While the delay to data collection means that the project’s findings are still taking shape, initial analyses show enormous potential to significantly expand the state of the field beyond the boundaries of current knowledge. This research suggests that in order to understand the social culture and musical culture of private rock music schools, analyses must begin with understandings of musical ‘riffs’, especially those played on the guitar. Playing riffs was summer camp participants’ most common free time activity; riffs were also used as key pedagogical tools by staff, and they played roles in student-to-student sociality, indicating their wide-ranging importance for research participants.
As a crucial component of this analysis, Dr Rush is currently developing the notion of riff capital. Rooted in sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of ‘cultural capital’, riff capital provides new language with which to describe and analyse the social value of riffs within popular music settings. Importantly, riff capital theorises and calls attention to the ways in which musical riffs and instrumental knowledge impact and are impacted by gender, race, and ethnicity. In so doing, it argues that musical knowledge is never neutral, but instead interacts with and is shaped by individual musicians’ social positions and identities.
Findings and analyses related specifically to social class, the main focus of this project, are still emerging. Initial results in this sphere show great promise for abilities to speak to, interact with, and expand upon existing theorisations of social class and education within sociology, music education studies, anthropology of education, and ethnomusicology. In particular, this research provides new insight into
1) the role of middle-class fathers in their children’s music education
2) re-configurations of value within cultural capital for twenty-first-century middle- and upper-middle-class families
3) shifting understandings of the social class of rock music
4) notions of workforce preparation in contemporary educational settings
To date, this project has resulted in 1 published peer-reviewed journal article, 1 peer-reviewed book chapter (currently in press), 2 invited talks, 4 conference presentations, and a short media piece for a general audience. A variety of further outputs – scholarly writings, presentations, and creative outputs – are currently being developed.
