With everything that’s been going on this very weird year that is 2020, more people have shown an interest in the research I’ve been doing that goes into this site, my PhD and Decus Ensemble. It’s been extremely busy but, after passing my MPhil to PhD upgrade in June (YAY!), I blocked out some time to get the next chunk of my project done – the plainsightSOUND database.
Behind the build
Anyone who I’ve spoken to about my research since about a year before I’d even started my PhD will have heard about my plans for this. The initial ideas for the music-research-curatorial work that I do now, all stemmed from the difficulties I had in finding out who historical Black British musicians were. This is before I even started to find out about what they had created during their careers. As I began to make discoveries myself, I wanted to make sure that others wouldn’t have to go through the same effort that I had. In fact, I began to really understand how limiting most people’s research tools are. My first step was creating the timeline, and now I can start sharing some of the repertoire that was written and recorded by the people it features, through a searchable database.
A work in progress
The plainsightSOUND database is still in its very early stages, but my hope is that by putting it up now, anyone with access to more information can help me fill in the gaps. You can submit new, updated or additional information for individual pieces or email over more detailed submissions to notes@plainsightsound.com.
Limited time and funding does mean that I’ve had to make some compromises with this first version. However, I’ve already had some useful feedback and I’ll be working these out for future updates.
Other projects
Putting the first version of the plainsightSOUND database together has taken up a lot of my time, but other things have been happening too. I’m taking a couple of days off now, but my next few posts will catch up on some of the other events, podcasts and recordings that have featured plainsightSOUND.
For now though, take a look around the rest of the site and don’t forget to let me know what you think!