I’ve been running the MA in Music Industries (as well as the MA in Music Radio) this year at Birmingham City University. We had our first intake in February, and things really kicked in for the September intake.

From September we’ve also been offering the course as a distance learning programme, which is great because it means that people from anywhere in the world can do the degree without having to move to the UK (or, if they live in the UK, without having to move to Birmingham – though why wouldn’t you want to?).

We are in week eight of the program at the moment, and I have to say that I’m really pleased with how it’s going – particularly the online component, which has been so helpful that the students who are doing the course with attendance are also making use of the materials online to supplement what they’re doing.

The students are also running a blog together, in which they talk about their research, their reflections upon the readings that they’ve been doing, and their critiques of happenings within the music industries.

The point of the blog is to invite others from outside the course – and particularly, within the industry – to get involved, comment, and add their thoughts and reflections as well. Hopefully, in return, the work that the students produce will provide helpful reflection and interesting discussion points for the music industries at large. Go have a look.

One of the most useful things we’ve been using, though, is Planzai.

If you haven’t heard of it, Planzai is an online productivity platform that goes beyond the traditional to-do list. It’s like a project management tool that tells you how to do the things that you want to achieve.

For instance, with the MA programme, we have set at specific times throughout the calendar “Read this article”, “write 1000 words about this topic”, “arrange tutorial”, “write blog post”… and so on.

The tasks only appear as they become relevant, and the students tick them off when they are done.

They are reminded of overdue tasks, sent e-mails each week to let them know what tasks they have coming up, and there’s even a lovely pie chart that shows the proportion of completed tasks, upcoming tasks, urgent tasks, and overdue tasks.

More importantly (and this, I think, is the clever bit), each task can be expanded to reveal the body of text that give specific instructions, links and other information needed to explain exactly how to perform the task and what is specifically expected as an outcome of that task.

From the students’ perspective, it means that everybody knows what they’re up to, what’s expected of them, and how they’re getting along at every point along the way.

From the point of view of someone managing a course, it’s an absolute godsend. You always know where everyone’s at, who’s struggling with the work, and what needs to be done to help people catch up.

I’m an adviser to Planzai (I went over and worked with them not so long ago) and the people behind it are friends of mine in Belfast, so I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to be the first to trial the methodology within an education context.

Now I don’t ever want to do another class without using it.

Of course, Planzai has plenty of other applications than simply running a class. In theory, it could be used to help you do anything at all – or at least anything that has a number of steps, tasks or instructions that you need to know at certain points along the way.

It’s early days for them, but I suspect this is going to be something that a lot of people will want to use. I’m finding the iPhone app particularly helpful…

If you’re curious, you can follow Planzai on Twitter – and if you were interested in doing the MA in Music Industries (or by distance learning) – or indeed, the MA in Music Radio – now would be a good time to think about it: we’re doing another intake in February 2012.

I was in London this week, presenting at a conference about Subcultures, Popular Music and Social Change. Some really interesting stuff in there – and the keynotes were really quite spectacularly good.

Dick Hebdidge (above), who literally wrote the book on Subcultures, presented a fascinating tour from punk rock to centenarians on Facebook via Japanese popular art, Birmingham nightclubs and the Mojave desert.

David Hesmondhalgh presented an inspiring talk about, essentially, the fact that music’s really lovely and it makes people’s lives better. Which sounds really obvious, but people who study it tend to forget that sometimes.

I was on a panel with Jez Collins (above), who talked (and showed videos) about hip hop and social change in Colombia, and Matt Grimes who has been researching anarcho-punk fanzines online (and the fact that they don’t really exist).

My paper was about the Monkey on the Roof project – in which we went to Delhi, recorded an album with street kids and sold it on the internet to raise money for a music charity.

There’s not much you can say about something like that in 20 minutes, but I was able to get enough said to strike up a few interesting conversations afterwards.

It was a really good conference with some great panels and some really interesting presentations. It was also great to meet up with people like Nabeel Zuberi from the University of Auckland, who I’ve been speaking with online for years but probably haven’t been in the same room with for about a decade.

Of course, there were the obligatory papers that might just as well have been titled ‘Stuff I like is great and stuff I don’t like is rubbish’. Some people appear to spend their working lives justifying their personal taste with academic language and critical positioning.

But by the same token, there were also some fascinating presentations by people from other fields who have perspectives on things you might not come across ordinarily. Who knew, for instance, that criminologists study pop music?

Archives were a real feature of the conference, which was encouraging, as it’s an area that’s really important to our research centre – and it does seem like there is money (and interest) out there to support projects that examine, preserve and disseminate cultural histories.

I recorded a few of the presentations, and intend to make my MA students sit through them and come up with interesting things to say afterwards.

That all kicks off tomorrow. A new batch of students turn up to study the music industries, so that’s going to be my main focus over the next few months, and it means that the summer break is coming to an end. I worked through the majority of it, and somehow still didn’t get even a quarter of the writing I wanted to do done.

Perhaps now that I’m going back into a more structured routine, I’ll be able to slot that in. And I can hardly say it hasn’t been a productive period. I think I’ve got more work done in the last couple of months than I’ve managed in the year that preceded it.

But it would be nice to have some more pages of text completed as a result of that, as well as all of these new and exciting projects.

For the past week, I’ve been in Amsterdam as part of the Rhythm Changes project. Rhythm Changes is the three-year European jazz research project I’m involved in, and this was the big conference on Jazz and National Identity.

Academics from around the world came together to talk about their own research, share ideas, give presentations, attend jazz gigs and explore the city. Because I’m part of the project that organised the conference, I had more than just a delegate’s role in the proceedings. My job was to put as much of the conference online as possible.

Originally, it was going to be me, two assistants, a few laptops, several Flip cameras, some great stills cameras, full recordings of all the presentations, live conversations online about the various topics, and so on. Unfortunately, budgetary and technological uncertainties got in the way and so we had to scale right back.

Fortunately, Jake was available to come along with me to Amsterdam for the first few days, so I put him to work tidying up the code on the website, taking photos and adding the conference information to the Rhythm Changes site.

We stayed at a friend’s apartment, which was lovely – albeit rudimentary as far as sleeping arrangements were concerned… and we struggled to find wifi from time to time.

It was really great to hang out with Jake of course, and he was really helpful and focused. He worked pretty hard, and the site is massively improved by his work. He left before the conference really got going though, which he’s probably quite thankful for – though I certainly could have used his help.

We also had the chance to visit my cousin Greg, his wife Nadine and their two children in the Hague. I haven’t seen them since their wedding (so I hadn’t met their two kids) so that was a real treat.

Then there was the long Skype/phone chat with my sister, who had a “big birthday” (that’s one of the ones with a zero or a five at the end) that day, and we also ended up talking to my parents for a good stretch too, so that was nice.

As far as the conference is concerned, there’s so much that I could embed here on the blog, but most of it’s probably only of interest if you have a particular curiosity about current work in the field of jazz from a media, sociological and cultural studies perspective.

If that appeals, then by all means, go and check out the website, which has keynote addresses in full, musical performances, lots of interviews and other exciting stuff (your experience of ‘exciting’ may vary).

Suffice to say we had a good time (yes, this is how we enjoy ourselves), learned a lot and had some fascinating discussions. Lots of really great people in this bunch and I’ve made some good friends through this project.

Came back home to lots of work, piles of emails and other pressing matters, which I had about 12 hours to deal with, because after a night at home, I had to turn around, get straight back to the airport and head off to Copenhagen, which is where I am now… and about which, more soon.

I’m in Madrid today at a conference about the independent music industry in the digital age. I’m doing the keynote speech tomorrow, and I’m here with my colleague Jez Collins (left, above) who’s going to be talking about music, identity and cities.

The first thing we’ve noticed is the heat. It’s around 40 degrees here. Lots of people in Birmingham are complaining on Twitter about the ‘heatwave’. It’s 27 degrees there.

The conference has been organised, in large part, by Ignacio (“Nacho” – also above) who works here at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, but who came and spent a few months working with us in Birmingham last year.

We’ve met some really great and interesting people, eaten some amazing food, seen some incredible art in some of the world’s greatest museums and art galleries, and heard some excellent music.

My brain is slowly frying and I may not be able to make sentences tomorrow – but having a lovely time.

Earlier this year, we launched the MA in Music Industries. It’s a course I lead and teach with some of my colleagues at Birmingham City University’s School of Media. It’s been going well so far, with a small group of smart people doing interesting research and study about the music business and popular music culture.

Some of those students are full time, and a couple are doing the MA part-time over two years. But ever since we started the course, we’ve been working to make it possible to deliver it by distance learning as well.

It’s not just a case of putting the course material online – or of simply linking to articles and writing instructions for essays and assignments. It’s important that the experience for distance learning students is as interactive, immersive, collaborative and involving as it is for students who turn up to classes, work in the same room together, and occasionally go to the pub as a group.

The academic culture and the student experience are, for us, really important aspects of the overall process of studying for a Masters degree.

So we’ve given that a lot of thought, and we’ve managed to get that course – and a few others, including an MA in Social Media, an MA in Online Journalism, and one in Creative Industries & Cultural Policy – to the point where we can now deliver it in a way that allows students all over the world to study with us – and with each other – without having to move to the UK.

And we’re taking enrolments now for students starting in September.

Course structure
There are five main parts to the MA in Music Industries, and the British academic calendar is composed of two semesters. Full time students do two taught modules per semester, and then either write a dissertation or complete an individual practical project. Part time students spread the modules over two years, and again, then they either complete the MA by dissertation or by practice.

The four taught modules are:

Popular Music As Culture
This theory module explores the debates within the music and media industries that inform our understanding of music as a cultural practice. We pay particular attention to conflicts between the idea of music as culture and music as commerce.

Online Enterprise and Innovation
This module delivers against the programme aims to provide applied theoretical and professional knowledge and work in interactive and online media professional environments by exploring the techniques, processes and practices of online innovation and enterprise.

Popular Music As Commerce
This theory into practice module explores the changing nature of the music industries and the implications of those changes for the commercial activities that are built around musical expression, performance, composition, distribution and promotion.

Production Lab or Research Methods
Here you choose between one of two modules, depending on whether you plan to complete your MA by conducting a practical project or by writing a dissertation. Both draw upon and develop ideas from other taught modules which either mapped out the current state of academic knowledge in the field, or established professional conventions and explored current industry challenges.

And then you do your major project:

MA by Practice or MA by Dissertation
Depending upon the focus of your studies you will complete your award with either an original contribution to scholarship in the MA by Dissertation or originate, execute and deliver an individual and extended practice-based professional project at the forefront of your field.

Online delivery and distance learning
Naturally, given that it’s a distance learning MA, a significant proportion of this course will be delivered online. There’ll be Skype tutorials, online discussion groups, recorded and streamed content, blogging and social media elements that you’ll be expected to engage in.

It’ll be interesting, it’ll be challenging, and it’ll be a lot of fun.

For more information about the MA, and to enrol, go to the website. If you’ve got any questions about the course or whether it might be right for you, feel free to drop me an email.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, I’d be keen to hear from you.

I spent the day today working at home with my colleague Jez Collins and after a lot of planning, writing and brainstorming, we had a Skype meeting with Professor Tim Wall to talk about (among other things) the ongoing development of Masters programmes at Birmingham City University.

I’m already the award leader on an MA in Music Industries, and our first intake was in February. We’re recruiting for the September intake now.

It’s been going really well, and we have a small but really engaged group of music industry postrgrad students who are doing great work in Popular Music as Culture and a module in Enterprise. You can check out the students’ work at their blog.

Today we looked at two new developments for next semester’s intake – one definite, and one likely. The first of those is the MA in Music Radio. As far as I know there is no such Masters degree in the UK, focusing specifically on music radio. It’ll be great to bring some of the elements of music programming into the mix, as well as get the students working on practical projects and academic work in this area.

My colleague Sam Coley and a couple of our third year undergraduate students are shortlsted for a Sony Radio Award for a programme they made about the 30th anniversary of UB40′s Signing Off album, and Sam has been making a series for XFM recently, celebrating the 25th anniversary of classic albums. A great series to listen to… and a great person to have around when you’re delivering a course like this.

The other development – and it’s not finalised, but we’re working on it – is the Distance Learning version of the MA in Music Industries. We’re looking at developing a new module specifically in Online Music Enterprise as part of that distance learning course, and I think I’m right in saying it would be the first Music Industry MA to be delivered online. Given my set of interests, you can probably imagine how pleased I am to be involved in putting that together…

I’ve had feedback from quite a few people saying they’d love to do the MA in Music Industries, but they can’t move to Birmingham to do the course for whatever reason. Well – if all this goes to plan, we may just be within sight of solving that particular problem.

Exciting times…

This is a presentation I gave at the Watching Jazz conference in Glasgow recently. It’s about a research project I did with some colleagues from BCU at the Scarborough Jazz Festival, and how we approached putting that event online.

I presented it as a way of contextualising some ideas that I’ll be developing in my research as part of the Rhythm Changes project, which is all about European Jazz. I’m going to Norway in May to work with an avant-garde jazz collective in Stavanger, who will be working with Japanese visual artists. My job will be to try and make sense of that in an online context.

I did a couple of things wrong in this presentation. Probably more, but these ones spring immediately to mind. The first, and most obvious (to me) was that I had inadvertently set the slides to automatically change every 90 seconds, and had forgotten how to stop it from doing that. The second was that we’d only just got back from lunch, it had been cold outside and I was going to be in a rush to leave – so I left my coat on without thinking.

Hopefully my wearing outdoor clothes indoors doesn’t unnecessarily detract you from the content of my presentation.

We had a BCU School of Media “Away Day” today – though it was just a few blocks up the road in another university building called The Pavilions, at our sports ground. Food and coffee and an opportunity to do a bit of blue sky thinking with a bunch of colleagues you don’t always get a chance to spend much time with.

The morning had three main strands to it, which were sort of inextricably interwoven. The first was the extent to which our courses are vocational, the second related to the 50/50 balance of theory and practice we’ve always emphasised, and the third was the range of skills that are taught on the course and how the shift in the media landscape impacts upon things like specialisms within the degree.

In the afternoon we talked about more pragmatic things like student retention and completion, the new building for the school, and the funding cuts faced by universities in general and media departments in particular.

The best thing about it was that the event was being tweeted by a handful of us as we went along (hashtag: #bcumediaawayday), so there was a bit of a backchannel going on, and some interesting people from other universities, as well as some of our students and colleagues chipped in with observations and feedback which was interesting and useful.

It was also nice to get off the main campus for a day, even if it was just to get together in a large room a mile up the road. Getting out of the office for the day to kick ideas around with colleagues can be really worthwhile from time to time…

All in all, a really productive day that helped us rethink what is already a really good media course (highest rated mixed theory and practice Media degree in the country, doncha know…) in new and innovative ways, and contextualise that in the realpolitik of universities in the Con-Dem age.

Lots of work to be done from here – but I think we’re all on the same page and we have some good ideas to throw into the mix. Going forward. At the end of the day…

I was in at the university today for a meeting with the other award leaders on the Masters programmes in our department. We were talking about (among other things) upcoming events for the Professional and Academic Cultures programme we run alongside the specific modules for the degrees themselves, and there’s some good stuff coming up.

The ‘Come Dine With Me’ event last week was really popular, and our students (who come from all over the world) brought dishes to share. We’ll definitely be doing that again.

Also, next week, Dave Harte is going to be talking about student use of social media which will be an interesting topic on a number of fronts – and there’ll be a screening and discussion of the film Catfish.

In the meantime, I’m preparing next week’s class for Music as Culture, in which we’re going to be talking about the different cultures and cultural understandings that exist within the record industry itself.

Of course, it was St Patrick’s Day today, and as Craig (pictured above) – a good friend who also happens to be one of my MA Music Industries students – was in the library today working his way through a pile of reading, we took half an hour out to pop to the pub on campus and have a pint of Guinness.

It’s the rules, you know.

One of the things you get to do as an academic is to read things, think about them, and then talk about them. And sometimes, you get to do that with people who really know what they’re talking about.

There’s a small group of us that get together once a month or so at Salford University to discuss jazz, usually using an article or a book chapter as a launching point into a discussion on a particular topic of interest.

For me, this dovetails nicely with Rhythm Changes – a large European jazz research project I’m involved in, funded by HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area), led by Tony Whyton from Salford, and involving several key people in this discussion group. For me the meeting’s a way to stay on the same page, intellectually speaking, with this calibre of scholarship in the area.

This week we looked at an article by an improvisational jazz drummer by the name of Edwin Prévost, who contends that the music that he makes (and has done for decades) is a direct oppositional response to capitalism. It was an interesting starting point, though we all agreed right off the bat that the piece wasn’t the greatest piece of writing on earth.

George McKay kicked things off with the observation that within within some forms of culture (eg: postmodern art) there’s a definable career path, and there’s a way of being accepted (or “selling out”, if you prefer) that actually allows you to survive for 30-40 years within that tradition.

But for free improvisation, there does seem to be no such career path. So the questions arise about why ‘contemporary classical’ composers – serialists such as Boulez and avant-gardists such as John Cage get politely accepted by bourgeois society, in a way which cements their financial sustainability, but also (Prévost argues) takes the ability to shock and alienate out of the work, thereby rendering it ineffective.

In fact, Prévost is quite dismissive of the ‘scientism’ and formulaic nature of the work of Cage and singles him out for critique for not incorporating human intentionality in his work.

Of course, the way this is presented in the article simply reads as the author’s own lament about his lot as a free improvising musician, though George suggests that the question would be a more interesting one as a theoretical provocation and a problem to grapple with, because there is clearly something there that’s worth discussing.

Tony Whyton talked about the fact that there was significantly more overlap between people like Cage and free improvisational jazz music than is allowed for in this article. In fact, Cage borrowed ideas from free jazz for his ‘happenings’. I mentioned a short documentary I’d seen which actually paired John Cage with saxophonist Roland Kirk (which I subsequently found and posted on the research project blog)

Tim Wall took issue with the fact that here was a man writing about the relationship between capitalism and free improvisation without any reference at all to any of the other literature (and there is a good deal) in this field. Moreover, what Prévost offers is a totalising narrative which doesn’t allow for complexity, and even seems to fail to notice when that complexity does appear (for instance, he actually includes a bit of a plug for one of his own CDs in a footnote).

And so the discussion continued for an hour and a half, and everyone had interesting things to say, before we came to some conclusions about the complexity of the topic. We decided that at the very least there were some really interesting ideas at stake here about the oppositional nature of free improvisation, the inextricably connected areas of music praxis and the political and economic realities of everyday life in a capitalist society (ie: a musician’s gotta eat); and the ways in which these forms of music have an inherent political dimension.

George and Tim share ideas over a real ale

Afterwards, a few of us popped to the pub across the road for a quiet pint, a bit of post-match banter and a £5 curry, before Tim and I drove back to Birmingham.

And I understand that Manchester might seem like a long way to go to have a chat about jazz and capitalism with half a dozen other people, but basically… this is what I do.

And at least from the point of view of our research and our output, it saves time and energy repeating the same conversations, generates an awful lot of ideas, and highlights areas of common interest and complementarities. For my purposes, it feeds directly into the jazz research project I’m working on for Rhythm Changes, which is specifically about a free improvisational jazz collective in Norway (more on that soon).