GROUP TASK #1: An Audience with God

Task

You have been granted an audience with God. Your group will be allowed to ask Her three questions related to music. What questions will you ask? Discuss the possibilities in your group and settle on three questions. Write the questions down. Assign a different group member to present each question to the larger workshop. Introduce each question with a short preamble that sets the stage for your question.

N.B. You are not allowed to ask “meta-questions” (such as “What is a good question about music?”).

Rationale

Ideally, research should focus on questions of the highest importance. The conscientious researcher always trys to answer the most important questions first.

Unfortunately, the most important questions cannot always be answered given our limited resources and limited understanding. Instead, we tend to focus on answering questions for which we have the skills and resources to answer. By themselves, these questions are often not very interesting or compelling.

The best research endeavors to connect good “top-down” questions with good “bottom-up” research resources. Empirical research methods can provide helpful resources for answering questions about music, but these methods should not dictate our research agendas. In learning how to use do empirical research, it is equally important to learn to ask creative questions about music. The purpose of this task is to get you thinking about the larger issues. As a researcher, what do you really want to know?