Songwriting Camps in the 21st Century (SC21)

流行音乐对许多人来说具有很高的个人价值；它在我们的日常生活中感动我们，创造记忆，陪伴我们。听众可能不知道我们喜欢的歌曲是如何创作的；在许多情况下，它是通过参与其中的许多人的合作努力实现的：表演艺术家、唱片制作人、工程师、程序员和编曲。然而，最基本的方面--歌曲--的创作者并不一定包括在这份名单中：创作将要表演、录制和发布的歌曲的词曲作者。尽管有一种浪漫的观念，即表演艺术家自己写歌，但现实往往截然不同。许多进入排行榜的歌曲是由专业的歌曲创作团队(共同)创作的，越来越多的人在由出版商和唱片公司召集和监督的歌曲创作夏令营中进行创作。这个项目研究如何在歌曲创作夏令营中进行合作创作歌曲。作为第一个关注英国和德国的研究，它调查了21世纪存在哪些形式的歌曲创作阵营，以了解召集人(出版商、唱片公司、个人)和参与其中的专业人士的利益。它调查了不同角色(弹奏者、打击手、作词者、制作人、表演者)的不同技能组合的协作创作过程和相互作用，并提供了对线下和在线夏令营的组织、法律因素以及歌曲创作夏令营在更广泛的音乐行业中的作用的见解。调查将揭示是谁召集了这些活动，目的是什么，以及创造了什么并最终选择了发布。特许权使用费、股份和拆分等法律因素将被考虑，以及正在发挥作用的权力结构。除了这些夏令营的组织外，研究还将调查参与者的个人、专业和文化背景如何影响他们的目标和行动。这包括对协同创作工作的深入分析，以及对线下和线上协同创作歌曲的价值评估。此外，研究将研究行业如何在短期和中期使用夏令营的成果。为了了解歌曲创作营的组织、目的、参与者、过程和结果，研究采用了多种方法，特别是对30名专业人士(词曲作者和行业代表)的定性采访，在现实生活中的线下和在线歌曲创作营中进行的人种学田野调查，现场笔记和视频记录，以及实施一个以多摄像机设置和录音访谈记录的歌曲创作实验室。对于商业歌曲创作作为一种职业、一种创意和经济活动，以及它在更广泛的音乐行业中的实现，学术上的理解仍然有限。特别是，关于歌曲创作夏令营的文献几乎没有，而且所有的文献都早于新冠肺炎。出于这些原因，预计这项研究将产生深远的影响。它开发了一个经验派生的歌曲创作阵营模型，包括他们的不同演员、兴趣以及创作歌曲的创作、社会和经济背景。就词曲作者本身而言，我们预计将对这一做法的总体理解以及参与者如何合理参与产生重大影响。对于那些召集歌曲创作夏令营的人来说，这项研究将改变他们对歌曲创作夏令营作为制作模式的商业和专业潜力的理解。虽然学术和新闻文献对合作创作歌曲的价值达成了共识，但歌曲创作阵营越来越重要的作用还没有得到很好的理解。这一研究项目通过在英国和德国开发一个系统的歌曲创作夏令营模型奠定了基础，填补了知识上的重大空白，并为未来在年轻的歌曲创作研究领域的研究提供了基础。

Popular music has a high personal value for many people; it touches us emotionally, creates memories and accompanies us in our daily lives. The listener may not be aware of how the songs we enjoy are created; in many cases, it is through the collaborative effort of a number of people involved: performing artists, record producers, engineers, programmers, arrangers. However, the creators of the most fundamental aspect, the song, are not necessarily included in this list: songwriters who compose the songs to be performed, recorded and released. Despite the romantic notion that performing artists write their own songs, the reality is often quite different. Many songs that enter the charts are (co-)written by professional songwriting teams, increasingly in songwriting camps convened and overseen by publishers and record companies.This project researches how collaborative songwriting takes place in songwriting camps. As the first study to focus on the UK and Germany, it investigates what forms of songwriting camps exist in the 21st century to understand the interests of convenors (publishers, record companies, individuals) and participating professionals. It investigates the collaborative creative processes and interplay of the different skill-sets of various roles (topliners, beatmakers, lyricists, producers, performers) and offers insights into the organisation of offline and online camps, legal factors, and the role of songwriting camps within the wider music industries. The investigation will uncover who convenes these events, for what purposes, and what is created and ultimately selected for release. Legal factors such as royalties, shares and splits will be considered as well as the power structures at play. Apart from the organisation of these camps, the research will investigate how the participants' personal, professional and cultural backgrounds influence their aims and actions. This includes an in-depth analysis of the collaborative creative work and the evaluation of the value of collaborative songwriting offline and online. Furthermore, the research will study how the industry uses the results of the camps in the short and medium term.To understand the organisation, purposes, participants, processes and outcomes of songwriting camps, the research employs a combination of methods, in particular qualitative interviews with 30 professionals (songwriters and industry representatives), ethnographic fieldwork in real-life offline and online songwriting camps with field notes and video recordings, and the implementation of a Songwriting Lab documented with a multi-camera setup and audio-recorded interviews.The academic understanding of commercial songwriting as a profession and as a creative and economic activity, as well as its realisation in the wider music industries, is still limited. In particular, there is next to no literature on songwriting camps, and all that exists pre-dates Covid-19. For these reasons, the research is expected to have a profound impact. It develops an empirically derived model of songwriting camps with their various actors, interests and the creative, social and economic contexts in which songs are written. In terms of the songwriters themselves, we expect to make a significant impact on the general understanding of this practice and how participants rationalise their involvement. For those who convene songwriting camps, this research will transform their understanding of the commercial and professional potential of songwriting camps as a model of production. While there is a consensus in academic and journalistic literature about the value of collaborative songwriting, the increasingly important role of songwriting camps is not yet well understood. This research project lays the groundwork by developing a systematic model of songwriting camps in the UK and Germany, filling a significant gap in knowledge and providing a foundation for future research in the young field of songwriting studies.