my head in the sand again.

I’ve been reading a fascinating book by Richard Sennett called The Craftsman (Penguin, 2008), which sums up my feeling about apprenticeship. Signature Pedagogy is a similar idea, but Sennett writes that “thinking and feeling are contained within the process of making” (p.7). This is precisely what I am trying to understand, unpack and discuss. Another interesting article is one by Kim Burwell (2012), who writes about the value of apprenticeship. Just published, it is either really really good for my study or really really bad (jumped the gun, much?).

So, for May, my goals are to: finish my narrative chapters and send excerpts to my participants for member checking. Then, continue reading and taking notes about apprenticeship. Finding that ONE big idea and logically allowing it to fit with my study. (SO close!). Revisiting my lit review and beginning to rewrite. Huge, I know.

At least I’m not up shit creek anymore. Or in Shit Valley.

Another little death.

My 13 year old beagle Boots died yesterday. A tradesperson left the gate open and Boots escaped and he was hit by a car. He died instantly. He had no road sense.

Vale Boots. My friend, my constant companion these last thirteen years.

Book nerd alert.

I’m a sucker for Fishpond, Amazon (until they began charging like a wounded bull for their postage) and the Book Depository. There. Got the ads out. Now, why am I a sucker for these book distributors? Because I can find ANY book on them published in the last 30 years or so. And even books published much, much earlier. I put a regular maximum budget on my book buying because it is my one great vice after wine and food. And because I could easily spend thousands of dollars on the things. And because I can’t get the books I want anywhere else. Retail bookstores simply do not sell these types of books.

My most recent purchases over the last month include (I’ve got a little list):

Vygotsky’s Mind in Society

Wenger’s Communities of Practice

Rogoff’s The Cultural Nature of Human Development

The Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology

Cole’s Cultural Psychology: A Once and Future Discipline

Lehmann, Woody and Sloboda Psychology for Musicians

Kitayama and Cohen Handbook of Cultural Psychology

Some of these books I read last year or earlier and I’m sick of having to remove stickies from the books upon their return to the library, hence, I’ve bought them. I’ve seen a couple of other books just recently that I simply need to have: John Potter’s History of Singing, and the Oxford Handbook of Singing. They’re out soonish. Another book I’m tempted by is Music Education in the middle ages. Tempted, if only because it gives me an overview of early educative practices that might feed into my knowledge about the master-apprentice approach of opera singing from 1600 on.

Oh, and just a little plug for my OWN book on Singing. Co-edited with Scott Harrison, Springer are publishing our edited volume of Perspectives on Teaching Singing: a celebration of Singing Pedagogy in the twenty-first century. Due out July, 2013.

So, told you it was a book nerd alert.