Methodology

Proposal

I chose this project initially from discussions with my principal study tutor that involved having regimented methods in learning new Scots songs. Significantly, these discussions helped me to formulate the idea of this project which details the importance of an informed perspective when choosing a traditional song and how the medium shows effectiveness alongside understanding the song’s contents and background that could relate historically, culturally and linguistically.

Beech (2007) details some previous lines of research in which folk song is suggested to becoming more commonly less referred to using collections and other mediums of literature and the new focus of the features in its contents and social links within to help give a song a rich variety in a singer’s repertoire. “In chronicling current directions of research, folklorists have drawn attention to a number of important trends. Among these, paralleling developments in linguistic anthropology is a shift in the emphasis away from texts and toward an understanding of storytelling contexts and all they imply in terms of society/community, performance and personality.” This aspect has an important role in the tradition as it encourages singers to engage in every aspect of the words and to discuss several aspects that can open conversations with peers. It has further been observed (Beech, 2007) that groups like the Scottish travelers, often working families had an ability of great storytelling performing and a wealth of lore in the preserved tradition who had also significantly in life regularly away from settled society. I hope this gives added value to my project as it details a recent change of attitudes and I personally think this could open discussion in the methods of learning in Scots folk song.

Methods

During this project topic, I will be conducting various qualitative research methods starting in interview form with my chosen fieldwork participant to further additional perspectives on folk singing and additional experiences that offer benefits in future practise. I am choosing to refer to various sources of written literature throughout which will allow me to form opinions and introduce different concepts relating to this topic. Another useful method that I will seek to include in this project is autoethnography which will be featured in the Self Practise section and allow me to reflect on decisions taken during the learning process and draw from additional understandings that I obtain through informed research. 

Methodology had some areas of challenge that have influenced the outcome of my project. A significant area of my research comes from interviews which allowed me to develop some ideas for this project which due to the conversational nature of this method meant that I had to constantly refer to the main focuses of the project and filter a lot of unnecessary information. This caused difficulty as some areas of conversation could leave me feeling confused in terms of my initial plan and meant I had to adapt to possible perspective changes and restructure some parts of this project. The Self Practise section of my project also required me to be confident in the direction of progress and identify aspects that I wanted to learn and develop during this section that was primarily individually with some additional materials.