Statement of Purpose

First arriving in Oxford, fresh-faced and snotty-nosed, the study of musicology was something of a

mystery to me; in fact, my post-pubescent self was initially blindsided by the sheer complexity and

variety of musicological study available. It is, however, exactly this overwhelming vastness which

drives me to postgraduate study, as it necessitates the interdisciplinary, collaborative, and innovative

academic environment I not only find enjoyable, but believe is crucial for effective, creative, and

relevant musicological work. In this, Oxford is uniquely situated not only in terms of the broadness of

its MSt programme, but also in its wider institutional and cultural environment as a vibrant

intellectual space on the cutting edge of socio-political and cultural thought.

Undoubtedly the driving force behind my undergraduate experience has been the ‘Musical Thought

and Scholarship’ FHS module; the wide scope of materials and topics covered, as well as the

opportunity for almost complete academic freedom, is what first highlighted the joy and keen social

relevance of musicology to me. Social theories of music have been particularly influential; in

particular Georgina Born’s theories of music and mediation and Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network

theory have opened up my conceptions of music away from a narrow, hierarchical perspective

towards a more distributed, collaborative understanding of creativity and agency. More recently, I was

struck by Christoph Cox’s theory of a ‘new sonic materiality’ when studying for the History of

Electronic Music FHS module, which downplays the conventionally phenomenological approach to

music and sound, instead constructing a new ontology of sound as virtual material in the Deleuzian

sense of temporal, durational flows. Such a conception of sound, considered in tandem with social and

mediational theory, is fascinating in the access it grants to unconventional and often surprising

musical and sonic spaces. This I have already begun to examine in my analysis of Michael Prime’s

‘Ha! Ha! Your Mushrooms Have Gone’ (2005), a work which sonifies the bioelectric potential of

shiitake mushrooms over their one-week lifespan; work I would love to expand upon at postgraduate

level, exploring the intersection between musicology and ethnomycology.

It is this interest in unusual musical spaces, and the human dialectic within, which drove me to my

undergraduate research project entitled ‘The Sound of Shitposting: Constructing Musical Worlds
Online’, in which I explore the niche online communities of musical ‘shitposting’, an absurdist form

of user-generated internet humour. Drawing largely on Born’s four planes of social mediation, this

project seeks to illustrate how such online communities act not only as tools to enable cultural

information exchange, but as vibrant socio-linguistic spaces in their own right with a vital impact on

musical identity construction and compositional practice in the 21 st century. Such a project is

necessarily interdisciplinary, taking in the rich areas of social anthropology, semiotics and memetics,

historical musicology, and perhaps most importantly digital ethnography. The latter is a skill I hope to

develop further by working with the Oxford Internet Institute, drawing from their expertise in online

research to optimise my own work, a hope unfortunately forestalled this year by the pandemic.

The impact of the internet as a social, democratizing musical space, and the role of net-native norms

and languages within that, is an area bursting with academic potential and the Oxford MSt course is

the ideal place to pursue this. I am particularly drawn by the ‘Social and Cultural Study of Music’ and

‘Historical Musicology’ core seminars, in that they would not only build upon the material I have

encountered as an undergraduate, but also provide an excellent springboard for my research into the

intersection between the social and material dimensions of music. The opportunity to begin working

more closely with Georgina Born, Jason Stanyek, and Gascia Ouzounian on social, cultural, and

material elements of music is exhilarating and I hope to delve further into the vast interdisciplinary

nexus of academic excellence Oxford has to offer.

One of the greatest appeals of this MSt is the ability to maintain the more ‘practical’ elements of

music-making alongside academic study with the performance and composition seminars, which in

my eyes sets it apart from other courses. As a keen composer and pianist, this opportunity is

invaluable even if these aspects do not form the basis of my study; to be surrounded by both practical

and academic musicians from all areas will develop my collaborative and interdisciplinary skills,

which I regard as essential in social and material studies of music.

A position on the Musicology MSt in Oxford presents boundless opportunities to develop the many

interests I have developed during my undergraduate experience, and I look forward to building on

these in my research of the intersection between material and social theories. Working in a vibrant

environment of interdisciplinarity and academic excellence, I hope to continue the academic,

professional, and collaborative relationships I have already established, and expand these, my ideas,

and my area of research into PhD level and beyond.

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