Overall Methodological Framework

I devised an overall methodological framework that enabled the for-Wards music programme to achieve both high levels of participation and high-quality musical works. The intention was for the resulting music to demonstrate a sense of place, which I take as being community-specific, manifesting as music co-written with the community, about the community. Here I present an outline of the overall methodological approach I took to address research questions relating to the construction of hyperlocal environments:

1. Set up and deliver the for-Wards pilot to trial compostional and curatorial processes.

2. Evaluate for-Wards pilot to develop a rigorous hyperlocal methodology. The research findings came about through audience feedback questionnaires that took place at the end of the performances, evaluation style conversations with the for-Wards pilot composers and for-Wards steering group members who had experienced the pilot project.

3. Identify key ideas and aspects from the concept of the hyperlocal used in media studies and transpose these into a compositional methodological framework.

4. Continually examine relevant methods from community music, site-specificity and socially-engaged art that are analogous with the selected aspects of hyperlocalism.

5. Transpose and synthesise the aforementioned creative methods into hyperlocal compositional methodological frameworks for each music project (see next page).

6. Devise bespoke compositional activities and methods supporting community collaborations.

7. Embed components of Smith and Deans’ ‘iterative cyclic web’ (Smith, Dean, 2009) to evaluate and build upon research findings and incorporate these into the overall methodological process. This was acheived through: generating ideas; investigating and extrapolating from those ideas; developing the ideas into a compositional methodological framework, which supported the creation of musical works; documentation of musical works. The process was repeated several times in different community collaborations and hyperlocal settings. The final stage was the theorisation of the ideas and methods generated from the study.

8. Evaluate the efficacy of the hyperlocal collaborative compositional methodology and the success of the resulting musical works.

for-Wards was interdisciplinary in its approach and involved combining methods and philosophies from various fields that include community music, socially-engaged art, site-specific art, sociology, cultural geography and citizen journalism. The processes I developed comprise the curation of community engagement, large-scale artistic collaborations and the co-creation of an interactive sound archive. 

To investigate what constitutes effective hyperlocal collaborative compositional practice, I chose a bricolage methodological approach because, as stated by Kincheloe (2001), it infers the deliberate mix of qualitative methods to assess a research problem. A bricolage methodology was chosen not solely out of concern with ‘multiple methods of inquiry' but with 'diverse theoretical and philosophical notions of the various elements encountered in the research act’ (Kincheloe, 2001: 682).

Four Phases of Work

The first phase involved evaluating the for-Wards pilot project outcomes. These became the catalyst for this research project. I assessed the pilot’s strengths to incorporate into the planning of the for-Wards citywide programme and I identified areas that were less successful for reflection and modification. Audience and artistic partner feedback supported this process. At the end of the for-Wards pilot in September 2015 I set up a steering group of various Birmingham-based artistic professionals to act as critical friends and a sounding board whilst I developed the project idea. The steering group also shared community and artistic networks relevant to the for-Wards programme.

In the second and third phases, I ran the for-Wards programme to generate new compositional approaches, setting up hyperlocal environments and creative partnerships, and devising suitable compositional activities to share with community collaborators. 

The fourth stage involved an evaluation of the process drawing from community and artistic partner feedback.

During phase X, I completed a literature review on hyperlocal media, noting analogous aspects to transpose into for-Ward's compositional projects, which are listed below. I identified the closest equivalent artistic practices in community and site-specific art. The literature defines hyperlocals as:

• Based on a specific geographical area. This crucial aspect of hyperlocals became a compositional method and fed into the curation of environments. I set the creative environment for each project to a fixed locality.
• Steered by the hyperlocal producer who is ‘deeply steeped within the community’ (Radcliffe, 2015: 15) with work that takes place both offline and online. The hyperlocal producer and community-based composer are both concerned with participation.
• Community-facing, inviting and often involving various levels of community participation. This aspect is akin to community engagement in artistic projects. I decided the curation of each project would also involve community participants.
• Manifest online via specific websites or applications such as Facebook pages and content management systems such as WordPress. 
• Often based on topics such as civic engagement, local issues and the banal. I initially thought that I would only be able to theme the projects around social activism. However, I was relieved to discover many hyperlocals are about the quotidian, or rather, about whatever the community and hyperlocal producer feel is of interest. I decided that since hyperlocals serve the community the themes for the resultant new musical works would be jointly decided by composer and community collaborators.