Music research
KMH conducts research and education at postgraduate level in music. Music is a large research area that has bearing on a number of other subjects, and KMH's ambition is to develop a stable and interdisciplinary research environment in music.
KMH has research in music on both an artistic basis and a scientific basis, and it is a strength of KMH that these two specializations work together and are at the same university.
The artistic and the scientific research areas cross-fertilize each other while at the same time affecting so many other research areas and can contribute to the development and improvement of, among other things, human health, well-being and learning. In addition, research in music can contribute to the development of new technical solutions, products and insights.
Artistic research in music
Music is one of the largest, and also oldest, subjects within artistic research, and the methodological and theoretical spread is now relatively large. Postgraduate education with a focus on artistic research has been conducted since the 1990s, and in 2010 Sweden received a doctorate in artistic research.
Artistic research in music gives the musician – in a broad sense including all professional music practice – the ability to acquire knowledge that can be applied both in an artistic field and in a broader context, based on its special skills.
Musical research can affect, for example, interpretation and analysis of musical works, behavioural practices and historical contexts. Artistic research in music has, in addition to the purely artistic perspectives, been used to investigate issues such as health, gender equality/gender, technology development, psychology, human-machine interaction and creative collaborations.
What is artistic research?
That artistic expressions and artistic practice have a knowledge dimension that is comparable to other areas of knowledge is now an established thought in Sweden. Since the beginning of the 21st century there has been artistic research in most artistic disciplines, and this research is often interdisciplinary by nature.
Research on an artistic basis is to practically and theoretically articulate the specifics of artistic knowledge and artistic processes.
The research takes its starting point in one's own artistic practice and the critical reflection on it. The research method can be close to the researcher's own practice and its process or a transdisciplinary approach where the artistic practice connects to other scientific traditions in, for example, the humanities or social sciences.
An artistic research project can be part of both method and result and include a design process, in which intuition, craftsmanship, collaboration and contextualization etc. are included and work together.
The artistic research and subject development takes place in a close relationship and knowledge aggregation with undergraduate and postgraduate education.
Scientific research in music
Research in music has also generated the interdisciplinary research subject music education, which studies all forms of musical learning, including frameworks, prerequisites, traditions and conditions governing situations where music forms the content of learning processes.
The starting point for problem solving is the context in which music is included in upbringing, education or teaching.
Another field in the music education research at KMH is music and health, as well as music therapy.